Varina, Lich Queen - Esper Zombie Midrange

[Reya]

Last thought of the day: I will try Takenuma, Abandoned Mire. It should be a nice addition because you can bring back Liliana, Untouched by death. So Lili will also become fuel for our graveyard rather than just a -3 into comboing. I will feel better to dicard her to Varina if I can bring her back with Mire. And I will feel better to use her +1 or even +2 instead of always -3 her.

[pzbw7z]

Last thought of the day: I will try Takenuma, Abandoned Mire. It should be a nice addition because you can bring back Liliana, Untouched by death. So Lili will also become fuel for our graveyard rather than just a -3 into comboing. I will feel better to dicard her to Varina if I can bring her back with Mire. And I will feel better to use her +1 or even +2 instead of always -3 her.

I like Takenuma as well,for the same reason.

[toctheyounger]

Last thought of the day: I will try Takenuma, Abandoned Mire. It should be a nice addition because you can bring back Liliana, Untouched by death. So Lili will also become fuel for our graveyard rather than just a -3 into comboing. I will feel better to dicard her to Varina if I can bring her back with Mire. And I will feel better to use her +1 or even +2 instead of always -3 her.

This is a really nice catch, I gotta say. I toss a ton of lands in the course of the game (you really only need to make sure you've got your next land drop covered in most cases) and this is a nice use-case for Takenuma.

[Reya]

So just after I wrote that Cosmic Intervention is not a really good card, I had a game yesterday where it actually shined. It was early foretold and was ready to bring back 8 zombies + Wayward Servant. I had Ashnod Altar on the battlefield, ready to sacrifice everything to bring back the team next end step and immediately sacrifice everything again to cast Cyclonic Rift, clearing the board and draining everyone for 16 lifes.

The main issue here: you instantly become the archenemy and you can't loop the Intervention. But still a nice play.

[Rframpt]

So just after I wrote that Cosmic Intervention is not a really good card, I had a game yesterday where it actually shined. It was early foretold and was ready to bring back 8 zombies + Wayward Servant. I had Ashnod Altar on the battlefield, ready to sacrifice everything to bring back the team next end step and immediately sacrifice everything again to cast Cyclonic Rift, clearing the board and draining everyone for 16 lifes.

The main issue here: you instantly become the archenemy and you can't loop the Intervention. But still a nice play.

I will say you don't necessarily need to loop it for it to be good. The best part isn't it can be looped. If all you need is to push just that on bit further ahead then Cosmic Intervention is all you need of your board supports it. And Draining everyone for 16 isn't nothing and should make it so you can take the game

[Reya]

A few feedbacks:

Withered Wretch: Probably a solid keep in this kind of strategy. It saved me a few games where I was about to deck myself if I wanted to loop my graveyard to drain my opponents to death. I was able to exile Undead Augur and Liliana's Standard Bearer to survive. And I was able to exile Soul's Attendant and similar stuff to kill my opponent.

Cabal Coffers: I'm starting to ask myself if I really want to keep this particular land. Often it makes your hand pretty bad or force you to quickly find Urborg. Leading you to bad sequencing and/or tempo loss.

What do you think of the utility of Urborg and Coffers ? Do you often have bad plays with them too ? Maybe Crypt of Agadeem and Nykthos, shrine to Nyx are enough for big mana production.

[pzbw7z]

A few feedbacks:

Withered Wretch: Probably a solid keep in this kind of strategy. It saved me a few games where I was about to deck myself if I wanted to loop my graveyard to drain my opponents to death. I was able to exile Undead Augur and Liliana's Standard Bearer to survive. And I was able to exile Soul's Attendant and similar stuff to kill my opponent.

Cabal Coffers: I'm starting to ask myself if I really want to keep this particular land. Often it makes your hand pretty bad or force you to quickly find Urborg. Leading you to bad sequencing and/or tempo loss.

What do you think of the utility of Urborg and Coffers ? Do you often have bad plays with them too ? Maybe Crypt of Agadeem and Nykthos, shrine to Nyx are enough for big mana production.

Withered Wretch is a card I want to try but haven't yet. I wouldn't touch Cabal Coffers in this deck for love nor money. Maybe for both, but not one or the other. Well, I guess it depends on how much money we're talking about. I'd have to play other cards to make it remotely feasible to play, and way more Swamps than I do.

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx works often enough that I keep it and so does Crypt of Agadeem.

[Rframpt]

A few feedbacks:

Withered Wretch: Probably a solid keep in this kind of strategy. It saved me a few games where I was about to deck myself if I wanted to loop my graveyard to drain my opponents to death. I was able to exile Undead Augur and Liliana's Standard Bearer to survive. And I was able to exile Soul's Attendant and similar stuff to kill my opponent.

Cabal Coffers: I'm starting to ask myself if I really want to keep this particular land. Often it makes your hand pretty bad or force you to quickly find Urborg. Leading you to bad sequencing and/or tempo loss.

What do you think of the utility of Urborg and Coffers ? Do you often have bad plays with them too ? Maybe Crypt of Agadeem and Nykthos, shrine to Nyx are enough for big mana production.

I have Crypt of Agadeem in my list as myonly copy of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is in my Oona, Queen of the Fae deck. I am fine with the slight tempo lost of Crypt as it produces black mana and can produce even more as our creatures are predominately black. Coffers isn't a card I would add to this style of deck. We a a bit more reliant of hitting our lands drops early, get on the board quickly with low cmc creatures to start looting with Varina at the latest turn four, and from there star sculpting our hand and yard to destroy our opponents.
Coffers tend to lead to risky keeps where you hope Urborg gets there within the first few rounds, so you can start rolling. For me the "large" amount of mana coffers potentially can produce isn't really all that useful as it usually leads to over commitment on the board and then we aren't far of our opponents getting us with a boardwipe and nothing for us in hand to play the coming turns.
So far I don't have that much I would need coffers or Nythos for to use the potential mana for. No large x spells nor that mana high cmc creatures as I am more of a reanimator deck and my high cmc creatures would just be the target for Necromancy or Animate Dead. If you really want coffers in the deck I think adding more tutors to the deck would likely be the best, but committing more slot to tutor for a land doesn't seem that appealing to me when I play Esper.

[Rframpt]

A few feedbacks:

Withered Wretch: Probably a solid keep in this kind of strategy. It saved me a few games where I was about to deck myself if I wanted to loop my graveyard to drain my opponents to death. I was able to exile Undead Augur and Liliana's Standard Bearer to survive. And I was able to exile Soul's Attendant and similar stuff to kill my opponent.

Cabal Coffers: I'm starting to ask myself if I really want to keep this particular land. Often it makes your hand pretty bad or force you to quickly find Urborg. Leading you to bad sequencing and/or tempo loss.

What do you think of the utility of Urborg and Coffers ? Do you often have bad plays with them too ? Maybe Crypt of Agadeem and Nykthos, shrine to Nyx are enough for big mana production.

Withered Wretch is a card I want to try but haven't yet. I wouldn't touch Cabal Coffers in this deck for love nor money. Maybe for both, but not one or the other. Well, I guess it depends on how much money we're talking about. I'd have to play other cards to make it remotely feasible to play, and way more Swamps than I do.

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx works often enough that I keep it and so does Crypt of Agadeem.

Withered Wretch is a great card to have access to. With Tormod, the Desecrator it can be army in a can if you have the mana for, which can be amazing for when you need to have extra bodies for all you zombie shenanigans.

[pzbw7z]

Withered Wretch is a great card to have access to. With Tormod, the Desecrator it can be army in a can if you have the mana for, which can be amazing for when you need to have extra bodies for all you zombie shenanigans.

I played with Tormod for a while, but I had too few effects to make good use of him. If I add Wretch, I will reevaluate Tormod.

[toctheyounger]

Yeah I will say of our big mana sources, Coffers is definitely the least reliable. If I see it in my opening hand I almost certainly mull it away. Crypt and Shrine are considerably more reliable to turn on. That said, when it's online it reliably gives good value.

I personally think if you're running the altars and ways to get em, they're much more reliable ways to get the resources you need to finish the game anyway. Being a combination of death trigger and mana resource just makes them much more efficient than burst mana lands.

I like having the option of coffers for sure. It's the last land I would usually fetch with my wayfarer, but honestly, my opinion is that, while it can affect the opening hands you want to keep, it's a pretty low opportunity cost to run. The reason I think that is that generally I'll loot away a lot of land in a game, we've got Reclamation, Wayfarer, Urborg to either make it work or grab it, and with Field in the deck we want unique lands anyway. It would definitely be the first of my big mana lands to go if or when the opportunity comes up, though.

[Rframpt]

So I had some Games with Varina today, where my deck didn't really do all that much in the three games I play. First game she was up against a Atla Palani, Nest Tender, Sauron, the Dark Lord, and Hazezon, Shaper of Sand where the deck just didn't really had the engine going or there really wasn't any great attacks. The deck quickly ended up sitting there while the Atla player could accumulate all the value and end the game.
Second game went a bit better in the early run but some bad plays on my part made it so the game folded to the Toshiro Umezawa. Close one but I need just a bit more to pull me over the edge.
Third game, none of the pieces seem to have been there for me to start rolling. and the game ended after the Vadrik, Astral Archmage stormed off.

Really, sucked but I think it might have been the extented period where games just didn't happen for one reason or another. That and perhaps some bad keeps on my part where I couldn't get anything to get through on the board.

[toctheyounger]

Yeah, it can be a tricky deck to keep a good hand for. I'm generally quite particular as to what I'm willing to keep, and I have gone as low as 5 or 4 in the past. It's a huge risk, but if you're not keeping good stuff why keep at all? Atla is kind of a KOS commander too; if you let them stay on board they'll just snowball. You gotta get em off board and keep em off board.

I will say it's a bit of an all in build to some extent currently; if Varina isn't on you can struggle. There's a case for some good onboard draw engines in the deck; things that have been in and out here like Rhystic and Remora, even the One Ring, although I very much dislike where that drops on a curve. I'm happy not to, currently, but I think it's totally defensible to include this sort of stuff.

[toctheyounger]

Well, Varina is getting a reskin, if anyone's interested. New Evil Dead Secret Lair, with reprints of Varina as Linda, Field as the Cabin, Zombie Apocalypse and some others that aren't really mainstays here. Seems cool if you're into it, it's not a franchise I've ever really delved into. Not that I'd say no to horror reskins, I just haven't really seen much of this franchise.

[pzbw7z]

Well, Varina is getting a reskin, if anyone's interested. New Evil Dead Secret Lair, with reprints of Varina as Linda, Field as the Cabin, Zombie Apocalypse and some others that aren't really mainstays here. Seems cool if you're into it, it's not a franchise I've ever really delved into. Not that I'd say no to horror reskins, I just haven't really seen much of this franchise.

If there's any bling in my decks, it's by accident. In fact, I've been known to de-bling on occasion.

[toctheyounger]

Well, Varina is getting a reskin, if anyone's interested. New Evil Dead Secret Lair, with reprints of Varina as Linda, Field as the Cabin, Zombie Apocalypse and some others that aren't really mainstays here. Seems cool if you're into it, it's not a franchise I've ever really delved into. Not that I'd say no to horror reskins, I just haven't really seen much of this franchise.

If there's any bling in my decks, it's by accident. In fact, I've been known to de-bling on occasion.

Yeah same mostly. Unless I really like the art I'm on basics. I made an exception for Birgi in the showcase art and I'm glad I did. Same with Eruth.

[pzbw7z]

Well, Varina is getting a reskin, if anyone's interested. New Evil Dead Secret Lair, with reprints of Varina as Linda, Field as the Cabin, Zombie Apocalypse and some others that aren't really mainstays here. Seems cool if you're into it, it's not a franchise I've ever really delved into. Not that I'd say no to horror reskins, I just haven't really seen much of this franchise.

If there's any bling in my decks, it's by accident. In fact, I've been known to de-bling on occasion.

Yeah same mostly. Unless I really like the art I'm on basics. I made an exception for Birgi in the showcase art and I'm glad I did. Same with Eruth.

I do play full-art Basic lands. It's really just foils that I dislike; they're hard to see in sleeves and they turn into pringles.

Well, 'm not fond of non-English text either. German I can read, some of the other Latin-character languages I can partly figure out but I've no clue with any pictogram-based language.

Come to think of it, I guess I'm also not at all fond of alternate art; it just makes it a little harder to see what's what.

And don't even start with alternate-art, Japanese-language cards!

Yeah, I'm a cranky old man and I don't much like bling.

[Rframpt]

If there's any bling in my decks, it's by accident. In fact, I've been known to de-bling on occasion.

Yeah same mostly. Unless I really like the art I'm on basics. I made an exception for Birgi in the showcase art and I'm glad I did. Same with Eruth.

I do play full-art Basic lands. It's really just foils that I dislike; they're hard to see in sleeves and they turn into pringles.

Well, 'm not fond of non-English text either. German I can read, some of the other Latin-character languages I can partly figure out but I've no clue with any pictogram-based language.

Come to think of it, I guess I'm also not at all fond of alternate art; it just makes it a little harder to see what's what.

And don't even start with alternate-art, Japanese-language cards!

Yeah, I'm a cranky old man and I don't much like bling.

I do get you Pzbw7z. I like magic cards to look like magic cards. While for some of the cards I like getting the alternative alts some of the secret lairs that hardly look like a magic card just isn't for me. Same goes for the anime styled cards where many are cursed as all hell. While that isn't for me I can appreciate that if it can lower the prices of magic in general

[toctheyounger]

Yeah same mostly. Unless I really like the art I'm on basics. I made an exception for Birgi in the showcase art and I'm glad I did. Same with Eruth.

I do play full-art Basic lands. It's really just foils that I dislike; they're hard to see in sleeves and they turn into pringles.

Well, 'm not fond of non-English text either. German I can read, some of the other Latin-character languages I can partly figure out but I've no clue with any pictogram-based language.

Come to think of it, I guess I'm also not at all fond of alternate art; it just makes it a little harder to see what's what.

And don't even start with alternate-art, Japanese-language cards!

Yeah, I'm a cranky old man and I don't much like bling.

I do get you Pzbw7z. I like magic cards to look like magic cards. While for some of the cards I like getting the alternative alts some of the secret lairs that hardly look like a magic card just isn't for me. Same goes for the anime styled cards where many are cursed as all hell. While that isn't for me I can appreciate that if it can lower the prices of magic in general

Totally agree with the anime cards. Honestly I think they're bordering on creepy in many cases. The war of the spark planeswalkers, some are really close to waifu cringe and that's not an area of popular culture I'd like to mix with mtg any more than it has to. And the chibi thing I just don't get. The Wilds of Eldraine anime alt arts, my only thought is why? I don't get the connection, don't see why we needed anime art, the alt arts look better in almost every case. But yeah, if it lowers prices in general I guess it's a good thing.

[pzbw7z]

But yeah, if it lowers prices in general I guess it's a good thing.

We're agreed on this point.

[Rframpt]

So after my last set of games with Varina and a bit of upgrade purchase of a The Meathook Massacre I will need to make some hard decisions as to what goes in the deck and what goes out. Have some sidegrades I would like to add to the deck as well but damn it is getting rough finding what to cut and what to keep

[toctheyounger]

So after my last set of games with Varina and a bit of upgrade purchase of a The Meathook Massacre I will need to make some hard decisions as to what goes in the deck and what goes out. Have some sidegrades I would like to add to the deck as well but damn it is getting rough finding what to cut and what to keep

I finally looked over your list. If we're looking at straight one on one swaps my suggestion is Despark or Rite of Oblivion. They're parallels with downside, easy swap for a better option. Or Nevinyrral; I found him really hard to use well, bit of a strange card that does flavor well and mechanically just needs too much work.

You could also potentially drop lands if you so chose. 35 is fairly high for a list that runs low to the ground generally; I know you've got Norn in the list and such, but ideally you're resurrecting her anyway rather than hardcasting.

[Reya]

I wouldn't cut lands in that list. People too often cut lands in their deck by thinking they can because the curve is low. The thing is, you absolutely need to never miss a land drop in a Varina list. The tempo loss of missing a land drop is awful, especialy in a deck that struggles a lot to properly ramp. Plus, you want to dicard lands a lot to Varina ability. I will never go below 36 lands for Varina. They are fuel to her.

Discards your lands, exile them for Varina, but don't remove them from your list

Edit: I checked with a hypergeometric calculator. 99 cards (including 36 lands). You have 62,1% chance of drawing 4 or more lands on turn 4. So, outside any card that help you find land, you can miss your 4th land 38% of the time. It's huge. Don't cut land !

Edit 2: Rframpt. I saw your list and the curve is really high. 3,09 mana value on average is a lot. Definitely I would never go below 36 lands with such a high average mana value. Probably 37 would be better. My actual list has an average mana value of 2,13 and even there, I run 36 lands and I miss land drop from time to time.

[Rframpt]

I would never go below 35. Currently, having one more land wouldn't hurt for the list, it just becomes another matter of what else to cut. Removal is very key in my Meta which is why I have so much of it. Folks play a lot of greedy stuff and being able to play a bit slower in Varina isn't necessary a bad thing for a midrange deck like Varina can certainly fit within.

As to cutting Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant I doubt I would do that. Love the loop of him + a sac outlet (Preferably a land with a sac outlet stabled on it.) + Unholy Grotto + 9 mana to cast and activation can lock out the other players. So that line doesn't go until a time I grow bored of it. Also having access to a boardwipe on a creature is nice tech that can get people.

I would also take the average mana value with a grain of salt as I currently have more than 100 cards in the list. But that is just how I manage my decklist online when I need to add and cut cards. I think my best options is perhaps to go down a boardwipe with the adding of The Meathook Massacre and likely cut a creature or two.

I appreciate the comments so far. Varina is an amazing legend to build around which goes to show the range of decks shown around here.

[Rframpt]

I do want to know if any of you have played with Binding Mummy ? And if so how has it felt playing so far? Currently I haven't seen it in many games lately, So I am wondering if the utility in it is good or not