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Re: Lazav - Dimir Shapeshifter Voltron
Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2020 4:58 am
by materpillar
I played a game this evening. My opponent cast a turn 2
Rest in Peace. That feels reaaaaaaally bad let me tell you. The game stalled out until my
Avacyn, Angel of hope opponent cast
Armageddon and I responded with
Reins of Power. The next turn I cast
Aetherspouts when he tried to race me with his angels. That felt pretty good. Although, it took me forever to actually kill them since Lasav was a 1/3 the entire game. The other player got beat to death by
Royal Assassin which is pretty hilarious.
Other highlights include my opponent casting a turn three
Hushbringer so I cast a turn 4
Eater of Days. It ate
Prison term and then
swords to plowshares.
Pulse of the Grid did a ton of work since the game went so long.
Daring Thief continues to be good too, I had
Survivors' Encampment in play just for it and it was great.
None of the new cards really came out to play except
Rites of Refusal but it did exactly what I expected. It's a swingy hyper mana leak with discard synergies.
Re: Lazav - Dimir Shapeshifter Voltron
Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2020 2:22 pm
by Toshi
In:
+
Cavern Harpy
+
Phyrexian Soulgorger*
+
Rotting Regisaur
+
Spectral Sailor
+
Chronic Flooding
+
Rites of Refusal*
+
Geier Reach Sanitarium
Out:
-
Carrion Feeder (Used this way too seldomly)
-
Putrid Imp (See above)
-
Stinkweed Imp* (Too much mana for the evasion, outclassed by other mill options)
-
Wight of Precinct Six (Struggled too much, if my opponents weren't creature heavy)
-
Tolarian Winds (Neither does it wheel my opponents nor does it allow me to filter)
-
Rewind*
-
Island
*Pending shipments
If only it weren't so hard to find cuts already, i would consider including it as well...
I will still have to find slots for
Hunted Horror and
Mesmeric Orb somehow soon.
Re: Lazav - Dimir Shapeshifter Voltron
Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 3:16 pm
by materpillar
I get the feeling that your deck is noticeably more powerful than mine. I think I'm a bit more board control focused and you wheel into 1-shotting people a bit more. Daring Thief might be fairly underwhelming for you.
I just saw
Cabal Pit. That card is almost certainly worth a slot here.
I'm surprised Tolarian Winds hasn't been doing it for you. That card is constant fire for me. Although, my deck is built around more of a discard synergy than straight milling. It and
Archfiend of Ifnir feel great.
Mesmeric Orb is way more powerful than Chronic Flooding. It'll probably get killed a lot more because of that though. That seems like the obvious cut to me.
Hunted horror is just a straight upgrade to
Nyxathid
I'm pretty sure
Spectral Sailor should be
Kefnet the Mindful. Unless you really really use Spectral Sailor as
jump a lot. Two mana more is a lot, but having the ability to turn lasav indestructible and also turning him into a non-negligible 5/5 threat are both huge upsides.
Re: Lazav - Dimir Shapeshifter Voltron
Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 11:49 pm
by Toshi
materpillar wrote: ↑4 years ago
I think I'm a bit more board control focused and you wheel into 1-shotting people a bit more.
Daring Thief might be fairly underwhelming for you.
You are certainly right on this one. I'm aiming to set up a kill quickly -
Crypt Rats,
Jace's Archivist,
Maralen of the Mornsong,
Notion Thief,
Withered Wretch and the likes are only included if the game drags on and i need specific solutions.
materpillar wrote: ↑4 years ago
I'm surprised
Tolarian Winds hasn't been doing it for you. That card is constant fire for me. Although, my deck is built around more of a discard synergy than straight milling. It and
Archfiend of Ifnir feel great.
I'm not saying it hasn't been working - at all. It's just that
Ancient Excavation,
Frantic Search and
Careful Study allow me to sculpt my hand and
Dark Deal,
Whispering Madness,
Windfall and
Jace's Archivist all supercharge my graveyard based win cons on top of disallowing others to sculpt hands.
Tolarian Winds does neither and there are only so few slots available unfortunately.
I'm not thinking of it being a decision between the two of them. I really wanna play both.
Mesmeric Orb is as good as it gets when it comes to filling graveyards
fast and comes with the risk of enabling others' graveyard shenanigans. But its way too good to pass on and i love when things escalate quickly.
As with the above thought, i want to go for redundancy and hit 3 turn clocks consistently. I'm not yet sure what to ditch for it, but it's unlikely to be another beater or protective option.
There are several things that i like about
Spectral Sailor. It has Flash to be a surprise chump blocker, is a cheap evasion spender and in case i desperately need cards i might as well use its mana sink.
Kefnet the Mindful is a tricky one. I only very rarely have 7 or more cards in hand, CMC 3 for evasion is a lot, it doesn't pack a big punch and i prefer Persist/Undying over indestructibility for my Commanders' ETB effect.
I've been thinking of running an unblockable package consisting of
Gudul Lurker,
Mist-Cloaked Herald,
Slither Blade and
Triton Shorestalker instead of more mana heavy/less reliable ones.
Changeling Outcast(
Swarmyard?) and
Tormented Soul would be hilarious, unfortunately they aren't able to chump block themselves to my graveyard.
ps. I wouldn't say my deck is noticeably more powerful than yours. Mine is aiming to be more reliable but might lack flexibility in comparison.
Re: Lazav - Dimir Shapeshifter Voltron
Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2020 2:15 am
by materpillar
NoNeedToBragoBoutIt wrote: ↑4 years ago
Kefnet the Mindful is a tricky one. I only very rarely have 7 or more cards in hand, CMC 3 for evasion is a lot, it doesn't pack a big punch and i prefer Persist/Undying over indestructibility for my Commanders' ETB effect.
Remember you can attack with Lasav, then after declaring him an attacker turn him into Kefnet. The attack/block clause isn't really relevant all that much. If you're playing the pirate as a jump, the pirate will be better. If you're playing the pirate to draw cards I think Kefnet will be better.
Kefnet can't block for himself but he can do way better offense and your opponents probably won't ever kill it if you cast it. Depends a bit on what you're looking for.
I also find that I don't have my persist/undying creatures in the graveyard nearly often enough.
I think this is worth is just for the one time you blow someone out.
Got some changes.
-1
Wipe Away
+1
King Macar, the Gold-Cursed
I've never been particularly happy with wipe away. It never really did enough. The tempo gain always felt too weak. Since Daring Thief has overperformed here's another inspired man.
-1
Chaos Wand
+1
Null Brooch
Chaos wand was lulzy, but Null Brooch is even more hardcore. I've got a couple of synergy cards coming up.
-1
Forbidden Alchemy
+1
Oath of Scholars
Forbidden Alchemy always felt like a desperation cast, it was always super reactive and never pro-active. Since I discard so many cards, this Oath seems like gas. No one will expect it either.
-1
Hedron Archive
+1
Ghirapur Orrery
Hedron Archive is in way too many decks on EDHrec. I need to replace it with a card that sees much less play. Here we are. It also ramps, it also card advantages.
-1
Necroplasm
+1
Rotting Regisaur
Continuing on the discard theme. I'll keep an eye on the token strats in my metagame. If they come back hard he'll find a slot again.
-1
Isolated Watchtower
+1
Geier Reach Sanitarium
I don't have enough basics for the watchtower to be good. Sanitarium for the discard synergies.
-1
Guildmages' Forum
+1
Cabal Pit
I found the +1/+1 counter to be anti-synergistic with all the undying creatures. This is a holdover from my attempt at proliferating days. Removal on a land seems way better.
I really want a
Holdout Settlement. I wonder if
Yahenni, Undying Partisan would be good enough. It gives haste, protection, and +1/+1 counters.
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2020 3:42 pm
by materpillar
Consuming Aberration has somewhat under-performed for me because my deck cares so much less about opponent's graveyards than yours. I recently drew it with
rest in peace on the battlefield and that felt terrible. I've been wanting to smash
Havengul Lich into a deck forever. I wonder if it might be worth a try here just to give me some more reach.
[edit]: I just saw
Phyrexian Devourer. Seems reaaaaaaally good. Stack a bunch of deck munchy triggers and then turn Lasav into something else so he loses the die static effect.
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 5:38 pm
by materpillar
I managed to get a
Oath of Scholars +
Curious Obsession +
Mask of Memory to draw 6 cards a turn.
I also had
Oath of Scholars +
Drake Haven going.
At the end of the game I had <35 cards left in my library. I didn't see
Hunted Horror,
Rotting Regisaur,
Wake Thrasher,
Archfiend of Ifnir,
Havengul Lich,
Eater of Days or
Phage the Untouchable. I wasn't really attacking with my drakes and I think if I had I might have done enough chip damage to pull a win.
In other news playing against
The Scarab God feels real bad. I advise against that. >.>
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2020 5:58 am
by Yuuki
Do you have a decklist with your most recent cards?
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2020 9:04 am
by materpillar
Here's my current list. I am intentionally running as many "sub-optimal" cards and cards that have immensely low playrates on EDHrec as possible. I also try to keep everything in the deck very inexpensive (outside of training grounds and a handful of lands).
I'm probably going to cut all of the cycling lands for basics as I've never wanted to cycle any of them ever.
I just added
Sea-Dasher Octopus,
Phyrexian Devourer,
Havengul Lich and
King Macar, the Gold-Cursed. I imagine they'll all stick around for a while outside of Havengul.
I wish
Bontu the Glorified was
Thassa, God of the Sea.
Yuuki wrote: ↑3 years ago
Do you have a decklist with your most recent cards?
If you have any questions about any specific cards, I'd be more than happy to answer questions.
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2020 11:25 am
by Toshi
Due to Covid i haven't been able to tinker and play as much, as i usually would. For the last few weeks we cautiously started playing within our playgroup again.
I'm very happy to see the ongoing discussion, btw! Below are my latest adjustments.
In:
+
Faerie Impostor (Due to being able to sac itself an all upside package)
+
Ghostly Pilferer (Somewhat of a 2nd
Cephalid Inkshrouder with occasional card draw)
+
Hunted Horror (Aside from
Phyrexian Dreadnought the deck now includes all ≥7 power, ≤3 CMC options)
Out:
-
Nimble Obstructionist (Both an overcosted
Stifle against
Bojuka Bog and the likes and an overcosted evasion spender)
-
Withered Wretch (Too few graveyard based match ups, most of them a lot less scary/fast)
-
Hero's Downfall (Most of the times it turned out to be a
Murder, unfortunately)
Side note: Since
Wall of Blood and
Phage the Untouchable turned out to be too scary for some weaker pods, i've started swapping in
Eater of Days and
Traxos, Scourge of Kroog for them for them at times.
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2020 6:54 pm
by materpillar
I've been playing some games on playEDH and my list has been doing fairly well at the mid level. I must say
Oath of Scholars has been massively overperforming for me. It basically says "at your upkeep draw 3" since I have so much discard support with
Cephalid Inkshrouder,
Rotting Regisaur,
Masticore,
Null Brooch and the like. I think it might be one of the strongest cards in my deck now.
The last game I won off the back of
King Macar, the Gold-Cursed. Repeated removal after everyone else had burned out most of their resources sealed the game up for me.
The amount of times I hope to top-deck
Reins of Power is crazy.
I cut all my cycling lands because I found that I never, ever wanted to cycle them.
Treacherous Pit-Dweller has been exceptional. I'm never sad to cast it. If it dies to an opponent's battlefield, it usually still only continues to help me since I'm never the archenemy with this deck. Then,
Homeward Path and
Torpor Orb completely negate its downside. Finally, having it in the graveyard is just gravy for Lazav.
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2020 9:44 pm
by materpillar
I've won 3 of the 4 games I've played with this deck on PlayEDH. I just fly under everyone's radar playing junky cards until it's me against one other person and then they just awkward realize they're actually dead to
Cephalid Inkshrouder +
Phage the Untouchable from the deck that they thought was utterly worthless trash. It's pretty fun.
Because
Oath of Scholars has been doing so much work for me that I'm adding
Recall into the deck just to recur it. I'm also throwing in
Tome of Legends because it seems like it'll draw me a ton of cards. I'm cutting
Dimir Cluestone since I think consistent card draw for consistent land-drops is much more valuable for me than ramp. I'm also adding
Recall over
Gurmag Swiftwing because I never found the need for the
Gurmag Swiftwing's haste which is primarily the reason it's in the deck.
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2020 9:58 pm
by Toshi
All of that sounds just great!
Love hearing about your matches - unfortunately i can't add any reports lately. I'm hoping for things to get better by the beginning of the year and then get some games in again.
Yeah, "just" adding haste hasn't been too much value. I'm down to 2 sources of haste.
Lightning Greaves obviously doubles up by granting haste and protection,
Nether Traitor comes with haste and a lot better evasion. It's rather pricey for a niche role player though.
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2020 10:28 pm
by materpillar
NoNeedToBragoBoutIt wrote: ↑3 years ago
All of that sounds just great!
Love hearing about your matches - unfortunately i can't add any reports lately. I'm hoping for things to get better by the beginning of the year and then get some games in again.
I've mostly been playing on webcam with PlayEDH. It's not nearly as nice as in person but people are pretty chill because the deck is so random.
I found a fair amount of my wins are based on getting
Oath of Scholars, then an evasive
Lazav, the Multifarious with stuff like
Sea-Dasher Octopus/
Mask of Memory to draw 5/6 cards a turn and absolutely blow through my deck. Usually drawing that many cards draws a
ton of hate, but I'm constantly going hellbent and casting
Fog Bank/
Gingerbrute so no one really gets concerned about my deck at all even though I'm tearing through it. This whole time I'm consistently hitting land-drops to get to my more lethal triple lazav transformations. I'm also answering scary cards my opponents are playing (
Rites of Refusal on a
Jokulhaups felt great) which usually only earns me more goodwill from the non-archenemy players.
Since the power of each hard-cast creature in this deck is so low its rare that any removal or interaction is thrown at my stuff which means my opponents constantly wearing each other down since they figure they can easily 1v1 my deck. Then once it's 1v1, whoops lasav
is a 21/21 Invisible Stalker.
Opponents when I explain that interaction:
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2020 12:52 am
by Toshi
Just some minor land tweaks and a slight adjustment in protection.
Usually around this time of the year, my friends and i get together to get the most games in between a friday afternoon and the following sunday evening - our record is something around 50 hours of MTG. Just thinking about it makes me melancholic, yet glad that so far all of us and our loved ones remained healthy.
In:
+
Malakir Rebirth // Malakir Mire
+
Clearwater Pathway // Murkwater Pathway
+
Ipnu Rivulet
Out:
-
Unwind
-
Island
-
Swamp
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2021 1:27 pm
by Toshi
While working on some other decks i've put some finishing touches on the mana base, as for fixing and self-mill.
In:
+
Dakmor Salvage
+
Nephalia Drownyard
+
Sunken Ruins
Out:
-
Sunken Hollow
-
Temple of Deceit
-
Swamp
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2021 1:55 pm
by materpillar
I played a game a couple days ago vs
Sisay, Weatherlight Captain (shrines) and
Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait (sea monsters).
In other news,
Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait is really strong. I'd highly recommend copying one with
Stolen Identity and then killing the original by copying
Kogla, the Titan Ape.
Stolen Identity has been great for me and since we have a ton of
Invisible Stalkers to put it on. I've been really happy with
Sea-Dasher Octopus and
Curious Obsession also.
I immensely enjoy piloting this deck. Everyone is so underwhelmed by it that they focus everyone else, then we get down to 1v1 and I just brutally murder whoever is left.
Cephalid Inkshrouder is amazing. It's been so good I'm considering slotting in
Putrid Imp.
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2021 5:51 pm
by Toshi
I've played
Putrid Imp for a while and it was really good for what it is. My pick for a (kind of) second
Cephalid Inkshrouder is
Ghostly Pilferer, better not sleep on this one!
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2021 7:18 pm
by materpillar
I'm running
Ghostly Pilferer, it has so much text I forget it is a discard outlet. I keep thinking I want it to draw cards off opposing commanders and then I end up casting other stuff instead. XD
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2021 11:25 am
by Toshi
Just to give you a little heads-up; i'm more or less on MTG hiatus for the moment - solely because i'm bored with playing Paper MTG via online plattforms.
Luckily, things are heading in the right direction, so i might be able to play more in person games in the near future and be more active on here as well.
What i can say though is, that i really like
Necrogoyf and
Dauthi Voidwalker for voltron and toolbox builds respectively. The goyf will surely get included the next time i'm ordering cards.
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 11:51 am
by materpillar
Toshi wrote: ↑3 years ago
Just to give you a little heads-up; i'm more or less on MTG hiatus for the moment - solely because i'm bored with playing Paper MTG via online plattforms.
Luckily, things are heading in the right direction, so i might be able to play more in person games in the near future and be more active on here as well.
What i can say though is, that i really like
Necrogoyf and
Dauthi Voidwalker for voltron and toolbox builds respectively. The goyf will surely get included the next time i'm ordering cards.
Makes sense. I haven't gotten any games in with Lazav at all recently. I'll probably give
Necrogoyf a test if I get the chance. I'm really excited for
Vorpal Sword. It's great with
Invisible Stalker and
Masticore.
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 2:59 pm
by Toshi
Oof, completely missed that one!
Who cares if
Phage the Untouchable gets exiled, when all your creatures are
Phage the Untouchable, rite?
ps. It's "combat damage" though, so
Masticore isn't exactly the best fit.
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 4:38 pm
by materpillar
It gives deathtouch base, so I can Masticore can machine gun down the board very easily.
Re: Lazav, the Multifarious | Graveyard Shapeshifting Voltron
Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2021 2:03 am
by materpillar
Just drafted some convention packs. I'm slotting in Form of the Mulldrifter because it's hilarious. It also goes along with what my deck is trying to do almost exactly by easily getting creatures into the bin.
Re: Lazav - Dimir Shapeshifter Voltron
Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2021 8:31 am
by Toshi
In:
+
Baleful Strix
+
Cabal Initiate
+
Gingerbrute
+
Necrogoyf
+
Arcane Signet
+
Resculpt
+
Sol Ring
+
Tolarian Winds
+
Training Grounds
+
Unmarked Grave
+
Island
+
Swamp
Out:
-
Cavern Harpy
-
Faerie Impostor
-
Jace's Archivist
-
Notion Thief
-
Dark Deal
-
Library of Leng
-
Mnemonic Betrayal
-
Sudden Spoiling
-
Thran Turbine
-
Unstable Obelisk
-
Fetid Pools
-
Ghost Quarter
This time around i mostly tweaked the noncreatures and stream-lined the mana base. Cutting
Notion Thief has been quite a relief. While it's not
Hullbreacher, it is still a card that never had an interesting impact on the course of the game.
Necrogoyf is yet another beefy bastard and
Cabal Initiate provides both another discard option as well as lifelink to survive a little longer, just in case.
materpillar wrote: ↑2 years ago
I'm slotting in Form of the Mulldrifter because it's hilarious.
That one gave me a good grin and perfectly fits your deck!