The closest Saryth gets to an include with DSK is Shriekwood Devourer, but that's not why I'm here.
The first game today started very promisingly, with a turn three Defiler of Vigor rapidly paving the way to a pretty absurd board state. 99.9% sure I've got the game in the bag, I go all out on my presumed penultimate turn, powering out a 140/141 Voracious Hydra and going hellbent because I can. This is when Jhoira surprise jumps a Platinum Emperion. Well then. Had I held back the Hydra, I'd be okay, as is I need to get creative. I notice that Saryth has five counters on her from Defiler triggers, and there's Sword of Fire and Ice kicking about. I put the Sword of Protection from Jhoira on and roll in, putting 10 commander damage on the board as I gib the other adversary. Once it's my turn again, no other colourless blocker has materialised, so I offer a Colossification onto the Emperion and roll in for lethal. Surprise Chaos Warp on the Sword has other plans, and I fail to find another out before getting pecked down in the sky by some Sphinxes.
The second game opens with a bit of a nothingburger hand, there's a ferocious dork and a Power Fist. I play out Saryth, stick the Fist on, and start revving up power. Archdruid's Charm appears off the top and turns into Flip God, who then gets joined by a skilfully topdecked Grappling Hook. I provoke Intet's Giant Adephage before it becomes a problem, and manage to flip Vaultborn Tyrant and Zopandrel via the two triggers. Before I can get too cushy with my board, Dr. Madison Li (a mash-up of the two energy precons) blasts Austere Command to wipe the creatures. And this is where the magic of the recent anti-wipe tech kicks in - the Zopandrel eats Saryth and a ferocious dork and lives, Flip God flips into a land and awaits further instructions, and Vaultborn Tyrant just Penumbra Wurms back to life as a token. What wipe?
In my turn I bust out a Grenge and mow through the deck via Steve, Seeker of Skybreak and a redeployed Saryth, all while applying further pressure with the beef that survived the wipe. This turns out to be Zopandrel's last combat step as the energy mash-up manages to scrounge up a Swords from somewhere, and Intet manages to deploy Magmatic Force. I flip back Flip God, untap him with Seeker, put the Hook back on, and roll in - Flip God at energy pile, and Tyrant at Intet. Intet blows a Beast Within on Saryth and blocks the Tyrant. I let first strike damage resolve, find an irrelevant Nantuko Mentor with Flip God, and ahead of regular strike damage point a Ruinous Intrusion at Intet's spent Wiretapping to pump the Tyrant into survival range. Alas, Intet has other plans and pops a counter. Tyrant down. Second Flip God trigger finds a delayed Conclave Sledge-Captain, who sure would have been nice from the first trigger. Also my board proceeds to eat whatever the other two can throw at it - the Seeker and Mentor both fall to Magmatic Force bolts, and some saga I've never seen before locks down the Sledge-Captain.
At this point Intet offers up Avenger of Zendikar, sticks a Springheart Nantuko on it, and by the time the turn is passed he's rocking ~50 plants with at least 3 power. Well then, it would appear that our demise is imminent. I openly collude with energy mash-up, casting Threats Undetected and seeing if there's literally anything I can do against this. There isn't. The best I can come up with is Vigor plus Ohran Frostfang (Saryth's eight cost means I can't sequence her this turn), so that's what I get given. I blast Flip God into the sea of plants, take 12 out, and get 18 counters for next turn. Energy mash-up assembles infinite robots and infinite energy (Automated Assembly Line + Decoction Module + Panharmonicon + Aether Refinery), but the robots are tapped and there's nothing else to do. Alas. We perish to plants. Still a hell of a game though.
Saryth's Magnificent Trampling Circus
Tuner of Jank
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Tuner of Jank
Time for another staggered update, except this time it's nine months rather than six! However, as the gloves have largely come off already, there's a meagre seven swaps to propagate to the thread.
Foundations brought Chadwurm and Leyline Axe, and swaps were pretty easily identified in the costly and tapping Colossification along with the somewhat outclassed Hystrodon. I didn't get around to rolling into thread for whatever reason, and Aetherdrift posed the conundrum of Oviya, Automech Artisan and Rover Blades. How many Elvish Pipers is correct? Do I want to run this weird double strike thing? I puzzled over this, couldn't find an answer, and then I kind of drifted away for a couple months without having reached a conclusion.
Ultimately I'm treating the fact that I didn't just windmill Rover Blades as a sign that I might be near saturation for double strike pieces, so when I caught wind of Genji Glove it was the crummiest double striker to go, and Leyline Axe joins Belt of Giant Strength in the club of cards that had an actual paper stint but didn't get translated to list membership within the thread. The deck has a bunch of stuff that cares about going to combat, so the absolutely "more gun" incarnate of the Glove may lead to ridiculous numbers to close out games in a newly re-four-manned meta. In the end I decided one Piper is enough and Oviya powercreeps the original. Aetherdrift was a pretty ridiculous set for the deck, Agonasaur Rex is an absolutely crazy 8/8 for 5 mana with tons of upside, yet it somehow doesn't matter in the current Magic landscape. Rampaging Aetherhood is another growing trampling fat, very welcome here. Ended up going for Battle Mammoth and Verdurous Gearhulk. I never really made use of the foretell mode as the deck has a bunch of cheap stuff it wants to do, and being a five mana 8/8 is just not that exciting these days. I will admit that being able to hand out extra counters onto other bodies was nice sometimes, as was occasionally getting an extra card off the Mammoth. But the new fat is just more relevant on the whole. Buster Sword is a stupid card, so in a like-for-like swap I pulled out Sword of Fire and Ice. Ramp and draw beats just draw. After some more games in the four-man setting, I realised that I forgot to ram Pathbreaker Ibex in here. I blame the fact I already run it in Ghired, and I've been kind of trying to stray from a shared beef pool between the decks. However, this deck has been my main list for almost half a decade now, it's pretty safe to say that if it wants the Ibex it gets the Ibex. I took out Umezawa's Jitte to make room, a card that was brutally good via threat of activation in a number of scenarios but didn't really spark joy. When musing on the swap at lunch with a friend, he didn't even realise I was running Jitte in here - a solid signal to cut the card if there ever was one.
There were a bunch of other cool cards that came out that I didn't act on at this time. Arbor Adherent is a big dork for four, a mana value that we're okay with spending on a big dork. Canopy Gargantuan costs seven and doesn't trample, but does continue growing the board, so it's a case of how much of this sort of effect I want to run. Ultimately the card's slowness led me to sit it out for the time being, but if I decide I need even more growth to survive in four-man land then I know where to look. Frenzied Baloth packs quite the package of utility into a two-drop body, with trample to boot. Come down quickly, wear the various swords happily for profit. Herd Heirloom is a choose your own adventure between ramp and draw, it's been a while since an actual rock in green tempted me to run it. I can see it making its way in here, especially if the recent shaving of some of the worse trickle draw ends up leading to card depletion, and I actually have one on standby. Mightform Harmonizer is a potent repeatable power doubler, but we don't really landfall much - the ramp is mostly not in land form, and there's no fetches or extra land drops or anything. Along similar lines, Mossborn Hydra could technically become huge over time, but it's not super likely to. The Aetherspark almost made its way in, having both ramp and draw on a card is obviously strong, but I'm a little apprehensive about the clunkiness of either equipping to a creature or using the abilities. I should test it at the very least.
The aforementioned four-manning of the group took a bit of wind out of the deck's sails, which is not a bad thing - the list wasn't meant to be some crazy game-breaking terror. On a good draw, I can still get some crazy stuff done - the deck's last outing saw a nice combination of Railway Brawler into Kalonian Hydra into Rampaging Aetherhood into Ram Through that cleaned up a pod on turn six.
09.08.2025 Changes
Foundations brought Chadwurm and Leyline Axe, and swaps were pretty easily identified in the costly and tapping Colossification along with the somewhat outclassed Hystrodon. I didn't get around to rolling into thread for whatever reason, and Aetherdrift posed the conundrum of Oviya, Automech Artisan and Rover Blades. How many Elvish Pipers is correct? Do I want to run this weird double strike thing? I puzzled over this, couldn't find an answer, and then I kind of drifted away for a couple months without having reached a conclusion.
Ultimately I'm treating the fact that I didn't just windmill Rover Blades as a sign that I might be near saturation for double strike pieces, so when I caught wind of Genji Glove it was the crummiest double striker to go, and Leyline Axe joins Belt of Giant Strength in the club of cards that had an actual paper stint but didn't get translated to list membership within the thread. The deck has a bunch of stuff that cares about going to combat, so the absolutely "more gun" incarnate of the Glove may lead to ridiculous numbers to close out games in a newly re-four-manned meta. In the end I decided one Piper is enough and Oviya powercreeps the original. Aetherdrift was a pretty ridiculous set for the deck, Agonasaur Rex is an absolutely crazy 8/8 for 5 mana with tons of upside, yet it somehow doesn't matter in the current Magic landscape. Rampaging Aetherhood is another growing trampling fat, very welcome here. Ended up going for Battle Mammoth and Verdurous Gearhulk. I never really made use of the foretell mode as the deck has a bunch of cheap stuff it wants to do, and being a five mana 8/8 is just not that exciting these days. I will admit that being able to hand out extra counters onto other bodies was nice sometimes, as was occasionally getting an extra card off the Mammoth. But the new fat is just more relevant on the whole. Buster Sword is a stupid card, so in a like-for-like swap I pulled out Sword of Fire and Ice. Ramp and draw beats just draw. After some more games in the four-man setting, I realised that I forgot to ram Pathbreaker Ibex in here. I blame the fact I already run it in Ghired, and I've been kind of trying to stray from a shared beef pool between the decks. However, this deck has been my main list for almost half a decade now, it's pretty safe to say that if it wants the Ibex it gets the Ibex. I took out Umezawa's Jitte to make room, a card that was brutally good via threat of activation in a number of scenarios but didn't really spark joy. When musing on the swap at lunch with a friend, he didn't even realise I was running Jitte in here - a solid signal to cut the card if there ever was one.
There were a bunch of other cool cards that came out that I didn't act on at this time. Arbor Adherent is a big dork for four, a mana value that we're okay with spending on a big dork. Canopy Gargantuan costs seven and doesn't trample, but does continue growing the board, so it's a case of how much of this sort of effect I want to run. Ultimately the card's slowness led me to sit it out for the time being, but if I decide I need even more growth to survive in four-man land then I know where to look. Frenzied Baloth packs quite the package of utility into a two-drop body, with trample to boot. Come down quickly, wear the various swords happily for profit. Herd Heirloom is a choose your own adventure between ramp and draw, it's been a while since an actual rock in green tempted me to run it. I can see it making its way in here, especially if the recent shaving of some of the worse trickle draw ends up leading to card depletion, and I actually have one on standby. Mightform Harmonizer is a potent repeatable power doubler, but we don't really landfall much - the ramp is mostly not in land form, and there's no fetches or extra land drops or anything. Along similar lines, Mossborn Hydra could technically become huge over time, but it's not super likely to. The Aetherspark almost made its way in, having both ramp and draw on a card is obviously strong, but I'm a little apprehensive about the clunkiness of either equipping to a creature or using the abilities. I should test it at the very least.
The aforementioned four-manning of the group took a bit of wind out of the deck's sails, which is not a bad thing - the list wasn't meant to be some crazy game-breaking terror. On a good draw, I can still get some crazy stuff done - the deck's last outing saw a nice combination of Railway Brawler into Kalonian Hydra into Rampaging Aetherhood into Ram Through that cleaned up a pod on turn six.
Tuner of Jank
'twas a nice August Sunday, and the full five-man got together to rip a box of EOE. The oddball shift to 30 packs per box works weirdly well for our little group, as we got to do two drafts into two games of star each time. Once the dust settled, it was time to turn our attention to EDH, and I just wanted to do what I've been wanting to do most of the time for the past four years - slam down green tramplers and go face. Sending Saryth out into a five-man arrangement is insane, but it would be interesting to see how far I could take it.
The game started off with a mild communication snafu, as I took the wrong two creatures from Threats Undetected to my hand. I was honestly a bit surprised that the guy would let me have Fanatic of Rhonas and Chadwurm (Flip God was already chilling in hand), but I wasn't complaining. The snag was quickly revealed as the Fanatic came down next turn, and I duly undid the mess and went and got the standard double trouble unit of Doomskar Warrior and Primeval Herald instead. I didn't mind too much, I still got to ramp out Pathbreaker Ibex a little bit early for its debut in this list. The board quickly became a dream scenario for the Ibex, as I got somewhat wide and slammed down a Majestic Myriarch to radiate around. I managed to halve everybody's life total before anyone else really came online.
The first player to offer something pertinent was Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder + Akiri, Line-Slinger, augmenting his already Sword of Vengeance-toting Balan, Wandering Knight with Sword of Kaldra. Once the double striking lifelinking pile of equipment understandably rolled into me, I had to surrender the Myriarch to avoid going down to a precariously low life total, somewhat limiting my crackback potential. The rest of the board started stirring as well, so I quickly struck up a deal - I won't kill anyone at the table in my turn, but I'm to be left alone. Everyone went for this happily, as mentioned the fortifications were only really starting to come up at this point, so once I untapped I had my sights set on the Balan. I whipped out Grappling Hook, really feeling the loss of the Myriarch, opted to sacrifice the Doomskar Warrior to the kill mission, and full sent into the solitary foe. The goat offered a more modest pump of eight or so, the Warrior went down provoking the Balan into his own demise, and everything else reduced the foe's life total back to a more manageable range. At this point I extended the offer of a ceasefire to the Boros deck, who took me up on it. In the process of the swing, Flip God (who had a fun detour of being a land for a little bit after chumping an absolutely massive Pako, Arcane Retriever) pulled up Vigor, who felt like he'd buy me enough defensive prowess to see another turn.
The Boros deck was after me in the rotation and didn't do much of relevance. Yuma, Proud Protector set up some more tokens, but was the last to start doing stuff in the game so he was being very defensive and didn't attempt to pressure me at all. Intet, the Dreamer had a solid value turn, getting Tomb of Horrors Adventurer to copy Supplant Form, targeting Flip God and Bruse Tarl. Temur Ascendancy ensured that everything could go into the red zone immediately, but I was spared the meatshot by the Vigor. Nevertheless, a decent helping of value was being assembled there. Pako went next, and semi-openly colluded with the Intet to have Guided Passage get a Fog. Aw. The turn subsequently got rather stormy and payoffy, the board wide but un-hasted. The odds of me seeing a turn after the one I was about to commence were rather slim. My best chances at winning were to crack the Fog and hope that Intet would get scary enough where Pako would be forced to split up attention, so that's what I did - Zoppy joined the party, a Strata Scythe went onto Vigor, and the goat radiated +48 power of pump. I sent a super slim offensive squadron into Pako, breaking the Fog, and the turn went into the table. Intet assembled enough critical mass to barf out enough hasted value to kill everyone, even through Pako's massive backlog of stuff.
If this were a smaller pod, I'd have almost certainly won. If I were more ruthless with my swings, there's a good chance I'd have won. It was honestly surprising to see Saryth hanging in a five-man setting and doing okay. I guess I should reconsider Canopy Gargantuan, while it may be in a different weight class relative to the stuff I'm already running it is another form of continued growth. It was also nice to see just good old plain stat line pull its weight too. Guess Strata Scythe is off the chopping block for a bit. The game was also interesting from the perspective of Frenzied Baloth, as on one hand I'd have not cared about the fog, but on the other I'd have lost the Vigor shielding. I walked away with one from the aforementioned EOE box, so if I do decide to pursue it I don't have to go through the ordeal of procuring one from the internet.
The game started off with a mild communication snafu, as I took the wrong two creatures from Threats Undetected to my hand. I was honestly a bit surprised that the guy would let me have Fanatic of Rhonas and Chadwurm (Flip God was already chilling in hand), but I wasn't complaining. The snag was quickly revealed as the Fanatic came down next turn, and I duly undid the mess and went and got the standard double trouble unit of Doomskar Warrior and Primeval Herald instead. I didn't mind too much, I still got to ramp out Pathbreaker Ibex a little bit early for its debut in this list. The board quickly became a dream scenario for the Ibex, as I got somewhat wide and slammed down a Majestic Myriarch to radiate around. I managed to halve everybody's life total before anyone else really came online.
The first player to offer something pertinent was Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder + Akiri, Line-Slinger, augmenting his already Sword of Vengeance-toting Balan, Wandering Knight with Sword of Kaldra. Once the double striking lifelinking pile of equipment understandably rolled into me, I had to surrender the Myriarch to avoid going down to a precariously low life total, somewhat limiting my crackback potential. The rest of the board started stirring as well, so I quickly struck up a deal - I won't kill anyone at the table in my turn, but I'm to be left alone. Everyone went for this happily, as mentioned the fortifications were only really starting to come up at this point, so once I untapped I had my sights set on the Balan. I whipped out Grappling Hook, really feeling the loss of the Myriarch, opted to sacrifice the Doomskar Warrior to the kill mission, and full sent into the solitary foe. The goat offered a more modest pump of eight or so, the Warrior went down provoking the Balan into his own demise, and everything else reduced the foe's life total back to a more manageable range. At this point I extended the offer of a ceasefire to the Boros deck, who took me up on it. In the process of the swing, Flip God (who had a fun detour of being a land for a little bit after chumping an absolutely massive Pako, Arcane Retriever) pulled up Vigor, who felt like he'd buy me enough defensive prowess to see another turn.
The Boros deck was after me in the rotation and didn't do much of relevance. Yuma, Proud Protector set up some more tokens, but was the last to start doing stuff in the game so he was being very defensive and didn't attempt to pressure me at all. Intet, the Dreamer had a solid value turn, getting Tomb of Horrors Adventurer to copy Supplant Form, targeting Flip God and Bruse Tarl. Temur Ascendancy ensured that everything could go into the red zone immediately, but I was spared the meatshot by the Vigor. Nevertheless, a decent helping of value was being assembled there. Pako went next, and semi-openly colluded with the Intet to have Guided Passage get a Fog. Aw. The turn subsequently got rather stormy and payoffy, the board wide but un-hasted. The odds of me seeing a turn after the one I was about to commence were rather slim. My best chances at winning were to crack the Fog and hope that Intet would get scary enough where Pako would be forced to split up attention, so that's what I did - Zoppy joined the party, a Strata Scythe went onto Vigor, and the goat radiated +48 power of pump. I sent a super slim offensive squadron into Pako, breaking the Fog, and the turn went into the table. Intet assembled enough critical mass to barf out enough hasted value to kill everyone, even through Pako's massive backlog of stuff.
If this were a smaller pod, I'd have almost certainly won. If I were more ruthless with my swings, there's a good chance I'd have won. It was honestly surprising to see Saryth hanging in a five-man setting and doing okay. I guess I should reconsider Canopy Gargantuan, while it may be in a different weight class relative to the stuff I'm already running it is another form of continued growth. It was also nice to see just good old plain stat line pull its weight too. Guess Strata Scythe is off the chopping block for a bit. The game was also interesting from the perspective of Frenzied Baloth, as on one hand I'd have not cared about the fog, but on the other I'd have lost the Vigor shielding. I walked away with one from the aforementioned EOE box, so if I do decide to pursue it I don't have to go through the ordeal of procuring one from the internet.
Tuner of Jank
How did we go to Saryth being considered an upper mid tier deck within the group? I think it was just a streak of lucky draws which led to me starting to eye the kool-aid pitcher as well, but I was promptly brought back to reality when trying to field the deck in a few proper upper mid games and getting completely roflstomped. I do have a somewhat similar representative of that power bracket in Ghired, and comparing the two serves as a pretty good reality check for Saryth - Ghired has an easier time drawing cards and setting up disproportionate damage. Saryth needs a very particular set of pieces to come together, in a high volume no less, to try to keep up. Even at maximum power of the trampling circus build (which would involve a whole bunch of extra tutoring), the deck would still be a crappier, more temperamental Ghired. So let's just leave things where they are, and just try to grease things up a bit to be a little less fussy. That said, I've got an unemployed Green Sun's Zenith, and I've previously gone on record that tutors are only as good as the deck they're in. Let's see what happens when I put a few goldfi-
The swaps once again ended up rather voluminous, but the reasoning for them flows quite nicely. Surprise surprise, GSZ goldfishes well, who could have foreseen. One thing I noticed is that I often wanted to use it to ramp on turn two to start roaring quicker, so Arbor Elf goes back in to enable that. In general, I felt I could use a smidge more early ramp. I did some further goldfishes on various archival cards that were considered, and Herdloom plays very well, so in it went. Since the last update, both a new ferocious dork and land aura got printed, so I had to make an executive decision which to pursue first. Land auras enable a superior curveout earlier, and live through wipes, so I figured it would be the more responsible include. It's nice that GSZ/Herdloom are both flexible options for later, not just confined to early ramp use. Grease successfully applied! The other archival card to win big in the goldfishes was The Skullspore Nexus. Doubling stacks nice with itself, and there's technically a bit of removal protection baked in as well. The various incidental trample granters in the trample tribal deck get another rare relevance case (and a new member in Herdloom!).
In terms of cuts, a friend suggested the Blanchwood Armor variants and he's honestly not wrong. I don't really land ramp, especially now, so they end up pretty small. There are a few cases where they are relatively welcome, but using the space for flexible ramp and having another stacking doubling source will ultimately work better. Staff of Titania hung on for dear life and was in contention with Nantuko Mentor for the slot to make room for the Skullspore, but the Mentor ultimately gets the reprieve as a doubler. It also helped that I playtested Canopy Gargantuan and just wasn't wooed by it, Mentor was ultimately more flexible and they're both rather slow anyway. Steve is pretty much just making space for a more synergistic piece of two-drop ramp, and didn't really do anything wrong. Khalni Hydra brings a hefty chunk of devotion on an unglamorous body, and the discount is sublimely winmore.
On top of the Herdloom, Skullspore and Gargantuan, I tried some other stuff to no avail. Evercoat Ursine is just boring as hell in practice, the excitement is with the flips and then it's just a case of whether the universe lets me cash them in or not. I expected more of The Earth King, but he was weirdly hard to sequence in well for good gains. I thought back to how cracked Kodama of the West Tree was, gave him a few goldfishes too, and he is a bit preferable but not quite the insanity it once was. I guess I dialled back my modifications since, and refined when and how I want to be ramping. There's a chance it's the nature of goldfishes interfering here, you can go crazier with Selvala ramp than the forests that will survive a wipe. Sylvan Library is a known sweaty green card, but I don't think I shuffle enough to make good use of it, and don't go fast enough to just yolo the draws with zero forethought.
With the Blanchwoods gone, I figured I no longer have an excuse to be so nonbasic light. The first one that came to mind was Mosswort Bridge, and I put a three digit number of goldfishes on it in various configurations - starting hand, drawn on turn three, drawn on turn five. It got in the way maybe like three times total? The benefits far outweigh the risks. What other nonbasics could be in here? Boseiju, Who Endures is negligible opportunity cost, in it goes. The flexility of tapped vs. untapped means the various bolt lands are probably good. Bridgeworks Battle // Tanglespan Bridgeworks is overcosted removal, but hey, it can also be a land. Turntimber Symbiosis // Turntimber, Serpentine Wood is actually relatively okay, like a one-shot inferior Flip God. War Room would be good for drawing cards. I was a little concerned about this stumbling with Primalcrux, but it is ultimately just one creature getting in the way. I put a bunch of goldfishes on the War Room and they went so well I dredged up Bonders' Enclave to add too. Morgane reminded me of Yavimaya Hollow and Castle Garenbrig on the Discord, and the former becomes the new post-pandemic purchase record, funnily enough beating out Grenge. Hey, Saryth gets what Saryth wants! Especially when it helps address a long-standing concern of getting meaningful beef eaten by throwaway deathtouchers. The Castle is the least impactful of the lot, occasionally allowing for some minor tempo gains, and mainly gets picked up because the Hollow seller happened to have one at a good price too
The lands are actually a huge gameplay boon, adding a layer of strategic depth to Saryth and the other untappers. I'm yet to use Archdruid's Charm on something that isn't Nykthos, but there was a game state where I considered popping it on War Room so who knows. In terms of skips, Ancient Tomb is somewhat sweaty, and I don't think I hit delirium for Shifting Woodland to be worth it.
In terms of general vibes from goldfishes and games, Genji Glove is crazy good. I've also really liked Oviya for early tempo, I'm pretty sure that the correct answer to last year me's question is to run both Elvish Piper variants. Not sure what to go for cut wise though. The landscape is shifting around the pest, I'm even leaving her out of Threats Undetected piles these days, as I'm perfectly happy to get Doomskar Warrior and some sort of actual power fat instead. She is cheap though, which is an important factor. There are various game states where the Soul of the Harvest variants feel like they're just slowing me down a turn for no huge benefit. The irony is that they are amazing out of the pokeball though. Also, harking back to the Ghired comparisons, it's okay to take a while to fuel up via rhinos in that deck, so it should also be fine to do that here in the interest of ultimate success. Giant Adephage is the crappiest of the game ending beef. Urgh, decisions, my specialty
The swaps once again ended up rather voluminous, but the reasoning for them flows quite nicely. Surprise surprise, GSZ goldfishes well, who could have foreseen. One thing I noticed is that I often wanted to use it to ramp on turn two to start roaring quicker, so Arbor Elf goes back in to enable that. In general, I felt I could use a smidge more early ramp. I did some further goldfishes on various archival cards that were considered, and Herdloom plays very well, so in it went. Since the last update, both a new ferocious dork and land aura got printed, so I had to make an executive decision which to pursue first. Land auras enable a superior curveout earlier, and live through wipes, so I figured it would be the more responsible include. It's nice that GSZ/Herdloom are both flexible options for later, not just confined to early ramp use. Grease successfully applied! The other archival card to win big in the goldfishes was The Skullspore Nexus. Doubling stacks nice with itself, and there's technically a bit of removal protection baked in as well. The various incidental trample granters in the trample tribal deck get another rare relevance case (and a new member in Herdloom!).
In terms of cuts, a friend suggested the Blanchwood Armor variants and he's honestly not wrong. I don't really land ramp, especially now, so they end up pretty small. There are a few cases where they are relatively welcome, but using the space for flexible ramp and having another stacking doubling source will ultimately work better. Staff of Titania hung on for dear life and was in contention with Nantuko Mentor for the slot to make room for the Skullspore, but the Mentor ultimately gets the reprieve as a doubler. It also helped that I playtested Canopy Gargantuan and just wasn't wooed by it, Mentor was ultimately more flexible and they're both rather slow anyway. Steve is pretty much just making space for a more synergistic piece of two-drop ramp, and didn't really do anything wrong. Khalni Hydra brings a hefty chunk of devotion on an unglamorous body, and the discount is sublimely winmore.
On top of the Herdloom, Skullspore and Gargantuan, I tried some other stuff to no avail. Evercoat Ursine is just boring as hell in practice, the excitement is with the flips and then it's just a case of whether the universe lets me cash them in or not. I expected more of The Earth King, but he was weirdly hard to sequence in well for good gains. I thought back to how cracked Kodama of the West Tree was, gave him a few goldfishes too, and he is a bit preferable but not quite the insanity it once was. I guess I dialled back my modifications since, and refined when and how I want to be ramping. There's a chance it's the nature of goldfishes interfering here, you can go crazier with Selvala ramp than the forests that will survive a wipe. Sylvan Library is a known sweaty green card, but I don't think I shuffle enough to make good use of it, and don't go fast enough to just yolo the draws with zero forethought.
With the Blanchwoods gone, I figured I no longer have an excuse to be so nonbasic light. The first one that came to mind was Mosswort Bridge, and I put a three digit number of goldfishes on it in various configurations - starting hand, drawn on turn three, drawn on turn five. It got in the way maybe like three times total? The benefits far outweigh the risks. What other nonbasics could be in here? Boseiju, Who Endures is negligible opportunity cost, in it goes. The flexility of tapped vs. untapped means the various bolt lands are probably good. Bridgeworks Battle // Tanglespan Bridgeworks is overcosted removal, but hey, it can also be a land. Turntimber Symbiosis // Turntimber, Serpentine Wood is actually relatively okay, like a one-shot inferior Flip God. War Room would be good for drawing cards. I was a little concerned about this stumbling with Primalcrux, but it is ultimately just one creature getting in the way. I put a bunch of goldfishes on the War Room and they went so well I dredged up Bonders' Enclave to add too. Morgane reminded me of Yavimaya Hollow and Castle Garenbrig on the Discord, and the former becomes the new post-pandemic purchase record, funnily enough beating out Grenge. Hey, Saryth gets what Saryth wants! Especially when it helps address a long-standing concern of getting meaningful beef eaten by throwaway deathtouchers. The Castle is the least impactful of the lot, occasionally allowing for some minor tempo gains, and mainly gets picked up because the Hollow seller happened to have one at a good price too
The lands are actually a huge gameplay boon, adding a layer of strategic depth to Saryth and the other untappers. I'm yet to use Archdruid's Charm on something that isn't Nykthos, but there was a game state where I considered popping it on War Room so who knows. In terms of skips, Ancient Tomb is somewhat sweaty, and I don't think I hit delirium for Shifting Woodland to be worth it.In terms of general vibes from goldfishes and games, Genji Glove is crazy good. I've also really liked Oviya for early tempo, I'm pretty sure that the correct answer to last year me's question is to run both Elvish Piper variants. Not sure what to go for cut wise though. The landscape is shifting around the pest, I'm even leaving her out of Threats Undetected piles these days, as I'm perfectly happy to get Doomskar Warrior and some sort of actual power fat instead. She is cheap though, which is an important factor. There are various game states where the Soul of the Harvest variants feel like they're just slowing me down a turn for no huge benefit. The irony is that they are amazing out of the pokeball though. Also, harking back to the Ghired comparisons, it's okay to take a while to fuel up via rhinos in that deck, so it should also be fine to do that here in the interest of ultimate success. Giant Adephage is the crappiest of the game ending beef. Urgh, decisions, my specialty
Tuner of Jank
If in doubt, stick goldfishes on it. This doesn't always work wonderfully, kind of hard to properly model removal or your own protection needs, but it's nice for just evaluating how smoothly things go and what is relevant when. I A/B'd Elvish Piper against a nondescript clumsy fat (did both Giant Adephage and Silvos, Rogue Elemental), going off both opening hands and a hypothetical turn five draw.
Oh, also Castle Garenbrig fully justified its purchase when I was able to turn one of the colourless lands into exactly six mana to blast out a Primalcrux
- In the opening hands, the Piper was nearly unanimously better. This is hardly surprising as his moment of glory is coming out on four, dropping some insane fat on five and letting Saryth roll in from the back in the same turn.
- I was surprised how often the Piper was still preferred on turn five, it was about 2:1 against the actual beef somehow. Get some draw in there, have a bunch of beef in hand, Piper's still going ham. Sneak in a beef on a discount while dunking the rest of the mana into a hydra. Surprisingly relevant.
- It's not all sunshine and roses though. Encountering Oviya was weirdly feelbad, as there's only so much fat density and two Pipers are overkill. Plus, having actual mana is good for being able to handle the various noncreatures. Also, there were a bunch of game states where the deck was too busy doing various strong stuff in the turn five case to sequence in either option. This happened about as often as actually wanting the clumsy fat.
- Given the fact actual mana is preferred, the next best actual dork is Arbor Adherent. I put a few goldfishes on him, in the opening hand only to start, and wasn't sublimely wooed. The curveout of following him with Saryth and him immediately tapping for four is nice and all, but I just couldn't get excited by the perspective to even try the turn fives. Karametra's Acolyte scales more relevantly in slightly stalled game states, and Selvala being cheaper and coming with incidental draw are both upsides.
Oh, also Castle Garenbrig fully justified its purchase when I was able to turn one of the colourless lands into exactly six mana to blast out a Primalcrux
Tuner of Jank
Marvel brings with it Cosmic Cube, a card I expected to be a windmill slam here. Still, I figured the least I can do is put some goldfishes on it before committing to buying. Good that I did - for reasons I still don't fully understand, it actually plays kind of poorly.
Trying to dissect the reasons why points to a multitude of factors. The deck wants to have a 7 or so power guy to be able to reliably cast most of its pieces, whereas a bunch of the starter value beef is actually smaller. It feels pretty bad to go six deep, see a bunch of things you'd want to pick but can't, and end up stuck with some small fry thing. I'm not sure what could realistically be done to fix this, as there isn't that much cheap beef that I could run that would get this done. The main one that comes to mind is Verdurous Gearhulk, but having a slightly smaller body that provides value has historically proven better in general. Add in the fact that the Cube does absolutely nothing to help hit land drops and things are looking pretty bleak. Needing to front all five mana in one go is also annoying at times.
There's also stuff like Earth's Mightiest Heroes, which feels rather secondary and feelbad. Abomination, Irradiated Brute is a four mana grower, which is nice, but to compensate grows slower than the other ones. May be correct to go for this over Giant Adephage for sheer efficiency.
Trying to dissect the reasons why points to a multitude of factors. The deck wants to have a 7 or so power guy to be able to reliably cast most of its pieces, whereas a bunch of the starter value beef is actually smaller. It feels pretty bad to go six deep, see a bunch of things you'd want to pick but can't, and end up stuck with some small fry thing. I'm not sure what could realistically be done to fix this, as there isn't that much cheap beef that I could run that would get this done. The main one that comes to mind is Verdurous Gearhulk, but having a slightly smaller body that provides value has historically proven better in general. Add in the fact that the Cube does absolutely nothing to help hit land drops and things are looking pretty bleak. Needing to front all five mana in one go is also annoying at times.
There's also stuff like Earth's Mightiest Heroes, which feels rather secondary and feelbad. Abomination, Irradiated Brute is a four mana grower, which is nice, but to compensate grows slower than the other ones. May be correct to go for this over Giant Adephage for sheer efficiency.
Tuner of Jank
Another set with some feasible green stuff came out, I mentally pencilled in some swaps. One eternity after having last played the deck, I sat down, pulled up a hand and was surprised to see the stuff I had earmarked for cuts still in the 99. A pretty good sign to propagate the changes into the thread.
In terms of stuff already touched upon in the thread, Abomination is a super cheap grower, and far easier to sequence in as a four drop than Giant Adephage's seven. He also plays better with the deck's bits of double strike and occasional stat pumping. Verdurous Gearhulk is five mana for eight power, a pretty solid rate if needing to just stick an early impressive body, and half of it comes in the form of counters that can go wherever. Buff a digger! Buff a grower! In over Silvos, who survived a bit longer than he probably should have as an OG. The regeneration was mostly useful for going into difficult board states, which is now better done via double strike. At least there still are the clunky basics to remind me of him. I'm not going to pretend like the Gearhulk is going to be some ultra MVP in the list, but I realistically should probably have cut Silvos rather than him at the time he departed the list.
In terms of newer stuff, Bejeweled Warg is an interesting little ramp option in the form of a two-drop trampler - not quite as potent as the existing stuff, but coming with its own set of cute synergies due to being an extremely cheap body to punch with. Treasure can be stacked up to ramp out something bigger, or the other on-hit mode can be chosen to unlock having a four power guy. Went after Seeker of Skybreak, who is powerful but comes online quite a bit later in a more conditional manner. Beorn the Fierce needs to live a turn to start drawing cards (this is hardly a hoop to jump through, the list is ripe with creatures and Saryth is a four drop), and happens to also dispense minor stat line buffs and the occasional trample enable. Went after Soul of the Harvest, who doesn't help contribute the bits of extra pressure, costs more, and is more variable in returns. True, there are turns where the Soul will draw more cards, but they could be classified as winmore. Meanwhile Beorn just comes out, lives one go around the table and starts refuelling.
Are these changes a response to my disappointment with Cosmic Cube? One could jokingly agree, but generally improving efficiency has been a long-running theme of the updates.
13.09.2026 Changes
In terms of stuff already touched upon in the thread, Abomination is a super cheap grower, and far easier to sequence in as a four drop than Giant Adephage's seven. He also plays better with the deck's bits of double strike and occasional stat pumping. Verdurous Gearhulk is five mana for eight power, a pretty solid rate if needing to just stick an early impressive body, and half of it comes in the form of counters that can go wherever. Buff a digger! Buff a grower! In over Silvos, who survived a bit longer than he probably should have as an OG. The regeneration was mostly useful for going into difficult board states, which is now better done via double strike. At least there still are the clunky basics to remind me of him. I'm not going to pretend like the Gearhulk is going to be some ultra MVP in the list, but I realistically should probably have cut Silvos rather than him at the time he departed the list.
In terms of newer stuff, Bejeweled Warg is an interesting little ramp option in the form of a two-drop trampler - not quite as potent as the existing stuff, but coming with its own set of cute synergies due to being an extremely cheap body to punch with. Treasure can be stacked up to ramp out something bigger, or the other on-hit mode can be chosen to unlock having a four power guy. Went after Seeker of Skybreak, who is powerful but comes online quite a bit later in a more conditional manner. Beorn the Fierce needs to live a turn to start drawing cards (this is hardly a hoop to jump through, the list is ripe with creatures and Saryth is a four drop), and happens to also dispense minor stat line buffs and the occasional trample enable. Went after Soul of the Harvest, who doesn't help contribute the bits of extra pressure, costs more, and is more variable in returns. True, there are turns where the Soul will draw more cards, but they could be classified as winmore. Meanwhile Beorn just comes out, lives one go around the table and starts refuelling.
Are these changes a response to my disappointment with Cosmic Cube? One could jokingly agree, but generally improving efficiency has been a long-running theme of the updates.
kinda surprised you haven't considered either of the hulks. Hulk, Strongest There Is or Hulk, Brutal Brawler seem on brand also buffs Abomination
