I have a lot of thoughts on this. :DReya wrote: ↑1 month agoWhat about Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox and stuff like this ?
I will probably cut them all. I think Varina just needs to lands every turn and it's enough. As soon as we play a land each and every turn we are fine because we will go of with an altar or a big mana land like Crypt or Nykthos. It's better to make room for synergistics cards and land tutor rather than play rocks producing colorless or moxes that ask for another card.
But I guess the feeling is the same for almost everyone here ?
Fundamentally my opinion is that you only want to play Mana Crypt (or Ancient Tomb, Sol Ring) if you can accelerate either raw card advantage spells or signets, or both.
If these are your gameplan then you will need card advantage sources other than Varina to fix your mana, because casting 1UWB on turn 4 is fairly difficult as is.
And if your gameplan is to cast a bunch of non-zombie card advantage and ramp spells, you might be playing the wrong commander. Playing a bunch of Rhystic Study effects to fix your hand before casting Varina, Lich Queen will make your deck diluted.
I'll just to come out and say it, if your Varina deck wants to Demonic Tutor for Rhystic Study then you bore me :D copies of Tymna the Weaver are cheap now you don't have to slum it with us :D
the only rock I am on these days is Springleaf Drum and that includes cutting Sol Ring. It just...doesn't really help me most of the time.
re: the colored card disadvantage rocks, Mox Diamond // Chrome Mox
I don't play them because they make keeping hands awkward. They are likely going to up your win rate, but sap your fun and make for more flameouts where you miss drawing a land and die.
A core principle I build decks by is to minimize nongames, and that is definitely a personal bias against explosive risky gameplans like card disadvantage rocks.
YMMV etc etc :D
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I will say I think there is a Varina, Lich Queen deck that goes super hard on her ability, playing Training Grounds and similar, and that deck almost surely wants Mana Crypt and the whole rock package.
Filling your yard with random spells and then making chains of zombies that then fill the yard to make more zombies, I think that's a deck.
But I have never seen anyone build that deck.