Volrath, the Shapestealer - Clones

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WizardMN
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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

I got in a game online against Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Omnath, Locus of Mana, and Azusa, Lost but Seeking

I kept a pretty risky hand. It had the potential for turn 4 Volrath or Noxious Gearhulk depending on what I needed *if* I drew a green source. Luckily, I did. So, I cast Sakura turn 2, Nature's Lore and Growth Spiral turn 3, and had 7 mana on turn 4. So, I cast Volrath and kept up Resculpt if I needed it. Volrath killed Azusa's Lotus Cobra.

Omnath cast Nullhide Ferox which actually is pretty tough to deal with (if I don't want to block anyway) and Tasigur just put a Prey counter on Volrath and Ferox with Tetzimoc, Primal Death. But they chose not to cast it next turn and just cast Consecrated Sphinx.

Azusa cast Vernal Bloom which helped everyone since everyone was playing green and then Tasigur cast Mana Reflection. So, next turn I just cast Glasspool Mimic // Glasspool Shore copying my Noxious Gearhulk I had cast earlier to destroy a Noosegraf Mob which then destroyed Sphinx. I also cast Bane of Progress to get rid of all the ramp (and my two Gearhulks).

Next turn, Tasigur put Prey counters on the rest of my creatures and tried to cast Tetzimoc but I countered it with Mana Drain and they scooped it up. Omnath scooped earlier and Azusa scooped to Bane since they missed a bunch of land drops.

Not a whole lot of cloning this game, but Volrath definitely is showing his power. Even just being able to pick off X/1s has been extremely impressive in the early game and really slows down other green decks that rely on mana dorks.

I did end up casting Chord of Calling to try to get rid of Vernal Bloom but I forgot I removed Reclamation Sage. Not sure if this is relevant but wanted to mention it. I could have cast Bane instead, which I would have had I known I didn't have Rec Sage, and then I could have copied it later for getting rid of Reflection but the sequence I had ended up working out. Chord ended up getting Zimone, Quandrix Prodigy.

Resculpt was in hand the whole game and I never really had a good chance to cast it. It may not be needed in this deck. Ulvenwald Hydra was in hand at the end which I would have liked to have cast but the rest of my board took care of things.

And, the play I made after Volrath was Prime Speaker Zegana. She drew me 8 cards and gave me a significant body on the field. She was awesome in this case as I had basically emptied my hand to ramp into Volrath. One of the more explosive plays and her resolving was what let me continue making land drops and pressuring opponents. And I can always clone her to draw even more cards (9 next time) so if she survives she can be a pretty significant source of draw.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

This has me really wanting to build volrath finally lol :) I have a real hard time making myself play 5 cmc commanders but he just seems really awesome.

Randomly picking off Lotus Cobra and Birds of Paradise has to be the tastiest thing ever.

I gotta suck it up and buy a The Great Henge probably too. bleh.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

I had the Great Henge in here in the very first iteration of the deck but I decided to cut it. I don't think this deck needs it though it definitely makes Volrath work much better. If you end up playing it, I would be interested in hearing how it works. Cost was certainly a reason I cut it since the version I want is $250+

Otherwise yeah, the suggestion of Volrath was spot on and made this deck function exceptionally well. There are a lot of interactions he allows for and even "basic" stuff like copying my own Faerie Artisans is really fun.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

I got a game in with this deck tonight and it performed exceptionally well, even though I lost. Faerie Artisans was a dud in the game (mostly because I got it out too late). I played against Omnath, Locus of Creation and Xenagos, God of Revels.

I basically spend the beginning of the game ramping. Growth Spiral helped, Wood Elves and a copy of elves was good. Volrath copied Etali, Primal Storm which got me a couple of things, one of which was Stunt Double on my library flip. Unfortunately, Etali is Legendary so I just copied Omnath.

Omnath did get out of control with Rampaging Baloths and multiple land drops thanks to Exploration and Life from the Loam with fetches. The bad thing was that Life was exiled off Etali's flip when the Xenagos player attacked and they should have just left it in exile instead of casting it for their one land in the yard.

However, Xenegos really was the one to watch for. Their Malignus and Pathbreaker Ibex ended up winning them the game since we couldn't do anything about the power of their creatures. Omnath did cast Constant Mists on their way out. It didn't help them because Malignus was attacking them, but it did keep me in the game a little longer.

However, there were two really cool plays I wanted to highlight:

In one instance, Omnath had a Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar that was a 25/25. I had an empty board state with all my lands untapped. They attacked me so I flashed in Volrath, the Shapestealer and copied their Multani (it had a +1/+1 counter on it). I then flashed in Callous Bloodmage to exile their graveyard. Their Multani was down to a 19/19 while mine was a 26/26. They had more lands on the field but I had 17 on the field and two in the yard. And Volrath still had his base power of 7 so Multani just added to that.

Unfortunately, they Swords it. I still ended up with a new positive of 7 life though :)

The other play was right at the end of the game. I still had Bloodmage out and Xenagos had Malignus, Pathbreaker, and Archetype of Endurance. This meant their things had Hexproof. I had Rite of Replication and The Mimeoplasm in hand.

So, I cast The Mimeoplasm and exiled Sakashima of a Thousand Faces and Atarka, World Render. I chose *not* to copy anything else with Sakashima. So, then I cast Rite on it and now I get 5 Sakashima tokens. I chose 1 to copy the Endurance (to get rid of Hexproof) and the other 4 copied Bloodmage to draw cards. I drew into Windgrace's Judgment but chose to wait until their turn to cast it which was dumb since they were tapped out. When I did cast it, they cast Heroic Intervention.

I am not sure if I would have won from that position but I think I would have gotten pretty close. And the play was cool in its own right that I am not too upset about it. Besides, we were trying to finish up so another friend could join us anyway so it worked out.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

I got in a couple more games with this deck. One was against Uvilda, Dean of Perfection // Nassari, Dean of Expression who ended up just storming off so there wasn't much to talk about. I did end up flooding which didn't help either and really didn't get a lot to stop them. I probably should have countered their Windfall but, ironically, I had wanted a new hand because I missed land drops. Which is when I started flooding. So, I will chalk that up to a poor decision on my part.

The other game was against Blim, Comedic Genius, Bell Borca, Spectral Sergeant, and Gonti, Lord of Luxury.

I started off with Farseek T2 and then Wood Elves and Nature's Lore on turn 3. Turn 4 was Volrath after Gonti had cleared the board with Toxic Deluge. Which I think they had to do since they were "gifted" a Phyrexian Negator from Blim. And they were already missing lands so having to sac them all would have likely put them out of the game entirely.

Volrath just attacked Blim (thanks to the Haste from Mass Hysteria they had). Blim then cast Fires of Invention on their turn and Demonic Tutor to get something. Hofri cast their general and Gonti missed a land drop. I cast Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath to draw a card but didn't have a land to put on the field. I ended up missing a couple drops.

Blim then gifted me Goldnight Castigator and, eventually, Fires. But Fires actually worked out in my favor. I cast Volrath, the Shapestealer after I had to wrath the board due to the Castigator and Return of the Wildspeaker to refill my hand. I then swung at Blim because I really needed them gone. Next turn I just cast a couple clones and was able to take them out entirely so we didn't need to deal with their shenanigans any more.

Now, Bell Borca was getting out of control and they attacked me a couple times with a creature with Sword of Feast and Famine attached. I discarded they untapped but didn't do a ton with the extra mana. Eventually they swung at me when I had an empty board and they had just enough damage from Bell Borca for it to be Lethal Commander Damage. So, I flashed in Bane of Progress to blow their board and block but they scooped. The only thing that really sucked is that my board was clear because of Sudden Disappearance (which they didn't even need to cast since my board, other than lands, were tapped down) so when they scooped, I didn't get my stuff back. It was mostly Tatyova, Benthic Druid I wanted, but still.

Anyway, now Bane was only a 2/2 since they scooped and it was just me against Gonti and it wasn't really much of a fight. I had some sequences where I got to attack with, and Escape, Uro a couple times. I got them somewhat low but they ended up doing the most to themselves with Phyrexian Reclamation. At the end, they were at 2 life and cast a Gray Merchant of Asphodel. I let it resolve and then, in response to the trigger, I flashed in Phantasmal Image. They countered it with Counterspell that Gonti stole so I just put it on top with Volrath's Stronghold, cast Uro from the yard again, drew the Image, and Flashed it in again. They had no answer for it this time and that 2 Black mana for my devotion was enough to kill them.

All in all, another fun game with a lot of interesting lines. I even had it planned out to copy Blim to then give them their stuff back to them but I never needed to do it. Gonti getting stuck on lands was pretty significant as it changed what they could and couldn't do. They still put up a pretty good fight in the end and actually ended up flooding a little so they had plenty of lands. They did have Nirkana Revenant which helped out a bit too.

I am debating if I want Eternal Witness in this deck or if I want things like Mystic Snake and Frilled Mystic for counterspells. I am not sure they are really "better" than just plain old counterspell, but they fit the aesthetic and theme of the deck and do allow some of my clones to be counters in a pinch. Though, for most, it requires the use of Winding Canyons or Alchemist's Refuge. So I am not sold on them. I might try Mystic Snake just to see what it might do, and just cut Disallow for it.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I'd probably try Skullwinder before witness just because the keyword can be relevant for your clones and it's rarely that punishing to give someone something. And it's just more fun to play non-goodstuff that doesn't tax your green.

Re: counterspell bros
Hrmm, with all your emphasis on making your clones flash, I think at least one of them is good. I like mystic snake for being easier to cast.

You might get some mileage out of that planeswalker who lets your dudes have flash too, Vivien, Champion of the Wilds.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
I'd probably try Skullwinder before witness just because the keyword can be relevant for your clones and it's rarely that punishing to give someone something. And it's just more fun to play non-goodstuff that doesn't tax your green.
Fair enough. And, while it is pretty corner case, I can actually copy Skullwinder with Volrath if I put a counter on it whereas Witness just dies. Which gives me a few more lines for cloning or just giving Volrath Deathtouch at the "right" time.
Re: counterspell bros
Hrmm, with all your emphasis on making your clones flash, I think at least one of them is good. I like mystic snake for being easier to cast.
Yeah, Mystic Snake is probably the right call for that exact reason. Granted, the deck is quite heavy on green and blue as it is so it isn't a huge difference, but it is something.
You might get some mileage out of that planeswalker who lets your dudes have flash too, Vivien, Champion of the Wilds.
Ah, good call on Vivien. I really like her and I had some plans for her when she was first spoiled but never really fit in any of my decks. Karador just didn't care, and didn't have the slot, Windgrace didn't really either, and Xenagos was trying to do everything on my turn. This seems like a pretty good deck for her since I do want to respond fairly often and she "draws" me cards too. She also allows Volrath to attack with Vigilance which is pretty nice. Of course, I "have" to get the Stained Glass version :P But she is fairly reasonable in price.

After those ideas, and some other review, I am thinking of the following:
5/9/2021
Approximate Total Cost:

Disallow is probably the worst counterspell (technically, Voidslime probably is, but I like it more) so I am going to try to swap this out with a creature based counterspell. I am adding Mystic Snake. I am not sure how this plays out with it being at 4 over the 3 that Disallow is, but I like the idea of them in the deck.

Punisher and Shriekmaw are being cut for a slight change in direction. As I have said before, I would really rather boards be reset rather than actually cleared. Now, I don't think this is conducive to actually winning so I still have Damnation in the deck (which, maybe, should be Toxic Deluge) and I still have Chupacrabra and Gearhulk since they are unconditional. But I want to lean a little more in the idea of just resetting the board so I am going to try Leviathan and Engulf the Shore. Engulf is somewhat interesting in that I might be able to work it out so Volrath (or maybe other clones) stay on the field if I manage to copy anything that has a higher toughness than the number of Islands I have.

Speaking of which, I am cutting the Mirrorlake and adding an Island. I didn't realize it could only be activated at Sorcery timing so I think I like Mirrorpool of the two "clone lands". Though I am not opposed to cutting that one either, it does work better with the counter snakes.

This should put me to 13 Islands which is tight, but might be alright.

As part of that, I am getting away from Devastation Tide simply because it isn't an Instant. I also have very few ways to ensure I can cast it on someone else's turn. Refuge is the main way, but controlling the top of my library to draw a card isn't really feasible so I am just going to do without it and try Leviathan. It does the same thing, at a higher cost, but I can also bounce some clones off one another and I have 2 ways to cast Leviathan at Instant timing over just the one for Tide.

And finally, I really like Body Double and The Mimeoplasm being able to re-use my yard, and Skullwinder makes a fine addition to that while also allowing Volrath to potentially get deathtouch as needed. I don't want to go super deep into this so no Eternal Witness or Greenwarden of Murasa (for now) and no Phyrexian Reclamation either.

As discussed, Vivien potentially allows for a few shenanigans with my clones and other creatures and is another good way to allow for a more reactive game if necessary while also being card advantage (if I activate her twice anyway).

One thing I have been thinking more on, and pokken had alluded to it earlier when they suggested the Punisher, is that the deck does not do much with actually getting counters on things. I am still waffling on Black Sun's Zenith for that spot. I would have more or less complete control over what it kills in that I can scale it to either kill everything 4 toughness and lower if I still want some things to copy or I can try to just kill everything. Or, kill everything I can and recast Volrath to copy some of the things that are now fairly small. I am not sure if that is what I want yet, but I do think it is one of the better options for "all creatures get a counter".

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I like BSZ a lot period as a card, it's especially dope in this deck.

I'd consider looking at hapatra and scorpion god edhrecs for ideas as well.

Reminds me that you may also want to think about Wickerbough Elder as removal..it's insane with Volrath who can just keep resetting it, and it's not all that bad as a card by itself.

Carnifex Demon is the main really cool Volrath piece that I remember liking a lot with with Scorp (who can charge it up). You can just repeatedly sweep the board. And because Volrath can put counters on itself, it's just ridiculous as board control.

It's a pretty expensive card but probably worth trying out, esp as you can body double and mimeoplasm it to get the cost down a little.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

I did think more on @pokken's cards above and I have some more thoughts on them which I will detail in the next post. Before that though: I had another game the other day after making the changes above that I forgot to summarize.

This was a pretty ridiculous game that I ended up winning but had absolutely no right to win. It was against Horde of Notions, Scion of the Ur-Dragon, and Kalamax, the Stormsire.

I mulliganned to 5 due to having 3 lands with 5 and 6 drops, then 1 land, then 0 lands, then 1 land. I kept the last one lander because I had Nature's Lore and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath to potentially bail me out. However, the land was Reliquary Tower :P

Anyway, I didn't draw a land for the first 2 turns (so I missed my second land drop, then I drew a Swamp. Scion was having mana trouble too which left Kalamax and Horder to duke it out a little. I did play a Tropical Island on turn 4 to then ramp with Lore.

Horde actually scooped because they misclicked on their Circuitous Route and didn't get any lands. They weren't even in a bad spot but they were frustrated so they left. On my next turn I cast Uro to try to get a land and luckily got one off the trigger since I didn't draw one for turn. Kalamax was doing quite a bit though and they ended up attacking me a couple times. Scion did end up saving me by bouncing Kalamax with Rift because I think they figured they were so far behind that they needed me.

A few turns went by with Kalamax rebuilding and us not doing much but I was able to drop in Volrath and pick off a couple X/1s with him. I tried to really get things going with Chord of Calling to help ramp and start getting ahead on mana. Instead I used it to get Clever Impersonator to copy Scion's Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge just because I thought it would be fun. Arguably, getting Bane of Progress would have been right, but less fun.

And, of course, the first thing I flip is Glasspool Mimic // Glasspool Shore with no creatures on board :(

Kalamax scooped after I Mana Drained their Charmbreaker Devils which I basically did because I needed at least 4 mana from Drain to cast Kederekt Leviathan and another card. 6 mana let me recast Volrath. Next turn I tried to start a loop of cloning Leviathan and bouncing the original with the clone so I could just keep going back and forth. It actually wouldn't have been as effective as it could be since Scion had Dragon Tempest on the field (this will come up later) so they could just recast that and then cast a dragon. In any case, they removed Leviathan when I tried this and I stupidly tried it with a clone that could only clone my things so I just got a Sakashima on board that was a clone of nothing.

Now, I was in a pickle with Dragon Tempest being a pretty big issue. I didn't counter it on the way back down because I wanted Sneak Attack instead so I counted that with Mystic Snake. I even tried cloning this at one point too and they removed it in response.

Eventually, they cleared the board on my side with a Balefire Dragon. But, they were at a fairly low life total so I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what to do when I realized I still had Clever Impersonator in hand. So, I cast that and copied their Dragon Tempest. Then, I activated Vizier of Many Faces in the graveyard (which isn't a spell so it is tougher to counter) to copy their Balefire Dragon. It now had haste so I could swing out a them. It wouldn't kill them but it would wipe their board so they just scooped it up. A pretty entertaining win, even though the main reason I was even around was because Scion helped me out earlier (the attack earlier wouldn't have killed me so it may not have been all that relevant but still). And all that off of a god-awful keep :)

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

So, the last game truly showed the power of Kederekt Leviathan so I am certainly happy with that. And I like Mystic Snake as well. It might not be the most efficient, but I still think it fits the idea of the deck extremely well.

It is possible Engulf might be going too far in this direction if Leviathan can end up working somewhat decently. I am not sure. But I want to start thinking of some of the additions mentioned above. Carnifex Demon is really growing on me. A repeatable "wrath" effect that also helps turn on Volrath could be just what the deck wants.

That also brings in the question of Black Sun's Zenith. I am not sure I want to jump on that just yet. I was on board until Demon was brought up and because I really like the idea of this deck doing most of its stuff with creatures, I think I want to try that first.

The Elder above also makes sense, especially with the Demon, and I think it would be good to have some spot removal for artifacts and enchantments instead of relying completely on Bane of Progress. Being a virtual 5 drop is somewhat limiting but being repeatable might make up for that. I am willing to give it a try.

So, to make room for these two adds, I think I am going to try this:
5/10/2021
Approximate Total Cost:

Engulf is cutting cut right away as I am going to see if Leviathan, Rift, and Evacuation are enough. I can add it later if I need but I couldn't think of another good cut. And Will is being cut since this isn't really a counterspell heavy deck and I, again, couldn't really come up with a better cut.

I am not sure this is actually right and I thought again about cutting Glasspool Mimic // Glasspool Shore along with Eureka Moment, Callous Bloodmage and Windgrace's Judgment, Bloodmage ended up being super good with Rite that one game (which is why he was saved this time), but I am thinking he might not be needed here. Eureka Moment is slow and Judgment sort of goes against the idea of using creatures as my answers. And my creatures tend to be able to handle things on their own.

Now, obviously, I didn't cut them this time around but there might be a point in the near future where some, or all, are cut as I do think these are the weakest cards in the deck right now. Or, at least, the ones I can most easily justify as being "wrong".

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I look forward to seeing how this turns out. I think those are the two best of the goofy -1/-1 counter shenanigans guys and if they aren't good it's unlikely you are gonna want to goof with much other than maybe BSZ.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

I tried out the changes above in a game online and the game itself went pretty well. I played against The Ur-Dragon, Killian, Ink Duelist, and Niv-Mizzet Reborn. The Ur-Dragon deck was basically just an "all the tribes" deck with Slivers, Dragons, Changelings, Reaper King, etc.

I don't want to go too deep into this one since it is late and because I never got to finish it. I never finished it because my internet crapped out on me and I couldn't get back into the game in time. It was down to me and Ur-Dragon and I think I was in a good position though they did just get done blowing up a couple lands.

Anyway, I started the game with 2 Forests and Cultivate. I drew into the third land, Kodama's Reach, and more lands so I was ramping pretty good. I got Volrath down on turn 5 and I put a counter on Killian. Next turn, I played a land (to put me at 8 lands), copied Killian, and then cast Rite of Replication targeting an opposing Farhaven Elf to really ramp. I was able to do this solely because of the cost reduction Killian gave me.

We ended up getting Niv out of the game first (Ur Dragon did most of the work with a Chameleon Colossus) and then Killian attempted to kill me. I was at 35 life but they tried to one shot me with Killian and Hatred. I had gotten Ulvenwald Hydra on the field earlier (I couldn't block since they had Pro Creatures) but it had gotten me Alchemist's Refuge. So I just cast Damnation followed up by Callous Bloodmage (exiled Ur-Dragon's yard), Phantasmal Image copying the Bloodmage (got a token), and Zimone, Quandrix Prodigy. This gave me exactly 6 damage on board, though I didn't want to attack with Zimone and I only needed 5 damage which is why I created the token. Killian put themselves to 5 to try to kill me.

I just passed to my turn and was going to attack them but they scooped it up. So, I swung at Ur-Dragon. From here, Ur Dragon got down Reaper King and blew up a couple lands (Refuge and Volrath's Stronghold) and that is the exact moment my internet crapped out. My plan was to flash in Green Sun's Zenith for Kederekt Leviathan to then attack them a little. I had come countermagic in hand still, and I was trying to put Hydra back on top of my library with Stronghold (it had died earlier) so I could get Winding Canyons.

I can't say I for sure would have won, but I was in a good spot nonetheless.

Overall the deck performed very well. The only real issue I think I came across was the lack of basics. I started off with 7 basics on the field and then Farhaven got me 5 more. My own Farhaven later didn't have any lands to grab. I am considering going up the basics to make Traverse the Outlands better/useful later in the game. I think I would cut Mirrorpool and some of the buddy lands to get myself to at least 18 basics over the 13 I currently have. Not sure what the right number is but "around half lands are basics" seems about right for this sort of deck.

I didn't get a chance to get to the new Demon or Elder though I had planned on getting the Elder with Green Sun's to blow up a Pacifism type Aura on my Hydra so I could block, or the "Pro Creatures" aura on Killian but Damnation was just the better play in that case.

Nothing else to really comment on. I think this is really coming together quite nicely.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

I played this against a couple of friends in person on Friday and it went well. I don't remember all of it (I really need to write these up the same night) but the deck did end up winning. I was able to do a fair bit of ramp early on with Farhaven Elf and Three Visits but I actually kept counting my lands at a certain point and being surprised I only had 14. I did discard a lot though due to drawing a lot off The Mimeoplasm copying a Prime Speaker Zegana while exiling someone else's Noxious Gearhulk so it entered with 12 counters thanks to Volrath being on the field.

I was able to keep control of the game through some counter wars with Etrata, the Silencer and I also was able to Chord of Calling for Mystic Snake which I was going to clone with Glasspool Mimic // Glasspool Shore later as another counter. I ended up tapping out as I needed to respond to some other stuff so the Snake went away and I never got to do that.

I don't really remember how I won but I think it was just a matter of keeping control of things and slowly eating away at life totals. At one point I did attempt to clone Etrata just so I could swing with it and exile their Etrata because I didn't want my stuff gone. But Zurgo Helmsmasher didn't want two Etrata's on the field (they didn't know my plan) so they just exiled the original. I don't know what I was trying to use to clone it (I don't think it was Volrath) so there is a possibility they couldn't have done that. But I am going to assume I didn't miss something and it was a legal play :)

In any case, all I wanted was Etrata gone anyway so it worked out.

I did get Carnifex Demon a little later but it was too late in the game to make a difference. It would have been nicer if Volrath was on the field.

I ended up winning with Body Double copying Kederekt Leviathan to bounce everything and then Mirrorpool to copy Body Double/Leviathan later. I could have cast a spell for it but Etrata had a Rune-Scarred Demon paired with Deadeye Navigator so I figured they would know they could just counter the spell. Granted, they probably should have known they could remove the Leviathan in response to Mirrorpool's ability but they just chose to search for 3 cards.

Leviathan and a Flashed in Ulvenwald Hydra were enough to win the game at the end for me.

Vivien, Champion of the Wilds was an all star and I did a lot to save her from dying. Now, she was vulnerable a couple of times where opponents decided to come after me so I got lucky in a couple spots. I did only tick her down once since she did get hit a couple times, but her ability to let me cast creatures with Flash was super important for a lot of what I wanted to do. It is a great add and I even got lucky and pulled one from one of my Secret Lairs so I didn't have to buy one :)

Again, the deck performed admirably and nothing really stood out as being a dead, or even underwhelming, card. I was disappointed in having so many lands in the yard without being able to get them on the field but I don't think World Shaper or Splendid Reclamation make sense here so I will chalk that up to "sometimes that just happens".

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Post by shifthappen1 » 2 years ago

Hey man! this looks like a fun version of volrath! One suggestion. Appart from Dryad Arbor , did you even think about adding other manlands just so you can clone them with volrath to dodge a bunch of different removal? Also, did you ever feel like having reanimate cards would be worth it along with your clones? Like, Beacon of Unrest ?

I previously mainly used a Queen Marchesa aikido deck for politics and interactions, and it's been great, and I was looking for another deck filled with interaction, theft/clone being what I was aiming for since it makes games very enjoyable by having the option to clone enemies, and man, I am so looking foward to testing something similar next weekend, thanks for all the game reports, its fun to see all the shenanigans there are.

Did you ever think about using Nacatl War-Pride so that you can copy it with Volrath, attack, and copy something else with Volrath as the clone effect triggers?

1 Move to attack phase
2 Clone War-Pride with Volrath
3 Attack
4 With War-Pride Trigger on the stack, clone X with Volrath
5 ?????
6 Profit

Saw this fun interaction as I was browsing for volrath edh.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

shifthappen1 wrote:
2 years ago
Hey man! this looks like a fun version of volrath! One suggestion. Appart from Dryad Arbor , did you even think about adding other manlands just so you can clone them with volrath to dodge a bunch of different removal? Also, did you ever feel like having reanimate cards would be worth it along with your clones? Like, Beacon of Unrest ?
The manlands take too much mana to make it work with any sort of consistency. I not only need to animate a land in my main phase just to target it with Volrath, but then I need to do the same when I want to copy the land with Volrath. It is a cute interaction but not one that I think plays out very well in practice.

As for reanimate spells, I really prefer the idea of sticking with things like Body Double and The Mimeoplasm. I don't mind adding in a few things here and there to get more use out of my clones after they die but it is not really something I want to do much of.
Did you ever think about using Nacatl War-Pride so that you can copy it with Volrath, attack, and copy something else with Volrath as the clone effect triggers?

1 Move to attack phase
2 Clone War-Pride with Volrath
3 Attack
4 With War-Pride Trigger on the stack, clone X with Volrath
5 ?????
6 Profit

Saw this fun interaction as I was browsing for volrath edh.
That doesn't seem too bad actually. My main concern with that interaction is that War-Pride is 6 mana and then Volrath takes another 2 mana during that interaction. The 2 mana probably isn't a huge concern on any turns other than the one where I cast War-Pride but 6 is still a lot of mana. Especially since I don't think War-Pride is all that good on its own.

With that being said, I think there is a pretty good chance for this to be a blowout in the right circumstances and it plays into the idea of using opponents' stuff against them pretty well since now I can get a bunch of tokens of something they control. I will have to review the list and see where that might fit in but I think it is worth a try in the deck.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

I went through the new cards in Modern Horizons 2 and I didn't really see much I liked. There were a couple things that would have been alright to have, and maybe something like Sword of Hearth and Home would fit to blink things to clone something new, but there wasn't much else. I could have certainly missed things so I am open to other suggestions of what might be worth considering.

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Post by shifthappen1 » 2 years ago

Okay, finaly made a version of my own that's somewhat similar to this, but with more budget-ish cards and a few tweaks. still never tried that sorta deck so won't post it yet, but of those cards, some of the ones I included were

Sepulchral Primordial , Diluvian Primordial. Those two don't exactly "clone" stuff, but they do let me use opponent stuff for my own a bunch more, plus, they are nice to copy.
Tetzimoc, Primal Death, Instead of noxious gearhulk, since it also lets me tag creatures to make Volrath work
Shadowspear , Arcane Lighthouse and Detection Tower . The last three are to make Volrath itself has a better chance to target stuff, but I might not actually need them, since, well, most of the deck seem to not rely much on Volrath due to having so few counter support.

There's gota be more ways to increase counters spread around while not reducing the clone theme, somehow :hmm: Simic Ascendancy could be it in a way, since I can also target enemy creatures whenever I want to mess with combat, but it doesn't sound all that great in general if that's all I got for +1/+1 counter support(edit: nvm, just saw that its only my own creatures so nay). Tyrite Sanctum as a land can do it, but I'm hesitant to add more colourless lands. There's Blowfly Infestation to make sure that as you start spreading them around, you get more and more value unless the board is wiped, just not sure I'd replace anything for it. Forgotten Ancient looks like it can support volrath on its own and be decent on its own as well, so I might just go with that.

I just didn't realise early on just how little support Volrath got, which is fine as I can simply use its combat trigger for the most part, + whatever pump my opponents do for themselves, so I may be overthinking it. It feels a tad weird, but no card feels wasted only on Volrath support in your version so your deck seem to never struggle with bad draws.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

The good cards that naturally support vol like Bsz are mostly fine. I do like carnifex demon as the sole concession to major synergy.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
The good cards that naturally support vol like Bsz are mostly fine. I do like carnifex demon as the sole concession to major synergy.
This is where I am at. I certainly get wanting to support Volrath more but I don't really like the majority of cards that support him the best. Ancient isn't too bad, so I can see that being a reasonable option, but I think I like the Demon the most since it doubles as a wrath and is a creature. Ancient becomes less appealing when trying to use its trigger to clone other creatures since you are just making them bigger whereas the Demon makes them smaller which is nice.

I think of the two Primordials mentioned above, I would lean on Sepulchral mostly due to how much the deck is creature focused. It is hard to control either one but if I absolutely had to go with one, I think reanimating creatures is better.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

Now that the holiday is over and the sets have been fully spoiled, here are my thoughts on the Adventures of the Forgetten Realms, and associated Commander, cards that are being released.

Blue Cards

True Polymorph - Oof....this seems perfect for this deck especially since it is not temporary but 6 mana to do it seems like far too much mana for this type of effect. I might come back to this but I don't think there is a good place for this in this deck.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

Here is my review/evaluation of cards from Midnight Hunt:

Multicolor Cards

Ludevic, Necrogenius - Another The Mimeoplasm or Body Double type of effect. I don't run Lazav, the Multifarious however but maybe I should. This can become anything for 5 mana whereas Lazav needs the actual mana based on mana value. But I also don't often have much above 5 in the yard anyway. I think this might just lead me to trying out Lazav

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Post by shifthappen1 » 2 years ago

Wouldn't ludevic be a nonbo with all the clones?

He's already in the battlefield so he can't copy a clone since there won't be any etb effect to make him copy the rest of the board, thus seriously limiting his options.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

Sure, he is a nonbo with the clones the same way Ludevic would be. The idea isn't to clone the clones but to clone some of the clone "targets" after they hit the yard. I am not saying it is perfect but I have had a couple cases where being able to clone something in the yard is worthwhile. And I realize it lessens the use of re-using clones in the yard to clone something else on the field.

Ludevic has the same limitations while also exiling the card to clone. Perhaps neither one is right for the deck but between the two, I would rather have Lazav and I like being able to re-use the graveyard sometimes even if I can't re-use the clones to clone something on the field.

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Post by shifthappen1 » 2 years ago

Being able to exile stuff from gy has been pretty relevent to most of my games, sadly Ludovic can only exile and clone stuff from your own graveyard and cant target opponent gy.

Is there any clone or other relevent card to the theme that help deal with the huge amount of graveyard recursion out there in most dexks?

You got that callous bloodmage, which helps, just wondering what else is available.

Edit: okay, somehow I forgot about Dimir Doppelganger and The Mimeoplasm, hopefully there is more

Edit 2: could potentially use The Scarab God as well for clone + graveyard hate

Edit 3: last thing thats somewhat useful would be Deathrite Shaman , since most players have fetches its at the very least a way to gain a bit of mana.

I guess I was looking for those kinda thing too much, its kinda dependant on your meta, and mine has a lot of graveyard recursion so ymmv. Callous bloodmage is at the very least usefull for card draw or to add a blocker whenn graveyard stuff isnt needed, so I might be overthinking from trauma of aristocrate decks
Last edited by shifthappen1 2 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

I think our experiences are a bit different because "huge amount of graveyard recursion" isn't really shown in my experience. So I don't usually care too much about grave hate or additions specifically for grave hate.

With that being said, I did forget about Doppelganger and that might be a better option than Ludevic or Lazav if I want to go further into that route. Bloodmage is good for the versatility but I generally care about it more for the card draw than anything. If you want to go further into the grave hate/clone aspect, The Scarab God might be a good option too. It it a little bit different than just a straight Clone but it does effectively the same thing.

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