materpillar wrote: ↑2 years ago
Our deck lists are wildly different but I am offended by this hot-take. T1
Gingerbrute swing at whoever has the most hated commander is one of the strongest plays in the deck. You know when people go
Sol Ring →
Azorius Signet turn 1 and the table goes "bleh, guess we have to focus them down first." Turn 1
Gingerbrute is polar opposite. You slam it down and everyone laughs and thinks "well I don't have to worry about
that deck." Although, basically ever card in my deck is designed to provoke that reaction right up until a kill people.
Don't get me wrong,
Gingerbrute is one of my favorite cards in the deck along with
Phyrexian Dreadnought. Those two cards, along with the whole
Artificer's Intuition package, is what inspired me to build Lazav. I'm adding ninja's to get even more equity out of
Gingerbrute
materpillar wrote: ↑2 years ago
I'm not a huge fan of tutors and your list is filled to the brim with them so our lists aren't going to align very well.
Disciple of Deceit is fantastic in this deck. I'd recommend giving it a whirl, especially because your deck is built around a CMC tutor already.
I like tutors when they are used as a reactive toolbox, or synergize with the deck in some way. I've been strongly considering removing
Demonic Tutor and
Vampiric Tutor as they are too generic and powerful.
Artificer's Intuition,
Entomb,
Intuition,
Dimir Infiltrator, and
Urza's Saga are all tutors that have synergy with the deck's gameplan, making them much more interesting imo.
Mystical Teachings is mostly a pet card I run because it was one of my favorite decks to play in pauper and modern.
I did notice you are very light on tutors in your list, even avoiding the graveyard tutors like
Buried Alive and
Unmarked Grave. Have you ever considered adding those, or are you entirely opposed to tutors?
Disciple of Deceit is some cool tech though, being both a tutor and a discard outlet.
materpillar wrote: ↑2 years ago
If you're looking for pure powerlevel I'd recommend slotting in
Phyrexian Devourer and
Walking Ballista. It's a combo that's basically impossible to interact with if you hold priority and manage your triggers properly. It's also pure artifact so it'd be easy for you to set up with your artifact tutors. Ballista is a pretty easy 1-1 swap for stonecoil.
As for powerlevel, I'm not maxing it out by any means, but the deck is built to be viable in high-powered casual games. This is my main EDH deck, and I have other budget decks that I use for lower power levels.
I've been considering removing the
Crackdown Construct voltron combo, and having a combo kill such as
Phyrexian Devourer and
Walking Ballista would certainly be a good replacement. My only concern is that I don't want the combo win to overshadow the voltron gameplan, but the fact that
Artificer's Intuition enables the voltron kill and not the combo kill that you suggested means that the voltron strategy will always have some relevance. I do love an excuse to play a unique, old card like
Phyrexian Devourer though. I think I will test this out and see how it plays.