MTGNexus

Would Empty the Warrens be worth a look, then? mass hysteria would probably make sense, along with Anger and some additional looting spells.

I'd think more in the line of a Hammer of Purphoros since it does everything we'd want.

Hammer of Purphoros rocks.

I'm second guessing Storm-Kiln Artist and Birgi, God of Storytelling // Harnfel, Horn of Bounty . They can spiral out of control in spellslinger strategies, but idk if our curve is low enough to take full advantage of them. I think spell based rituals are the way to go.

How do we play this deck? Are trying to pump on attack? I think battle tricks like Unleash Fury can be awesome.

I also think we have too many cards that require us to sacrifice something while not that high on tokens (Would like to hear your guys oponion on this)

Also, since we care about mana value Brass's Bounty Slaughter Pact Fury of the Horde can be big time swings for us.

We rely on Livaan, Cultist of Tiamat for the win right? If the deck works arround Livan, then I think we need some more protection. Maybe those cheap black spells? Supernatural Stamina Boon of Erebos and so on? What you all think. Also, since his ability only gives power, some first strike wouldnt suck, right?

Just putting points out to hear your guys opinions, since yall have much more experience than me

I think your brass's bounty suggestion and I saw it previously too, is ill-placed as it cares about the lands we have. I think we'd be better served by a Skirge Familiar and similar cards. What I'd want is a Jorn, God of Winter // Kaldring, the Rimestaff, but obviously that's not in the colours.

I think I agree on grim hireling and that Storm-Kiln guy being poor fits. I'm thinking more of a Kiln Fiend might be better?

Fury of the Horde is gonna be tough to use, but Relentless Assault might do the trick.

Ruthless Technomancer would be a brilliant post combat play, similar to Disciple of Bolas. They're both poor if we're powering up Livaan specifically though.

Rebound spells will setup big turns right? A la Surreal Memoir. Even Staggershock wouldn't be completely awful, lots of ×/2s to hit or just pointing it at the face can be relevant. Some cascade to double up on Livaan if it's doing something we want anyway - like the aforementioned Bituminous Blast and Demonic Dread that lets something punch through.

We whiffed on those free spells from Nemesis, we could use Massacre, Thunderclap, and Mogg Alarm all three, plus the underated Mogg Salvage.

Dismember|tsr probably belongs in here I think.

Isochron scepter over performs I bet, and we can pressure with acidic soil and price of progress. I wonder if we can leverage a low artifact build to push Shatterstorm into the deck?

We've named so many cards in the last few posts that we'd have enough for another deck. Why don't we drill down on what the deck wants to be doing? As I see it, we want to:

1. Power up Livaan to one-shot opponents via a string of spells.
2. Support Cultist of the Absolute with tokens to sac to it (or if we're feeling particularly saucy, creatures with cool death triggers)

We were kinda all over the place on this build. That's ok though. In order to win, we need to be doing a lot of work on our turns, so we need:

1. Token producers
2. Rituals
3. Buffs

Frankly, I yayed a few things I should've nayed because I thought the card seemed cool and we had plenty of slots left. We need to have big turns where we cast a ton of spells and then roll over fools with Livaan. Not only that, we didn't do enough to ensure that Livaan would actually be able to connect after we pump him so much. Sure, the background gives flying, but what if we could give shadow? Are we drawing enough cards to pull off these big turns?

My list of borderline necessary inclusions keeps getting longer as I think about it, so i'll try to keep it concise:

Token producers: Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia (I just know I want more repeatable token creation, and even though this was voted out, I can't think of anything else atm)
Rituals: Battle Hymn, Seething Song, Infernal Plunge
Buffs: Unleash Fury, Uncaged Fury, Dauthi Embrace

We should hang our heads in shame for missing Village Rites too. Others have mentioned spells that have moderate-to-high cost cards with alternate costs a la Fireblast. Those cards are seem better and better to me as I cogitate more on this deck. So does Unexpected Windfall and friends, but for some reason I didn't see their value despite repeated mentions from @3drinks. The more I think about it...did we go completely off the rails here?

What exactly will the process be for swaps?

I think the only course of action is to acknowledge we missed the mark and start fresh. Deck building has multiple cycles to it conventionally, why would we expect this project to behave any different? It's a marathon not a sprint. What are we rushing to anyway...a new commander choice? Better to do things right before moving on and set the precedent.

I don't agree that Voltron is the way to go, due largely in part to the number of fail-cases of the strategy and we don't have the tools to protect the threat. We missed Runechanter's Pike as a really easy way to punch above our weight class while being really hard to block.

I agree we could have been much more scrutinizing towards each other's submissions too.

Instant speed is paramount to minimize our targets we have to commit to for as long as possible. And that's why those Unexpected Windfall effects are the best ramp we can get since we don't take any time off while we setup and enter the red zone.

Tbh, I don't like this background and I wish we had, say, Haunted One as there's good dragon and shaman support in Rakdos as is. Ultimately though, by far our biggest mistake as a group was by submitting cards without discussing together what we wanted and could identify what the pairing was best at.

Alright, let's see...

Two things that've been talked here I like are making more tokens and moving towards ritual ramp. Going wide can be a path to victory and woek well with instant triggers to point pumps towards what's getting through. There are many token producers that will trigger Livaan. In this line, I like You See a Pair of Goblins more than Goblin WIzardry, I really like Empty the warrens too.
Ritual ramp is more synergistic with Livaan and can help with big one-hit turns, which is something I feel Livaan can pull off.
I think we really need haste here.

3drinks wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Tbh, I don't like this background . . .

IMO, the background is what makes it an interesting challenge though.

Henlock wrote: ↑

1 year ago

I think we really need haste here.

These stood out to me as having the most potential among instants, sorceries, & lands.

Need for Speed? Urabrask the Hidden is also a good haste enabler even if it doesn't trigger Livaan.

3drinks wrote: ↑

1 year ago

I think the only course of action is to acknowledge we missed the mark and start fresh. Deck building has multiple cycles to it conventionally, why would we expect this project to behave any different? It's a marathon not a sprint. What are we rushing to anyway...a new commander choice? Better to do things right before moving on and set the precedent.

I don't agree that Voltron is the way to go, due largely in part to the number of fail-cases of the strategy and we don't have the tools to protect the threat. We missed Runechanter's Pike as a really easy way to punch above our weight class while being really hard to block.

I agree we could have been much more scrutinizing towards each other's submissions too.

Instant speed is paramount to minimize our targets we have to commit to for as long as possible. And that's why those Unexpected Windfall effects are the best ramp we can get since we don't take any time off while we setup and enter the red zone.

Tbh, I don't like this background and I wish we had, say, Haunted One as there's good dragon and shaman support in Rakdos as is. Ultimately though, by far our biggest mistake as a group was by submitting cards without discussing together what we wanted and could identify what the pairing was best at.

I think there's a risk of the community losing interest if we scrap the whole thing and start over with the same commanders. I think we should either...

1. Call it a fun first outing and learn from our missteps here.

- OR -

2. Figure out an efficient way to make swaps.

RxPhantom wrote: ↑

1 year ago

1. Call it a fun first outing and learn from our missteps here.

I yay this. Its also fun to have the possibility to look back on this deck eventually and see how we've improved as community builders

This thread is a great example of the various aphorisms about design by committees

There is a need to agree on principles before starting such a project I think. Like what kind of deck is it?

I could concede to point 1. Nothing else will be "the first" and such learning opportunities are invaluable for the machine learning algorithm that is us as a community.

I'll make the new topic this evening!

I'm on board with learning from our mistakes with a new commander.

This thread has definitely piqued my interest in Livaan/Cultist and I'll probably build it. I wouldn't have given them any consideration without this project. I really enjoyed the process and think we'll knock it out of the park next time.

Considerations for the new thread, Maybe we could have a set budget per card at start? Maybe determine some slots towards the needed unsexy cards, such as ramp and removal.

Yeah, the price setting is something I'll be adding in the new thread already. Super excited to see what we get next, and yeah Livaan was actually super interesting as something I never cared to stop by and read. I'm happy I was able to experience this.

Yeah next time, I think I'll post a link to DirkGently's handy dandy Companion-O-Matic thread to see if we can run a companion, and if we want to if we can.

http://nxs.wf/np112994

Aw, dang, sucks to see the first deck turned out like that. I had considered picking up this deck to bring to my LGS. I'm glad I decided to take part in it though!

aliciaofthevast wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Aw, dang, sucks to see the first deck turned out like that. I had considered picking up this deck to bring to my LGS. I'm glad I decided to take part in it though!

It was a really fun exercise though! and I think the deck doesnt suck. It could be better? Sure but I think community builds will somewhat suck a little

duducrash wrote: ↑

1 year ago

aliciaofthevast wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Aw, dang, sucks to see the first deck turned out like that. I had considered picking up this deck to bring to my LGS. I'm glad I decided to take part in it though!

It was a really fun exercise though! and I think the deck doesnt suck. It could be better? Sure but I think community builds will somewhat suck a little

I agree, it was a lot of fun.

Animate Dead

I played the closest to this deck as I could a few times recently. Its pretty fun, I think I might keep and update.

Few considerations. Harmonic Prodigy makes us sac 2 creatures.

There could've been a few more bodies to sac