Varina, Lich Queen - Esper Zombie Midrange

[toctheyounger]

Battle of New Capenna I kinda like. It's an easy target, low to the ground, we can totally afford the additional ETB, and the backside is like a pseudo-Archangel of Thune for us. Even the equip cost is pretty nice, and the trigger is on attack not combat damage to player. If you're going wide I think this gets in the 100 personally.

[pokken]

yeah Invasion of New Capenna seems fine. nice cheap equip cost.

[ChocoDude]

Thanks for pointing this out Toc. I'll find a spot to try it out in the deck. I was thinking Anguished Unmaking as the swap, but I like the instant speed removal of AU.

[pokken]

invasion of amonkhet looks pretty playable. 3 drop we can curve into that fills the bin and draws a card. And then clones something.

[toctheyounger]

Thanks for pointing this out Toc. I'll find a spot to try it out in the deck. I was thinking Anguished Unmaking as the swap, but I like the instant speed removal of AU.

I'll grab a copy myself, it seems good on paper.

Man, looking at your Moxfield list I can't see much wiggle room at all. I'd say maybe Wonder, Anguished Unmaking or Otherworldly Gaze would be your cut? Even then I'm not sure it's better than Wonder, considering both cards look to combat as their main advantage. Perhaps the Invasion is better purely for being a good pivot card that does lots. But then Wonder helps you get the payoff so maybe not Wonder. I'm stuck. I think Gaze or Anguish are both reasonable cards to replace.

List is looking real tidy by my reckoning.

[ChocoDude]

Thanks for taking a look at my deck. I've actually made a couple of changes to it that I hadn't modified in Moxfield, but I had done in Archidekt. I wish folks on Archidekt commented more because I like the interface better in terms of organizing my decks and viewing the stats. It just seems easier to me. So, I just modified my Moxfield deck to reflect the recent changes I've made. Decided to remove Relentless Dead to test out Dread Return. We'll see. I don't always want to use (or can't really benefit from) Relentless's activated abilities upon it dying.

I might consider pulling Otherworldly Gaze to test Invasion of New Capenna. I feel like my removal suit is quite sparse these days.

[toctheyounger]

Decided to remove Relentless Dead to test out Dread Return.

That seems reasonable to me - as much as Relentless Dead looks great on paper a lot has to align for you to have the mana necessary to use it's ability on the spot. The most truly useful part of the card is menace in my opinion. It is still good, but its very timing restrictive.

I might consider pulling Otherworldly Gaze to test Invasion of New Capenna. I feel like my removal suit is quite sparse these days.

I think that's what I like about the Invasion. It's removal for a minimal cost to us on the front (realistically a creature is worth less than 1 on an empty boardstate, which is the difference between this and Anguished Unmaking), and incremental board power which triggers before combat damage on the back. It does at least a couple of things our deck wants, and it's relatively cheap and easy to set up. Presumably, too, it's recurrable with Sevinne's Reclamation. Are they permanents? They must be. I've looked at zero rules texts so far.

[ChocoDude]

I haven't looked at the rules for Battles either, but they certainly SEEM like permanents. So, great point about Sevinne's!! Even better if we can recur Invasion of New Capenna.

I was having some difficulties with card draw recently, so I removed Crucible of Worlds and added Midnight Reaper back in. In the first two games I played with the change Midnight put in good work for me, so I was quite happy with that decision.

[ChocoDude]

invasion of amonkhet looks pretty playable. 3 drop we can curve into that fills the bin and draws a card. And then clones something.

I just looked up IoA and it's a WUBRG card, so I'm know you meant some other invasion. Can you recall which one? I could certainly spend a while filtering through a spoiler list, but I figured I'd just ask.

[toctheyounger]

Yeah I don't miss Crucible of Worlds myself, without a way to drop extra lands in it's a little redundant here in my opinion. I guess it's nice as a backup if you get blown out, but we're so lean on lands it really doesn't matter a huge amount.

[pokken]

invasion of amonkhet looks pretty playable. 3 drop we can curve into that fills the bin and draws a card. And then clones something.

I just looked up IoA and it's a WUBRG card, so I'm know you meant some other invasion. Can you recall which one? I could certainly spend a while filtering through a spoiler list, but I figured I'd just ask.

hrm, how is it wubrg? front side is UB and the back side looks UB?

Yeah I don't miss Crucible of Worlds myself, without a way to drop extra lands in it's a little redundant here in my opinion. I guess it's nice as a backup if you get blown out, but we're so lean on lands it really doesn't matter a huge amount.

I used it in a Field of the Dead game the other day and it was fine, but it's definitely cuttable. I really do like being able to replay Crypt of Agadeem though.

Speaking of Crypt of Agadeem man that card has been a complete and utter house.

[ChocoDude]

Sorry about that. I got duped by an incorrect Reddit image.

[pzbw7z]

Sorry about that. I got duped by an incorrect Reddit image.

I saw the same image. The link didn't work yesterday and when I looked Invasion of Amonkhet wasn't in the Nexus spoilers. It looks like it is now.

[pokken]

It sure is a lot of text for an uncommon. Body double clone is really powerful too, and it self-supports by milling. The potential early game for someone to be forced to discard a bomb creature is hilarious too.

[ChocoDude]

Yeah that looks viable for Varina. What I'm curious about is what benefit do your opponents get for finishing a battle (siege in this set) besides some politicking? Seems like if it's your battle, your the likely individual to attack it. You're essentially trading damage to an opponent for an effect.

[pokken]

The really nice thing about battles for Varina is we get benefits just for attacking and it can help people not feel pressured to be able to slam the battle for 15 overkill and not hurt them. I think they are definitely a powerful political tool for Varina. Especially if you don't care about dealing damage like me lol. I'm just fishing for combo pieces mostly.

[ChocoDude]

True. With combat damage being less important in Varina drain (aristocrat) builds, it makes attacking battles less of tough decision.

BTW...I looked the rules up and battles are permanents.

You'd want to target the opponent least likely to protect the battle, so you can flip it earlier. Generally, I think that would be low creature count decks like spellslingers and potentially stax because they'd not want to lose their creature pieces IF they're not already slowing down your attacks. What other archetypes do you all think would be the best targets for battles?

[pokken]

True. With combat damage being less important in Varina drain (aristocrat) builds, it makes attacking battles less of tough decision.

BTW...I looked the rules up and battles are permanents.

You'd want to target the opponent least likely to protect the battle, so you can flip it earlier. Generally, I think that would be low creature count decks like spellslingers and potentially stax because they'd not want to lose their creature pieces IF they're not already slowing down your attacks. What other archetypes do you all think would be the best targets for battles?

Ramp decks usually don't have much of a board presence either, at least not early, but yeah I think it's all situational

I think you will also have luck colluding with people who are behind sometimes (I'll let you hit me for a trigger if you don't block my battle attack, etc.)

[RedCheese]

Halo-Charged Skaab is no Repository Skaab

[Falkenbach]

some usefull Zombie Knights would also be cool

[pokken]

some usefull Zombie Knights would also be cool

not impossible a knight could be good enough to play with haakon, e.g. a mass reanimating knight or something

[pzbw7z]

some usefull Zombie Knights would also be cool

not impossible a knight could be good enough to play with haakon, e.g. a mass reanimating knight or something

One knight that really works well with Haakon is Blacklance Paragon. I don't think it's good enough for Varina and me but it's a cool combat trick.

[pokken]

I had a pretty funny game the other day where I actually won au natural.

On turn 4, someone untapped and Kenrith's Transformation'd Varina when my board was 2 zombies and Varina. He was trying to cantrip into lands. I asked if he was sure, to which he said yup, and so I slammed Kindred Discovery into Dictate of Erebos into absolutely annihilating everyone with Field of the Dead despite someone having Deadeye Tracker online the entire game I didn't touch my graveyard once until I was able to kill the tracker and go off with Buried Alive.

Everybody died with empty boards to Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Plague Belcher and Wayward Servant off a Zombie Apocalypse.

I probably drew 20 cards off Kindred Discovery with varina/field/1 cmc zombies/attacks.

Varina was transformed until the very last sac before Zombie Apocalypse, and just elked people's faces

Kinda makes me want to have another piece like that that just doesn't give a crap about the graveyard. Skullclamp and Undead Augur are pretty close I guess.

[yeti1069]

True. With combat damage being less important in Varina drain (aristocrat) builds, it makes attacking battles less of tough decision.

BTW...I looked the rules up and battles are permanents.

You'd want to target the opponent least likely to protect the battle, so you can flip it earlier. Generally, I think that would be low creature count decks like spellslingers and potentially stax because they'd not want to lose their creature pieces IF they're not already slowing down your attacks. What other archetypes do you all think would be the best targets for battles?

Best play pattern for battles is probably dropping it on a turn where you have attackers and someone is open so you can swing and kill it right away.

[pzbw7z]

Don't just almost want to have this on hand for Bojuka Bog?


Almost. . .