Shanid, Sleepers' Scourge

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

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I have been trying to come up with another deck to build for the longest time and I have 3 current decks that are "built" but no longer being updated because I sort of grew tired of them. All of them have red in them. So as I look to new sets I especially look to commanders with Red in them. This time around, the only one that stuck out to me was Isshin, Two Heavens as One which has some interesting implications. The problem I started finding with that is that it is almost too restrictive in a way. Or, at least, too much "on rails" so to speak.

I do like decks to at least care about the commander so it seemed well fit for that, but it really seemed like the deck would lead to more narrow choices. That is, I obviously want things to have attack triggers so that is what I would focus on. Which is almost too much of a focus.

Interestingly, the commander that led me to wanting to try out a Boros deck was....Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful. I will admit that a pretty large part of wanting to build with this particular commander is based on the flavor text but I started to realize that this wasn't that bad of a commander. Especially when paired with Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh. I chose Rograkh mainly because he is 0 cost so it basically ensures I have a 2/2 commander every game. I know that isn't game breaking (Isamaru, Hound of Konda exists after all) but it seems like this could scale pretty well. And of course he is red so he offers me the color combination I want. I did look at Vial Smasher the Fierce as a way to get Black in there too but I felt this was a better fit.

Importantly, the addition of Rograkh also leads me down the path of trying to go for an Equipment subtheme. It is something I tried with Gisela and it worked decently well, but never felt the greatest. But it seems better here. I can focus on smaller Legendary permanents to trigger Yoshimaru and I can then buff my creatures with cheaper equipment that lets Rograkh do a bit more damage as well.

With all of that being said though, as I tested that option, I found I just didn't like it. There are comments in this thread for when I tried that out and I just find that the equipment packages are not really for me. I had it in Gisela which was fun but it never seems as fun as I like it to be.

So, after further testing, as well as numerous suggestions and discussions with others in this thread, I decided that Jeska is the superior Partner. She not only really pushes me in a different direction than Equipment (Rograkh really wanted that since he isn't that great without it) but she also ends up being faster than Rograkh can be or even than Kediss (my other option) could be. She is a bit more focused than Kediss which can be a bad thing, but aggro really wants to not have to fight against 3 opponents so getting rid of someone early can really help.

I do realize that this deck sort of hits against some of the issues I initially thought of for Isshin. That is, it seems more on rails without a ton of freedom but I don't think that really fits here. Yes, the deck is mostly about Legendary permanents but there are a lot of options to choose from in that regard. I will admit that the mana base sort of builds itself due to the lack of really good Legendary lands but the rest of the deck can be built a number of different ways to take advantage of Yoshimaru. And, with Jeska as the partner, that opens up even more options I think to do a bit more with the deck.

I have decided to go the route of making the deck as fast as I can while still being fun for me. This is mostly due to the fact that I am not an aggro player. I am control and basically every deck I have shows that my tendencies for control dictate the builds. In this case I wanted to forgo that and just try to win as fast as I could without worrying about my opponents. Since I can't truly do that, there are pieces in here that expect interaction but for the most part I am trying to get a big Yoshimaru to kill people with.

I might scale back some of the aggressiveness if I find that I am unable to win a game after knocking out 1 or 2 people (which is an issue I had with a Voltron style Rafiq of the Many deck when I first started Commander/EDH). This is one of the main issues with this type of deck: I have no doubt I can consistently kill 1, maybe 2, people each game. But winning is another thing entirely. And likely comes down to good threat assessment at the start to determine who to take out first. I like control because of this aspect of knowing an opponent's deck to get an advantage and this mindset falls into the same thing to an extent.
So, after deliberating further, and with the release of a couple new Legendaries, I decided to move this over to a Shanid deck. This loses some of the explosiveness of the previous build but also allows for a bit less reliance on said explosiveness. That is, while the previous iteration could win very quickly, if it didn't win quickly it would flame out and not be able to finish the game. And I found that ultra aggressiveness is just not a playstyle I enjoy. Shanid keeps the main theme of the deck intact but allows a slower, more methodical play style. It is still relatively aggressive in that I still want to run out creatures as much as possible, but I am not necessarily incentivized to do so to make my general grow as I was before with Yoshimaru.

I am still working out some of the details but I have a fairly fleshed out list for Shanid..

Here is the current decklist:
Shanid, Sleepers' Scourge

General (1)

Artifacts (2)

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5/24/2022
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Last edited by WizardMN 8 months ago, edited 15 times in total.

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AjaniVengeant
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Post by AjaniVengeant » 2 years ago

Have you thought of adding Emeria the sky Ruin? It's generally good in white decks, especially a more creature based deck like yours.


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Post by capitacommunist » 2 years ago

I feel like you'd get more mileage out of Kediss as a partner rather than Rograkh. Kediss also allows you to attack for minimum two from turn two onwards, but seems a lot more impactful otherwise.
Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond and potentially Lotus Petal seem like powerful adds. Playing Yoshamaru off of them, followed immediately by a legendary land and another legendary permanent, and then Kediss on turn two already puts you at four damage to three opponents on turn two. With the number of legendary lands and one mana legendary permanents that will happen a lot. Jeska, Thrice Reborn also seems amazing here, with a number of other legendary permanents and your commanders she can allow Yoshamaru to already knock out another player on turn 3 (e.g. attack with 4/4 on turn 2, 6/6 on turn 3).
Mox Opal is another free legendary permanent that can speed up your clock (even if it's mana generation will be more variable).

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I can't tell sometimes @WizardMN if we woulds be very good friends or bitter enemies if we hung out all the time but I'm leaned toward the former. Your brain and my brain are like, 75-85% overlapped it feels like. This idea has been running through my head since I saw that Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful and I love it.

So in this deck I think you want to:

1) go absolutely nuts on legendary lands. There are just so many of them that are so good. I know you love your basics but you could get by with 7-8 of each and just jam every ETB untapped legendary land you can find.
2) Maybe play Ruin Ghost and set up some interactions there? :P

--

The fundamental problem here though is going to be that your bros do not draw any cards. That's what hit me when I looked at Yoshi/Rog. Your CA suite is basically whichever equipment and equipment tutoring dudes you draw. Long term I think you will probably find Tymna the Weaver the right partner for Yoshi, as without a reliable source of CA your deck design is incredibly constrained.

That caveat out there, I like a lot of what you're doing and think it could be pretty fun.

--

So sticking with boros, outside of the legendary lands discussion, your CA suite looks like:
Then equipment stuff (Sunforger, Sword of Fire and Ice, etc.). Those are super slow though unless you stick an equipment enabler.

That's a decent number of things. And I don't want to turn this into Skullclamp.dec since that's what Boros is known for, but I think you should play it--clamping Rograkh will be a good thing to do sometimes.

Some other things I would consider just to have percolating in your consciousness, not so much as autoincludes (which clamp is I think).

Boros Garrison - lets you replay a legendary land and helps smooth out your land drops.
Cloudstone Curio - even without a combo, being able to reuse Stoneforge Mystic is nice. I'm not sure it's quite right but worth thinking on.
Dockside Extortionist - as long as it's legal it probably belongs in every boros deck, and it does some nice random stuff here.
Walking Atlas and Scaretiller could both be pretty good with the weird boros landfall shenanigans :P

I think you could probably use one more one-sided sweeper effect. Maybe Urza's Ruinous Blast would work? I dunno.

All in all it's looking interesting; it's nice to see you playing against type without your usual 15 interaction spells :) Hope it's a fun arrow in the quiver when you're ready to semi-mindlessly bash people.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

@AjaniVengeant
I am not quite at the point where I know what the creature count looks like, but Emeria might be reasonable. I have had it in most Wx decks over the years. I just haven't fleshed out my lands section yet :)

@capitacommunist
I think my thought was that Rograkh feels more right with the equipment theme. And with Yoshimaru since he comes down immediately. I had looked into Kediss, and Kediss is currently in the 99, because
I think the effect works out very well in practice. I don't normally do fast, aggressive decks but Rograkh seemed like the right option for this.

That is a good point on the artifacts and does seem to lean more into Kediss as an option. I like the idea of swinging out early like that. I don't know what I would like Mox Opal (I did look at it) since it takes too long to get online. There are going to be situations where I can definitely get it and two other Mox (or a Lotus Petal or whatever) on turn 1 but it seems too much into Magical Christmasland.

I would start to question the equipment package with Kediss though. Especially with the sequencing you mentioned. After all, if I am potentially killing someone so early, what difference does the equipment make? I might go back over things with the idea that Kediss is at the helm and see what that looks like.

Also, if I look at the potential sequencing, it looks like it would be 5 damage turn 1: Lotus Petal into Yoshimaru. Legendary Land into Isamaru (or whatever) to put two counters on Yoshimaru. Next turn, Legendary Land into Kediss for another 2 counters. That is 5 damage to everyone. The next turn, Legendary Land into Jeska for another 2 counters and Jeska can triple that 7 to 21 and just take out a single person and the other 2 have 26 damage already.

I know that isn't exactly going to come up every time, but that sounds pretty good when it does. Based on that, I think I am going to shrink down the equipment package and probably cut Rograkh entirely. As part of the 99 he triggers Yoshimaru but not much else.

@pokken
I am definitely on board with a ton of Legendary Lands. I did omit the ones that just produce colorless (for now) as I want to see what the full mana base looks like before adding in things that might make it tougher to get my Commanders out right away. I am usually fine with cutting basics to a certain degree (7-8 each seems like the right spot; maybe less depending on what ramp I end up with).

Ruin Ghost is interesting but unless I running Serra's Sanctum I don't think it ends up being quite good enough. I do like your idea below of Boros Garrison. It is slow but it might work out reasonable well in the end. Some playtesting should offer some data points on that.

I would agree that Card Advantage/Drawing is always a tough spot for Boros decks. And I did think of Tymna but I also really want a red deck since it is the color I use the least. Every time spoilers come out, I pretty much just skip over that section of cards. At least I feel this deck might want more of those than Windgrace and Kykar do.

That summary does highlight a few things though: my draw suite is pretty well tied into Equipment. I knew that I had a few that worked really well with equipment, but having so many isn't ideal.

Turning this into a Skullclamp deck though might not be a bad idea. There were/are a few cards I looked at that I skipped over because they "only" created tokens. Perhaps I can lean in a little more heavily on those to give me more Clamp fodder?

As mentioned, I think I am on board with Garrison. Curio is reasonable but I think becomes better if I could re-use card draw as well. I don't know if it is worth adding in some Walls or the new Dog that draws a card but it is a thought. Extortionist is a good card but a) I keep hoping for a reprint and b) I really don't want to pay $70 for it. I think I am fine with my deck being slightly worse without it for now. Walking Atlas isn't awful and does allow for some ramp and shenanigans with Yoshimaru. I will see if I come back to that. Scaretiller is a little higher on the curve than I would like, even if it is repeatable.

I did forget about things like Urza's Ruinous Blast and it does exile. That seems pretty good for this deck. I am not sure I am going to find much better anyway.

What are your thoughts on Rograkh vs Kediss? The outline of potential sequencing above really has me leaning towards Kediss now but, again, I think that means I go a little lower on the equipment side of things which messes up some of my CA suite.

I am going to go through cards today and see if I can fill in some gaps with things like CA,
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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

After some quick evaluations, this is what I came up with if I decided to go with Kediss at the helm instead of Rograkh:
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Decklist

Enchantments (1)

Approximate Total Cost:

Note that Kamigawa cards aren't in here yet since the program I use for this doesn't include them and I didn't want to go back and figure out which ones to add. I will add them later. And I still haven't revisited the lands section yet. That will be the last thing I do.

This lightens the equipment package but doesn't completely eliminate it. I add Skullclamp which works with a few cards that are already here. I might want to add more token producers but it shouldn't be too bad with what I have. I left in Stoneforge Mystic and Stonehewer Giant since I still have 9-10 Equipment (I did add in Embercleave which I forgot about before). I also still have Wyleth, Oswald, and Akiri that care about equipment but I might be low enough that none of these make sense.

For CA I added a few more of the impulse drawing effects. Within this list (not counting Wyleth and Akiri), this is what I have for "draw" effects:

Atsushi, the Blazing Sky
Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
Laelia, the Blade Reforged
Mangara, the Diplomat
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Eye of Vecna
Hazoret's Monument (sort of. obviously more filtering)
Jeska's Will
Light Up the Stage
Mask of Memory
Mind's Eye
Skullclamp
Sword of Fire and Ice

Still not a ton of course, but not the worst either. Most are repeatable in some way which is good. I mentioned the possibility of something like Spirited Companion which fuels Skullclamp as well. I might also have to go higher on the mana curve to get some other cards that let me draw. I don't really want to do much with the symmetrical drawing white has been doing, but I could see tapping into some of that if needed.

In the end, equipment based draws with Sram, Wyleth, Akiri, Puresteel Paladin, etc might be the better route but I think that necessitates a higher equipment count than I really want (or, than I can really fit). This deck is more on the Legendary Matters side of things and filling it up with Equipment means less of that.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

WizardMN wrote:
2 years ago
What are your thoughts on Rograkh vs Kediss? The outline of potential sequencing above really has me leaning towards Kediss now but, again, I think that means I go a little lower on the equipment side of things which messes up some of my CA suite.
Honestly as I think on it, I would be pretty strongly inclined to play Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist and dip into blue, so you can run Trophy Mage and similar. Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist was always amazing for me in equipment.dec - because he encourages people to attack others and draws you cards. Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar feels *fine* but also to draw a bit of hate?

You can just skip all the blue stuff you play in Kykar, Wind's Fury and keep it focused on boros with a splash.

edit: if it's binary between the two I prefer Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh since he's clamp fodder which is nice and another great attacker

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

Yeah, I definitely want to keep it to just Boros. I think Ludevic can offer some good additions but I want to find a way to make a Boros deck work somehow.

And that is fair about Rograkh. I have the two separate lists but as I was going through trying to trim down the Rograkh list, I realized I might be better off with the equipment theme no matter what. I do only have 13 Equipment in the Rograkh list still which seems a little low for trying to get the equipment matters cards to draw me cards. But with Oswald, Stoneforge, and Stonehewer, I might be able to get to a few more.

Either way, that might still be better than trying more of the impulse drawing stuff. I updated the the list in the first post and I think a straight swap of Rograkh and Kediss during testing allows me to test both decks. I don't think the decklists would end up being much different anyway.

I do have 1 extra card and I am not quite sure what I should cut but this allows me to start tackling the mana base at least.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

Ok, I updated the mana base to be pretty close to what I want it to be. I am pretty sure Emeria, the Sky Ruin doesn't work that well here anymore due to the low number of Plains so I left it out for now. I did leave out a couple Legendary lands (Geier Reach Sanitarium being the main one) because I still don't want to go too high on Colorless lands. Though, Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai isn't that great either. I only kept it in case it ever does die so I can get a token (but that is very unlikely to happen). So, it probably gets cut eventually.

I will probably start picking up pieces to the deck online and hopefully be ready for when the new set drops and I can see how things play out with either general.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Yeah emeria being non-legendary and requiring plains is a deal breaker. :)

Oh, you might want to try Thalia's Lancers. Seems good in this deck.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

That's not a bad idea.

I sort of forgot Ragavan so ridiculously expensive online. I had picked one up in paper a little while back luckily but I don't want to spend nearly $100 on it online. So, I think that is the cut for now to get me to 100 cards. I want the card in here so I will hold out hope that they eventually reprint it or do something with it to get the price down.

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Post by capitacommunist » 2 years ago

I was brainstorming a bit this afternoon and I came up with the following (with Jeska as the partner), to maximize quick wins:
Decklist

Enchantments – 2 (1 legendary)

Planeswalkers – 1

Approximate Total Cost:

With 46 legendary permanents (17 lands/0 cmc, 12 1 cmc), the deck can achieve some very quick wins. If you can attack for 3 on turn 2 (requiring two legends), you only need two more legends (four legends in total) + Jeska on turn 3 to hit someone for 21 commander damage then, and hit the next opponent the turn after. With the many tutors and cantrippers, if the game goes longer its easy to grow Yoshamaru further. Otherwise I just rounded off with the most efficient damage maximizers/protection/draw.

On another note, the choice between Kediss, Jeska and Rograkh is very much preference I think. Jeska maximizes your chances to knock out one player on turn 3 (and is the hardest to tutor for), Kediss also maximizes damage but in a way that you keep all players in the game, and Rograkh is most-suited for a longer game where you can maximize his value through equips.
With Rograkh I would go more all-in on cheap equipment tutors (to maximize legendary equipment searching), free equippers and Puresteel Paladin / Sram, and stuff like Colossus Hammer.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

That doesn't look too bad at all and I had thought about adding wheels in this deck as well. I see you basically only went with Wheel of Fortune but I could see where that could be a reasonable card here. It sucks to give everyone a full grip but if we are the aggressors perhaps it works out more in our favor.

There are also a bunch of cards you have that I probably should. The two Recruiters and Akroma's Will being a few of them. I also like the idea of just being able to swap the red commander at a moment's notice, though the decks probably want to be a bit different.

I will end up goldfishing my list quite a bit once the cards are online and I will see if I like the heavier equipment package or not. I can definitely see Jeska being a good commander choice as well so it is something to think about. I will probably have some summaries of my gold fishing soon. I might also sleeve it up in paper just to try things out and see how the deck "feels". There are a few different ways to take this so I am certainly on board with pivoting as necessary.

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Post by capitacommunist » 2 years ago

Yes, I think Yoshamaru really allows for a lot of different directions and strategies dependent on the build and partner. Very excited to play with it.
Recruiters and Ranger-Captain of Eos are musts I think in any build, because of how important it is to find cards like Kediss, Norin, Kari Zev, and Weathered Wayfarer which allow Yoshamaru to spiral by guaranteeing consistent legendary permanents, as well as functioning as a toolbox.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

That is a fair point about trying to make sure all the pieces are there. Recruiters get a lot of things. Ranger-Captain doesn't do as much but it does get some important things as well. I will be keeping those in mind as I test out the rest of the deck to see where cuts can be made.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

Because I am waiting on the new set, I decided to throw some "filler" cards in for now and I think I might want to put some in the deck proper, even after getting the new cards. The following are the cards I am trying:

Sun Titan in over Ao, the Dawn Sky
Goldspan Dragon in over Atsushi, the Blazing Sky
Scrap Mastery in over Brilliant Restoration
Serra the Benevolent in over The Wandering Emperor
Colossus Hammer in over Eater of Virtue
Kytheon, Hero of Akros // Gideon, Battle-Forged in over Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful

And a Mountain and Plains in over the two new Legendary lands.

I also still don't have Ragavan and Laelia online so I might need swaps for those for now. I am using Hope of Ghirapur for one of them and since I was at 101 cards anyway, the other is a straight cut for now.

Of these, I think Goldspan Dragon is probably one I should include. I don't have a ton of Treasure synergy though Magda creates some too. But it seems like a really good choice. Colossus Hammer was mentioned above and likely should be in here. And Sun Titan seems really good in this deck.

Also, to the last conversation, the 2 recruiters should probably be here and I am still on the fence with Ranger-Captain of Eos. And I am still thinking on Thalia's Lancers.

This means that I have at least 5 other cards that I think I want to include. I might have to give up the Flavor win of The Wanderer in this deck though The Wandering Emperor Might still be good enough. I am thinking there is the possibility Koll, the Forgemaster just doesn't do enough. Oswald Fiddlebender might not be as good as I want him to be (though sacrificing a Treasure to get Colossus Hammer or Skullclamp seems cool). And even though Danitha Capashen, Paragon synergizes well, I am not sure I necessarily need the cost reduction. Though, that might be true of the two Monument's as well. At least Oketra's gives me tokens to Clamp.

And finally, I might be looking at Delina, Wild Mage to cut as well.

I am still trying to playtest with what I have for now, but these are the ones that stand out to me as potential cuts to make room for other cards. There might be something obvious I am missing (maybe Isamaru, Hound of Konda and Zurgo Bellstriker don't really need to be here?) but I will see how the rest of the testing goes.

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Post by duducrash » 2 years ago

Search for Glory can search almost any card in the deck. Magda on her own is worth it? without dwarf support

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

Search for Glory is another interesting card and might be enough to push me into using Snow Basics as well. I do like it more than Thalia's Lancers even with Lancers being a creature.

My early playtesting shows Magda is worth it. She is a 2 drop so she triggers Yoshimaru a early and giving me a Treasure whenever she attacks has shown to be invaluable. The curve is fairly low but she can really keep the deck moving. And if I add in Goldspan Dragon, it is more Treasures that can work with the Dragon as well.

More Dwarves might be nice, but I don't think their absence makes her awful. And I do have 4 Dwarves which isn't necessarily fantastic but they still offer some additional support.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

I picked up the newest cards for this deck and luckily only Yoshimaru was actually expensive (except for one card which I just cut entirely). I did decide to pick up Ragavan though since he came down about $20 since the last time I talked about him. Still expensive, but he is just way too good not to be here.

I ended up making the following changes overall:

Now, among these changes, I decided to keep the following cards: This is why I needed other cuts than these to fit the new cards in the deck. The Wandering Emperor was the one that ended up being cut mainly due to cost but I don't think she is needed here anyway. As mentioned, she was here mostly for Flavor but I don't think her effects are really that great.

Also, with the addition of Search for Glory, I changed my mana base to use Snow Basics.

I goldfished a couple games to see how well the deck is performing with Yoshimaru actually at the helm and I have to say it is working out exceptionally well. In one game, I "won" on turn 4 (obviously this means I killed one person on that turn) but the Moxen being able to get Yoshimaru out to then trigger with lands and Rograkh is really good. Norin is doing exactly what I expected and would likely do even more since he would trigger on other player's turns as well to keep growing Yoshimaru. Kari Zev is nice to have a few other cards are offering good support.

One thing I am noticing is that I tend to run out of lands fairly early. And this happens without Mox Diamond being part of the mix but of course that tends to exacerbate the issue. I think going up a land or two might be warranted.

However, the biggest takeaway I have so far is: the equipment package is very underwhelming and not that fun. First, during most of my goldfishing, the equipment isn't really doing a lot anyway (except for a couple) and it feels way more "all-in" than I tend to like. I had this some issue with Gisela but that didn't feel quite as bad since the game was meant to go a bit longer. This deck is meant to be quicker and drawing into equipment feels slow and risky.

As such, I am contemplating reducing the equipment side of things. The main issue I am going to have with this is that a lot of my card draw is tied to equipment so there will likely need to be a fairly large restructuring to ensure I can still get cards in hand somehow. But, at an initial glance, I am thinking about cutting these cards:
Now, this is a pretty large swathe of cuts so I am just going to group them into categories to talk about them:

Swords, Eater of Virtue, and Colossus Hammer - The Swords I am finding to be a little slower than I would like. They are also not Legendary so no Yoshimaru triggers which isn't ideal. Eater of Virtue is basically a 1 mana Legendary drop which does very little else. Its ability is pretty bad as a) I don't want my stuff exiled and b) I don't have a lot with a lot of built in keywords anyway. And Colossus Hammer is actually a really good card but with the potential other changes, I would be left with Hammer of Nazahn as my only way to reliably get it attached to something.

Brilliant Restoration, Koll, Sram, Paladin, Ardenn, Danitha, Akiri, Wyleth, & Stonehewer Giant - These are all cards that rely on fairly large numbers of equipment to really work. Koll, Sram and Paladin were already on the edge of not being good enough with only 13 equipment in the deck and cutting 6 equipment just puts them into the realm of worthless. The rest now meet that threshold as well. The only one that might still be worth it is the Giant but due to mana cost, I am considering cutting it as well. Restoration is just too much for getting back, at most, 7 permanents.

Blackblade Reforged - I left this one on its own because I can fully see where I should still keep this. Yes, it is 5 mana (like the swords) but it is Legendary and can make Yoshimaru just big enough to kill someone. I have it on the chopping block for now because I don't often have that many lands in play. It seems like a card that is far more useful the longer the game goes on and I don't want games to go that long.

Of course, if I go this route, that means I have 14-15 cards I need to replace, I think adding Isamaru back in is an easy choice as it is another 1 drop Legendary permanent but one that can actually do stuff (even if it is just a vanilla creature). And I probably add two more lands. Arguably, the focus beyond would need to be on card draw and there aren't 10+ good options for that.

On a final note regarding this potential change in direction: if I do this, I probably swap Rograkh with Jeska in the command zone. Which, for some reason, I missed adding Jeska into the deck to begin with so no matter what, she needs to find her way into the list somewhere.

I will play around with the list a little more online and provide an update as to where I think I want things to go.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I think you'd be better suited to playing some impulse draw and looting to find lands than adding more lands. cards like Light Up the Stage seem great, and I'm always a shill for Gift of Estates and Tithe. I saw you mentioned Light in there somewhere.

I've also had good luck with Cathartic Reunion and Thrill of Possibility.

re: equipment
I have just found equipment never to work for me anymore. the tempo costs are just too high. I almost never play any of them unless they equip free (Lightning Greaves I'll still run now and again). Every time I add an equipment package I wind up cutting it.

What I would suggest trying out in their place are pump planeswalkers. I had very, very much fun with Ajani, Caller of the Pride and Elspeth, Knight-Errant effects, and there are a few other ones now I think. The nice thing about planeswalkers in these aggro decks is people usually can't attack them because of all the pressure, and if they do they wind up open. Would go well with Jeska, Thrice Reborn as well of course.

Ajani Steadfast and Ajani, Strength of the Pride and Ajani Goldmane were all fine too.

Other potential cool things are a little goad subtheme or some Insurrection / Mob Rule effects to close out the game?

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

That is where my head is sort of at, though mostly because there isn't much else in these colors. Here is what I am thinking:
Now, I will admit that Rendezvous is very risky but it can be a reasonable political card. I am not in love with the card by any means, but it might be alright. Mentor and Vampire should trigger fairly often (though Vampire only triggers once per turn). They might not be good enough though so I am definitely on board with leaving them out. I probably should try Cathartic Reunion somewhere in here as well.

Mila offers a little bit in case things get targeted and Lukka also has the ability to discard one, draw two in certain cases.

Tome of Legends is actually working out really well in Goldfishing so I think this is a good one to keep in.

Lorehold Command is expensive but since I "only" need to sac a permanent to draw 2, it can be reasonable. Not to mention the other modes of course (though, they aren't fantastic). Mind's Eye is slow but is one of the better options for pure card draw.

Of your mentions, I am not big into Planeswalkers in general, but Caller of the Pride looks really good for this deck. Elspeth is good too and provides fodder for Skullclamp (and triggers the Mentor and Vampire). I could see trying out Steadfast as well.

I think Mob Rule might be a good option for a late game closer. I am a little wary of Insurrection due to the mana cost, but could be decent as well.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I would skip mentor and mind's eye, but I like the rest. The mana cost for those things is annoying and adds up. I like the vampire a lot and rendezvous sounds great in this deck! Give some cards to someone while they're tapped out and immediately kill them :)

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

That's fair. My main concern with the Mentor was the cost so perhaps even if Vampire only triggers once per turn, it is still something to keep cards in hand. And I can see Mind's Eye as well being too much up front plus the need to hold up mana later which isn't something this deck often wants to do.

So, with that in mind, I think I am going to try the below for the "final" cuts to move this into a Jeska/Yoshimaru deck. Rograkh will still be in the 99 for now as Skullclamp fodder as well as a free trigger for Yoshimaru and the Vampire. I will go also update the main post as I think I am really liking Jeska with Yoshimaru. Every goldfish game I have had kills someone on turn 5 at the latest. In one game, I would have killed the entire table on turn 3 thanks to 2 Moxen and Kediss. I know this all assumes no interaction (and the latter is a bit of magical christmasland) but I think Jeska tripling the damage is worth far more than Rograkh adding one to it.

I will try to keep in mind the Mob Rule and Insurrection options since I really think at least one of those is warranted. But I am going to play around with this some more to see where this lands me. I think I am going to have to get into some real games to determine what truly isn't working.
Last edited by WizardMN 2 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Yeah I am fairly sure Mob Rule is the perfect finisher for this deck. Akroma's Will is possibly "better" but I think that extra explosiveness of a bunch of extra damage in addition to avoiding most blockers is worth the extra 2 mana as a curve topper.

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Post by capitacommunist » 2 years ago

WizardMN wrote:
2 years ago
So, with that in mind, I think I am going to try the below for the "final" cuts to move this into a Jeska/Yoshimaru deck. Rograkh will still be in the 99 for now as Skullclamp fodder as well as a free trigger for Yoshimaru and the Vampire. I will go also update the main post as I think I am really liking Jeska with Yoshimaru. Every goldfish game I have had kills someone on turn 5 at the latest. In one game, I would have killed the entire table on turn 3 thanks to 2 Moxen and Kediss. I know this all assumes no interaction (and the latter is a bit of magical christmasland) but I think Jeska tripling the damage is worth far more than Rograkh adding one to it.
I've found the same, with some fast mana and a whole bunch of legendary lands the damage can escalate very quickly. And with a couple of tutors for Kediss, killing the table by turn 4-5 becomes quite possible (in a goldfish session). I'm receiving Yoshimaru this week, so I'm excited to start testing more thereafter.

As also discussed in the card of the day, I think the Rangers, and in particular Ranger-Captain of Eos are really good here. With Rograkh you can guarantee a free trigger, Norin gives you recurring triggers, as does Weathered Wayfarer, and Mother of Runes can be fetched for protection. And the Captain also protects you on the combo turn.

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