Phelddagrif: Show Weakness to Hide Your Strength

[Dunadain]

My mana base is pretty extravagant, but even if you're mana-base is no-expenses spared, I suspect that running 1 of these is a good idea, simply to have the option to fetch them.

[DirkGently]

I honestly completely missed these having basic typing, and figured them as minor temple upgrades. The typing makes them waaaay more interesting, and I'm inclined to agree with @Dunadain. Fetching for value and fixing at the same time is pretty rad, and we EOT fetch constantly to keep up shields so the etbt is mostly irrelevant (unless we draw it ofc). Probably at least 1-2 of them.

Undergrowth Recon is very spicy too - I probably wouldn't use it myself since it can't recycle cycling lands like loam, but it's a big upgrade on crucible for this deck imo.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

We haven't really covered it before, but how do we feel about Pit of Offerings? It's no Bojuka Bog, but for lists with Crop Rotation it seems like a solid way to build in a little more GY hate without sacrificing too terribly much.

[Dunadain]

We haven't really covered it before, but how do we feel about Pit of Offerings? It's no Bojuka Bog, but for lists with Crop Rotation it seems like a solid way to build in a little more GY hate without sacrificing too terribly much.

I missed this card until just now, as the staunch Crop Rotation advocate, this is a slam dunk for my list and another reason y'all should start playing crop rotation as well!

Honestly not even that much worse than Bojuka Bog, three cards is pretty thorough AND it fixes!

Edit: Not sure if it replaces Scavenger Grounds or just compliments it, Scavenger Grounds gets a lot of mileage out out of the cycling deserts which combo with Life from the Loam.

Edit 2: Also works with the new Archdruid's Charm, unlike Scavenger Grounds.

Edit 3: Wait, it can be different graveyards as well?!?! You can clip multiple scary cards from different players, or whichever cards give you the best fixing.

Accurate re-enactment of me reading and rereading this card:

[DirkGently]

Not to bring down the mood, but I'm pretty mid on it. Sure, it's a useful hit off crop rotation, but in terms of just playing it normally I think it's pretty mediocre. You have to predict which specific cards are going to be a problem at a time when it likely won't be obvious, and unlike bog you can't just say "that guy has a big graveyard, let's get rid of it." As far as fixing I think it's quite bad since colored cards don't necessarily hit graveyards early - I wouldn't expect to be able to get more than 1 useful color from it before turn 4, which means untapping on 5, which is a lot later than I want fixing. Just in general it's a very bad card in the starting hand imo. Scavenger grounds being activated as an instant AND nuking all graveyards AND entering untapped makes it much, much stronger. Without archdruid's charm I think there would be basically no reasonable argument to play it. With archdruid's, it at least has one advantage over scavenger grounds, but I don't think that justifies it.

Unexplained Absence looks solid. Four is a lot but still. Don't care for the art though.

Trouble in Pairs is a strong draw engine, probably not what we're looking for but it's an option. I don't really get the flavor though.

I'm going to end a third paragraph with the word "though".

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@DirkGently I agree that it's not the greatest GY hate land and it certainly requires a bit of finesse in terms of timing, but I think you're focusing more on the floor than the ceiling. The floor is etbt colorless land, but the upside is "free" removal and potentially perfect fixing. I don't think it's going to be Seaside Citadel + exile three all the time, but I think it'll probably be Coastal Tower + exile something relevant often enough to make the grade. I also think that GY hate is one of our biggest weak spots and I've been waiting for SG backup for over a year now. The Pit is fine for now considering it doesn't eat a nonland slot, further patches (what I consider to be) a strategic weakness, and we now have multiple ways to fetch it at instant speed.

[DirkGently]

@TheAmericanSpirit Well, I don't think crop rotation is a good card for the deck and I don't run it, so archdruid's is the only card that makes it instant-speed imo.

Honestly I'm kinda down on bog these days because it rarely actually gets something useful off the exile. Either it gets played early when nobody has anything of note, or it has to guess who is going to do a graveyard thing and it's not always obvious. And bog is way, way, WAY better than this thing since it's at least an ETBT colored source T1 guaranteed and it properly nukes a graveyard. But either way, you don't want to be sandbagging a land for later utility for the same reason you don't want your draw power on your removal. Advancing your game plan and disrupting the enemy should be kept separated unless there's a really good reason, because you don't want to be forced to do one in order to do the other.

I think the fixing is borderline irrelevant. If you told me you had a land that tapped for any color but only after turn 5, I'd say that's a terrible land because by that point I've probably already fetched multiple times and/or have a loam engine going, so my fixing is nearly perfect already. Unless I care about lifemaxing or hippomaxing some ally I don't really need fixing at that point.

We do have backup for SG - Farewell. Also Return to Nature is decent.

Anyway, grave hate can be the most efficient way to answer something problematic but it's rarely the only way. A counterspell or removal will often do the job. So I don't think it's so vital to have a ton of it. Sure, it's nice to have it on a land slot, but it's not good grave hate and it's a really bad land.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@TheAmericanSpirit Well, I don't think crop rotation is a good card for the deck and I don't run it, so archdruid's is the only card that makes it instant-speed imo.

I did say that it is tech for lists with CR upfront, so while I respect that you don't run CR, I don't think the lack thereof in your list detracts that much.

Honestly I'm kinda down on bog these days because it rarely actually gets something useful off the exile. Either it gets played early when nobody has anything of note, or it has to guess who is going to do a graveyard thing and it's not always obvious. And bog is way, way, WAY better than this thing since it's at least an ETBT colored source T1 guaranteed and it properly nukes a graveyard. But either way, you don't want to be sandbagging a land for later utility for the same reason you don't want your draw power on your removal. Advancing your game plan and disrupting the enemy should be kept separated unless there's a really good reason, because you don't want to be forced to do one in order to do the other.

I think the fixing is borderline irrelevant. If you told me you had a land that tapped for any color but only after turn 5, I'd say that's a terrible land because by that point I've probably already fetched multiple times and/or have a loam engine going, so my fixing is nearly perfect already. Unless I care about lifemaxing or hippomaxing some ally I don't really need fixing at that point.

These are fair points, but more than a few tech lands in our lists aren't great to jam out early anyway. I still think it merits testing.

We do have backup for SG - Farewell. Also Return to Nature is decent.

I did forget about Farewell, but RtN is pretty mediocre imo. I'd sooner go back to Stonecloaker. And all three of those need a nonland slot, so it's not a 1:1 comparison.

Anyway, grave hate can be the most efficient way to answer something problematic but it's rarely the only way. A counterspell or removal will often do the job. So I don't think it's so vital to have a ton of it. Sure, it's nice to have it on a land slot, but it's not good grave hate and it's a really bad land.

This is also a fair point, but I still feel your underselling it, especially in the bolded area. Let me and @Dunadain get back to you on it before we cast presumptive aspersions.

[DirkGently]

I did say that it is tech for lists with CR upfront, so while I respect that you don't run CR, I don't think the lack thereof in your list detracts that much.

Maybe we already had this discussion, but what is the reasoning for running CR in this list? It doesn't hit very many of our quadrants, at least not very efficiently. No wipes, no counterspells, and pretty limited removal options.

These are fair points, but more than a few tech lands in our lists aren't great to jam out early anyway.

There are colorless lands (which I'm trying to reduce) and tapped lands, but I don't think we have any other tapped colorless lands?

RtN is pretty mediocre imo. I'd sooner go back to Stonecloaker. And all three of those need a nonland slot, so it's not a 1:1 comparison.

There are a lot of very similar cards vying for RtN's spot, but I think you're underselling it. Efficient artifact/enchantment removal rarely comes cheaper than 2. I wouldn't balk one way or the other on someone running it or not, but if you want more grave hate I think it's probably the next best option.

The main reason I moved away from stonecloaker wasn't a power-level issue, it's because it's narrow and because it represents an imminent threat to grave-based decks that could necessitate conflict with us. RtN doesn't do either of those things.

Oh, another one I always forget - Commit // Memory. Obviously has a pretty major side effect of drawing everyone seven cards, but if you're desperate it's there.

[shorebot]

For folks still on Whispers of the Muse, can the clue lands like Study replace it? I'm warm to the idea of having more lands in the deck since no one interacts with them, but I've had non-zero games where it's been grindy enough that I've drawn 2-3 cards off of Whispers in a turn cycle.

[Dunadain]

For folks still on Whispers of the Muse, can the clue lands like Study replace it? I'm warm to the idea of having more lands in the deck since no one interacts with them, but I've had non-zero games where it's been grindy enough that I've drawn 2-3 cards off of Whispers in a turn cycle.

We talked about them a bit earlier, I think they're pretty neat, I don't think they are better than Life from the Loam, but I do think it's reasonable to start considering cutting Pulse of the Grid and Whispers of the Muse for them.

[DirkGently]

Yeah I'm warming to them. The fact that they're fixers plus draw, in a form that we can stockpile without having a huge hand size, is pretty great imo. I think the ability to use whispers multiple times probably becomes eclipsed by having multiple draw engine lands, since they're mostly more efficient than whispers anyway.

Not sure how annoying they'll be to acquire, though =/

[TheGildedGoose]

We haven't really covered it before, but how do we feel about Pit of Offerings?

*Slogurk has entered the chat*

This is actually pretty good there because I'm also pretty graveyard-centric so Scavenger Grounds can be awkward. I can also easily sacrifice it to recur it as needed which is another huge improvement over Grounds. Good catch, thanks!

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Not sure how annoying they'll be to acquire, though =/

Speaking of which, what do we know about the MtG Clue product? Is this another one of those awful pseudo boardgames or some sort of seperate set?

Maybe we already had this discussion, but what is the reasoning for running CR in this list? It doesn't hit very many of our quadrants, at least not very efficiently. No wipes, no counterspells, and pretty limited removal options.

Well, Mystic Sanctuary can get nearly anything so that's not entirely true, although it does require additional resources to recur the card on time and can only reuse rather than tutor. But overall, Dunadain sold me on the versatility over in his thread and it's been clutch in testing so far. I think it improves our access to important lands enough to be worth the slot.

There are colorless lands (which I'm trying to reduce) and tapped lands, but I don't think we have any other tapped colorless lands?

The odds that Pit will be colorless are miniscule. If someone's being forced to t1 pit in this deck, their opening hand has way bigger problems than the presence of a pit.

There are a lot of very similar cards vying for RtN's spot, but I think you're underselling it. Efficient artifact/enchantment removal rarely comes cheaper than 2. I wouldn't balk one way or the other on someone running it or not, but if you want more grave hate I think it's probably the next best option.

The main reason I moved away from stonecloaker wasn't a power-level issue, it's because it's narrow and because it represents an imminent threat to grave-based decks that could necessitate conflict with us. RtN doesn't do either of those things.

RtN just has never impressed me. Exiling one card for two mana is such a godawful rate, even if the naturalize is technically fine. Calamity's Wake or Honor the Fallen is what I want from two mana GY hate, though they're narrow enough to be meta calls. Anyway, I only brought up Stonecloaker as an example of what I'd turn to if I wanted to pick at graveyards a card at a time, though I do see what you're saying about the political ramifications.

Oh, another one I always forget - Commit // Memory. Obviously has a pretty major side effect of drawing everyone seven cards, but if you're desperate it's there.

Eh, not for long. I'm cutting C//M, wargate, and a couple other cards when MKM releases. 4 has been a lot for a while now and unlike cryptic command I have no nostalgia involved. I will miss the occasional refill though.

[DirkGently]

Speaking of which, what do we know about the MtG Clue product? Is this another one of those awful pseudo boardgames or some sort of seperate set?

From what I can see, it comes with some jumpstart-style packs to build decks from. It's planechase-esque in that it's a magic variant with some novel pieces involved. You don't get the full card list when you buy it, annoyingly, looks like you'll get half of the possible packs. On the plus side, every box comes with all of the lands and also the weapons and the suspect legendaries (basically anything with a weird border).

What I really want to know is if they'll come in set/collector boosters, since that'll massively increase the supply I imagine.

Well, Mystic Sanctuary can get nearly anything so that's not entirely true, although it does require additional resources to recur the card on time and can only reuse rather than tutor. But overall, Dunadain sold me on the versatility over in his thread and it's been clutch in testing so far. I think it improves our access to important lands enough to be worth the slot.

Mystic sanctuary is typically going to get tutored with a fetch, though, and there's only one of them. Especially with an ever-increasing pool of pretty decent value-generating lands, I just think I'd rather run another one of those instead, since it fits into a land slot instead of a tutor slot.

The odds that Pit will be colorless are miniscule. If someone's being forced to t1 pit in this deck, their opening hand has way bigger problems than the presence of a pit.

Nobody is going to T1 play the pit, but it could easily make a hand unkeepable that would have been fine with any other fixing land. Like if your hand is Bonders' Enclave (or any other colorless land) + Forest (or another mono-color land) + pit, that hand looks shaky at best, whereas if that was, say, one of the new room lands it probably would have been solid.

RtN just has never impressed me. Exiling one card for two mana is such a godawful rate, even if the naturalize is technically fine. Calamity's Wake or Honor the Fallen is what I want from two mana GY hate, though they're narrow enough to be meta calls. Anyway, I only brought up Stonecloaker as an example of what I'd turn to if I wanted to pick at graveyards a card at a time, though I do see what you're saying about the political ramifications.

2 to exile a single card is a terrible rate compared to virtually all dedicated grave hate cards, but it doesn't have to be great, it just has to be "good enough". Think about how many recursion-based combos it can break. Most of them, I'd say.

Eh, not for long. I'm cutting C//M, wargate, and a couple other cards when MKM releases. 4 has been a lot for a while now and unlike cryptic command I have no nostalgia involved. I will miss the occasional refill though.

I think I'm cutting Nexus of Fate instead, because of C//M giving me its own protection against milling out. I think nexus was an overreaction to the threat, and politically detrimental, especially in tandem with loam engine. C//M is way lower impact. 4 is a pretty bad rate, yes, but I think it hits on enough axes that it's still worth the slot. I mean it hits any nonland permanent, any spell, solves mill, offers a desperate reload, hand disruption, grave disruption...we can't always choose flexibility over efficiency, but I think C//M is one of the best times to accept that tradeoff.

[DirkGently]

Okay, I felt bad about reneging on doing a big update to the list, so I'm going through it now, since this set seems like it's offering some significant shakeups. Here are all the cards from the past couple years I'm going to be considering - let me know if you think I missed anything obvious. (Some of this stuff is in the physical deck but I need to update the list) (also some of it is old, but I just want to reconsider it in the current meta)

Other
Moment's peace

Counters
Render silent
An offer you can't refuse
Permission Denied
Wash Away

Value
Burgeoning
Venture forth
Shigeki
Colossal skyturtle
Inspiring refrain

Wipes
Farewell
Vanquish the horde

Removal
Fateful absence
March of otherworldly light
Stroke of midnight
Cyber conversion
Get lost
Eaten by piranas
Archdruid's charm
Soul partition
Excise the imperfect
Suspend
Sinister concierge
Unexplained absence

Lands
Room lands
Surveil duals
Rivendell
The shire
Bala ged recovery/sanctuary
eiganjo/otawara/boseiju
demolition field

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Other
Moment's peace

Counters
Render silent
An offer you can't refuse

Value
Burgeoning
Venture forth
Shigeki
Colossal skyturtle

Wipes
Farewell
Vanquish the horde

Removal
Fateful absence
March of otherworldly light
Stroke of midnight
Cyber conversion
Get lost
Eaten by piranas
Archdruid's charm
Soul partition
Excise the imperfect
Suspend
Sinister concierge

Lands
Room lands
Surveil duals
Rivendell
The shire
Bala ged recovery/sanctuary
eiganjo/otawara/boseiju

Inspiring Refrain, Permission Denied, and Demolition Field are all I can think of right now.

[tstorm823]

The main reason I moved away from stonecloaker wasn't a power-level issue, it's because it's narrow and because it represents an imminent threat to grave-based decks that could necessitate conflict with us. RtN doesn't do either of those things.

This is something I've encountered that has me actively pursuing one-shot instants for graveyard disruption in Zedruu. Graveyard decks (maybe rightly) are extremely sensitive to any grave hate that stares them down, and other players spending their answers just to blank my graveyard hate is the fast track to someone else winning.

Return to Nature seems like a fine tool for that, though I can't play it in Zedruu for color reasons, and 3 is an awful rate to have it in white. I sometimes wish I could play Rakdos Charm in every deck.

[DirkGently]

The main reason I moved away from stonecloaker wasn't a power-level issue, it's because it's narrow and because it represents an imminent threat to grave-based decks that could necessitate conflict with us. RtN doesn't do either of those things.

This is something I've encountered that has me actively pursuing one-shot instants for graveyard disruption in Zedruu. Graveyard decks (maybe rightly) are extremely sensitive to any grave hate that stares them down, and other players spending their answers just to blank my graveyard hate is the fast track to someone else winning.

Return to Nature seems like a fine tool for that, though I can't play it in Zedruu for color reasons, and 3 is an awful rate to have it in white. I sometimes wish I could play Rakdos Charm in every deck.

Rakdos charm has definitely proven to be one of the top 2 ravnica charms. Hits on some really good angles. Nothing more satisfying than "well actually"-ing someone with infinite creatures mid-combat.

Because such powerful grave hate exists, I think it's easy to think that graveyard decks ought to be completely blankable by a single card. Which, they can be, but I think politically it's best to attack them "fairly" - most graveyard recursion involves something in play that can be removed, or at least a spell that can be countered. Throw in some single-shot grave hate and it should be solveable.

But most important is to use our primary weapon - other people. If someone has a very recursion-heavy deck that you don't think you can handle 1v1, don't sleepwalk into a 1v1 against them. Fund their enemies, blow up what you can to slow them down, and either ensure it's a 1v1 against someone else, or that the person you're facing is weakened. Same as any other deck you don't want to face 1v1.

[DirkGently]

I guess I may as well air my thoughts right now.

As far as counterspells, board wipes, and targeted removal ("answers") - besides the balance of how many of each to run, it's mostly a pretty straightforward decision. Put them in order from best to worst, decide how many you want of that type, and then use the top X of that type. Simple.

But value engines (and tutors that can find value engines) are where things get a lot more complicated and where the deck can see a more significant change.

And the more I think about it, the more I agree with @Dunadain about potentially cutting - or at leas de-emphasizing - some of our from-hand draw engines in favor of lands. I really like these new room lands - being both fixing lands AND long-term CA lands AND being able to "store" card draw when our hand is already full - they seem honestly perfect. Stack the surveil lands on top of that, which make all our fetchlands potential minor value, and I think lands are seeing a major jump forward this set. It's always kinda been the dream that we could rely entirely on lands for CA, since that means we're "wasting" zero slots. I don't think we're there yet, but we're a hell of a lot closer than we were before CLU and MKM.

Okay, so in concrete terms, what am I imagining?

For starters, I think the desert package is going to get massively downsized. I always found the cycling deserts a bit awkward - they're pretty bad to actually play, and also you kinda want to keep them in hand/grave for loam, so they barely function as lands a lot of the time. Obviously scavenger grounds isn't going anywhere, but it'll have to sacrifice itself 100% of the time, rather than 95% of the time. So it goes.

This also means, alongside a decrease in the number of tutors, that I'm going to de-emphasize loam engine quite a bit. I'm still mulling over whether it could be viable to cut it entirely and move back towards Pulse of the Grid or Inspiring Refrain or something.

As much as I love loam, I do think it attracts more attention than I'd like, especially when repeatedly cycling - which is kind of the point of the engine. Just to ultimately draw 1 card, you're milling three cards, casting a spell, recurring 3 cards, cycling twice, milling again, etc. Jon isn't the best magic player so I hesitate to use him as an example, but in a recent game when I was going in hard on loam, he asked "how can I stop you from doing that?" to which the answer, obviously, was...you probably can't. Which is good to an extent, we want our engines to be robust, but I don't think he would have thought to ask the question in the first place if we were just tapping a land to make a clue or whatever. Loam in specific, and self-mill in general, can do some pretty powerful things and even though we're using it fairly innocuously, it can rightly raise eyebrows. In its current state, loam is a huge focal point of the deck, which means that the repetitive play patterns can attract even more attention. "uh oh, he's doing the loam thing again."

Without as many cyclers, I'm not sure how much utility loam has. Obviously it recurs our fetches, and we can still intuition into a cycling package if we want, and there's strip mine (though that's fraught in its own right since people can freak out about strip lock - and sometimes correctly, muahaha). If we are relying increasingly on lands for CA then maybe it makes sense to keep loam in reserve to protect them, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort - geddon will always be "counter it or lose" and it's pretty rare for someone to be packing a lot of targeted LD, let alone use them on - to the outside world - fairly janky utility lands like arch of orazca. More likely on Kor Haven, but kor haven isn't as mission critical as CA, it's just a convenience. Loam does become a lot more powerful with the NEO channel lands, but that also risks repetitive play patterns that could threaten people, especially artifact/enchantment reliant decks versus Boseiju, Who Endures.

So that's basically where I'm at right now. Maybe this is the end of loam? Maybe it stops being a CA machine and starts being more of a channel-land-recycling machine? Maybe I fork the decklist between loam engine and non-loam? I'm also kinda curious to try a properly budget build, assuming the CLU lands are fairly cheap. Without loam fetches are a lot less vital (still obviously amazing fixers but could certainly be built without). I'm betting I could make a very functional version of this list for <$100.

[DirkGently]

Okay so a little bit of an update on my thoughts -

-I think either loam or the channel lands have to go. I know that I tend to gravitate towards repetitive play patterns because they come with guarantees, but we must be strong and embrace the chaos. loam + otawara + cycling is just Capsize with extra steps, and boseiju is even more dangerous. Not that capsize is an amazing card in 2024 but people notice repetitive play patterns and will react accordingly. If they can't beat a capsize they're going to start working together, and that's death for us. Definitely still using loam + channel lands in other decks though because it's awesome.

-If we're booting loam, and I think I want to try the loamless build out, I'm reconsidering the tutor package. Tutors do give us reliable access to niche answers that are otherwise too unlikely, but they also lead to repetition across games that can be undesirable. Like Cyclonic Rift is obviously an amazing card in the deck, but if it comes out every game because it's a high-priority tutor target, people will start to take note. So I do want to downsize the tutors a bit. The ones I currently have in the deck are Mystical Tutor, Intuition, Wargate, Muddle the Mixture, and Merchant Scroll. Intuition is still my favorite because it works better when we have an ally to pick the card we want, which is a win for our play patterns - plus it's an instant that puts the card directly to hand, which makes it the only great tutor for a counterspell or anything else that we want to do at instant speed. Beyond that, I'm less sure. Mystical is hyper efficient, but I'm not sure how much we care about the efficiency tbh, especially for a tutor we're casting EOT. Wargate can get a surprising breadth of options - multiple forms of neutralizing removal, our 1-mana enchantments, plus various utility lands - but it is kinda pricey. Muddle is a pretty weak tutor but it's also a decent counterspell straight up. If we're ditching loam maybe it loses enough value to get cut. Merchant scroll I almost always used for intuition, which I don't think is worth it without loam. It can still hit any category except lands, though, and the cost is cheap.

I think I'm leaning towards cutting muddle and scroll but I'm still on the fence.

-In terms of answers, there have been a TON of strong single-target removal spells in the past couple years, and not many interesting counterspells. Which is kind of unfortunate since I want to kick up the number of counterspells a bit xD

-has anyone had much experience with Wrong Turn? Curious how that one has played out. Obviously it depends a ton on the audience though.

[DirkGently]

Had some thoughts on ye olde paper run today, and thought I'd share with the class.

First of all - as far as the rebuild, current plans broadly are:
-tutors
-board wipes
-value
+lands (mostly value lands)
+removal (especially neutralizing removal)
+counters

I'll be laying out detailed explanations of my thoughts behind cuts and changes when I'm done with the list.

One specific card I spent a while thinking about, which somehow I don't think even got mentioned in this thread, is Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios // Journey to the Oracle. It doesn't intuitively look like a card we'd consider, but it fits into a niche I've really wanted to fill for ages - a replacement for Exploration that isn't effected by wipes or removal. The front half is kinda whatever - even though our spell count is very high, chaining spells isn't typically that valuable so mostly we're hoping to hit lands - but the back half is really interesting. I was thinking I'd kill for something like:

Psychic Exploration
Instant
You may put a land from your hand into play.
Buyback

And Jadzi is pretty close to that. The downside compared to exploration is that it can't accelerate you early, but it's a much more potent topdeck in the late game and has the aforementioned durability that exploration lacks.

If we're forking the decklist into loam and non-loam versions, I think it makes potentially a lot of sense in the loam version, and not so much in the non-loam. The biggest reason is actually because of the discard clause. Loam can trivially generate a lot of junk cards that you're okay with binning, whereas if we're going non-loam with the clue lands and other forms of draw, we're a lot less likely to have a lot of chaff, plus a lot less likely to have a ton of lands to drop into play. With loam you could play it, cycle, play it, and suddenly you've got a ton of lands to dump all at once, more than exploration can keep up with. Whereas if you're drawing via lands and such...sure, in the ultra-ultra late game maybe you're drawing a fair number of cards per turn, but the vast majority of the time you're probably only draw a couple cards per turn, which means exploration can keep up fine and discarding a card in order to ramp 1-2 lands into play is almost certainly not worth it.

Another important note about Jadzi is that, up until now-ish, tutoring her would have been fairly difficult since she's a creature while in the deck, but Archdruid's Charm gives us an easy way to get her into hand that can itself be tutored by our other cards.

[DirkGently]

Okay, here's where I'm at:

Phelddagrif Reloaded

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commander (1)

1 Phelddagrif

Removal (20)

Neutralizing (5)

1 Cyber Conversion

1 Wrong Turn

1 Eaten by Piranhas

1 Mystic Subdual

1 Immovable Rod

Other (15)

1 Excise the Imperfect

1 Stroke of Midnight

1 Get Lost

1 Force of Vigor

1 Nature's Claim

1 Heliod's Intervention

1 Bant Charm

1 Oblation

1 Unexpectedly Absent

1 Rapid Hybridization

1 Pongify

1 Path to Exile

1 Swords to Plowshares

1 Beast Within

1 Generous Gift

Wipes (7)

1 Cyclonic Rift

1 Tragic Arrogance

1 Devastating Mastery

1 Out of Time

1 Hour of Revelation

1 Farewell

1 Vanquish the Horde

Counterspells (18)

1 Permission Denied

1 Swan Song

1 Stifle

1 Endless Detour

1 Dovin's Veto

1 Disallow

1 Voidslime

1 Commit // Memory

1 Arcane Denial

1 Mana Drain

1 Counterspell

1 Force of Negation

1 Force of Will

1 Mindbreak Trap

1 Summary Dismissal

1 An Offer You Can't Refuse

1 Stubborn Denial

1 Wash Away

Tutors (3)

1 Mystical Tutor

1 Intuition

1 Wargate

Value (3)

1 Pulse of the Grid

1 Telepathy

1 Exploration

Other (1)

1 Moment's Peace

Lands (47)

Utility Lands (20)

3 Investigate lands

1 Arch of Orazca

1 Bonder's Enclave

1 Scavenger Grounds

1 Mystic Sanctuary

1 Demolition Field

1 Ondu Inversion

1 Bala Ged Recovery

1 Otawara, Soaring City

1 Boseiju, Who Endures

1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers

1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge

1 Kor Haven

1 Castle Vantress

1 Rivendell

1 The Shire

1 Arcane Lighthouse

Fixing (27)

1 Path of Ancestry

1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

1 Azorius Chancery

1 Command Tower

1 Sea of Clouds

1 Bountiful Promenade

1 Forbidden Orchard

10 Fetchlands

1 Spara's Headquarters

1 Lush Portico

1 Meticulous Archive

1 Tropical Island

3 Shocklands

1 Forest

1 Island

1 Plains

Approximate Total Cost:

Explanations:

Cut Life from the Loam - As mentioned, I decided to cut loam for this list. While I do love it, I think it draws an excessive amount of attention because of how many game actions it uses, and creates some threatening loops. The structure of the deck has also become pretty focused around setting up loam engine, which leads to repetitive gameplay and establishes patterns our opponents can notice.

Cut Merchant Scroll - This has mostly been a way to get intuition to set up loam engine. My earlier thoughts on tutors was focused on hitting the primary functions of the deck - wipes, removal, counters, and value - but I don't think that completely holds up. Searching up a counterspell at sorcery speed is pretty awful outside of 1v1, and targeted removal becomes less interesting as well. Wipes are fine but should be cast immediately. Value is the primary function since timing isn't relevant. Without loam as the primary CA engine I don't think scroll is really worth it anymore.

Cut Muddle the Mixture - without scroll or loam, there aren't good value targets for muddle either, so it gets cut. I want to generally cut tutors since I think tutors can create repetitive play patterns and aren't really necessary for the deck anyway, especially as we get more low-cost value engines in the land slots and more neutralization removal available.

Left in Pulse of the Grid - I think this is the best repeatable draw engine from hand, and worth leaving in as a target for Mystical Tutor. High efficiency but with a self-imposed limiter is still a great place to be in nearly all metas imo. So it's now the only CA engine outside of lands.

Cut Cycling lands and Desert cyclers - no longer necessary with loam, and honestly they were always kinda awkward since I never wanted to just play them as lands. The new MKM surveil duals fill in the fetchable slots and the investigate lands give repeatable CA instead of one-shot desert cyclers, plus they fix, plus you don't feel bad playing them. This all seems like a major win to me.

Adding neutralizing removal - this fits into my plans to reduce tutor reliance. When I put up the decklist, neutralizing removal was hard to come by, but now we have quite a few pieces of neutralizing removal at instant speed, making it pretty solid removal on its own that also gives us ways to take out enemy commanders semi-permanently. More importantly, it means we're not relying completely on a single silver bullet to answer certain commanders, and SOL if it gets solved somehow. This way we can throw out neutralizing removal without needing to commit so hard to it. Someone playing Niv-Mizzet, Parun? Screw it, neutralize him as soon as he comes down, why wait? If they answer it, or if someone else becomes a bigger threat later, no problem, there's more neutralization in the deck.

Cut Pulse of the Fields - this was a tough cut, but I've had a fair number of negative experiences with people freaking out about repeatable lifegain. I think Heliod's Intervention does a good job for big lifegain when necessary, and The Shire gives us a counter to chip damage.

Add Boseiju, Who Shelters All - reading my logic behind cutting this I think was pretty off. Specifically the idea that an enemy with counterspells will just save them for later - a big principle of the deck has always been that, if you don't give opponents an attack surface for their removal, they'll probably use it against someone else. If you make your interaction against the opponent with counterspells uncounterable, they'll probably end up using those counterspells against other people instead, which is a huge win. Getting into a counter war is pretty bad for us since we can both get burned out of counters and leave someone else open in the end zone. The chip damage also isn't a huge issue since lowering our own life total tends to make us less of a target, plus we only really want to use it when casting spells that an opponent who is likely to be holding counters might want to counter.

Cutting board wipes in general - We were getting pretty overloaded on them, and we don't want to be mr "wipes the board every other turn". Bit tough since they keep printing really good ones, whereas new strong counterspells are a lot rarer and less exciting, but wygd.

I think those are probably the most substantive changes. Beyond that it's mostly just "replacing the worst removal with the better removal" etc.

[NestordeSinope]

Oh wow. Big changes here.
I do like the way you took. Few month ago, I added Life from the Loam to my decklist, with all the changes that is cost : deserts, cycling lands, etc.
In fact, the decklist is now very Loam oriented.
I had some very good games thanks to Life, but the game plan is quite similar game, after game, after game, especially with Intuition because Loam is always in my package.
The most important thing you said (for me) was :

Cut Cycling lands and Desert cyclers - no longer necessary with loam, and honestly they were always kinda awkward since I never wanted to just play them as lands. The new MKM surveil duals fill in the fetchable slots and the investigate lands give repeatable CA instead of one-shot desert cyclers, plus they fix, plus you don't feel bad playing them. This all seems like a major win to me.

And I totally agree with that. We get a lot of good lands in Mkm, but I'm still looking what to cut for them. Loam is lesser relevant without Cycling and Desert cyclers so you don't want to cut them, but most of the time I kinda hate to get them in hand.

I'm not sure yet that I want to cut Loam, but I'll consider it hardly. 6 new lands with Mkm + the possibilities to (re-)add lands I liked but had to cut month ago for Loam stuff (Castle Vantress, Rivendell)... it's nice.

For the rest, I does not agree with everything. I really don't wanna play without Pulse of the Fields/Sylvan Library for example.
I also still prefer Evacuation than Vanquish the Horde or Tragic Arrogance just for the instant speed, however I was already thinking about cutting some boardwipe, I'll follow you on that.

I'm also wondering if we don't need more grave hate, especially without the Deserts. Farewell and Scavenger Grounds are good but not enough - at least in my meta. Looking to add Pit of Offerings (and keeping Crop Rotation/Wargate).

Anyway, thank you Dirk. Your last post was inspiring.

[Dunadain]

Regarding Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios // Journey to the Oracle, I understand the desire to replace exploration, but I don't think this is it, the discard clause single handedly disqualifies it imo.

What we need is a Terrain Generator that doesn't specify basics