NZB2323 wrote: ↑10 months ago
Purphoros, God of the Forge and
Impact Tremors I'd recommend, especially if you add in
Increasing Devotion and
Visions of Glory.
Worthy Knight and
Thraben Doomsayer allow
Éowyn, Shieldmaiden's ability to trigger the turn you cast her.
Champion of the Parish,
Esper Sentinel, and
Mother of Runes are all solid 1 drops.
I like
Cyclonic Rift better than
Supreme Verdict or
Blasphemous Act.
Clever Concealment can protect your creatures from an opponent's
Cyclonic Rift in a way that
Unbreakable Formation,
Boromir, Warden of the Tower, and
Gerrard, weatherlight hero can't.
Kindred Discovery I think is a better card draw than
Chart a Course.
I like
Odric, Master Tactician better than
Odric, Lunarch Marshal.
Cards like
Deflecting Swat,
Fierce Guardianship, and
Flawless Maneuver are really good. Cards like
Legion's Landing // Adanto, the First Fort,
Urza's Incubator and
Smothering Tithe help you ramp.
I think you have too many 5 drops, especially with your commander costing 5. I would look at cutting
Taunt from the Rampart,
Nahiri's Resolve, and/or
Djeru and Hazoret. I also think that 20 3 drops is a lot. I would look to cut some of those.
I don't know how good
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is when you also have a bunch of non-creature spells.
Narset, Enlightened Exile is strange though for how few non-creature spells you're playing. It's weird to play both
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and
Narset, Enlightened Exile in the same deck. You're simultaneously rewarding and punishing yourself for playing noncreature spells.
Rem Karolus, Stalwart Slayer seems like he's meant for a burn deck, not a tribal deck.
These are other cards I'd look at possibly cutting:
I'll try to take your suggestions in order here:
Purphoros and Impact Tremors should almost certainly be in here. As you noted, my curve is a bit too high, so I'd probably go with Tremors here first, even though Purphoros is a much better card. Visions of Glory I don't like as much as Increasing Devotion--ID can be used on an empty board to built a board presence (of crappy 1/1s), whereas Visions is only going to be better (on the front side) if you have more than 5 creatures in play already. Sure, it combination with several other effects, it turns a strong board into a winning one, but for the mana cost I don't love how reliant it is on already doing well.
Worthy Knight I think doesn't have enough support here (only 7 knights besides the commander), other than triggering Eowyn automatically the turn she's cast, and I don't know if that's enough synergy to be worth an inclusion. Thraben looks...ok. I suppose that for going wide, it adding a body every turn will be relevant, but it's always looked very lackluster to me.
I need to proxy additional copies of Esper Sentinel--I'm always a little hesitant to proxy nonland cards, but I agree that it should be in here. MoR should as well for being so strong. Champion can get very big, very fast, but without any keywords, I don't know how much I care about that. It was in my pile initially, but got taken out for other stuff. Could go back in.
For sure, CycRift is the better card here, as well as
Raise the Palisade, and perhaps
Winds of Abandon.
Clever Concealment is a card I was looking at here as well.
Kindred Discovery is in the same boat as Esper Sentinel at the moment--my other copies are elsewhere, and I haven't gotten around to proxying one here. That said, I think the deck could use cheap card draw, and Chart looks like a solid version of the effect here. I'm not sure that I would replace the 2-mana spell with the 5, but would rather include both. However, I've also had games where I made a TON of tokens, and would have real concerns about decking myself with KD.
On Odric vs Odric, I like that Lunarch provides a benefit immediately (with Eowyn, your whole field gets haste, trample, and first strike as a minimum), while Tactician needs a turn to swing, or haste from another source. You may be right about it being stronger, but I felt like I have enough key words floating around here that going wide with them was going to make sense.
The free spells would be decent here for sure. Incubator could be useful with my highish curve, but I'd have to see how many targets it actually has. Smothering Tithe I've been thinking about, since mana has often been the bottleneck here.
Djeru I'm close to cutting. I like the idea of it, and have made some choices prioritizing legendary creatures over nonlegendaries as part of its inclusion, but being 5 mana, needing to attack, and having the possibility of whiffing has put it on the chopping block. Taunt will get cut after I get to cast it a time or two. It's still in here just because I want to play it first. Nahiri's we're testing. It does a lot the deck wants.
Narset is in here almost exclusively because I pulled one, think it's a cool card, and it fits thematically. Did you notice that it casts from ANY graveyard, and that it gives your whole team prowess? I had a game recently where I cast
Call the Coppercoats with strive x2 (+1/+1 to my existing team), then attacked with Narset and my army, recast Call out of the yard and strived once more (+2/+2 to my team from Narset off these), Making something like 40 creatures in the turn. That's one case, but Narset also cast a Swords to Plowshares out of my yard, and a Cultivate out of an opponent's yard that game as well. I don't think it's the best inclusion as a 5-drop here, but I do think it does a lot, and gives the deck some additional avenues it can play with. Contrasting with Thalia is for sure an issue, and Thalia may not stay--I was looking at legendaries to support Djeru, and it's a strong effect. I don't know that I'm casting enough noncreature spells that this impacts me too much--adding 1 mana once per turn isn't too bad, generally, whereas it can really put the brakes on decks looking to cast 2+ spells/turn.
Rem was included partly in support of the legendary subtheme, partly as a flying human for Odric, and partly as defense against damage-based removal (and my own Blasphemous Act). It's not great, and could easily be cut.
Dawnbringer...not great, but some removal on a body isn't bad.
Devout Chaplain I think I want to play with more here. I feel like I do often have a number of bodies lying around that are either not attacking or have vigilance, and this turns those into removal, while also being a human synergies piece. Given how light the deck is on removal, I feel like I'd be hard-pressed to remove this without swapping in some other form of interaction. The biggest knock against Chaplain is it's slow.
PFB is a great card, and I don't know why you'd look to cut it--the deck is positioned well to be hitting multiple players a turn, needs mana, AND is able to get in with first strikers/double strikers, which means PFB can be making more than 3 treasures per combat fairly regularly. I wouldn't play Smothering Tithe over PFB in this deck.
Thalia, Heretic Cathar is a legendary human with decent stats for the cost that is a pretty strong stax piece, but for slowing down opponents and making it harder to produce blockers to slow me down. I rate this very highly here.
Theoden is BONKERS unless you're running something else to just give everything double strike (which probably comes in around 5+ CMC). With how the deck produces tokens, it's often giving 2-4 creatures double strike a turn, for 3 mana.
Verge Rangers can absolutely go. I've found it somewhat useful for knowing the top card of my library, and have been able to play a land off the top a few times, but it's certainly not great.
Mangara is kind of a defensive card in what wants to be an aggro deck, but it does draw a lot of cards, is a human for typal concerns, and provides life link to Odric. It doesn't necessarily need to be here (this is probably a slot I would swap out for
Kindred Discovery), but I've found it to be a pretty solid card.
On the whole, I agree that I could stand to shave some 3- and 5- drops, could include some more efficient/stronger pieces.
and that's just scratching the surface, and not covering 4 cmc. ]
