Samut Beats

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SocorroTortoise
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Post by SocorroTortoise » 4 years ago

Most of the Samut decks I see posted are trying to do cute things with the untap ability. To me, that's not giving nearly enough credit to the fact that she's a very efficient beatdown creature. Unassisted, she's a 4 turn general damage clock. Any power boost takes that to a 3 turn clock and a 3 power boost or damage doubling effect takes that to a 2 turn clock. This deck is trying to capitalize on that. Samut represents a quick lethal threat without much support, so a lot of the deck can be dedicated to other threats that play well with the same kinds of buffs. The overarching theme of the deck is that because Samut can quickly get to a point where a general damage kill is possible and comes in with haste, opponents will have to hold removal for her rather than burning it on the other beaters in the list.
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Fifteen cards in the list can make Samut a 2 turn clock as long as she connects: Kessig Wolf Run (evasion), Aurelia, the Warleader (must survive combat), Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, Godo, Bandit Warlord (must survive combat), Kamahl, Fist of Krosa (evasion, with mana investment), Rhonas the Indomitable (evasion, with mana investment), Verderous Gearhulk, Xenagos, God of Revels, Evolutionary Escalation, Ajani, Mentor of Heroes, Elspeth, Knight-Errant (evasion), Loxodon Warhammer (evasion), O-Naginata (evasion), Sword of Truth and Justice, and Umezawa's Jitte. There are plenty of others that get her to a 3 turn clock, and a lot of them combo together to get to either a 2 turn or 1 turn clock. They also all have the advantage of supporting other efficient beaters in the deck. There's also a heavy focus on evasion - lots of trample and a couple more exotic types, like horsemanship.

There's some protection, but the main plan is to overload removal with too many targets rather than play a more tempo-y protect-the-queen game. Aside from Heroic Intervention, all of the protection doubles as evasion or reach. For other supporting cards, there could probably be a little more card draw. That's always tricky to balance in more proactive lists. I don't really want to focus on cards that rely on a single creature surviving because I'm expecting them to be removed and a lot of them need some support to get big. The two that are here, Hunter's Prowess and Raishkar's Expertise, both have some advantage above pure card draw, so I'm OK paying more for them. Ramp selections were made with the consideration that 3 and 5 are the most important points on my curve, so ramp that takes me from 1 to 3 (with a land drop) or 3 to 5 are much higher value than others. I'd like to find room for another mana dork or two and probably another couple 3 CMC ramps spells, likely Nissa's Pilgrimage, Coalition Relic, or Worn Powerstone. That's mostly a question of what gets cut.
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Subject16
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Post by Subject16 » 4 years ago

I used to have a Samut Beatdown deck (link) and I see a lot of similar cards here. What I would say is that although you have a nice mix of big enablers for Samut, some of your creatures seem a little bit small to pack enough punch (like Swiftblade Vindicator or Markov Blademaster.) I ran a few more Equipment than you did, my favorites being Hammer of Nazahn and Tenza, Godo's Maul. You can also run Helm of the Host and go infinite with Godo or Aurelia if that suits your fancy. Stonehewer Giant does wonders especially with the untap potential.

I think it is important to play Samut's untap to your advantage when you want her to. Cards like Mother/Giver of Runes, big mana generators like Somberwald Sage or Selvala, Explorer Returned who also draws you cards.

Being able to cheat beaters into play was always my favorite method of dishing out karma. Selvala's Stampede or See the Unwritten both have great potential to become absurd on resolution. Big useful beaters like Sun Titan, Inferno Titan, Zacama, Primal Calamity or Etali, Primal Storm can all smash face whilst also giving you superior board presence. My favourite creature with Samut though is Pathbreaker Ibex. With just Samut and it on the board alone, you get a 6/7 Double Strike Trample beater with a powered up board that follows, and that's the floor - it only gets higher (for example with Zacama on the board). I highly recommend the goat.

I'm glad someone else has recognized Samut's beatstick capability.

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Post by lyonhaert » 4 years ago

I've been thinking about making a Kalemne voltron, but Samut is looking really nice now. :thinking:
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SocorroTortoise
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Post by SocorroTortoise » 4 years ago

Subject16 wrote:
4 years ago
I used to have a Samut Beatdown deck (link) and I see a lot of similar cards here. What I would say is that although you have a nice mix of big enablers for Samut, some of your creatures seem a little bit small to pack enough punch (like Swiftblade Vindicator or Markov Blademaster.) I ran a few more Equipment than you did, my favorites being Hammer of Nazahn and Tenza, Godo's Maul. You can also run Helm of the Host and go infinite with Godo or Aurelia if that suits your fancy. Stonehewer Giant does wonders especially with the untap potential.

I think it is important to play Samut's untap to your advantage when you want her to. Cards like Mother/Giver of Runes, big mana generators like Somberwald Sage or Selvala, Explorer Returned who also draws you cards.

Being able to cheat beaters into play was always my favorite method of dishing out karma. Selvala's Stampede or See the Unwritten both have great potential to become absurd on resolution. Big useful beaters like Sun Titan, Inferno Titan, Zacama, Primal Calamity or Etali, Primal Storm can all smash face whilst also giving you superior board presence. My favourite creature with Samut though is Pathbreaker Ibex. With just Samut and it on the board alone, you get a 6/7 Double Strike Trample beater with a powered up board that follows, and that's the floor - it only gets higher (for example with Zacama on the board). I highly recommend the goat.

I'm glad someone else has recognized Samut's beatstick capability.
I definitely skipped over the 3 CMC mana dorks on this iteration and I think that was an oversight. I'm not sure I like drawing the rest of the table into cards with Selvala given how threatening I am most of the time, but Somberwald Sage or Shaman of Forgotten Ways both seem like easy includes. I also missed that I still had Sakura-Tribe Elder in the list, so I'll probably drop that and Gruul War Chant (maybe?) for Shaman and another 1 drop dork, either Elvish Mystic or Fyndhorn Elves depending on which I dig up first. The big mana elements of them are better suited for another list. by the time Samut comes down in this deck, I can already play 94/99 cards in the deck and another land drop brings that to 98/99 (raw power and a general love of the card are the only things keeping Gisela, Blade of Goldnight in the list, too. I've considered her for cuts a few times). There's not as much need to go bigger unless I'm trying to double spell, which is not always a good plan. The creatures tend to be either standalone threats or need limited support, so swarming the board is usually just overextending into a wrath more than pressing advantage. I also do like playing threats pre-combat with Samut out and don't like tapping Samut instead of swinging, so there's some tension there. That's also why I like having the little double strikers. They're cheap enough to come down and still pay equip costs or another non-creature buff without committing Samut to it, so everyone can still swing.

The big creature plan that you mention is definitely the right place to take advantage of that interaction, but that would look like a very different list. The curve toppers here are largely cards that come down and make an existing board even more threatening in addition to being powerful standalone threats. Godo, Bandit Warlord and Aurelia, the Warleader both turn Samut into a 2 turn clock with no support and can be 4 turn clocks on their own. Kamahl, Fist of Krosa should probably be Pathbreaker Ibex, because it has much the same effect without any additional investment. They were originally both in the list and I think I made the wrong cut here. Subjugator Angel is probably the weakest of the creature options, but it does blow board stalls wide open and this effect is surprisingly hard to find outside of blue. Rishkar's Expertise is more expensive than I like, but it regains some value for the free cast. Even then, it's one of the cards I'm usually looking to replace. I don't like that it can't recover from a wrath. Gisela, Blade of Goldnight I mentioned earlier. I have a soft spot for angels, which is why there are so many of them at the top of the curve here. She does a number on most boards, supports existing boards, turns Samut into a 2 turn clock on her own, works with a lot of other buffs to make it a 1 shot, and is generally a favorite card of mine. Even with all the upside, 7 CMC is painful and she's constantly near the chopping block for me.

If I went heavier on the 6+ CMC standalone threats, I'd be shifting the deck to play a lot more ramp to try and get to that stage of the game more quickly and reliably. I've played decks like that in the past and they're a ton of fun. I think my record for Selvala's Stampede is close to 40 CMC of creatures in a 4 player game. What I'm trying to do here is put early pressure on the table with more aggressive creatures that can still scale well into the late game with some support, then use the curve toppers to get in for the last bit of damage. What you're describing has more inevitability. You're almost always going to have the biggest dudes at the table and Samut is more of a support beater (haste, ramp through the big dorks) in addition to being a decent solo threat. That said, Inferno Titan does play really well with what I'm trying to do here and works as either reach or a solid standalone threat. I'll probably try and fit that at some point, as well as Price of Progress for some additional late game reach.

On equipment, Tenza is always right on the cusp for me. The thing that holds it back is that it's worse with a lot of other creatures despite being great with Samut, which makes it fit better into a pure voltron strategy. Aside from O-Naginata, all of the equipment and other targeted buffs in my list go equally well on the little double strikers and other beaters, which Tenza doesn't do as well. Hammer just doesn't do what I'm looking for. It's not enough of a buff to make Samut a 2 turn kill and doesn't offer any evasion. I'm not heavy enough on equipment to really take advantage of the trigger, so it's really just the indestructible left. If I do go for more defensive equipment, that's top of the list because it also provides a power boost. Helm isn't here because it's horrendously expensive without cheating one or both of the costs and I don't have any interest in the combo applications.

I did take a look at your list and I like it a lot. It's just a different focus than what I'm doing here - for example, I'm pretty sure Evolutionary Escalation would be mediocre for you at best and I've been loving the card.
lyonhaert wrote:
4 years ago
I've been thinking about making a Kalemne voltron, but Samut is looking really nice now. :thinking:
I've started planning out Kalemne a few times, and every time I've realized I'd rather just be playing Samut again. Green gives such easy access to buffs and trample. Kalemne having a built in buff on top of coming down earlier at the same offensive size is definitely nice, though.
[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box

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