I jumped into a queue online that said "tribal" so I figured it would be a good place to test out the more recent changes.
I played against
Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca,
Jodah, Archmage Eternal (they were the host, so hopefully they were tribal Humans or Wizards), and
Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait. Not sure if Aesi was tribal at all as they scooped on turn 3. Not really sure why.
Anyway, I started with 3 lands, Read the Runes, Fleshbag Marauder ,Tevesh Szat, God Eternal Bonty, and Living Death. I had no blue mana but only Runes needed it so I figured I would be fine.
I did draw into a
Talisman of Hierarchy and a
Dreadhorde Invasion. After I got my first token, I cast Fleshbag to get Jodah off the field along with an inconsequential Merfolk from Kumena.
I did end up missing a land drop or 2 which wasn't good as I had all 5 drops in my hand. I was still able to interact with things like
Swords to Plowshares. Unfortunately, during this time, my draws included
Mission Briefing,
Mana Drain, and
Teferi's Ageless Insight. At one point, I had no blue mana and 4 out of the 5 cards in my hand were blue with all but Read the Runes requiring double blue.
Unfortunately, Jodah scooped it up after their commander was blown up and their Vraska was countered. So I never got to see what they were doing. The only good thing is that the scoop meant Mana Drain didn't resolve so Kumena didn't get the mana.
I spent my Swords on their
Thrasios, Triton Hero since I really didn't want that thing sticking around, especially since it was now just the two of us in the game. I just passed after that and let my Zombie token grow a little larger.
I finally drew into a fifth land (
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx) and slammed Tevesh Szat. I created two tokens and passed. Next turn, I drew Mana Crypt and sacrificed a token to get a Swamp and
Withered Wretch. I swung in with my token which was a 7/7 now thanks to it counters *and* thanks to Kumena's
Coat of Arms they cast early on. This was actually a huge card for me.
I gained some life, cast the Wretch, cast Bontu and sacrificed the other Thrull token, This got me to a
Fabled Passage so I finally had blue but couldn't play it yet. Kumena attacked me and I blocked with Fleshbag and Bontu to get rid of the
Bear Umbra they had. They untapped and cast
Rite of Replication to copy their
Merfolk Mistbinder 5 times. Now, with those and Coat of Arms, their army was massive.
So, I used Wretch to exile their two creatures and something else. I started my turn and attacked with the token (to gain life) and Bontu. Bontu died and I left him in the yard. I then activated Nykthos for 4 mana and then cast
Living Death. Kumena only had 1 card in hand, though was able to draw 2 cards. Luckily, none were counters so the board was wrathed and I got Bontu and Wretch back (Fleshbag just sacrificed itself).
I also ended up with
Wayward Servant and
Midnight Reaper off Tevesh when I sacrificed Wretch. And I drew a
Hallowed Fountain in there. Next turn, I played the Hallowed Fountain and swung out. I knew they had a
Cyclonic Rift they had gotten off
Merchant Scroll so getting the second blue was huge.
They had a counter spell in hand unfortunately so everything was bounced. But, I had drawn a
Bone Miser off activating Tevesh Szat (sacrificing the token I got from Dreadhorde Invasion). So, I just cast my Crypt and Talisman and then cast Bone Miser. I went to discard and discarded 4 creatures and a noncreature. I drew a card and discarded one more creature. I passed the turn with 5 zombie tokens and Bone Miser. And everything was much bigger thanks to Coat of Arms.
Kumena started their turn, couldn't draw into anything, and scooped.
This game was pretty amazing, though the majority was just 1v1 which was not as fun. But Tevesh Szat was really good here. The all star of the game of course goes to Coat of Arms, but this is one of the reasons I don't really like it. And I don't think it is really necessary for the deck. I would have kept grinding as they were down to 2 cards in hand and I had a full grip.
I never got Varina down because of the lack of blue mana but being able to pull out the win there despite having a bunch of dead cards for a while was pretty cool. Nothing more to say about cards in the deck or anything like that. I didn't see anything I didn't like and never felt like I needed a specific card to stay in the game. And this sample size is quite small but I am already liking Tevesh Szat. It is not apparent if he is truly needed, but his effect is, so far, welcome.