Ok, I did get the landbase put together for now so I guess we will see how that goes.
I did a bit more thinking about my setup and my current list and I came to the conclusion that the evasion granted by the three Incarnations (
Glory,
Filth, and
Wonder) is probably greater than I initially gave it credit for. The fact that we have a way to directly throw them to the bin outside of cast / sac or entomb is also really good and I think I am going to lean on that a bit more. I also think I am going to run some of the entomb things as I think the density of things I want in my grave is probably high enough. Those cards to put them directly in the bin are also going to replace a few of my other odd means of evasion and stuff to keep my guys alive.
Hawk wrote: ↑2 years ago
I've found in
Varina, Lich Queen and
Millicent, Restless Revenant (similar but different) that the most important thing is to "curve out" - your best draws will be creature into creature into Commander. I've also found in aggro-y UBx decks (Varina, Yuriko, Alela) that free/cheap interaction is pivotal in allowing you to develop a board but still interact.
A few other creatures I'd consider are...
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - first strike can be surprisingly effective early on with some +1/+1 counters; disruption is good.
Cloud of Faeries - "free" flier early; cycle late.
Vault Skirge - it's no
Serra Ascendant, but it will do.
Mausoleum Wanderer - you don't have a ton of spirits synergy, but this card is still good.
Ghostly Pilferer - this thing looks clunky but has been an absolute house in my meta.
You could run any number of Flying Men beyond that but you don't have a ton of space; those are all my favorites that you aren't already running since they're all either incredible early or non-terrible late or both.
In terms of interaction, I'll give a shout to
Force of Despair,
Misdirection, and
Snuff Out as some considerations beyond obvious low-MV stuff like
Infernal Grasp,
Swords to Plowshares,
Swan Song,
Counterspell, and
Arcane Denial.
EDIT: One thing I forgot that surprised me on my Varina's test flight is that I thought I'd have effectively infinite cards with Varina's text, but since it's a loot and not a draw effect I frequently found myself out of gas in the mid to lategame. So if you are in doubt, it wouldn't hurt to just slam some more good draw spells (
Painful Truths,
Fact or Fiction.
Treasure Cruise,
Dig Through Time,
Chart a Course) to keep your hand good and full.
- Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - starting out I really didn't want to feel like I had to put counters on them as there isn't a lot of incentive to do so other than to keep them alive. Thalia when she is good is already enough of a target so my concern was more that it could be hard to do combat with a lot of the hatebears but as I was talking above I think my Incarnations might be able to provide more evasion than I initially gave them credit for. I will add her in and see how it goes. I do like her against a lot of spellslinger decks as they tend to love spamming spells.
- Cloud of Faeries - It is free mana wise but I don't know where I stand on card advantage yet for me to feel confident adding a vanilla flyer to my deck.
- Vault Skirge - I guess it depends on how much I value one drops / lifelinkers. I don't feel like I am able to push for tempo quite this hard if I am being honest but I might just need to see it in action first.
- Mausoleum Wanderer - Oh, I do like the sac option where I can have some counters on it and make it living hell to cast spells lol. Given its a one drop with evasion I think I could get behind that.
- Ghostly Pilferer - Interesting I don't think I have seen that card played before. Its fun how he draws cards off opponents playing their commanders. I am a little hesitant from the standpoint that it doesn't have evasion but I did just include Thalia despite that issue. I will have to think a bit more on this one as I think the draw is cute but I don't really care for the rest of it.
Spells - Yea I am still mulling over a lot of things as far as my removal package goes. Most of the synergy I have been playing around with goes into creatures and some random madness / threshold / flashback stuffs. I could expand my counterspell or protection plan but most of that stuff isn't all that on synergy other than if it keeps me moving forward. But then there is always the issue of if I pack indestructible as a protection and walk into
Toxic Deluge /
Cyclonic Rift and its useless. I might pick out a few more cheap counterspells but I don't know where I feel I need to be yet on spot removal and protection from it.
Card Advantage - I have been mulling over a few options for card advantage possibly dipping into some of the variations of Coastal Piracy just from the standpoint that they are still affordable to cast but they ideally do a lot more than a one shot Painful Truths given the composition of the deck. I think I will likely need to do some testing before I really get a feel for where I stand and need to be.
pokken wrote: ↑2 years ago
ISBPathfinder wrote: ↑2 years ago
Inkshield - I think its a cool effect but keeping five mana up just seems too unwieldy for a deck that is going to try to be proactive.
The thing is you probably will get to a point where you have 5-6 bodies and are looting 5 every turn, and you don't want to commit more to the board. That's what I find with Breena. Having those interactive spells in just enough volume to usually get to 1 or 2 of them usually pays great dividends. Sculpt your hand, fill your yard, don't need to overcommit.
Comeuppance or
Selfless Squire might be more useful (since it's a big body as well).
The other thing on something like Inkshield is I encounter so many decks that don't attack me as their wincon. I am more likely to consider
Comeuppance due to this but even that falls short when someone goes for a
Thassa's Oracle win. Someone tried convincing me that they were including Oracle in their deck the other day because they thought that the card selection from it was good. I just laughed at him and asked him to let me know the next time he cast oracle for the scry effect.
Good call, I had to check the rules on how that works but it looks like it works how we would want it to. I was going to resort to some
Coastal Piracy tactics potentially but I think that seems better even though it puts more dependency on the commander it also draws even when you get blocked which the piracy doesn't do.
Alhammarret's Archive good call, I will probably see how the enchantment version goes over first and go from there. I agree with Polkin that it could be a little heavy on the commander dependence.
I am a bit so so on cards that only give indestructible. I let
Selfless Spirit and
Linvala, Shield of Sea Gate in but they both have evasion naturally and provide more utility / fit the curve better. My issue with indestructability as a defense is that its sort of a crap defense these days with a lot of things getting through it.
Sun Titan - I thought about it but he is a six drop with more reliance on the graveyard. I have a lot of graveyard reliance already and given that he is higher on the curve and doesn't discard well himself I opted to avoid him. If I go too deep on the graveyard stuff I can get really wrecked by grave hate so I have been trying to stick more to things that discard well that give me value off of themselves having been discarded instead.
Late to Dinner - Its ok, it has some of the same issues I have with Sun Titan but I think you could also go with a deck that has intent to reanimate larger scale threats into play early its just not the direction I went with my first take of this commander. Most of my creatures ended up being very small so I sprinked a little bit of mass reanimation in for them but am mostly just not running much for dedicated reanimation.
pzbw7z wrote: ↑2 years ago
Together they would be absurd! X times four! Baby!
Lol that sounds a little winmore. I am not opposed to testing the effects out but I focused a lot of the card advantage to the deck itself and discarding things with madness / self reanimate things / flashback.
pokken wrote: ↑2 years ago
The draw doublers feel like super winmore most of the time to me. You can probably find some ways to generate CA that are both more explosive and not as telegraphed and also good at recovering from a deficit.
If you're drawing 7/discarding 6 every turn, plus whatever attack triggers your guys have, you should be in a pretty triumphant position.
I'd consider more along the lines of
Bident of Thassa effects if you really need this, since they're more efficient at the same thing and can't be countered by removing the single creature that has connive on it. But I don't think those are needed either.
(someone can fade your big draw off
Teferi's Ageless Insight entirely and basically cancel your whole turn by killing the creature, but if you Bident and swing with 10 guys you're likely to draw a bunch of cards...a lot more inevitable).
Just having a lot of the stuff you discard be virtual draw should be enough.
Hawk wrote: ↑2 years ago
Vault Skirge - it's no Serra Ascendant, but it will do.
Skirge was always great in my aggro tymna decks.
I should add that
Nullpriest of Oblivion has been real good in Breena for a similar effect.
Signal Pest maybe worth considering as a nice evasive way to jam some more power on.
You are correct in the commander reliance on it but the commander is also cheap with ward 1. Bident also is less efficient if opponents can block any of the attacks. I might do a little testing but just like, putting a single copy in and seeing how the deck does. That way I can see how the deck does with and without it.
Signal Pest - It might be. I think if it is worth it its probably on the back of it being an evasive one drop with pump rather than pump really being amazing. I assume that a lot of the work is going to be getting those +/+ counters on and putting in several attacks with them.
These changes officially get me to 100 cards so all changes will have to be 1 for 1 now for me at least.
ADD:
- Demonic Tutor - I started with the spicy synergy so I guess we get boring and go back and add some tutors.
- Vampiric Tutor - more tutors.
- Entomb - I have enough targets that more than make this card playable. Even on turn one I can entomb for Bloodghast and get set up on turn two for my turn three attacks.
- Buried Alive - I think right now my ideal setup is Bloodghast + Prized Amalgam + Wonder but that still leaves me with two backup Incantations that can be fetched. It seems like a strong package to have for now. I did hope I could somehow make Gravecrawler seem playable but I just wasn't confident in a zombie package for this list.
- Anguished Unmaking - Woops forgot to add this. Cutting Generous Gift for it as I prefer the exile.
- Austere Command - I realized that I could use the destroy 4+ cmc mode and miss most of my deck with it and that sounded great paired with either artifacts or enchantments. Seems like a great sweeper.
- Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - I think the hate for spellspam decks is good.
- Teferi's Ageless Insight - I guess we can give this effect a shot. It is a bit dependent on the commander to work but I think its strong if it works even once.
- Haazda Marshal - I wanted to keep my one mana creature count going strong. I like that it can make me tokens and I felt the evasion in the list might be enough that I don't have to pump him.
- Swan Song - Useful counterspell that hits a lot of the things I want opponents to not do (sweep or spot remove me).
- Mausoleum Wanderer - One drop with evasion that can also make my opponents lives hell to resolve things I don't want them to.
- Visions of Beyond - A sprinkle of cheap draw that can probably perform well given I should be filling my bin.
- Chrome Mox - Some tempo mana. I thought about it a bit more and really I just want to have fast and hard opening turns which felt like I needed some moxes for. I can always filter them if I draw them later and that is most of the reason that moxes can be awkward so it seems like a low downside include.
- Mox Diamond - Same as with chrome mox. Get some juicy early game turns.
CUT:
- Shaile, Dean of Radiance - I kept thinking about it and I wasn't convinced that it was going to do enough. I probably get a few creatures a turn and giving them +1/+1 each just didn't seem like it was going to pull its weight.
- Generous Gift - I cut it for Anguished Unmaking.
- Vampire of the Dire Moon - Add in some evasion and I suddenly don't value this vamp all that much. I opted to run some different one drops instead.
- Reconnaissance - Pushing for more entomb tutors and I felt they were a good replacement for this. The incarnations can serve the same purpose.
- Tymna the Weaver - Trying to cull more of my three drop creatures as they interfere with casting my commander. Tymna could realistically be a coastal piracy instead. Trying out some other things.
- Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive - Leaning more into the incarnations as my evasion. I don't like how Tetsuko's evasion doesn't work as soon as I use my commander to buff.
- Pithing Needle - Pithing is good with looting as you can throw it away when it isn't good but I just didn't feel it was central to what this deck is doing. Maybe it can come back later but I don't need pithing right now.
- Sword of Feast and Famine - Its usually targeted heavily. Its good but I don't know if I need the mana after I can get it all set up. I guess what I am saying is I don't know how my card advantage is going to go and this sword is sort of top of my curve currently without a lot of mana dumps and uncertain draw still. Lets just move away and see how the deck functions first.
I also snuck a
Gemstone Caverns into my lands but I wasn't really tracking my lands yet as I have been crafting that all day today.
EDIT: I also contemplated some delve cards like
Dig Through Time and
Treasure Cruise. They could be useful if we need more draw but they also put more tax on our graveyard as well. I want to see how the deck performs I think before I jump to considering them.
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