Varina, Lich Queen

[toctheyounger]

That is fair. There are certainly cards worth targeting. The thought was things worth targeting that also do something right away and turning everything into Servants doesn't really. Sure, if I get something else to enter after it works fine and if I already have it on the field with a couple other zombies, it can be pretty decent when mass reanimating things. It just seems too situational.

I know @yeti1069 mentioned Mummy above in the context of Infestation, but perhaps it is still reasonable just with Varina's ability to make zombies. I still don't like Infestation so it is hard to evaluate Mummy pretty much solely on casting zombies or activating Varina since the most common "trick" will come from creating a zombie at instant timing. If only there was another repeatable effect to create a zombie at instant timing (or if Ghoulcaller Gisa was a Zombie).

I think Generator should be useful. It is always hard to throw in a colorless land in a deck like this that requires so much colored mana. Mostly black but even things like Counterspell, Hour of Revelation, Mission Briefing, etc. that require multiple of other colors can sometimes mess with the mana. I have gotten it once and it was useful, though slow. In the game I did have it, I wasn't doing much else as it was so it worked out alright. And I ended up with a bunch of lands in hand too so that was good. I added thinking it is an innocuous form of ramp but I am keeping my eye on it to see that it does what I want it to.

Yeah, weave is a little niche. All that said, there's no reason weaving a lord can't win you the game via combat too. I love the card for the wacky wins and weird versatility, but I won't die on this hill.

I mean with Binding Mummy even if you're getting its trigger on your turn, you're almost certainly going to swing for Varina's trigger, so why not make it favourable? Instant speed zombies would be real nice, but there's just not much scope for it existing right now. I guess there's not a huge use for tapping down rocks on your own turn, if at all, but there's bound to be corner cases somewhere.

Terrain Generator I think is reasonable. It definitely is slow, and I'm not sure it's what I want to spend my mana on, but it's further deck thinning and lands in play so there's no arguments on that account. I guess in the same vein there's Thawing Glaciers, which is still slow (and probably elevated in price these days too - edit - checked it out, 30NZD ).

I have been tossing up whether or not Tolaria West deserves a place, too. There's enough color fixing in the list that being able to get exactly what I want seems nice, being able to fetch Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth for Zombie Master seems reasonable and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is the obvious golden goose. It is a one-time use though, so not sure it's really worth it.

[WizardMN]

I mean with Binding Mummy even if you're getting its trigger on your turn, you're almost certainly going to swing for Varina's trigger, so why not make it favourable? Instant speed zombies would be real nice, but there's just not much scope for it existing right now. I guess there's not a huge use for tapping down rocks on your own turn, if at all, but there's bound to be corner cases somewhere.

This is a good point. I tend to be a more reactive player so I tend to think of things like this for their defensive benefits. But the offensive benefits are solid too. Plus, if I can get a good number of tokens off Tombstone Stairwell it can really spell the end for at least one opponent (hopefully).

I have been tossing up whether or not Tolaria West deserves a place, too. There's enough color fixing in the list that being able to get exactly what I want seems nice, being able to fetch Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth for Zombie Master seems reasonable and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is the obvious golden goose. It is a one-time use though, so not sure it's really worth it.

You mentioned that above when pokken had brought up Map and I never did comment on it. I think that is a far better option. Not only does it give us a land drop in a pinch, it can definitely get us to some of our more utility lands (or Mana Crypt if we need it). While I don't run Zombie Master (mostly because there is no foil yet ) getting to Urborg or even just a specific color when needed can be helpful. With all the talks a couple weeks back about life gain, being able to get to Vault of the Archangel can be important too. I might give more thought on that as well since the cost of running it is fairly low.

[toctheyounger]

You mentioned that above when pokken had brought up Map and I never did comment on it. I think that is a far better option. Not only does it give us a land drop in a pinch, it can definitely get us to some of our more utility lands (or Mana Crypt if we need it). While I don't run Zombie Master (mostly because there is no foil yet ) getting to Urborg or even just a specific color when needed can be helpful. With all the talks a couple weeks back about life gain, being able to get to Vault of the Archangel can be important too. I might give more thought on that as well since the cost of running it is fairly low.

Yeah, my one reasonable complaint for not using it is not being able to use it in this deck more than once. There's just nothing else worth running that would allow us to repeatedly transmute. I like that it helps with Mana Crypt, that's nice quality of life to have (obviously doesn't affect me).

[pokken]

Map costs one and then 2 which is a lot better than drawing an etb tapped land most of the time. It let's you keep two land hands which is why it's better than tolaria west. If you keep three lands and one is west you're losing a Mana and you also don't get the land you what and it's not your primary color. And costs uu to activate which is miserable.

Tolaria west is an etb tapped island too much of the time. It's way worse than map.

[yeti1069]

I've tried Tolaria in a few decks that are significantly slower than this one, and every time I've ended up cutting it. Ask yourself how often you have open that you're happy to use at sorcery speed to tutor for a land rather than play an actual spell. Then, how many of those times would tutoring for a land help?

@WizardMN I would strongly recommend replacing Counterspell with any of the hard counters for like Delay or Arcane Denial, or even Negate or the like. In my list I've tried staying away from or costs as much as possible, especially on answers that I need to hold up mana for.

Necromancer's Stockpile can make instant speed zombie tokens, in a similar way to Infestation, but without the loss of card advantage...but it costs mana to activate it. I had tried it a while back when the deck was helmed by Sidisi or Grimgrin, and found it to be not spectacular, but not terrible. In those lists dead cards are rough, but here they're just one more card to filter with Varina. I'd prefer Infestation to this, but it's not bad.

Binding Mummy is usually pretty mediocre, but even just a trigger or two on your turn to remove a blocker is decent, and as you've observed, there is a dearth of good cards to bring into the list. A 2/2 zombie for 2 that has reasonable upside and occasionally can be lifesaving is worth the slot, in my opinion.

I actually JUST slotted Agent of Erebos into my list finally, and now you guys are thinking of cutting it?

Haven't tried Mirrorweave--seems like it could be cute with some things in the deck, but it's value seems HIGHLY variable. For the cost, there are other cards I'd consider first, I think.

[WizardMN]

Map costs one and then 2 which is a lot better than drawing an etb tapped land most of the time. It let's you keep two land hands which is why it's better than tolaria west. If you keep three lands and one is west you're losing a Mana and you also don't get the land you what and it's not your primary color. And costs uu to activate which is miserable.

Tolaria west is an etb tapped island too much of the time. It's way worse than map.

I've tried Tolaria in a few decks that are significantly slower than this one, and every time I've ended up cutting it. Ask yourself how often you have open that you're happy to use at sorcery speed to tutor for a land rather than play an actual spell. Then, how many of those times would tutoring for a land help?

These are both very good points. I was thinking of Tolaria West as more of a "well, I can still play it turn one to get my lands going" but maybe that isn't enough.

@WizardMN I would strongly recommend replacing Counterspell with any of the hard counters for like Delay or Arcane Denial, or even Negate or the like. In my list I've tried staying away from or costs as much as possible, especially on answers that I need to hold up mana for.

While I get the idea beyond it, I already run Arcane Denial and I prefer hard, unconditional counters. Unfortunately, it is the limitation I have to deal with to have the counterspell that can just counter stuff. It isn't ideal but I much prefer it over not being able to counter a creature or only being able to Delay something. I have never played Delay before though so I might not be giving it enough credit. I know Negate just isn't what I want though.

Necromancer's Stockpile can make instant speed zombie tokens, in a similar way to Infestation, but without the loss of card advantage...but it costs mana to activate it. I had tried it a while back when the deck was helmed by Sidisi or Grimgrin, and found it to be not spectacular, but not terrible. In those lists dead cards are rough, but here they're just one more card to filter with Varina. I'd prefer Infestation to this, but it's not bad.

The fact that this replaces the draw with both a card and a creature makes me think more highly of it. It clearly isn't as powerful of course due mostly to the fact that it costs mana and it has to have a creature card discarded to it (and I have literally never activated the first ability of Cryptbreaker so I sort of doubt I would ever activate this). I am thinking there likely isn't anything as good as Infestation and my distaste for it means I am likely better off not trying to replace it.

Binding Mummy is usually pretty mediocre, but even just a trigger or two on your turn to remove a blocker is decent, and as you've observed, there is a dearth of good cards to bring into the list. A 2/2 zombie for 2 that has reasonable upside and occasionally can be lifesaving is worth the slot, in my opinion.

Yeah, this is what I am thinking too. At least it has a relevant ability, especially when considering the deck should be somewhat combat focused. I think your and toc's evaluation of just removing blocker(s) is where this card sits. Not great but can do something to allow combat to happen unimpeded (or less impeded).

I actually JUST slotted Agent of Erebos into my list finally, and now you guys are thinking of cutting it?

Haven't tried Mirrorweave--seems like it could be cute with some things in the deck, but it's value seems HIGHLY variable. For the cost, there are other cards I'd consider first, I think.

I am for sure interested to hear your experiences with Agent. I have had it in this list forever so it isn't easy to get to the point of cutting it. And if your experience differs, it would be good to know. I agree on Mirrorweave. Its interactions and uses can be really awesome and game changing; but the variable aspect is what is turning me off of it. I think I only ever had one decent play with it and that was turning an opposing creature into a Birds of Paradise after it took damage so it died. And then I scooped the next turn.

[yeti1069]

I've activated Cryptbreaker's other ability a few times. I think the reason we don't normally is tapping for a draw is almost always better, and it's rare that we have him untapped, with two mana open, and a situation that warrants discarding a card to make a zombie while ALSO not wanting to use Varina's ability instead. Every time I have activated it, it was for an emergency blocker, or to trigger something like the Mummy. Stockpile is a little different in that we're not choosing it over a functionally similar ability--unlike Varina and Crypt, it draws a card. I dunno. I saw try it out and see how you feel about it?

Delay is almost always simply a hard counter with 0 downside. 3 turns is a LONG time. You can remove the player in that time, or make the suspended spell pointless, or hold up a response for when they DO finally get to cast it. Also, there are plenty of powerful spells that do next to nothing when cast from suspend (Cyclonic Rift doesn't get overloaded, for example). I think I've had one game ever that I regretted Delay not being Counterspell.

[WizardMN]

Well, as mentioned, I have plenty of flex slots so I am fine with trying things out. I might switch a couple things around and see how these cards do. As mentioned above, there is no real risk in trying new things out so I might as well. I will probably do so sometime this week and I will report back on what I find.

[WizardMN]

Based on recent discussions, I am going to try the following changes:

5/19/2021

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

CUTS

1 Eternal of Harsh Truths

1 Mirrorweave

1 Agent of Erebos

1 Corpse Augur

ADDS

1 Binding Mummy

1 Zombie Master

1 Expedition Map

1 Delay

Approximate Total Cost:

As mentioned, I have 7 cards that I would consider flex slots and these are 4 of them. I mentioned Agent and Mirrorweave in a post above but I am thinking neither is really needed or appropriate for the deck. @yeti1069 mentioned adding Agent into their deck so I will remain open to re-adding Agent back in but my experience so far has been that it ends up not being great. Mirrorweave has some good uses but is in a bit of an odd spot for the deck and I don't think there are enough uses for it.

Eternal was always a questionable add and I just don't think that experiment really panned out. And Corpse Augur has also had a few discussions where it likely isn't reliable enough to be included.

As for the adds: Binding Mummy seems reasonable. Not great but not exactly terrible either. There are a few uses with Varina where it can be used defensively but it can be used offensively as well to ensure that our creatures can get in for damage. Delay was mentioned above as a hard counter. Now, the discussion was around using it instead of Counterspell but since I don't really have another add I figured I would just add it on its own and scale back Counterspell later if Delay works out.

Zombie Master and Map sort of tie together. Map has been discussed and I cut it earlier. But I thought I would add it back in to work with Zombie Master specifically. Toctheyounger mentioned this interaction earlier since it can get Urborg for Master but I wasn't running Master so I figured I would give it another shot. I don't know exactly how well this works out in practice, but it is worth trying.

[pokken]

Wow, zombie master plus urborg is legit

[Nimbaway]

Been enjoying Zombie Master a fair bit in my list, always nice when Urborg ruins people's plans. So far I've not been running Expedition Map but might have to start considering it, can see the upside of Binding Mummy as well but with the recent changes I made its tough to decide on my next cuts without having gotten some games in.

[toctheyounger]

There's a very small risk that Zombie Master can backfire, as it grants global swampwalk. That being said there's very few zombies that can crack you back with enough impunity to really make a difference, so it's probably a pretty good add.

[yeti1069]

Had an interesting game tonight against Etali, Primal Storm and Negan, the Cold-Blooded.

Kept a mediocre opening hand of Bojuka Bog, Strip Mine, Arcane Signet, Sidisi, and a mass reanimation spell (can't recall the rest). Drew into an Arcane Signet, which ramped me to Graveborn Muse on 3.
Etali came out very fast, dropping some Boar God on turn 3 with haste and bringing in some 5 power dragon, spreading 11 damage around.

Turn 4, drew an extra card off Muse, dropped a Sol Ring, cast Sidisi, saccing the Muse, and tutored for a Command Tower, since I still only had 2 colors of mana. Wanted to keep Sidisi on table to dissuade attacks my way. Negan finally made a play (they had nothing but land for first 3 turns), and managed to pop two of Etali's monsters.

Turn 5, dropped Varina and swung to pick up Monarch and loot a card. Etali dropped their commander and swung, only getting my Gray Merchant, but they had two 6/6s on board, and a 5/5 dragon to bring in on attack triggers, so they were piling on damage. Negan hit me for Monarch. Made a zombie with Varina.

Turn 6, played Teferi's Ageless Insight, swung for Monarch, but they blocked with Gary and sent him to my yard. Played Gravecrawler I think, and passed holding up 2 mana for a single target Cyclonic Rift to bounce Etali before combat. Negan played defensive this turn and passed. Etali played an equipment, went for the swing, and I bounced the dino.

Turn 7, played Bone Miser and swung with 4 zombies, drawing 8 cards from Varina + TAI, then another two off Miser. Dumped a few zombies in hand into the yard, and played Zombie Infestation post combat. Pitched a couple lands and the rest of my zombies in hand to cast Patriarch's Bidding, bringing back an army and Gray Merchant with enough devotion to kill the table (we were all in the mid-teens thanks in large part to Etali smacking me and Negan, and me punching back at Etali). I had kept 1 land in my hand, and left 1 blue mana source open, holding Delay in hand just in case. Sure enough, Negan cast Teferi's Protection to try and save himself, and I was able to pitch a land and something else to Infestation to make the mana with Miser to counter the spell, and win on the spot.

This was the first time I've actually played TAI--since I put in it (not that long ago), I've either never drawn it, or already had Kindred Discovery. Not that it would have mattered, but KD would have drawn probably 3x as many cards as TAI this game with all the zombie tokens I ended up generating. Zombie Infestation alongside Bone Miser really made the final turn possible, since Miser only makes mana during combat normally. The combo allowed me to cast a total of 16 mana worth of cards on turn 7 with only a Signet and Sol Ring for ramp.

That said, I didn't meet with much resistance this game. One deck was chugging along throwing out a ton of damage, but not otherwise being difficult, and the other seemed to have gotten a slow start.

[WizardMN]

Turn 7, played Bone Miser and swung with 4 zombies, drawing 8 cards from Varina + TAI, then another two off Miser. Dumped a few zombies in hand into the yard, and played Zombie Infestation post combat. Pitched a couple lands and the rest of my zombies in hand to cast Patriarch's Bidding, bringing back an army and Gray Merchant with enough devotion to kill the table (we were all in the mid-teens thanks in large part to Etali smacking me and Negan, and me punching back at Etali). I had kept 1 land in my hand, and left 1 blue mana source open, holding Delay in hand just in case. Sure enough, Negan cast Teferi's Protection to try and save himself, and I was able to pitch a land and something else to Infestation to make the mana with Miser to counter the spell, and win on the spot.

That is definitely a good interaction with Infestation and Miser. When I had cut Miser one of my concerns, other than mana cost, was being able to control the discards better. Infestations certainly seems like a good way to do that. And then to do that with a land and a Delay to counter Teferi's Protection is just icing on the cake

Insight certainly seems like it worked out well for you here as well since it was able to give you more ammunition for Infestation. I am definitely interested in hearing more about how Insight works out for you in other situations.

[yeti1069]

Insight drew a ton of cards for me--off the top of my head, 4 extra from first attack, 8 extra from second, and another 3 or 4 from Miser. KD would have been 3 less from Miser, but at least 8 or 9 more cards from zombies entering. In any case, the extra fuel made the game: got me to Delay, enough lands to pitch to cast everything I needed that turn, and enough black pips to make Gary lethal.

*Edit* Also got 2 extra cards off monarch thanks to TAI.

He would have had to cast Teferi's Protection no matter what to not lose, but in another situation being able to leave just 1 blue up to then cast using "hidden" mana in Bone Miser could definitely catch some people by surprise.

[toctheyounger]

I'm personally pretty happy with Ibsight. While it does nothing on its own its well costed and gives value in a pretty wide number of scenarios. Its mostly the cmc that sells it for me, we can get it down pretty early.

I'm generally a touch reluctant to lose Miser, although I have made the cut. I just don't think the interaction with Infestation is enough to keep it on its own.

[yeti1069]

The way I see it, I want to be swinging for Varina's trigger every turn, so a zombie body that gets more mileage out of that is a solid inclusion. That it also has some decent interaction with a couple of other cards, and fantastic interaction with a couple more makes me feel good about it.

And for me, with how much the deck filters, having some cards that are a little narrower is okay, since if we can't use them, we pitch 'em for something else. Now, I did cut Archfiend of Ilfnir even though it fits into the above pretty squarely, but not being a zombie it always seemed out of place to me.

[WizardMN]

I decided to mess around a little with Insight again based on the comments above. I figured that with the rest of the changes to my card draw it now works a with a bit more than just Varina. However, I figured I would toss in some cheaper card draw as well. I don't think this is right but I wanted to try it anyway.

I decided to make room for these by cutting 2 lands (mentioned above), cutting Signet (more in line with @pokken's original suggestion though I can see this making its way back in eventually), and cutting Counterspell to, effectively, make the addition of Delay a straight swap.

5/20/2021

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

CUTS

1 Arcane Signet

1 Counterspell

1 Plains

1 Swamp

ADDS

1 Teferi's Ageless Insight

1 Brainstorm

1 Ponder

1 Preordain

Approximate Total Cost:

Again, I don't actually believe the addition of the 1 mana cantrips are necessary, but I figure they work well with Insight and help me dig a little to get to them. I did almost cut Zombie Infestation because I am still not sold on the card but I figured it wasn't really all that fair to cut it when adding in something that makes it much more palatable in the deck. So it remains (for now).

I played a couple games online both before and after these changes. I will go into the game after the changes in more detail, but I do at least want to document the 3 games prior to it. At least a relatively brief summary of each. They didn't really go particularly well so I don't want to spend a ton of time documenting them:

Game 1

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This was against Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh // Chandra, Roaring Flame, Hofri Ghostforge, and Vial Smasher the Fierce & Jeska, Thrice Reborn partners.

I kept a reasonable hand of 5 lands, Undead Augur, and Patriarch's Bidding. I got Augur down on turn two but Partners got Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet down on turn 3 thanks to Arcane Signet ramping them. So now Augur was a dead card for the most part.

I cast Plague Belcher the next turn and put the counters on itself and passed. Luckily, due to me and Hofri running graveyard centric decks, they became a target. At least, they were the target for everyone except Chandra for some reason who kept hitting me with Chandra.

Chandra also had a Temple Bell that I think was, overall, detrimental for me as it really just kept everyone else's hands full. I am not a fan of these symmetrical draw effects.

Partners basically ran Kalitas to the end as we had no real answer for it. I couldn't get to my removal and no one else seemed to have much either so with their own removal taking out our creatures and getting them tokens, their board eventually became too much to handle. And of course their Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Cabal Coffers combo meant that they could really just keep recasting their commanders (mostly Jeska) each turn to deal us damage and keep the board clear. The amount of mana they had along with Jeska was the main reason for their win.

Worth noting that I did get Zombie Master in this game which was huge but they were able to get rid of it with Chaos Warp so it didn't do as much as it could have. But even in this abysmal showing for the deck, it was a bright spot and I am back to hoping they give us a foil printing (maybe in MH2 to go along with the new Zombies coming up??).

Game 2

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I will preface this one by saying I won, but there is probably no way I should have. I made a crucial mistake at one point and though I am not entirely sure what the "combo" was meant to do, I do know I could have stopped the combo. Also worth noting was that the Norin player mentioned that this was the first time playing the deck so I (erroneously) thought it would be a more typical, un-tuned Norin deck.

This game was against Norin the Wary, Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern, and Mogis, God of Slaughter. I kept a hand with 2 lands, Sol Ring, and Expedition Map. And a couple other cards. I played a land, Ring, and Map to start. The next turn had me play the other land and I cracked the Map for Urborg and I cast Binding Mummy (which did nothing all game).

Norin on the other hand started off with land, Norin, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, and Runaway Steam-Kin on turn 1. They played a land on turn 2 but didn't do anything else. I cast Grimgrin, Corpse-Born on my next turn and then attacked Mogis. Norin cast Goblin Recruiter and I didn't really pay attention to the cards they revealed since they still only had 4 mana and missed a land drop (so now they would miss their next bunch of land drops) and they had 0 cards in hand. So, I attacked Mogis again next turn. This is where I made a mistake. I should have attacked Norin and killed Steam-Kin with Grimgrin to shut off their mana production.

On Norin's turn, they got Conspicuous Snoop and Skirk Prospector and ended up with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker on top of their library. So, "infinite" Snoops but luckily for us they messed up their ordering on top of their library. They accidentally put Mogg Fanatic on top of Kiki so after they made a bunch of tokens, they no longer had access to Fanatic since they needed to cast it to get to Kiki. So no payoff for the "infinite" tokens. Luckily they realized it before wasting a bunch of time but when they realized it, they just scooped.

From here the game actually went exceptionally quickly thanks to Mogis. They cast Spiteful Visions and Havoc Festival. They were at 25 life at the time. I had Grimgrin and Plague Belcher and I cast Gravecrawler. So, I just went after Mogis again. I was able to deal 23 damage/life loss to them so they were at 2. I could have just killed them outright by sacrificing Gravecrawler to Grimgrin one more time, but I wanted Tergrid to get hit with the Festival first. And because Mogis had Spiteful Visions, I knew their own triggers would kill them.

Tergrid got down to 6 from 20 after my Belcher triggers drained them and after the Festival cut their life in half. I was at 13 at the end of my turn. On Tergrid's turn they cast Smallpox so ended up at 1. I just cast Gray Merchant of Asphodel on my turn for the win.

Basically, the moral of this game is "I just built this deck; any advice is appreciated" doesn't mean it isn't a turn 4 combo deck. And they also had Jokulhaups that they ended up discarding. So, I definitely didn't give them enough credit (or game them too much credit) when thinking we were going to have a game where two decks were just slowly draining us instead of one trying to just combo off.

Game 3

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This one is short and sweet. Played against Chulane, Teller of Tales, Asmira, Holy Avenger, and Golos, Tireless Pilgrim.

Chulane got down a turn 1 Rhystic Study off of Mana Crypt so I waited a turn for my Tithe so they didn't draw a card. The other players weren't exactly willing to wait so they just let them draw. I can't really fault them as this is turn 1.

Golos on the other hand cast Sol Ring and Mana Vault on turn 2 to get to Golos. So, already this game has basically spiraled out of control. Chulane cast Mox Diamond and then cast Chulane. And then just scooped as they said they had to go. So, a bit anticlimactic.

Asmira and I weren't doing much but Golos was still ramping with Chromatic Lantern and they dropped in a Narset, Parter of Veils. I was waiting for the wheel but it never came.

What did come was a turn 4 Temporal Mastery into Golos Activation on Turn 6 (after casting Gideon Blackblade and Tatyova, Benthic Druid on turn 5) which revealed Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Asmira scooped it up and so did I as there was basically no way I was winning against an Ugin solo.

Game 4 - After changes above

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This game was against Karametra, God of Harvests, Shadrix Silverquill, and Lathril, Blade of the Elves. I got a turn 1 Sol Ring into a turn 2 Vengeful Dead. And since Lathril was ramping with Priest of Titania and small elves, I just attacked them. I was wary on Shadrix, but Lathril seemed the scariest.

Turn 3 I wanted to cast Grimgrin, Corpse-Born but I was missing blue mana and my land was Fabled Passage so it would enter tapped. So, I just played another land and cast Gray Merchant of Asphodel to gain 9 life. Next turn I cast Grimgrin and Gravecrawler and then I swung into Lathril the following turn to take out their general.

The next turn Shadrix cast Damnation which wasn't too bad. I did have a good board state and Lathril still had a number of elves and two tapped for 3 mana each. But then they followed it up with Rise of the Dread Marn to give them 11 Zombie tokens.

I drew into Fact or Fiction which I cast hoping to get to a wrath. I didn't, but I did get Ponder and Epiphany at the Drownyard. I cast Ponder which let me see Undead Augur and Zombie Apocalypse. I drew the Augur and cast it and left Apocalypse on top. My thought was that I was at 49 life and Apocalypse can help me survive thanks to Gray Merchant. Lathril scooped it up at this time and Karametra cast Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar. Shadrix cast their general and equipped it with Lightning Greaves. They swung all their zombie tokens at Karametra and Shadrix at me. This put me to 41 and Karametra to 6.

Since they were tapped out, I swung at Shadrix and then cast Tombstone Stairwell thinking this will help kill Shadrix since they would get one token and Karametra would get 5. It also gave me blockers for the zombie tokens coming at me since Shadrix was going to buff them up to 4/4s on their next turn.

This ended up working out pretty well in the end. Though, Karametra just went *off* and went from a board with mostly just Multani to a board with Beast Whisperer, Zendikar Resurgent, Beastmaster Ascension, Soul of the Harvest, and a few other things. Importantly, they already had a transformed Growing Rites of Itlimoc // Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun which their 5 free zombie tokens were put to good use. They did, for some reason, enchant on of those zombies with Kenrith's Transformation so it no longer had Haste. I realize they only wanted to draw a card but they could have put it on almost anything else; even just our tokens. This meant they could only attack with 6 creatures; one short for Ascension. I was pretty sure they would still go after Shadrix either way and the math, plus my blockers, meant they couldn't have killed us both anyway.

The end of the turn came around and I drew 6 cards total off the Augur from the zombies dying and then on my turn I paid the Upkeep for Stairwell and I swung all out into Karametra (Shadrix did indeed die to Karametra the turn before) and I drew a few more from those creatures dying. Then, I cast Patriarch's Bidding and drained for 11 to kill off Karametra.

Stairwell came through pretty well here and was actually pretty good defensively to ensure I didn't just straight up die to Shadrix's army. I also fired off that Epiphany they gave me and I didn't think all that hard on the piles. I saw Akroma's Will, 2 zombies, and Land Tax along with 2 lands. I was hoping they would just pitch the zombies to make my Stairwell bigger but I should have given them more credit and just put the lands in one pile and the others in the other pile. I didn't really need the Will but this would have been the better outcome for me. Instead, they gave me the zombies and pitched Will which was likely the right play.

The last game was pretty sweet and I ended the game with 17 cards in hand thanks to Augur and Stairwell. Worst case, if I didn't want to pay the Upkeep cost, I could have created the tokens first and then had them destroyed to draw more cards. Which, considering the board state, would have been the smarter play since that 2 mana prevented me from casting 2 reanimation spells and I already had them in hand at the time. I didn't think I would need both but I should have just planned on both since Grimgrin was in the yard to let me sac zombies (mostly Gray Merchant) to get them to enter again.

I never did see Insight so I can't say how well it works or whether I needed it (which of course was basically the whole premise of cutting it originally). I might still be in a position where Insight isn't needed but I wanted to try it again. I will probably play another 5-10 games with it to see how often it pops up and how much it matters.

[WizardMN]

I played this deck in paper last Friday against a few decks. I waited too long to write this up so I don't remember it all. But, I do remember that I got Archaeomancer's Map in play (I cut Ponder in paper for it) and it didn't ramp me at all. However, it did come at a time to ensure land drops which was just fine. I did end up with Midnight Reaper and Zombie Infestation on the field at the same time and it is the first time I was really disappointed that Reaper didn't trigger off tokens. I actually forgot about it until just before I tried to draw.

Withered Wretch was actually a standout here as the Zurgo Helmsmasher player tried to ramp and do a few things with Sun Titan which Wretch stopped. It also allowed me to clean out other graveyards in anticipation of a Living Death I had in hand.

And, when I did cast Living Death I did so with Thassa, Deep-Dwelling (this was their general) being a creature so I was able to get rid of their general. The deck was actually pretty decent as it sounded like it was a budget deck with a bunch of blink shenanigans and was far and away the biggest threat at the time. And of course right be I had Living Death'ed I swung into them to kill my creatures.

Death brought back everything and then I was slow able to chip away at life totals with Diregraf Captain and Wayward Servant. And some attacks thrown in for good measure since Captain and Death Baron were buffing my team. I think I ended up winning with a mix of combat as well as some life drain with Captain and sacrificing creatures with Carrion Feeder. And I had Patriarch's Bidding in hand to do it all again if necessary.

Infestation was good, but is still a bit underwhelming. I think I made 2 tokens off of it? Maybe only 1? I know I made at least one, and I had done so when I had 8 cards in hand (Reaper and Graveborn Muse were able to keep my hand full). I must have made at least one more token by discarding some lands as I know I ended up back down to 2 cards in hand.

Overall, the deck again played basically how I wanted it to. I don't really have any significant issues with the way this played out and while I am not sold on Infestation (and likely never will be; it just isn't the type of card I like) I think it did some good work here.

[Nimbaway]

Had two games myself this weekend, facing off against a precon Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor , Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Purphoros, God of the Forge.

First game it was just Purphoros running away with it, my start was just too slow to keep up. He went mountain into Sol Ring and Arcane Signet on the first turn followed up with turn two Krenko, Mob Boss. Turn three for him was Goblin King and Krenko's Command, swings at Obuun. Turn four it was Purphoros with Dragon Fodder to turn on the madness. I was seated forth and had a nice start with Land Tax on the first turn, helping me fix my mana nicely. Did have Terrain Generator in my opener as well, which could have been nice but was just too much tempo loss in an already fast game. Drew several of my card draw engines, but without creatures dying they didn't trigger. So am glad that I added card draw spells but didn't get to see them.

Second game was same table but Obuun was replaced with Anowon, the Ruin Thief, the player is a new player and well can safely say that he didn't have a great night.

Notable thing is that Purphoros had an identical start, which was rather questionable on a no mulligan, I have my suspicions with this player but not able to prove anything, though not the only player who feels like this either. However, with no one playing red this round, things went less his way, nonetheless it was a turn three two Krenko's. But this time I had kept removal in hand to deal with the worst one. On top of that, Heliod was now off to a solid start as well, which turned out to be a Life and Taxes deck. Taxing artifacts and enchantments slowed down my ramp but also kept Purphoros of the board a bit longer, so seemed like things were going to be in check.

Anowon hit the board and this is where things didn't go in my favor at all, I got Urborg out and Zombie Master, so in the least I could chip away at Purphoros without worrying about his chump blocking fodder. Of course, the swampwalk seemed to be triggering the Anowon player due to the previous game and I became his target, of course I don't mind creatures going to the graveyard and due to game one I had been ignoring him a bit because I wanted him to in the least enjoy the games a little bit. Again a new player and I prefer to not make someone potentially quit the game because of bad experiences. So I did point out that I wasn't the biggest threat on board nor the one you wanted to discard, he opted to take some swings at me until he fully understood that Zombie Master also allowed him to go after Purphoros. Also, technically Heliod but the taxing was worse on the precon decks poor mana base.

Nonetheless, those couple of swings from Anowon ended up being my downfall, as in those two combat steps I ended up milling my mass reanimate spells. While there was still some single targeted reanimation left, it certainly affected my game considerably. So I might have to look at adding Mission Briefing to help with these situations. Game ended with a scoop after Heliod started to go to town with Sun Titan , Strip Mine and Eldrazi Displacer.

I didn't mind the second game as much, as I got to see some of my recent changes in action and am happy with them so far. Still needs a few more games to settle on a few inclusions for sure. The downsides of the night were certainly the questionable starts from Purphoros and how the night went down for the new player. He didn't do too badly in my opinion when it came to the performance of his precons, but the decks played were just not ones a newer player can deal with easily. Guy also seems to get a little easily salty which also reduced his fun probably. Sadly getting enough people together right now for a few games is challenging, so personally I'm just grateful to get some games in. I would have pulled out a different deck for the second game to bring things down to a more reasonable level for the new player, but with the other players sticking to their decks I felt like Varina would keep the games from becoming even more one sided. With how things played out, things could have gotten interesting if the new guy would have teamed up with me, but the feel I got is that he was often talked into doing little or the 'safe' thing. So wouldn't have made much for a truce.

[WizardMN]

Had two games myself this weekend, facing off against a precon Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor , Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Purphoros, God of the Forge.

First game it was just Purphoros running away with it, my start was just too slow to keep up. He went mountain into Sol Ring and Arcane Signet on the first turn followed up with turn two Krenko, Mob Boss. Turn three for him was Goblin King and Krenko's Command, swings at Obuun. Turn four it was Purphoros with Dragon Fodder to turn on the madness. I was seated forth and had a nice start with Land Tax on the first turn, helping me fix my mana nicely. Did have Terrain Generator in my opener as well, which could have been nice but was just too much tempo loss in an already fast game. Drew several of my card draw engines, but without creatures dying they didn't trigger. So am glad that I added card draw spells but didn't get to see them.

Every time I play against a mono-red deck, they just always seem to have the ramp in hand. I am guessing a lot just play a ton of ramp and this deck is just not going to keep up. I am pretty sure our plan is almost always going to be to Deluge or Damnation on turn 5 at the latest and then hope that slows them down while we catch up. As such, Generator is a bit tough in those situations. And the reliance on creatures for draw is a limitation for sure. Which other card draw spells had you added?

Second game was same table but Obuun was replaced with Anowon, the Ruin Thief, the player is a new player and well can safely say that he didn't have a great night.

Notable thing is that Purphoros had an identical start, which was rather questionable on a no mulligan, I have my suspicions with this player but not able to prove anything, though not the only player who feels like this either.

I had a game like this three weeks ago against a Xenagos, God of Revels player and I am positive it was not intentional. But their shuffling skills were definitely brought into question Hopefully your opponent wasn't trying to cheat and just ended up being bad at shuffling though if you already have your suspicions with this player, it might be the former which is unfortunate.

Again a new player and I prefer to not make someone potentially quit the game because of bad experiences. So I did point out that I wasn't the biggest threat on board nor the one you wanted to discard, he opted to take some swings at me until he fully understood that Zombie Master also allowed him to go after Purphoros.

Poor threat assessment is an easy way to make an already difficult game miserable. Luckily in this case it is because the player is new so there is at least some explanation, but in this case especially that poor assessment really took a number of lines away from you.

So I might have to look at adding Mission Briefing to help with these situations. Game ended with a scoop after Heliod started to go to town with Sun Titan , Strip Mine and Eldrazi Displacer.

I don't even think Mission Briefing is a stellar card but it can really do some work to get us back into the game. The double blue has, on occasion, been troublesome when trying to cast something like Counterspell (which I have swapped for Delay based on suggestions here anyway). And of course a slow burn that loops Strip Mine isn't exactly fun either.

I would have pulled out a different deck for the second game to bring things down to a more reasonable level for the new player, but with the other players sticking to their decks I felt like Varina would keep the games from becoming even more one sided.

Honestly, even as a veteran player, I get a little salty at things like Heliod's taxing but mostly the strip mine "lock". The Purphoros player getting a massive head start should just be a learning opportunity for them to recognize that some (all) mono-red decks need to be approached with caution but having to play a game where all their lands get blown up probably wasn't ideal.

I think that this comment above is honestly pretty accurate. We are not going to be the most powerful deck out there, and some games are absolutely going to come down to whether we drew a wrath, but Varina has ways to make games at least somewhat even. Even our most powerful plays aren't going to be aggravating, in most cases. After all, we are "just" Zombie tribal So I think that was the right call and I think the new player teaming up would have been the right call too. Hopefully they learn from it in the future.

[Nimbaway]

Yeah, it was mostly a rough match up with two players not feeling the need to interact with each others since their gameplans were so different. Having a new player at the table makes things always more challenging and I usually try to be helpful in guiding their threat assessment even if its towards my own stuff. Furthermore the player being hesitant to make some decisions and being persuaded not to do things didn't help either. Either way, I can imagine that the games were not much fun for the guy and hopefully he is willing to give things another go.

As far as the red player goes, I know shuffling can be random and having a turn one Sol Ring can happen a few times. Just having at least four identical cards is questionable, especially since the second game there was no mulligan on his part. Unsure how things went the first round, as things were close to ready to go when I sat down. At the moment we don't cut each others decks, as with the pandemic stuff we agreed to touch each others belongings as little as possible among a few other precautions we took just to ensure playing safely. Though have to say that people have mentioned other suspicious situations around him, again for me nothing solid yet to out right accuse him. But will be paying more attention should he ever join again at a table I'm sitting at, as he notably pile shuffles a lot.

For draw spells I added in Pull from Tomorrow , Epiphany at the Drownyard and Frantic Search. The first two after the discussions that happened here and I am running Frantic seeing that the untapping lands parts let's me potentially fix my mana for a turn. On top of that I have Rhystic Study in the deck as well, don't have Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin currently as the recent upgrades were costly enough (aka Nykthos/Land Tax/Rhystic). Probably going to add Mission Briefing to that as it's pretty much a conditional draw spell, one I wouldn't have minded this time around.

Again, it was just a rough match up and I'm more than willing to admit that likely in a game with a more experienced fourth player things would still have been tough. With the way my draws were I don't see the outcome be too different, getting our mana base set up just takes some time and an aggro list just will start doing it's thing faster. It's just a matter of stabilizing the game, which in this case was tough due to the damage output from Purphoros and with how our deck already likes to abuse our life points. Unable to swing at Heliod due to the taxing and a new player getting beat down already, the opportunities were limited. So all in all it was just a bad table for Varina.

[WizardMN]

I got in another game online. 2 different players ended up with Field of the Dead which I mention only because of some comments about Land Destruction. I think we talked about it in @toctheyounger's thread.

This game was against Titania, Protector of Argoth, Jhoira of the Ghitu, and Tazri, Beacon of Unity.

I started off with turn 1 Land Tax but I went first so it didn't do anything until turn 4 after I missed a land drop. I did only keep a 2 lander after 2 Mulligans and I figured with 2 green decks they would ramp soon enough. Luckily I did draw into a third land for turn 3 and just cast Rhystic Study that I drew into. I also had Epiphany at the Drownyard but I really didn't want to fire it off since I figured I might only get 1 land and the opponent wouldn't give me that pile. Or, at least, I didn't want to try for it.

I drew two cards off Study and then my card for turn and still missed my land so I just cast Death Baron. Study then did draw me into a 2 lands before my next turn along with a Sol Ring. So I just cast Sol Ring into Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin and left up Delay. A sidenote here: Counterspell would have been a dead card since I only had 2 blue mana and I used one for Search.

During this, Land Tax was starting to get me lands and I was pitching cards. On one turn, after Land Tax resolved and I drew for turn, I had 14 cards in hand. I discarded to hand size and was able to transform Search the next turn with 7 basic lands in the graveyard.

Titania had gotten down a Nissa, Who Shakes the World and Titania and then cast Scapeshift. I did have Hour of Revelation in hand which I was going to fire off but Jhoira ended up having a Blasphemous Act to clear the board of creatures since Titania had 7 Elementals and 7 Zombies. They then cast Whirlpool Warrior which I knew they would activate eventually. They did so after Titania got their Scapeshift back but before they had the mana to cast it.

This got rid of my Hour (so I didn't have an answer to Nissa) and my new hand wasn't great. And Titania had Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage so Marit Lage came down along with Akroma's Memorial and a bunch more tokens as they rebuilt pretty good. But Jhoira was able to work with Tazri to draw a card thanks to Betrayal and they drew Cyclonic Rift. We didn't know that is what they drew, but that is what they said. I had Toxic Deluge in hand to wipe the board but I figured I would wait since I also had Teferi's Protection in case they couldn't deal with Titania's board. And then Tazri cast Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant with no sac outlet on board. They did end up casting Pongify on him to then get his death trigger and they did it in response to Rift (which Jhoira copied with Narset's Reversal) so we were all basically back to square one. And then I countered Nissa on the way back down.

My hand still wasn't great but I did have a Zombie Apocalypse in hand so I just cast that using the Mana Drain mana from countering Nissa and then used the extra 2 mana to exile things with Withered Wretch. I left up the rest of my mana instead of casting Varina since Jhoira still had Rift in hand and I wanted to be absolutely sure I could cast Protection and it gave me extra mana to activate Azcanta as well.

Next turn I was at 16 (I took a beating from Titania from their army but they didn't send Marit Lage at me) and now they had Ashaya, Soul of the Wild on the field which was pretty big. They swung her at me and I just exiled her with Path to Exile. I went down to 12.

After Apocalypse, which did clear some of Titania's board thanks to Noxious Ghoul (if I had one more Zombie, Ashaya would have died too), Titania was at 34, Jhoira was at 5, and Tazri at 10 thanks to Corpse Knight and the damage the others took from Titania's big attack. I ended up casting Varina since I knew Rift was a possibility and Varina let me kill them at Instant timing. They chose to let Varina resolve (I am not sure if this was wrong or not but they did die so it was probably wrong) so I then swung into Titania with my 9 zombies. I gained my 9 life and looted. I already had Akroma's Will in hand but chose to wait to cast it until after I attacked just to give another reason for Jhoira not to Rift. I realize this eliminated the benefit of Vigilance but it wasn't a big deal.

I ended up activating Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx in combat after blockers were declared before I cast Will. Again, I was just trying to make sure Will resolved so I exiled a bunch of cards in my yard and I got 15 mana from Nykthos so it was pretty easy to ensure I was able to create enough zombies for Knight to kill Jhoira. I then cast Will and Fact or Fiction (which got me 4 lands and a Counterspell; I took the Counterspell) and I went from 21 life to 125.

On Tazri's turn they were pretty much dead. They didn't have a wrath and I had counterspell to stop it anyway (or Protection if I wanted) and I was able to just swing out on my next turn to kill them.

Overall, with the exception of that one missed land drop, the deck worked really well. Land Tax was huge in getting Search to transform as well as giving me fodder for Varina. It also let me use Sevinne's Reclamation to bring back 3 lands to help ramp further. I don't think there is even much to say here. I never saw any cards I didn't like and everything had its impact that I wanted. I did only have 20 cards left in my yard at the end of the game which was interesting since we "only" went to turn 11.

The Field of the Dead Jhoira had didn't do a ton but the FotD that Titania had did a lot. They had an army of zombies twice with it. And both ended up being dealt with by other players but I did have cards to deal with those armies. It is hard to say what would have happened if they didn't wrath but even facing two I didn't really feel like I need things like Strip Mine. And Strip Mine wouldn't have even worked against Titania anyway as they had plenty of ways to get it back (they got other lands instead).

[pokken]

Yar. I think you're a deck that wants to race stuff like field of the dead for sure.

[Nimbaway]

Yeah, it's not really viable to run hate against cards like this, seeing that the deck's mana base doesn't support running that many utility lands. It's more important to control the board anyways, either with our own presence or by clearing it.