jaishivajai wrote: ↑3 years ago
With budget constraints, you should be playing 37 lands at least. Easy trade, Arbor elves for land. Plushpenguin gets away with 36 due to
Ancient Tomb and multiple cards that search for a specific land. W/out ancient tomb and cheap search for land cards, play 37 lands. We need to get to six mana on turn 5 or earlier given the power of Xenagos's plus ability. In fact, you will be served better by a
Gruul Signet over a llanowar elves as well. Gruul signet adds no devotion, and can recoup some mana the turn it comes out. Mana ramp on creatures is just worse than ramp on artifacts due to boardwipes and creature removal being more prevalent.
Well hello there, i came late to the topic but i Will be very active from now on. Firstly it has been quite a Journey for me since i brew this deck till today and it's very well described by penguin's perspective. SO thank You very much for so detailed history of the deck.
Now i differ from jaishvahai here, in many other decks your statement would be true. But with xenaghos turn one is precious and a mana dork is the difference Even to play a
cultivate turn 2 and ensure xenaghos turn 3. While mana rocks are great and more protected leave u only 3 cards out of 99 to play turn 1 without dorks.
I could Even Say that in cases dorks could be better than land enchantments because it's removability from the board allows You to re use the devotion they were using with something else while in late Game the land enchantments tend to turn on xenaghos. But lets face it we want more mana and we don't want it to dissapear.
Every piece earns its place. I only run rocks that give me My colours,
Sol Ring and
thought vessel as another piece to save My burst draws. And learned the hard way that only 2 or 3 rocks are allowed in the 99.
grull signet it's useless turn 2 and can't be considered a rock in that turn, it's like it had sickness that turn so will not allow You to develope your board as a turn 1 dork. I have the signet in My 99 but would not choose it over My birds of paradise both are good in different scenarios, as land sol ring and signet turn 1 and xenaghos turn 2 but that does not happend a lot.
I had never played 37 lands with this deck, i rather play 2 or 3 ramps of 2cmc and 34-35 lands son i have less need and more opportunity to filter lands.
I still strugle with the
Overgrowth enchantment since in late games ussually a cultivate would for 3 mana put 1 untapped (the one in ur hand) and not contribute on devotion... We only have 1 or 2 dorks to untap forrests so not counting that as a plus to make a case fot that enchantment.
Stoped ussing removals as
lignify enchantments too for that matter (it's a great card but devotion....), i use the ram through better. Cause it removes and ads dmg.
Reason is, we have better ench as carpet of flowers and greatter good that if they are on the battlefield are more needed than land based ramp, and leaves us only 2 devotion for ur fatties to turn on xenaghos. Creatures with 3 devotion have to be worth it, as godo combo and crasher.
Pd. I'm from Venezuela so My deck is always somewhat budget based on our crappy economy.
At two mana we will easily be able to combo this up with an additional spell late game for insane damage potential. Keep in mind with Quartzwood Crasher and Elder gargaroth, we keep gaining viable 4-5 drops. So for 6-7 mana we can play a beater and unleash fury, easy to do midgame. Unleash fury is easy to back up with a protection spell as well, like Vines of Vastwood. In fact these 2 cards provide 16 extra damage on their own if you don't need to save vines as a protection spell. Unleash fury will be a game ender, I guarantee it.
