LaHistorica's Sythis, Harvest's Hand

[BlackbirdPlaysMTG]

Hello Primer Committee,

I would like to apply for the status of primer for my Sythis, Harvest's Hand deck: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=39703&p=190470#p190470. There is no primer for a Selesnya commander yet and Sythis is the most popular one among them. I have been playing enchantress deck for three years now, and when Sythis was spoiled I could not resist building her. Before Sythis was printed I used to play Karametra, Tuvasa and Estrid. I have been tweaking and playing the current Sythis deck since she was spoiled in Modern Horizons 2 (June 2021), and I have been playing her in two LGS's (each with their own crowd) and online on cockatrice.

Extra information... currently still adding information to the primer and tweaking it from time to time, so I see it as a work in progress.

Best,
Timotheos

[Rumpy5897]

Hey @LaHistorica,

Thanks for submitting your Sythis for Primer status. The PC folks are now going to read through your thread and jot down various suggestions, which will then be collated and passed back to you. This may take a while, depending on how slammed people are with real life matters. Feel free to bump the thread if you haven't heard back in about two weeks or so.

If you need assistance with anything that comes up, e.g. formatting requests, ask away. We're trying to help bring out the best in your post, which may lead you to some unfamiliar territory. We'll be happy to provide direct support, be it via more detailed explanations, explicit code snippets, whatever you need.

Once you're done with any tweaks, post in this thread and we'll give the write-up another look. This process may iterate a couple of times, seeing how your post will feature new bits we haven't seen before which will impact it as a whole. That said, any subsequent feedback tends to be more minor and usually arrives quicker.

Sincerely,
Rumpy5897 on behalf of the Primer Committee

[Rumpy5897]

Hey @LaHistorica,

Sythis is the flagship enchantress commander, it's great that you took her on. Your write-up is nice and clean, you get your points across well. This serves as a good foundation to get any potential reader slinging Sythis successfully.

A couple of us took a look at your post, and a few suggestions were made:

• The strategy section, the mid and late game parts in particular, could use some more meat. All your raised points are valid and presented succinctly. Maybe look at the list of talking points in the primer template for inspiration, and possibly elaborate a bit more on some of the points you already raise? For example, I struggle with closing out games with finite swarms of small tokens, so a bit more guidance on how to "get there" off the back of something like Archon of Sun's Grace in a 120 life format would be nice. Don't worry, asking for extra strategy has happened in just about every primer submission during my tenure, it's fine to double up on some points from your card options too if you want.
• Add some notable exclusions, cards that people could run or could expect to see in a Sythis list, in their own spoiler sub-section. Some stuff to get you started would be function-over-form removal like Swords to Plowshares, and combo pieces that would be strong.
• While the content itself is solid, moving some stuff around would be good for overall post clarity:
  • The primer history box is a nice personal touch, but it'd be better positioned somewhere with the change log at the bottom.
  • The deck philosophy box feels like it should sit just before the deck list, as it covers some important general construction ideas you then adhere to.
  • You could consider reordering your card options by role rather than type. The Nexus deck tag is quite cool, if you use the cog in the upper right corner there's an option to standardise sorting, which sorts it by type automatically. This way you can only have one deck list to maintain.

So yeah, what you've got is good, just move it around a little bit and add some notable excludes/extra strategy tips. If you need any help or anything is unclear, let us know in here and we'll try to help.

Sincerely,
Rumpy5897 on behalf of the Primer Committee

[BlackbirdPlaysMTG]

Thank you for all the feedback! I have moved some things around and I added more information, it should be clearer now. Currently still working on the Deck Strategy. It is reasonably fleshed out I think, but I would like to get your opinion.

[Rumpy5897]

That was some quick turn-around! Thanks for taking the thoughts on board, we'll take another look and get back to you

[Rumpy5897]

Hey @LaHistorica,

Sorry for taking a while, folks have been busy. The post is coming together nicely - the restructuring helps with the information flow, as do the headers in the strategy section. Nice touch! The section is telling a story, there's a continuity between the boxes, the reader is taken through the game plan as it builds up.

Here are some more specific questions to try to further flesh out the strategy section a bit:

• Elaborate a little bit when you first mention token producers in the mid game. Just name-drop a couple, maybe with a bit of explanation for how to get value out of them. Yeah, this sort of stuff is obvious to you. But it's good to have for a reader, you don't know how versed in the enchantress arts they are.
• On similar grounds, write out explicitly what Sterling Grove + Greater Auramancy accomplishes.
• There's a lot of potential to talk about playing around interaction:
  • How do you decide how much to commit to the board?
  • What is the right number of token producers to have out? When does this change?
  • If you get interacted out, be it a particularly surgical piece of spot removal or a proper wipe, how do you bounce back from that? How do you use recursion?
• While I see you added a bit about finishing, you could still add some more there. Finale of Devastation is a potent finisher, no?
• Seeing how your implied tutor priorities shift throughout the game, you could consider making an extra box and making a very brief cliff notes edition of what game states incentivise you to find what.

That's pretty much it, really. Your post was informative from the get go, just trying to get a bit more info into the strategy section and we should be good here. You're on the final straight!

Sincerely,
Rumpy5897 on behalf of the Primer Committee

[BlackbirdPlaysMTG]

Hey Rumpy5897 (and the rest of the team),

Have been working on the primer-to-be yesterday evening and this afternoon. I have added an entire section explain tutoring and I have expanded the 'Piloting The Deck' section substantially with all the advice and pointers I have been given. There is now more information about interaction and playing patterns throughout this section .

Best,
LaHistorica

[Rumpy5897]

Hey @LaHistorica,

There we go! The new additions really helped the strategy section, and the loosely suggested tutoring box turned out fantastic. This is exactly what the write-up needed, primer status granted. It may take a while to show up though, as we need to flag down users with appropriate permissions. Give us a poke if it's been a week to no effect. We hope to see you back with further builds

Some minor things were spotted, but all this stuff is easy to implement:

• Move the card options below the strategy discussion, to make the strategy section show up quicker for the reader.
• The Sythis popularity sentiment would read better without the date stamp on it.
• A solitary typo: "If your suspect removal, just go the save route and draw of Sythis" → "If you suspect removal, just go the safe route and draw off Sythis"

Going forward, keep your primer updated with any changes you may make to the deck, be it from new cards being released or any other fine-tuning of the innards. Part of the strength of the primers is the stewardship, with continued build maintenance allowing the write-up to remain an accurate guide on pursuing the commander. Dropping a post in thread discussing relevant cards when a new set comes out is generally a good idea, but don't feel obliged to churn out a large-scale set review if very little deserves attention.

Sincerely,
Rumpy5897 on behalf of the Primer Committee

[BlackbirdPlaysMTG]

Hey Rumpy5897,

Thanks for all the advice you have provided me with! I think there is still some room for textual improvement (as well as me slowly learning how to use BBcode), but I am pretty happy about the thread now. I have swapped the card options section and the strategy section, removed the date stamp and the typo.

Best,
LaHistorica

[Rumpy5897]

You are of course welcome to keep fiddling with your primer. For example, I reworked the strategy section in my Feather write-up some time last year once a critical mass of ridiculous new mana engines got printed.

If you ever want to consult anything, let us know and we'll be happy to help. We have some bbcode wizards among our ranks too.

[BlackbirdPlaysMTG]

Hello primer committee,

As you can see I have not updated my Sythis, Harvest's Hand list in a few months now. I have been working on and playtesting Ellivere of the Wild Court (see the current Archidekt decklist in my signature) when she got released as one of the Wilds of Eldraine precons. Sythis has been in a weird spot for a while now. She either completely mopped the floor in pods because people could not deal with the enchantments and shroud stuff, or got combo'ed out by opponents because it is a slow Selesnya list which does not really have access to counterspells. There was no middle ground. Ellivere on the other hand has a more aggressive gameplan to pressure combo decks and is a lot of fun to play. I built her as an aggressive enchantress deck and did not go the staxy route (for the moment at least).

Would you guys be okay if I rewrite the primer to focus on Ellivere? I could still include the Sythis list (and give recommendations for it) or focus on (Selesnya) enchantress decks more broadly.

[Rumpy5897]

Hey, decks evolve, rewrite away No need to bend over backwards to accommodate the fact it used to be a Sythis build either.