Aeve - Ooze Storm

[ISBPathfinder]

Mono G Storm

This list might seem straightforward just being a storm deck but there is a lot of questions to ask yourself such as playing a mana dork early for ramp vs keeping it in hand for storm count. I really like the puzzle that is both piloting and adjusting the decklist for this one as its a really cool deck. I had been looking at it for a while and finally when I saw Tribute to the World Tree come out I immediately jumped back to this idea as something that could possibly play it with.

Ultimately it is really just a beatdown tempo style of deck but playing storm in mono green puts a lot of interesting deckbuilding constraints in that are a little weird for mono green. It does want to race its opponents as it has a weak interaction to flyers and combo but I enjoy having decks with an identity to them so thats fine with me.

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

COMMANDER (1)

1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze

CREATURES (16)

1 Arbor Elf

1 Birds of Paradise

1 Elvish Mystic

1 Elvish Reclaimer

1 Essence Warden

1 Fyndhorn Elves

1 Llanowar Elves

1 Traproot Kami

1 Ulvenwald Tracker

1 Gyre Sage

1 Circle of Dreams Druid

1 Rhonas the Indomitable

1 Armorcraft Judge

1 Karametra's Acolyte

1 Nylea, God of the Hunt

1 Nylea's Disciple

ARTIFACT (19)

1 Chrome Mox

1 Jeweled Lotus

1 Lotus Petal

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mishra's Bauble

1 Urza's Bauble

1 Arcum's Astrolabe

1 Chromatic Star

1 Conjurer's Bauble

1 Mana Vault

1 Relic of Progenitus

1 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Scrabbling Claws

1 Shadowspear

1 Sol Ring

1 Soul-Guide Lantern

1 Thought Vessel

1 Nyx Lotus

1 The One Ring

ENCHANTMENT (13)

1 Abundant Growth

1 Concordant Crossroads

1 Utopia Sprawl

1 Wild Growth

1 Gaea's Touch

1 Kenrith's Transformation

1 Sylvan Library

1 Elemental Bond

1 Garruk's Uprising

1 Tribute to the World Tree

1 Greater Good

1 Doubling Season

1 Primal Vigor

INSTANT (3)

1 Crop Rotation

1 Hunter's Insight

1 Inspiring Call

SORCERY (14)

1 Green Sun's Zenith

1 Explore

1 Finale of Devastation

1 Life's Legacy

1 Nature's Lore

1 Sylvan Scrying

1 Three Visits

1 Cultivate

1 Eldritch Evolution

1 Kodama's Reach

1 Search for Tomorrow

1 Blessing of Frost

1 Shamanic Revelation

1 Ezuri's Predation

PLANESWALKER

LAND (34)

1 Blighted Woodland

1 Castle Garenbrig

1 High Market

1 Miren, the Moaning Well

1 Mosswort Bridge

1 Myriad Landscape

1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood

1 Reliquary Tower

1 Sanctum of Eternity

22 Snow-Covered Forest

1 Temple of the False God

1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

Approximate Total Cost:

CONSIDERATIONS:
Biogenic Ooze - This is probably one of the better ooze options out there and I like that it has the option of dumping mana to go wide with oozes.
Ulvenwald Tracker - Its cheap and gives me some interaction. The problem is how much ramp and draw I really need to make things function all the things that don't ramp or draw take up some space. Its possible though that I still want this functionality though but I struggle with lack of haste in the deck for an effect like this paired with the natural response to my storm stuff is to sweep.
Erratic Portal - Could run it to bounce my commander out and its still technically disruption to opponents making them keep mana up in case.
Gaea's Cradle / Growing Rites of Itlimoc - I own these, I just don't love playing them and I also don't know that they help me as much before I get set up. My creature count isn't super high and these cards seem like they do more after I cast my commander but could be a liability in the turn I go to cast them with my creature counts.
Altar of Dementia - I do need some means of resetting my commander and I like that this one doesn't risk some annoying infinite. Its a cheap sac outlet though and it could also be a wincon and it could make a control player's life harder.
Protean Hulk - with adding more sac outlets on top of having some really sweet low curve creatures in the deck if I could sac him it would make for a really nice setup option. He is expensive to cast and dependent on having enough sac but its something to think about.
Vedalken Orrery - I could set up to play out my storm on someone else's turn for increased storm count. The downside with this plan being this is a somewhat expensive card to cast and it has a VERY large target on its face.

[ISBPathfinder]

I won two games with this deck yesterday. My adjustments to the deck pushing for more draw have been really good so far. I still think I am far from the optimal build of it but I am learning and adjusting and I suspect more gameplay will help it as well. I can't recall enough about the first game to do a good recap of it but the second one was fast enough I can probably outline it.

Game 1:

I can't remember this one as well but it was a little more of a fair game. I ended up first casting my commander getting 4ish tokens and emptying most of my hand around turn 5 or 6. After that I used Collective Unconscious to draw some cards and Eternal Witness backed it up for a second play. Nylea, God of the Hunt paired with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx made my commander a bit of a tyrant considering through the game it allowed me to threaten a +14 power pump in combat from the extra mana gen. This game was actually fairly close with an esper knights deck threatening to commander damage me out with flying and the dragons player being about a turn late from being able to threaten the same.

I don't have as good of tracking on this game but it was closer and I did feel a bit of a lack of flying defense from it. Shadowspear did help quite a bit giving me some lifegain to offset the chip damage but flying commander damage was a concern. I am not sure where I stand on Shadowspear yet it was good here and I have lost to just losing too much life before. I want to keep an eye on it. Its possible we could look at Nylea's Disciple or Weather the Storm for storm but I still kind of like the spear for being cheap and working as part of the storm but it does in fact lack any card draw which is unfortunate at times.

Game 2:

T1: Forest, Arboreal Grazer Forest
T2: Land pass
T3: Land pass
T4: Land, Tribute to the World Tree
T5: Land, Doubling Season
T6: Walking Ballista for 0, Conjurer's Bauble, Commander. This draws me 5 cards and makes 4 tokens.
T7: Land, Pir's Whim for Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx do some attacks. (opponents haven't done much so far a few chip shots to date. One of my opponents plays The One Ring this turn so winning next turn isn't an option)
T8: I make like 19 mana from Nykthos and use it to fuel a turn of Cloudstone Curio bouncing my one drops back and forth then bouncing my commander and dropping a ton of bodies into play. I call it good after getting 12 more oozes and then move to repeatedly playing Arboreal Grazer to push me like 7 lands ahead on board for the turn including a Reliquary Tower.
T9: Opponents haven't done anything other than putting bodies in play. I tutor Nylea, God of the Hunt with Eldritch Evolution off my smallest ooze and run my opponents over.

Takeaways:

• Nylea, God of the Hunt - Paired with the devotion mana gen stuff its insane. The threat of leaning super hard on my commander if not heavily blocked was great and it got people to commit to blocking me harder. It gave me options on how to spend my mana and it also got opponents to commit to killing my commander in combat via heavy blocks which can reset the ooze. It also makes combat math hard across the tokens and the trample on fatties is obviously great. All in all it over performed for me. It also opens up the Finale of Devastation to be a much more concerning buff not that I did this in the two games I played.
• Eternal Witness - I was happy to have access to this effect to reload my draw. Where I am less sure at is if it should just be a Regrowth or if I value the body on it at all. The mana savings of costing one less to not have a body isn't irrelevant but also witness adding two devotion to green is also kind of nice and I did notice and feel that as well. I need more testing to figure out if tutoring witness really has any merit or not.
• Arboreal Grazer / Skyshroud Ranger - Tempoing lands was a bit awkward in my test games with the lowered land count in deck. I made it work but it just as easily could have backfired on me. The Grazer was fun with Cloudstone Curio but that interaction seems a bit narrow and for mid to late game rather than the early game issues I could see with some of the land tempo stuff. If I cut one of them it would start with the Ranger as I have had some issues blocking flyers with this deck.
• Doubling Season - The fact that it doubles tokens and counters is actually insane. With seeing it even in just a single game I immediately want more of this effect. Offhand I am strongly considering Primal Vigor as well which could possibly do some testing replacing Parallel Lives. Getting double tokens and double counters is just really powerful.
• Oran-Rief, the Vastwood - Of my utility lands I felt this one didn't serve as much of a role. The others have their time and place but this one seemed harder to use which could mean I might want to cut it at some point.
• Flying / Voltron - I did have some issues with unblockable and flying commanders. It made me consider some sort of maze and or reach additions. Its tough in mono green as there aren't a lot of great options. I could just resort to something like Ulvenwald Hydra even though it doesn't play well with storm but I could pair it with some sort of maze (again the mazes suck with storm ideas but would give options to defend).

DECK CHANGES:

• Skyshroud Ranger → Gyre Sage I think the sage works in the early game just as well as most of the one mana dorks but I like how it can scale up. I want to give it a shot and I ordered another as well as figured out where my existing one was at.
• Eternal Witness → Regrowth for now I want to try the spell based version for less mana. I think there is more of an upfront bonus to Regrowth over witness even if there is a benefit to the creature count / devotion later.

[ISBPathfinder]

I did a bit more thinking and am committing to a few more changes in retrospect. Nothing new to really report I just got my hands on some more cards and as I was making the last change set I kept thinking of a few more.

DECK CHANGES:

• Pir's Whim → Sylvan Scrying I thought about it for a bit more and I think I like Pir's in an opening hand setup where I need more lands in play and the disruption to opponents feels stronger but almost anytime after I could cast my commander I prefer a cheaper land to hand where it can come in untapped setup as well as be cheaper casting for storm count.
• Parallel Lives → Primal Vigor so..... this could backfire but I just need to pull the trigger and try it out.
• Collective Unconscious → The One Ring I don't love Collective just because its cost is high while needing a board setup to run and its probably my least efficient of these sort of effects. The new ring seems kind of crazy so I put in an order for a few more copies and I think its protection and continuous draw options open it up for some decent play at multiple points through the game.

I haven't gotten to play with the one ring yet so its a bit experimental. Its possible that I could also try something with maybe Hunter's Insight or Rishkar's Expertise but if I am being honest neither of those cards really gets me excited in this deck. So, lets try out the new card and see how it fits.

[ISBPathfinder]

I had a slow but good game with this deck yesterday. In short it felt like I found a bunch of not one mana spells and a lot of my ramp was weird which led to a strange start that was sort of full of draw. I ended up with Gyre Sage, Nyx Lotus, Natural Order, and a bunch of draw. I ended up being a bit slow into this game but I did get really big and pushed with Concordant Crossroads to threaten lethal on a player with a Grave Pact setup that forced him to block heavily and my other opponent went to one creature (their commander in play). I followed that up with a second big storm cast of my commander, gaining 60 life, drawing like 20 cards, and putting a flying blocker in. My opponent ended up doing a Tainted Strike play though on their commander paired with Prossh, Skyraider of Kher and then sacrificing it to their commander Ziatora, the Incinerator to lethal me directly even though I had a flyer and 90 life.

Honestly, its fine, I was slow out of the gates and still had a great game. I am not going to panic react to this weird niche kill effect. I do think its worth talking about some of the newer added cards to the deck as I have seen them though.

• Natural Order - I am not sure where I stand on it. It was more awkward finding it early in the game but it was also paired with too much draw. I think its primary purposes right now are tutoring either Regal Force for draw or Nylea, God of the Hunt for pressure. I do think it costs a little much to cast and lacks a little early game flexibility as well. Its something I am going to keep an eye on at least.
• Kavu Lair - Its by far one of my worst draw effects in the deck right now. I unfortunately found it in the game with too much draw and well.... it eventually was ok but it felt slow and I did end up passing out some draw to opponents.
• Sylvan Scrying - I used it twice thanks to regrowth only having one target option early on so it picked me up Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and then Sanctum of Eternity and it was really useful. I liked it being cheaper than Pir's Whim quite a bit in the game I played.
• Regrowth - I found it early and it was a big deal for it to be cheaper than Eternal Witness in that game. So far so good. The thing to watch for is if I miss having access to this effect on a creature from the perspective of creature tutors but I feel like I have a lot of redundancy in the effects of this deck so I think I should probably be fine but further testing will figure it out.
• Gyre Sage - Well, I apparently can't read. I thought he made mana based on his power not counters. So, this makes him worse at ramping into the commander. I will do some more testing but I totally played him wrong in his first showing. I did manage to put like 8 counters on him in the game yesterday though so he still had a good showing but I messed it up using him for mana when he didn't have counters so I guess I will keep testing but I am now a little more concerned about his inclusion but we will see.
• Concordant Crossroads - I didn't actually have my copy of this until the game yesterday. I was however impressed with it. I did need access to the mass haste but its also concerning too. I think its still worth it for the increased storm count and how aggressive I can be with this deck but its a spooky card. Onwards with testing.

I don't have any changes as of right now but its possible I consider scaling back my tutors a little just given that I haven't found them to be important other than balancing enough draw into the deck and giving me access to Nylea, God of the Hunt. I was also not impressed by Kavu Lair so I need to give that some time to think about but its also kind of likely I look at a replacement for that assuming I can figure something out.

[darrenhabib]

Search for Tomorrow can be timed for the turn you play Aeve, Progenitor Ooze and it'll be a zero cost for the turn.
Mana Bloom as a constantly recastable mana source so that you can even add to storm count later in game.
Shigeki, Jukai Visionary is just an incredible card.
Noxious Revival and Summoner's Pact for zero costs.

I like to play Dryad Arbor in decks that have Natural Order along with all the fetchlands that can search for it. Also nice with Green Sun's Zenith.

Into the North, Rampant Growth, Sakura-Tribe Elder are more competitive than Cultivate, Kodama's Reach.

[ISBPathfinder]

Search for Tomorrow can be timed for the turn you play Aeve, Progenitor Ooze and it'll be a zero cost for the turn.
Mana Bloom as a constantly recastable mana source so that you can even add to storm count later in game.
Shigeki, Jukai Visionary is just an incredible card.
Noxious Revival and Summoner's Pact for zero costs.

I like to play Dryad Arbor in decks that have Natural Order along with all the fetchlands that can search for it. Also nice with Green Sun's Zenith.

Into the North, Rampant Growth, Sakura-Tribe Elder are more competitive than Cultivate, Kodama's Reach.

Search for Tomorrow - Suspend is a little weird because of how it works and waiting for it to come off suspend. I suppose Search is a little different in that if I opening hand / draw it early I can threw it on suspend for spellcast and ramp. I disregarded a lot of the suspend effects because they didn't have cast options outside of the suspend but I suppose search is a little different. I will think about it a bit more but yea I see the appeal especially given I am running some 2 and 3 mana ramp already.

Mana Bloom - Its interesting but I am a little wary of the fact that it can only pull one mana a turn from it. I guess it makes me actually think more about something like Omnath, Locus of Mana where I could float some mana from the turn before. It reminds me of Wall of Roots but not in a way that makes me really impressed with it. If it bounced when it ran out of mana it would change a lot as then I could cast it for 2 repeatedly to build storm count but even its bounce timing is really awkward.

Shigeki, Jukai Visionary - Hummm I really haven't seen this card played much. I suppose its interesting that it can ramp me early or play recovery later. Even just casting it for storm count isn't horrible. I feel like its just not that efficient as a whole though. I have had issues with getting value from Regrowth effects at times but its nice that he has other functionality early. I think it seems alright as a whole but I don't know that I am that excited as a whole. His cost and cost of his ability still leaves kind of an awkward gap in usage if you break down playing him T2, the T3 activate will put you short of being able to recast him too without having ramped in addition to him.

Zero Mana Spells - I think its a question of how hard you want to commit to a bigger storm effect. For me I still have a hard time maintaining hand size after doing my thing. If you push harder on card draw as a whole it does open up to more options in how many zero cost spells you can run. I find a lot of the zero mana spells that I am not currently running to lack some card advantage and or cause some lack of tempo later. Noxious Revival fits my issue with a lack of card advantage being a topdeck recovery it makes you somewhat reliant on having a cantrip effect in grave and even then you are spending a card to get not a card out of it so it has a requirement to cast and is still card disadvantage for the purpose of increasing storm count. Summoner's Pact I considered as well but the creatures I actually want to tutor almost all come after I cast my commander so it leaves me questioning if I pact for a 1 drop and pay 4 mana for that later which doesn't feel that appealing.

Dryad Arbor - the GSZ is valid as is the fetchland for it into Natural Order. I just don't know that I want to commit fetchlands to this deck idea for this minor benefit. I don't really want to fetch for it outside of this situation and I feel like drawing this card is a negative to me. I think its a minor benefit at the cost of increasing the money of the deck for something somewhat minor. I also think that using GSZ in the turns before storming can be just as effective as using it same turn for 0 to get the arbor in that it increases my mana on hand for my storm turn. If I wanted to purely optimize you are probably right but I don't see enough benefit to add 5 fetches to the deck for this myself. I have always felt Dryad Arbor is more of a 60 card magic setup than something that extends to commander well.

3cmc Ramp - Cultivate and Kodama's I mainly use as weird card advantage rather than for storm count. I agree they aren't entirely optimal in a storm turn and its possible I should turn one of them into Skyshroud Claim in hindsight because the cost to cast assuming I have a land play for the turn is less. I was viewing them more as small card advantage plays to keep my land plays continuing. I am not so attached to them that I can't cut them but I do think that they hit a little differently than the 2 cmc ETB tapped ramp. I could see turning one of them into Search for Tomorrow after having talked about it but I could also see Skyshroud Claim or even some other source of card advantage. I like that they keep me moving forward with my land count and they are a 2 for 1 as far as card advantage goes. I haven't drawn them much yet so I don't have a lot to say about them yet.

---

Of the cards you mentioned, I think I am most interested in Search for Tomorrow. I could also see exploring some more of the mana floating concept as well with something like Omnath, Locus of Mana too but I guess I have some concerns with its fragility. I am still trying to figure out a lot with this deck as unfortunately its a complicated deck and I haven't gotten to test enough yet. It looks like I could still use some working on my card draw effects but I could also look more into how smooth my storm casting goes. I think having smooth draw is the starting place and as my draw starts feeling better I can transition to better storm then as a lot of the 0-1 cmc cards don't have good card advantage maintainability.

[ISBPathfinder]

I played another game with this deck. Man its super fun to pilot. I did sort of hype the threat level of this deck up before the game and I did get slapped to death for it but I don't regret doing that as I was about to pop the heck off the next turn and only really died because I lost 15+ life to direct life syphoning before I could do it. I will say though that I seem to have some issues with early attacks, flyers, and aristocrats. I am not sure how much attention I want to give to that though it was a 5 player game and I did hype my deck up and then had a somewhat slow into not really doing much before turn 5 when I put 6 oozes in. I died around turn 7 right after having drawn a new hand which was going to also pop the hell off but I couldn't defend. It is worth mentioning that one of my opponents did a T1 Jeweled Lotus into K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth and the Edgar Markov did a Sol Ring start.

This all said, I was going up against fairly good decks and I was getting chip damaged from like everyone. Having taken 25 damage by turn 5ish is a hell of a lot of hate lol. I am not going to panic react to that specifically but I have noticed issues defending from flyers and aristocrat concepts not to mention early game aggression. With that said, I am adding a little bit of lifegain to try to help me mitigate this issue a little as it is something I have observed over several of the deck's losses. Its a really fun deck but it is green storm and my flying defense isn't exactly stellar. If I keep having issues and want to specifically address I can still add some things like Stonecoil Serpent but I want to wait for now and be a little more reactionary.

DECK CHANGES:

• Walking Ballista → Ornithopter Ballista was a payoff intended for after swarming and while it amuses me I would rather it be something stronger for before or mid casting rather than a finisher for later as I seem to have that handled fairly well in my command zone. I like that the thopter flies which can buy me a chump block there.
• Arboreal Grazer → Essence Warden I have had too much issue having lands to tempo before being totally set up. I kept the Grazer in because it had reach but I have had issues consistently hitting lands all the way up until my first commander cast with my lower land count. I don't think the land count is an issue but I think I am going to cut more of the tempo lands part of it. The warden seems like it will play really well as part of a storm turn giving me a handful of life quickly and boosting storm count.
• Garruk's Packleader → Greater Good just moving my draw around a little. Getting the packleader down before my commander commits me a whole turn too often and I don't like his timing and cost. I do want a little more for reloading the commander so I can recast and I think this is fairly solid draw as a whole.
• Regal Force → Life's Legacy cutting regal is a loss in my tutoring package but I still have Armorcraft Judge in the list to fall back on. I had to cast regal though and it was super rough. I think I like the efficiency of Legacy as it can kickstart a storm turn for me while resetting my commander.
• Exploration → Sensei's Divining Top I have been having issues with the land tempo elements. Its fine and even solid when I am drawing tons of cards but its not helping me enough early on. I like that I can cherry pick what I want to some degree with top and even reset it to topdeck for the turn when I intend to storm.
• Kavu Lair → Sylvan Library The Lair was just.... not good. Its restrictions cut out the first few oozes and gave away draw to opponents. It still wasn't like, horrible but I wasn't impressed either. Moving to library I can hopefully hit my early game lands and ramp a little more consistently and its cheap enough that it can be part of a storm turn if need be.
• Regrowth → Search for Tomorrow I just didn't ever feel like I needed regrowth and most of the time I was casting it to pick up some small cantrip effect. It would be one thing if I had more access to zero mana draw things but too often I was paying two mana to pick up a two mana cantrip and that wasn't something I was interested in. I have seen this effect at least three times now and the best it ever had was picking up a big draw effect and that just isn't enough for me to keep it.
• Natural Order → Nylea's Disciple I do think the order is an ok effect but with cutting Regal Force it felt more and more like its a little clunky paying 4 mana with a sac effect to go get a 4 mana creature (I don't have anything higher mana left in the deck). Hopefully the Disciple will give me a little more lifegain option to sustain and stay in games. The frequency that I can end up with 20ish devotion is somewhat high so I am hoping that it helps give me a buffer to things my oozes have a hard time with rather than trying to come up with a blocker.
• Phyrexian Furnace → Abundant Growth I have too much grave hate because they cantrip but this move shifts the cantrip to a cheaper cost and gives me some green devotion. There is also some better synergy with Cloudstone Curio as it can't bounce artifacts.

I am fairly happy that I am cutting the mana cost for the deck somewhat with these changes. The big question is going to be how my draw feels after this as I am cutting three somewhat larger draw cards from the deck but even with that I am adding some draw back in as well as some consistency in the topdeck stuff. We will see how it goes with some testing.

WATCHLIST:

• Mox Diamond - I just finished cutting most of my other land tempo style of cards. I guess my concern is if I can support it as an actual card or if its a do nothing zero mana artifact more often at which point I could just push Stonecoil Serpent or Walking Ballista into its spot. I haven't really seen it yet oddly so I need more testing to say.
• Cloudstone Curio - I drew it once and it was good but once isn't enough testing and even then it was good for my commander's second casting when set up with Nykthos mana. I need more testing to say if I have enough bouncable targets and if its worth doing or not.
• Primal Vigor / Doubling Season - They cost a lot to set up and usually need to be played the turn before. I have cast Doubling twice and the one time it survived it was nuts but the time it didn't.... well yea... More testing is needed with these cards.
• Cultivate / Kodama's Reach - They aren't great mid storm but outside of topdecking them the turn I go to storm I like finding them in the in between turns to just keep things moving.

[ISBPathfinder]

Its been a while but I also haven't played much magic the last few weeks. I managed to play two games this week but neither were with this deck. Those games were unfortunately a little more casual and I had to downshift into playing my budget walls deck in the end. I did play a game with this deck after my last update but its been a while. I believe I did win that game but it was a really awkward game where I couldn't draw lands upfront so I burned through all my cantrips trying to find lands and got stuck with a bunch of expensive cards in hand so it was a little slower game but I did have a big draw into a big turn that blew my opponents out in the end but it also felt a liittle like my opponents burning out their removal on each other then I flopped a 5-6 storm commander and was left with running them down. I did REALLY dislike drawing Mox Diamond in that game though and it sort of confirmed for me that I need to cut it. I also think I need to keep an eye on my draw and mana dump options as I think both could be considered still with some of the larger changes that happened recently.

DECK CHANGES:

• Ornithopter → Ulvenwald Tracker I added the thopter as a storm / chump blocker but I think I like the option of a more versatile fight option and Ulvenwald still storms fairly well with my commander. I do think he is going to be a removal magnet but I don't think that is a bad thing per say given he still fits the storm count and is a cheap distraction that if unanswered he can do a lot for me.
• Mox Diamond → Rhonas the Indomitable in short, Nylea, God of the Hunt has carried soooo freaking hard that I wanted another copy. The option to push for a big devotion mana dump into pump is very threatening and it forces my opponents to respect my commander in combat. I mostly want my commander to die anyways so a power only pump is kind of appealing for me.
• Cloudstone Curio → Hunter's Insight I do think that cloudstone can do some work but I also think that it is sort of after my commander first arrives kind of a thing and I also think I need more draw. Both of those sort of things can feel a little similar but for now I think I just want more draw. It might be different if I had more hast options or ETB effects on creatures but I have a hard time making use of the Curio other than pushing for storm count. Its really a card where I want my commander set up and some big mana devotion effect and its just a little more setup I think than making Insight work right now.

I still need more testing with the new stuff but the lifegain elements have been good so far. I still feel weak in the air but that lifegain really does help a lot so far with that. I gained like 20 life off Nylea's Disciple and that felt good. I did see Sylvan Library which if I am being honest was a little so so being that its hard to like it mid storm given its mana and no real effect and some of my issue so far has been defending myself from early aggression and that card kind of makes me want to eat my life. I will keep an eye on it and see if I can get more testing in as its possible it smoothes out my early game a bit more. I managed to draw it instead of the land I needed on like turn 4-6 and I couldn't storm my commander yet and it got answered before I remember it doing anything so that was probably the worst experience to have with it.

This does push my mana curve up a little which I don't love but I have probably been a little too much of a slave to the zero mana effects to try to storm harder than I likely should be. This change gives me another card to draw cards with as well as another really solid mana sink that is in line with an effect that has already proven to play well in the deck. The tracker I expect to draw removal like nobody's business but I also think that is alright because he still plays well into the storm of my commander. Assuming I like how he plays I might even circle back and consider some effects like Triangle of War or Brittle Effigy.

[Moxnix]

I really like mono green storm type things but I always enabled it with cradle. Even with a light creature count having NO > zendikar > tap cradle lines was winning for me no matter how I finished be it TGA devastation tooth and nail Shamnic revelation whatever . I don't know if you don't want it that high power or not but if I was tr Harding this idea I would certainly be using cradle, this would make the deck faster and maybe too good depending on the meta. IF your cradle is Nytkos and this is more devotion kind of deal finding it is still very important In green I like sylvan scrying a lot I run it before rotation and I already see that. I like the idea of concordat crossroads mass haste for 1 mana on storm turn seems pretty good since you just bonk to win. The build is so much different then who I would do it that I think I would need to test pilot it to figure out how it plays iahd to read the walking ballista line 3 times to realize what just happened lol. Now I start to see the green symbols are massive more tutors for nykthos that feels nasty. I like the draw package changes in general One of the more janky mono green draw spells i like in this kind of deck is hunter's prowess Its like a big not instant hunter insight which when reading it seems not great but in practice its been a 5 mana hand refill often not great but worth considering or testing. The devotion style makes me wonder if weird cards like llaowar tribe work here as dork > tribe has Nytkos tapping like a big boy by turn 3. Deffo interested to see where you take this.

[ISBPathfinder]

I really like mono green storm type things but I always enabled it with cradle. Even with a light creature count having NO > zendikar > tap cradle lines was winning for me no matter how I finished be it TGA devastation tooth and nail Shamnic revelation whatever . I don't know if you don't want it that high power or not but if I was tr Harding this idea I would certainly be using cradle, this would make the deck faster and maybe too good depending on the meta. IF your cradle is Nytkos and this is more devotion kind of deal finding it is still very important In green I like sylvan scrying a lot I run it before rotation and I already see that. I like the idea of concordat crossroads mass haste for 1 mana on storm turn seems pretty good since you just bonk to win. The build is so much different then who I would do it that I think I would need to test pilot it to figure out how it plays iahd to read the walking ballista line 3 times to realize what just happened lol. Now I start to see the green symbols are massive more tutors for nykthos that feels nasty. I like the draw package changes in general One of the more janky mono green draw spells i like in this kind of deck is hunter's prowess Its like a big not instant hunter insight which when reading it seems not great but in practice its been a 5 mana hand refill often not great but worth considering or testing. The devotion style makes me wonder if weird cards like llaowar tribe work here as dork > tribe has Nytkos tapping like a big boy by turn 3. Deffo interested to see where you take this.

Sorry I was out on vacation so getting back to this now.

I do own a cradle but my opinion is that it doesn't really make this build all that much better. It probably is fine but my point is just that Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx 2x-3x produces on it in most situations. I don't really have other forms of tokens and if you look at my creature count I really only have 14 creatures in my list that I plan to play before my commander so there is a vulnerability to playing it in that it might produce zero mana. I think ultimately its fine if you own one and want to run one but I only own one copy and I hate proxying so its currently in my Marath list.

I generally prefer Sylvan Scrying over Crop Rotation as well but in this list there are a few reasons to consider rotation. You can sac the land you used to cast it and it gets you another land in untapped so it increases storm count for essentially zero mana. I do also technically run both of them in my list right now but in general I agree with scrying over the rotation but there is some advantage in storm count with the rotation.

Walking Ballista - Its something I want to circle back to. I do think its got a lot of potential but my issue is that I think its a better mana sink than it is a storm based card. I ended up cutting it very early on as I was trying to figure out the card advantage of the deck. I don't think its wrong to run it but I think its a better mana dump than it is a storm count card. Its possible if you have enough card draw though you might be able to justify throwing it away as a zero cost more I was just struggling at that point.

Hunter's Prowess - Yea the card is alright. Its technically as vulnerable to spot removal as Hunter's Insight but maybe a little more vulnerable to multi blocks. I can bluff into some card draw with Insight where as I think Prowess is a little better with dedicated voltron strategies. I wanted to keep it cheap and see how it works out. I have considered some other draw as well such as Rishkar's Expertise but I really want to stay cheap on the mana costs and see if I can't chain things a little better. I honestly can't really stand behind Hunter's Insight in this deck as I haven't gotten to test it yet in this deck but I like it for just being cheap and a little bit of a post blockers surprise.