Varina, Lich Queen - Esper Zombie Midrange

[pokken]

I don't see the value of Top here most of the time. If you have Varina out and a couple attackers, you're basically seeing the cards you're looking at with top anyway. If you don't have any kind of board/no Varina for some reason, it can help you dig a little, but any of the 1 mana draw spells with upside (scry, surveil, shuffle) do the same. How often are you spending mana to spin the Top?

I've got 11 fetchlands or something like that plus probably 7 other shuffle effects, maybe more. I top quite a lot.

[pzbw7z]

Anybody play Bolas's Citadel with Sensei's Divining Top? There's value for you!

[toctheyounger]

Anybody play Bolas's Citadel with Sensei's Divining Top? There's value for you!

I use it in Dihada, and yeah, it is good. That said I've got Magda, Brazen Outlaw and Goblin Welder to cheat it into play, as well as Hoarding Broodlord, that card is honestly gross. And honestly it's more likely to go off with Vilis, Broker of Blood in play than the top. With the exclusion of Aetherflux Reservoir anyway lol.

[pokken]

Varina's lifegain is pretty strong synergy with Bolas's Citadel esp. with low curve builds. I'd definitely consider it if I felt really strongly I was lacking card advantage at the top end.

I'd likely still try Alhammarret's Archive and Teferi's Ageless Insight packages first.

[devilcatz]

The One Ring for card draw? Good for us?
Been good in Krikk decks.

[devilcatz]

Varina's lifegain is pretty strong synergy with Bolas's Citadel esp. with low curve builds. I'd definitely consider it if I felt really strongly I was lacking card advantage at the top end.

I'd likely still try Alhammarret's Archive and Teferi's Ageless Insight packages first.

Alha is very good. Teferi is harder to cast with 2U I think. I get better results w the former.

[pokken]

Alha is very good. Teferi is harder to cast with 2U I think. I get better results w the former.
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I am on a Ponder / Mana Drain manabase so I can usually manage it, and I run Kindred Discovery which outperforms both significantly, but I do like that double lifegain

[dueba]

Hey all, its been a little while.

Unfortunately in recent times i have not had much success with Ad Nauseam as people have learned to heavily pressure my life total in early turns, making it a feel bad to draw into and being uncertain to present a win afterwards from the number of cards drawn.

Because of this i want to catch up with everyone else and instead adopt the Buried Alive, Haakon, Stromgald Scourge package into my deck. Adding Universal Automaton and LSB in addition to the above mentioned for a much more thematic gameplan.

Are there any core components in addition to these that i should include during these changes, and how has this been performing overall recently? i would like to hear your experiences!

[pzbw7z]

Hey all, its been a little while.

Unfortunately in recent times i have not had much success with Ad Nauseam as people have learned to heavily pressure my life total in early turns, making it a feel bad to draw into and being uncertain to present a win afterwards from the number of cards drawn.

Because of this i want to catch up with everyone else and instead adopt the Buried Alive, Haakon, Stromgald Scourge package into my deck. Adding Universal Automaton and LSB in addition to the above mentioned for a much more thematic gameplan.

Are there any core components in addition to these that i should include during these changes, and how has this been performing overall recently? i would like to hear your experiences!

Corpse Knight, obviously. Foulmire Knight // Profane Insight is useful as is Changeling Outcast as they can also loop. Wayward Servant is probably an auto-include and Plague Belcher is solid as well. Phyrexian Altar is perhaps too obvious to mention, but I guess I already have!

As with just about any strategy, tutors help.

The Haakon package really helps with the win percentage in my experience. The ability to get all of the creatures in the graveyard and castable makes the combo easier to assemble and provides some redundancy since it's no longer just Gravecrawler anymore. It at least partially makes the combo resilient to normal removal as the key creatures are recurable. Of course, Sevinne's Reclamation is important as a means to retrieve the altar. In addition to just the machine gun combo, the Haakon package makes the other, typical Gravecrawler shenanigans available with the one-MV knights. Skullclamp tricks come immediately to mind.

Apologies if some or even all of this is obvious.

[toctheyounger]

The One Ring for card draw? Good for us?
Been good in Krikk decks.

I think it's a very strong card, it's been slept on a little. I don't know that we can abuse it well enough here though. Ideally I want ways to untap it (pair it with Seedborn Muse for pure grossness) or ways to proliferate it. I'm totally open to being wrong, I picked one up and want a place to play it.

Hey all, its been a little while.

Unfortunately in recent times i have not had much success with Ad Nauseam as people have learned to heavily pressure my life total in early turns, making it a feel bad to draw into and being uncertain to present a win afterwards from the number of cards drawn.

Because of this i want to catch up with everyone else and instead adopt the Buried Alive, Haakon, Stromgald Scourge package into my deck. Adding Universal Automaton and LSB in addition to the above mentioned for a much more thematic gameplan.

Are there any core components in addition to these that i should include during these changes, and how has this been performing overall recently? i would like to hear your experiences!

Ad Naus wasn't really right for me either. It's amazing when you've got the ability to follow it up with an immediate win, but we're short on rocks here, and specifically mana positive rocks are expensive as crap.

The Haakon thing is great, you really just want ways to make sure you can keep sacrificing. Altars and tutors for said altars. Enlightened is where it's at really, and the price has never been better. Entomb as well is very important.

Pb has covered the rest of what works more or less, it's a pretty strong package. I will add that there's some overlap with Liliana, Untouched by Death here too. With a sac outlet there's lots of play between the two synergies, and Shambling Ghast will pay for itself if you can't find a sac outlet that nets mana. It's a really strong add in the deck anyway, all of it's abilities have some use, it just also happens to let us pop off too.

Aside: Really sorry for the vacancy of late y'all, life has been super hectic inside and outside of work. I've definitely got LoTR updates, even if it's just the one or two. The moment I get some spare time to get into finer details I'll update my list and share my reasonings.

[pokken]

Intuition is the cornerstone of the Haakon combo imho. If you're trying hard to win you should also run Mystical Tutor before buried alive (but Buried Alive is good too) because intuition getting either 2/3 pieces of any combo is key.

My deck is a good place to start. Add the fast mana package if you want to go super hard
Springleaf Drum
Lotus Petal
Chrome Mox
Mox Diamond
Dark Ritual
Culling the Weak
Crypt of Agadeem

The Intuition packages of mixing up Sevinne's Reclamation plus whichever altar and whatever enabler is really hard to top as a gameplan.

Good out out there

[toctheyounger]

Yeah, I really want Gifts Ungiven in my format. I'd settle for affording Intuition, but it'll never happen lol

[devilcatz]

Yeah, I really want Gifts Ungiven in my format. I'd settle for affording Intuition, but it'll never happen lol

Play Oathbreaker!

[Reya]

Maybe a new tool:

"Titan of Littjara"

4UU
Creature: Illusion
6/6

As Titan enters battlefield, choose a creature type.

Titan is the chosen type in addition to its others types.

When Titan enters battlefield or attacks, you may draw a card for each other creature that share a type with it. If you do, discard a card.

Probably too costly but the effect is really great in Varina. Almost a Kindred discovery on a creature. Almost... the upside is you can recur it quite easily in a Varina deck.

(the card just been spoiled on magicspoiler.com and it is part of the commander master slivers deck)

[pokken]

Not being a zombie in the yard is blah. But it's strong. Probably best in a beat down deck that isn't deep on zombie apocalypse and patriarchs bidding

[yeti1069]

Not being a zombie in the yard is blah. But it's strong. Probably best in a beat down deck that isn't deep on zombie apocalypse and patriarchs bidding

Yeah. Kind of annoyed that this didn't have changeling.

[Reya]

Oh crap you are rights... I forgot that important point: not a zombie in the yard :/

Well, next !

[pzbw7z]

Maybe a new tool:

"Titan of Littjara"

4UU
Creature: Illusion
6/6

Double U is a downer too; my mana base wouldn't support it reliably.

[toctheyounger]

Alright, got some updates:

In

• Sauron's Ransom
• Agadeem'sAwakening // Agadeem, the Undercrypt

Out

• Sensei's Divining Top
• Sunken Hollow

These ones are pretty easy to justify. Hollow almost always sucks with this landbase, and it's probably only going to get worse. Top is I guess a controversial cut, but I've found it relatively mid most of the time. That said there's like 4-5 fetches I'm missing I think, it'd definitely improve with those included. At present though, happy enough to not have it mess up my sequences.

Agadeem is one I've just been waiting to find a copy of, and my LGS finally got one at a good price. Ransom is apparently making waves in other formats, and it's nice here too. A cheaper Fact or Fiction variant is pretty well fine. I love the game theory cards, and I think it could be fairly good. The tempt mechanic is I guess neither here nor there, but it's not nothing either.

That's all I've got my eye on right now, at least until the latest round of spoilers is done - I'm hoping for Culling the Weak, Chain of Vapor, allied fetches and mana positive rocks, but we will see I guess. In the meantime, I thought it might be worth going over my thoughts on the LoTR cards. I actually think it's one of those sets we'll get months down the track on and think it was much better than first takes, and I think there's at least a couple of other considerations for Varina in the mix.

Flowering of the White Tree - There's at least a medium case for this. Creature boosts are nice, and this protects, to some degree, our commander from interaction, as well as a bit of insurance for Haakon, Stromgald Scourge lines too. It's not a shoe in, but I think its defensible if you're wanting to stop interaction and don't want to use the stack.

Borne Upon a Wind - If we're in any way on a combo route, I actually think there's quite a strong case for this. All of the common lines we use are ones we need to wait for our turn to use, speaking specifically of mass reanimate lines and Haakon lines. Being creature based combo lines, in some ways, hurts in that respect. This card replaces itself in hand and gives us the opportunity to combo off at a moment's notice, in response to a board wipe, or in response to another win attempt. I think it's pretty good. Sure, we're lean on mana most games, but it could put in work.

Orcish Bowmasters - I think an optimised, fully loaded list probably does run this card. I don't know if you go down the wheels route, although it obviously fits well in that archetype, but it does a lot of what this list wants to do. We're drawing a ton, and we ideally want to survive combat, so we feed the bowmasters and they clear the way for us, as well as giving us a fatty to block with or sac for fodder. Personally, I'm not adding it in myself. If it were $30 cheaper I might consider it, but I'm fine with just staying on theme.

The One Ring - This card is very, very strong. I've seen a bit of gameplay in which it has warped games pretty well. The cast trigger is excellent, the draw very good, the burden counter/lifeloss scenario sequenced in the best way possible. That said I don't think we need it, and I think it interferes with our sequencing of playing out Varina. It definitely doesn't need untapper effects to do great things, but I think being at 4 makes it a no for me, and anything past early game I'd much prefer to be casting Varina anyway. So no from me, but I totally get it if it makes the cut for anyone else, card is busted.

The Black Gate - It's a bit of a corner case, but there's a case for this one. It gives us a way to get an attack trigger and not lose numbers. A lot of the time we don't care, but when we do we do, so I think it might be worth adding just for small fact.

Did I miss anything? I know I'm way late, but truthfully I wanted a little while to parse this set before writing up about it anyway. I knew we'd have no critters, but surprisingly I think there's a few things we can play around with here.

[yeti1069]

I think you may be undervaluing the tempt on Sauron's Ransom, which is ok. I think FoF w/ the ability to give one of your creatures skulk is worth losing 1 card. You can put it on Varina, for instance, for make it awkward to block here (would often need 2 smaller creatures), for example.

I don't think Flowering is worth it here, especially for lists that have cut all/most of the zombie lords. It's and doesn't grant the extra benefit to most of the deck.

Orcish Bowmasters only triggers on ETB and when an opponent draws an extra card, so won't care about Varina triggers. I can't see this being worth running here.

I agree with you on The One Ring.

I think The Black Gate is an almost strict upgrade to a basic Swamp.

Raise the Palisade I would imagine to be very good here much of the time.

[pokken]

I won't even think about putting The One Ring in anything except a strongly synergistic deck for some time. It's so stupid. If it doesn't get banned inside a year I'd be very surprised. I'll be buying at absolutely most a single copy.

[yeti1069]

I won't even think about putting The One Ring in anything except a strongly synergistic deck for some time. It's so stupid. If it doesn't get banned inside a year I'd be very surprised. I'll be buying at absolutely most a single copy.

I put my copy in my Frodo & Sam deck, and am considering proxying a copy for Sauron and Osgir. If I ever get around to making the mean Tameshi deck I've had on the back burner for a while, it will go in there for sure. Otherwise, yeah...I think you want both a lot of life gain and a way to reset it/get rid of it easily.

[toctheyounger]

Orcish Bowmasters only triggers on ETB and when an opponent draws an extra card, so won't care about Varina triggers. I can't see this being worth running here.

Yeah, I mean that is true, but draw is something people wanna do. Idk, it's hard not to see it as a staple really. Maybe it doesn't quite pull the weight here, I'd think it would probably suffice, but being off-tribe doesn't help a ton I guess.

I think you may be undervaluing the tempt on Sauron's Ransom, which is ok. I think FoF w/ the ability to give one of your creatures skulk is worth losing 1 card. You can put it on Varina, for instance, for make it awkward to block here (would often need 2 smaller creatures), for example.

No, I get it, it's strong in it's own way. Skulk is a cool mechanic, and it's a bit of a shame the rest of the tempt mechanic doesn't fit well here, because some of the upgrades further down the list are decent too. I particularly like the sac on block trigger, it'd be nice to get it in here. I think the card has legs, and I think it'll do just fine.

Raise the Palisade I would imagine to be very good here much of the time.

Don't really wanna pay the going rate, but yeah I'd say so. It's not quite a rift, but it is decent in it's own way. Sorcery speed hurts though.

I won't even think about putting The One Ring in anything except a strongly synergistic deck for some time. It's so stupid. If it doesn't get banned inside a year I'd be very surprised. I'll be buying at absolutely most a single copy.

This might be a discussion for a different thread, but I don't know that it's fully banworthy. It is very strong, and it's almost the very best possible version of itself (only way its more cracked is with the cast trigger being an ETB trigger - if it were it'd be ban immediately imo), but I don't know that it's warping enough in a multiplayer game to get the hammer. I don't know, it's early days. Card is strong, but I'd be interested to see how it measures up against something like Rhystic Study. I don't think the added protection is enough to tip the scales.

[pokken]

Yeah I don't mean to start a ban discussion more than to say I am cautious about getting enough of them that I'd be willing to put them in a deck where they are pure good stuff because the ban hammer is a real possibility for a variety of reasons.

[toctheyounger]

Yeah I don't mean to start a ban discussion more than to say I am cautious about getting enough of them that I'd be willing to put them in a deck where they are pure good stuff because the ban hammer is a real possibility for a variety of reasons.

Totally get it, I didn't mean to wade in either. I think it'll be fine, but that said it's becoming a mainstay in cedh builds everywhere, even those without specific synergies. It speaks volumes for a meta that traditionally has favored Ad Nauseam. Card is pretty bonkers, I just don't think it's worth it here more for sequencing reasons really.