Phelddagrif: Show Weakness to Hide Your Strength

[Kapusta]

Let me just start by saying that I am a huge fan of this deck and your commitment to it. It has been such a joy to pilot, even after the couple rough starts I had with it.

I consistently win games, and when I dont, it's because of my own mistakes. This theme for Phelddagrif is perfect. I have never felt as satisfied with winning as I have with this deck.

Thank you very much for my favorite deck. I play a slightly modified variant of your deck with a bigger focus in lands utility, and it's a blast. I will continue following you and your posts about it.

[DirkGently]

Thanks, that really means a lot to hear! I'm really pleased with how many people enjoy the deck.

Any thoughts on the new cards from Throne? So far I'm only planning to add the new blue lands, but I'm definitely interested in kenrith's transformation. Not sure about the fetch...I was pretty high on it at first, but my manabase is getting pretty heavy on fetches and light on basics...

[Kapusta]

The fetchable land seems nice, but I agree that stretching the land base further is a bad idea.

I do have a couple cards im interested in:

Kenriths Transformation - A solid pick. I still like Imprisoned in the Moon better tho. I'll test it.

Castle Vantress - Excites me, will have to see what it replaces tho...

Return of the Wildspeaker - Now this one I secretly love. A better Jace's Ingenuity with phelddagrif out, same mana cost, less mana restrictive, instant, and the buff option I know will have its uses. This one I feel will replace my Chemisters Insight.

Of all if them, the last two really have my interest. Im not sure if Return Of The Wildspeaker is worth it but I see potential. There are times in a game where a turn of commander damage can be taken off with a buff like this. I may just be excited but I think it's worth a slot.

[DirkGently]

Wanted to write down some notes from playing last night before I forget.

Had a few really tough games with Phelddagrif. Game 1 I mostly lost to failed threat assessment, but game 2 was very long and grindy and became very difficult and frustrating at a number of points.

The opposing decks were:

-teshar, ancestor's apostle combo - not particularly fast but very durable.
-numot, the devastator playing...??? mostly just every card I hate seeing when playing control - war's toll, dovescape, possibility storm, howling mine, etc.
-marchesa, the black rose playing the usual stuff. etbs, sacs, etc.

Teshar was virtually impossible to ally with, because the only thing his deck wanted to do was combo off. He was running maybe a couple pieces of interaction, but otherwise everything was recursion, mana generation, etc. He was constantly a threat and Teshar needed to be removed repeatedly to keep him in check, even though he kept misplaying and failing to see combo lines in front of him. Teshar isn't exactly top-tier cEDH but having him be so persistent (and lacking any interaction to help control the other players) might have been worse than a straight-up cEDH deck.

Numot seemed like a fairly low-powered deck, but he kept trying to play spells that demanded that I answer them or else the other players would easily get out of control. I have no idea if this was an intentional maneuver on his part or not, his reasoning behind playing things seemed...flimsy. For example, he played a howling mine with a notion thief ON BOARD, saying it would "incentivize us to remove the notion thief. The notion thief lived for a pretty long time because I was the only one with interaction, and I needed it for other targets. Plus I didn't need Teshar drawing more cards. He cast a mind's aglow into the notion thief as well, I guess with intent to deck him, but he only ended up drawing 32 cards so...? He also refused to bargain even when we were both pretty behind on-board - for example, while attacking with Numot I told him I wouldn't kor haven him, provided he agreed not to target my lands, but he refused every time, and I was forced to kor haven him. I think he was the most frustrating player to deal with because by rights I think he should have been willing to ally with me, given how dangerous both other decks were.

Marchesa was the most interesting one, because he seemed to know what he was doing and tried to use the other players to divert my attention, so that I wouldn't have any many resources for him. Personally I think he went a bit too far in this regard though - at one point. he had a decent amount of power on board, but Teshar was starting to combo off and I only had mana to cast one spell. I tell him (and numot) that I'll do my best to break up the combo by bouncing Teshar, but they can't hurt me in any way during their turns. Numot quickly agrees, but Marchesa refuses until Numot and I finally talk some sense into him. He also decided not to kill Numot the previous turn, to try to divert my resources. I definitely see the tactic and I think it's probably the best way to beat Phelddagrif, but at the same time he seemed very hostile (in game, in person he was totally nice) to my deck, and seemed very concerned that he wouldn't be able to kill me without diverting my attention to Teshar, despite Numot still being in the game, and him having quite a few creatures, cards in hand, and visibility of my hand (he stole my telepathy, which was kind of a problem). It's also worth noting that, fairly early, I stifled his trigger to return Marchesa, leaving her stranded in the bin for most of the game (he made a few attempts to recover her, both of which I blocked). Marchesa in particular is very difficult for us to interact with, because she can usually protect her board from board wipes, and even has sac outlets to protect against exile/tuck wipes, so usually the only way to do any real damage is targeted removal followed by a wipe, and even that is often not enough. So Marchesa is definitely on the list of dangerous commanders to play against imo. Stifle made a huge impact that game, but against a build with more recursion it might have only been a speed bump.

In the end we ran out of time, but I don't think my chances looked great. Very tricky game - I think partly just because of the deck composition, but I feel like I should have been able to bargain better with Numot. I think refusing to bargain with me when I'm in a good position is totally reasonable and fair, but with both Teshar and Marchesa constantly threatening to go off it was pretty frustrating that he still refused to bargain most of the time, only bargaining when the alternative was almost certain death.

On a personal note, holy crap did the Teshar player get grumpy when they died (they won game 1). He even had the gall to complain about how long we were taking haggling over my interacting with him, when his winning turn in game 1 took a solid 20 minutes with virtually no complaints. He stormed off (not the magic kind) in a huff after Marchesa finally decided he was too dangerous to leave alive, and threatened to scoop repeatedly when I was even considering interacting with his board on his nearly-game-winning turn.

[lyonhaert]

I'm guessing Numot player was in it for the chaos?

...and threatened to scoop repeatedly when I was even considering interacting with his board on his nearly-game-winning turn.

I very much dislike manipulation like this (and his tantrum), especially after already comboing off and winning the previous game.

If I try to combo and somebody succeeds in stopping me then maybe I get a chance to survive and try again, or go to plan B. That's just the chance one takes with a combo deck, especially without interaction to protect the combo.

[TheGildedGoose]

Always target the player that threatens to scoop. Always call them on their bluff. Not only do you get a potentially low cost concession, making your job as the control player easier, but you also don't have to play with a manchild. Win/win. Literally!

[DirkGently]

I'm guessing Numot player was in it for the chaos?

...and threatened to scoop repeatedly when I was even considering interacting with his board on his nearly-game-winning turn.

I very much dislike manipulation like this (and his tantrum), especially after already comboing off and winning the previous game.

If I try to combo and somebody succeeds in stopping me then maybe I get a chance to survive and try again, or go to plan B. That's just the chance one takes with a combo deck, especially without interaction to protect the combo.

Honestly, it was hard for me to tell what the Numot player's motivations were. Early in the game he cast a war's toll, which I was basically forced to counter, and I asked him why he would play a card like that which probably does almost nothing to hamper the other decks, but makes it harder for me to interact with them, when I was almost certainly not going to bother using much of my interaction on the Numot player as his deck was far less powerful. Again, he had flimsy justification - something about how he didn't think war's toll would make it easier for a combo deck to go off, which is just ridiculous - if I weren't there or weren't able to interact, guaranteed Teshar would have won every game. Or maybe Marchesa had a chance to zerg him down, but either way Numot was utterly screwed without my assistance. I guess I could have fought him on his reasoning but at the time I didn't realize how many more chaos cards he was running. Luckily, as the game got dicier, he chose not to play some of the other ones - dovescape and possibility storm spent most of the game in his hand - but I'm honestly not sure why, dovescape probably does more to stop Teshar than war's toll, by a huge margin.

Anyway, he never said any of the classic chaos excuses like "I just want to see what happens" or "It's just a casual game, idc if it's going to make me lose" or anything like that. He seemed to have some reasoning behind his plays, it's just that it usually sucked and felt pretty post-hoc as a justification for doing something rather than nothing, even if the something was terrible and lowered both of our chances to win. I think partly both his and Marchesa's less-than-friendly reaction to my deck stems from the sense that, as a control player, I was unassailable (one of the things I generally try quite hard to avoid), which was probably the inevitable consequence of how proactive I was forced to be against Teshar and Marchesa to keep them from spiraling out of control. I tried to let Marchesa "do its thing" for a bit, but as mentioned she becomes incredibly hard to interact with once she's set up with a sac outlet and +1/+1 counters.

The possibility of a game where all my opponents are playing low-answer-high-threat combo decks has long kept me up at night, and I think this is probably the closest I've come to that. Both Marchesa and Teshar were scary enough that they basically required constant removal, which really taxes my resources to the limit. I tried to imprison in the moon teshar, which would have given me some breathing room, but he was able to escape it almost immediately.

I paid zero attention to his threats to scoop, I just carried on conversing with the other players (incidentally he did not scoop). His presence in the game was 100% negative, I had no reason to want him alive. I've had situations where I want a player alive as a buffer to distract and whittle down my opponents, but this definitely wasn't it.

Much like economics, this deck does depend on our opponents acting in rational self-interest in order to work, which I think was the biggest failing in this game, from Numot. With his cooperation I think we could have eliminated both Teshar and Marchesa by killing the Teshar player via numot damage and blowing up Marchesa's lands with Numot, had I not been forced to repeatedly kor haven numot (to protect haven and azcanta). I wonder if there was a tactic that I could have used to convince him to leave them alone - For example, promise not to use Kor Haven on Numot ever, provided he leaves my land alone, or promise not to use any counters/removal found via azcanta on his stuff. Neither of those would have been any big sacrifice, since he was so far down the totem pole, threat-wise. I also should have offered him hippos/life, which I'm surprised I didn't do, in retrospect, although tbh he seemed dead-set on killing my lands. Or maybe he just didn't want to do any deals regardless.

It's also true that, if say I was playing against 3 Teshar-style combo decks, there's probably nothing to be done. I can't fight 3 players at once if none of them are interacting with each other. That was essentially how this played out, for the most part. Ignoring that I maybe should have tried other tactics politically, I think the deck did an admirable job of keeping multiple players in check for so long, considering all 3 had many problematic cards for me to deal with. Mostly this was on the back of Azcanta. Although I do wonder if, without Azcanta, I would have been seen as a lesser threat by the Marchesa and Numot player.

Anyway, I'm still assessing how much I think the game was my fault for poor politicking, and how much was just a perfect storm of bad matchups that was out of my control. The game still wasn't over, so it's possible I could have won, but it would have been a Pyrrhic victory at best, since I was basically forced to play heavy control the entire game.

[materpillar]

Honestly, it was hard for me to tell what the Numot player's motivations were. Early in the game he cast a war's toll, which I was basically forced to counter, and I asked him why he would play a card like that which probably does almost nothing to hamper the other decks, but makes it harder for me to interact with them, when I was almost certainly not going to bother using much of my interaction on the Numot player as his deck was far less powerful. Again, he had flimsy justification - something about how he didn't think war's toll would make it easier for a combo deck to go off, which is just ridiculous - if I weren't there or weren't able to interact, guaranteed Teshar would have won every game...

...Much like economics, this deck does depend on our opponents acting in rational self-interest in order to work, which I think was the biggest failing in this game, from Numot.

I've been thinking about this deck a reasonable amount since Kenrith, the Returned King was spoiled. I was wondering how you feel about him as a general? Is he not resilient enough for you?

[DirkGently]

I've been thinking about this deck a reasonable amount since Kenrith, the Returned King was spoiled. I was wondering how you feel about him as a general? Is he not resilient enough for you?

I do have some interest in building Kenrith, although I want a non-foil copy which is pretty tricky to get here in NZ where I live now I guess. In terms of comparison to Phelddagrif, he does have more versatility in his abilities, being able to reanimate enemies and draw them cards without bouncing is neat. There are two main things I see as preventing him from accomplishing the same goal as Phelddy, though - for one thing, he's a much less reliable wincon on his own. He can get trample, but not flying, and of course he can't bounce himself for protection. The other thing is that, while can be political, he certainly doesn't have to be, all of his abilities work just fine for yourself. Of course you can give a disclaimer at the beginning of the game, that you don't have any gross reanimation targets, but that always feels a little lame to me.

Part of what appeals to me about Phelddagrif is that you can use giving your opponents resources as an advantage, which is pretty strange from the mindset of 1v1 magic. You can still do that with Kenrith, obviously, but it will usually beg the question "wouldn't it be better to just give yourself that advantage?" For example, the draw ability. Giving an opponent cards could be advantageous in the right scenario. But giving yourself cards will nearly always be advantageous, so why wouldn't you just always choose yourself? You could choose enemies for the sake of being political, but in most circumstances that's going to feel a bit too much like misplaying on purpose. I'll admit that it's a fine line between intentionally withholding threats compared to this scenario, but I think it's real. I'm having a hard time verbalizing the distinction right now, though.

I think Kenrith can basically be Phelddagrif-light: there will be times when it's advantageous to give enemies help, and you can play politics pretty effectively with him, but I think he's likely to be a lot more proactive and use his abilities for himself most of the time. That said - that sounds like a lot of fun, and I would like to play him. Right now my collection is in boxes on the opposite side of the world, though, so even if I managed to acquire him (in non-foil!) I wouldn't really be able to build him for another few months at a minimum.

[mr_abomination]

I build this deck for my most recent commander game and ho boy, is it ever fun to play!

My opponents were a Rhys token deck, a Zedruu pillow fort deck, and the first draft of a Morophon oops all lords deck. The game progressed fairly well, I hit my land drops and got an early thaumic compass, Zedruu started getting enchantments down, and Rhys started building an army. Eventually I managed to drop an Hour of Revelation and kill a mimic vat that had Rhys under it.

To the surprise of everyone (well, everyone but me) it came down to Rhys with a board full of tokens and me with a 6/6 Phelddagrif thanks to a Primal Vigor. After an EOT evacuation my opponent conceded as he saw where the game was going. I finally got my first win with this group and I couldn't be happier which deck it was with.

Some things I noticed throughout the game:

• Nobody really paid attention to me, content to let me sit back and moderate and politic everyone
• I had a full grip nearly the entire game, even having to discard a wipe at one point
• Pulse of the Fields was an all star, I managed to get back up to parity with everyone in a few turns after Zedruu gave me an Illusions of Grandeur
• I felt really starved for green mana to give out hippos (I've added a few more green sources to help with that)
• Playing helpful/inefficient answers makes everyone feel better - nobody was mad when they got hit by a Spell Swindle and the card draw from Arcane Denial helps smooth things over.

My play group consists of poor university students, so allow proxies as long as the card is under $50 and isn't a fetchland, so with that in mind could you take a look at the deck and give me your thoughts? It's mostly a budgetless build with the landbase changed and the crazy expensive cards removed. We're a fairly low power group without any crazy fast combo players, so mostly we win through combat and sometimes alt win cons (infect, approach). The main thing I want thoughts on is the land base, it feels like I have a lot of taplands but I'm not sure if that's really an issue with what the deck wants to do.

The last big question I have is how fast do you try and get Phelddagrif down? Is it worthwhile turn 4, or better to wait until turn 5 to keep blue up for protection?

Deck - the name came from my buddy after he realized I was mostly letting people do their thing before they got out of hand

[DirkGently]

Hey, glad you're enjoying it!

-Green mana is always kind of a bastard because hippos are arguably the most useful thing we can give away (cards being tricky because it makes up bounce Phelddy), but green is also pretty useless at casting control spells outside of a couple mostly artifact/enchantment-aimed removal spells and some value cards. I tend to go pretty light on green sources, but I also have fetches/duals/etc so I can get more green if I want it. With a budget manabase it can be tricky for sure, though, I'd say it's personal preference...more blue/white for scary/competitive/fast metas, more green for safer ones where you expect to spend more mana politicking than constantly reigning it in your opponents.

-I run cycling duals in my build because of (1) loam and (2) fetches. Since you don't have either, I'd skip them. loam does make exploration a lot better though, so you could go down that route. Or cut exploration, I could also see doing, you might not have the juice to fuel it efficiently enough to justify (your discretion on that one).

-I'd probably cut a few utility lands, like detection tower and alchemist's refuge (you already have arcane lighthouse which is much better than tower) so you have less colorless mana.

-Shocklands are fine but unexciting without fetches imo.

-as far as how much etbt is too much, it really comes down to how fast the meta is imo. If you're doing fine controlling the game with etbt lands then you're probably fine. If a meta is pretty slow even a fully-etbt landbase is probably ok. I tend to build for a "just in case" mentality against cEDH so I run mostly non-etbt lands (also because I have the budget for it).

-When I cast Phelddagrif depends a lot on how scary I think the table is. If there are scary combo decks about, I'm probably not casting Phelddagrif for a pretty long time tbh. If it's a casual table and I don't see myself wanting to board wipe the next turn (or someone else doing it) I might slam him down on 4. Usually for a 75% table I'll play him on 5 with a blue up to bounce him, though. And ideally some manaless or 1-mana counterspell juuust in case.

[WolfWhoWanders]

Quite an interesting deck, and one I've enjoyed to play. I will say that if you have a regular playgroup this isn't really the deck for that... They will quickly tire of your shenanigans. It shines when you bring it to tables with a rotating cast of players you are not familiar with. This also makes it more challenging to play, as you have to anticipate actions of people you don't really know. Certainly a deck with a high skill cap and one that requires personality to successfully pilot

[Kapusta]

Quite an interesting deck, and one I've enjoyed to play. I will say that if you have a regular playgroup this isn't really the deck for that... They will quickly tire of your shenanigans. It shines when you bring it to tables with a rotating cast of players you are not familiar with. This also makes it more challenging to play, as you have to anticipate actions of people you don't really know. Certainly a deck with a high skill cap and one that requires personality to successfully pilot

Even with a regular group, I find that I can often play it. It's now my go to "fun" deck. My table seems to always underestimate it one way or another. They always think they can wait to deal with me till its too late... Eventually they'll hate it, but it's also a good lesson for them in threat assessment and true value.

[DirkGently]

In my experience it works fine so long as you mix it up with other decks. I could see people getting sick of it if it's all you play, but so long as you've got other stuff as a palate cleanser it's been fine for me. Although I'm fairness even my consistent groups are large so I don't play the exact same people every week.

But I haven't done anything rigorous to test this hypothesis, and I rarely play phelddagrif more than 2 games per night since it can result in really long games.

[Kapusta]

Yep, games are long for sure. Especially if you're against a removal heavy deck at the end. But it's fun all the same. I often only play him once a session and that's enough for the night. Wins every time tho 😊

[DirkGently]

Quick rundown for the new set;

heliod's intervention - the artifact/enchantment removal, at instant speed, with flexible targets that doesn't hit our telepathy is pretty slick. Maybe too pricey for true cEDH but a really strong card. The backup mode is no small add either, could do major work against big mana X spells, purphoros, vial smasher, nekusar, and other group slug decks.

Thassa's intervention - I really like this card conceptually, but both modes are maybe just a little too inefficient. The counter mode is pretty terrible on basically any mana cost, and the draw spell is almost always going to be a lot worse than dig. If the counter mode could somehow be 1 mana less I'd be all over it, but the minimum cost being 3 AND not ever being a guaranteed counter - even if it's a likely one - late in the game are pretty big knocks. The draw half is pretty solid, but definitely not a card I'd think about seriously standalone, considering how unfavorably it compares to, say, pull from tomorrow.

nylea's intervention - wow, all 3 are worth talking about. This one is more cute than good I think. The hurricane part is an ok alt mode I guess, but mostly it's for the multi-land tutor. Which is ok, but I feel like I'd rather have something like hour of promise to just put them directly into play - adding 3+ utility lands to my hand seems kind of pointless, and I'm likely to just discard most of them, so I'd rather just pay a slight premium to get them into play right away. And I don't really play hour of promise anyway. Idk, if this was an instant I'd think about it harder but as a sorcery, nah.

shatter the sky - i guess if you want to trade phelddagrif tax for a card. But mostly it's just another ok board wipe. Maybe if you really feel you need more 4-mana ones.

wavebreak hippocamp - man, I wish this was an enchantment that wasn't a creature because the effect is great. Anyway it's fine, could be run if you're ok with creatures but I really try not to run any personally.

whirlwind denial - this card mostly just seems cute and not actually good, but I do like the flexibility for sure. In the right scenario it's almost a time stop. But idk, it seems pretty medium in this format tbh, not reliable enough, and at 3 mana I really want it to be reliable.

glimpse of freedom - eh, it's a draw engine but it's really really slow, not much payoff. Lots of other stuff I'd run over it.

cling to dust - obviously we can't run this, but damn do I wish we could run this. Sure, it's a pretty weak draw engine, but it's a draw engine that's also efficient grave hate. Even lifegain in a real pinch. Card is sweet, love that flexibility.

ichthyomorphosis - man, there are so many of these things now. Remember when lignify was considered one of the best green cards because it was so unique?

soul-guide lantern - another pretty decent piece of grave hate. run it if you need it i guess.

labyrinth of skophos - I think it's kind of hard to believe that there could be a deck that would really want this, given that we've already got the other maze, plus ith and compass - especially since we're 3-color with some pretty color-intensive stuff. But idk, options are nice i guess. could be better than the other maze if you're worried about etbs, though it's much worse vs tokens.

Top 3: heliod's intervention, thassa's intervention, whirlwind denial. Pretty mediocre for us, ah well. I think heliod's is the only one I'm seriously considering for my list.

[Kapusta]

I agree with the Heliod's Intervention. All others are definitely medium at best. Whirlwind might go in because it's quite unique and can find some good combos to disrupt. I think it fits with the theme in two ways: it ultimately can stop a game winning combo, and send the tables attention elsewhere. "Hey guys look! He just about comboed off, shouldn't we all deal with him?". Sure it might not be the best, but it does have value enough to consider for me

[Liberi]

Hi, I really love the deck and the idea beside it, so i'd like to thank you for sharing it with us
I decided to build it, but before I have a question for you: i followed your comments about the problematic of cards advantage and i'd like to know what are your conclusions, can i see your final list?
Thanks!!

[DirkGently]

Glad you like it! The card advantage I'm currently running is:

• search for azcanta
• intuition
• pulse of the grid
• sensei's divining top
• life from the loam (with deserts for cycling)

and then some tutors:

• muddle the mixture
• merchant scroll
• spellseeker
• mystical tutor
• wargate
• intuition

I think it might be too much, though, so you might be better off leaving something out.

[Liberi]

Finally all the cards i ordered from MagicCardMarket have arrived!
I've already played some games and oh boy this deck is not easy to play at all! The decisions we must take are numerous and very impactful! I'm sure time and experience will help me...

It has been a long time since i started to follow your guide and your updates, but a newbie like me finds several difficulties in translating your conclusions in practical deck building.

So my question is: Can you share with us your actual deck list?

I know there's a guide list, but it seems things changed a bit and i really don't want to miss something, especially since i can't play very often and therefore i can't test a lot. For example many other primer creators update regularly their personal list and i think that can really help players without much experience.

Anyway, thanks again for the primer!

[DirkGently]

I went ahead and stuck my current list in the OP. I should point out that I'm testing some stuff out, though, so it's probably a bit heavy on value/tutors and light on counters/removal than an idealized list.

[Liberi]

Thanks a lot!

What do you think about Realms Uncharted?
It's very good with Loam and it's an instant, but is it worth the inclusion in your opinions?

[DirkGently]

If intuition didn't exist it'd be pretty good. The problem is that, if you're loaming, intuition is so much better. Otherwise you'd need another tutor to get loam.

[DirkGently]

Full spoiler isn't out yet for Ikoria, but I'll go ahead and do some evaluations for Commander 2020.

Of the free spells, probably the most competitive cycle, flawless maneuver is obviously pretty useless for us. obscuring haze is a ...fine?... fog, but we don't care about the asymmetrical nature of it and the mana cost isn't that relevant, so I don't think it'll displace the existing fogs that we only run sometimes anyway. fierce guardianship is the clear standout for us and yet...I don't think it's going into my list, personally. Simply because, when we play Phelddagrif, it's explicitly because we're pretty sure it's safe to go shields down, or at least give up 4 mana for a turn. Fierce guardianship lets us do that earlier, but what's the point? There's no rush to get Phelddagrif in play. On subsequent turns it gives us a free negate, but by that point we've probably already got plenty of mana. It's still a totally fine choice, but I don't think there's enough going for it to make me want to run it over something else. It kind of does the free/pay thing the opposite way I want. I want my free spells early (like FoW or FoN), and pay mana late. fierce guardianship wants me to pay early and get it for free late.

binding ornament is a reasonable mana rock slash CA generator. But we don't really play mana rocks.

The impetuses are adorable but we're really looking do that politically and not physically.

glademuse is kind of good for us. Also kinda risky since it's huggy. And it's a creature, so that part is ew. Chuck it into the bin of "reasonable choices for CA that probably won't ever get used because there are too many better options.".

nesting grounds can go infinite with karn's bastion and magosi, the waterveil if you wanted to win via an all-lands combo. Not my cup of tea personally. Don't think there's any other real use for it, though I'd love to be proven wrong.

dismantling wave is a fine card, but it's a sorcery and the cycling ability is absurdly expensive. Plus I've never been overenamored with symmetrical effects like that. Obviously you don't HAVE to kill something of everyone's, but you are paying for it either way.

That's all I'm seeing. So not much of anything unfortunately.

From the main set I'm seeing wilt and that's about it lol. Well, frequently the good removal gets revealed later in the season so who knows. Anyway "it's about big monsters" was never really a theme that sounded like it was going to give us a bunch of new stuff for Phelddagrif.

[Kapusta]

I agree with you that Wilt is likely the only card I'd consider for this deck so far. Other removal or value cards are either too expensive, not enough value, a permanent that I don't want to play (Trying to keep with this deck's theme) or just plain cheeky and overall a medium card. Wilt feels good here because it can always replace itself if not needed.