How do I make Ramses work?

Dragonlover
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Post by Dragonlover » 1 year ago

So I'm making a thread cause based on previous discussion and experience, people don't read decklist threads. The context for my question is my 5c altwincon tribal deck, which is now sitting pretty at 22 wincons with the release of Ramses, Assassin Lord, and is outlined in extreme detail in my primer here: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=311. I've cut Fae Offering for it at the moment, but haven't updated the decklist at time of writing.

My problem is, this is not a deck that traditionally heads into the red zone. A lot of the creatures are not great and are needed to support a wincon, so I don't really want to risk them a lot of the time, so I'm not really reducing life totals myself. With this in mind, I'm currently looking at ways to get Ramses to actually work. My thoughts so far:

A source of unblockability (Rogue's Passage is the front runner) and a loss condition such as Door to Nothingness. Simple, effective, but the Door specifically is a hell of a removal magnet, I'm more likely to use one of either Vraska the Unseen or Vraska, Golgari Queen. I like the idea of Golgari Queen more, because then I can swap out Arcane Adaptation for Maskwood Nexus and any of my creatures can then get me the win, but the tokens from Vraska the Unseen would also do the trick. Does admittedly take a bit longer to get going, but they also provide card advantage and possible removal while getting there. In a similar vein there's Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, but that might be even more of a removal magnet and also what are the odds of someone not having a legendary out?

I've not really started thinking about cuts yet, but Mycosynth Lattice is likely on the chopping block, I chuck out so much Treasure now it solves my mana and my artifact count quite nicely. Also the Lattice nonbos with a few bits here and there and can make some lines very awkward.

Any thoughts/suggestions are greatly appreciated, but please bear in mind I can't get away with many support cards as I'm running out of cuts, so anything more than three additional cards will be discounted unless it also supports multiple other wincons. One of the reasons I'm thinking planeswalkers is that it gives a little bit of redundancy to Happily Ever After

Dragonlover
All my decks are here

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Ertai Planeswalker
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Post by Ertai Planeswalker » 1 year ago

I think the best card to combine with Ramses, Assassin Lord is Hatred. Will win you the game immediately. Also does wonders with a lifegain creature like the Felidar Sovereign you're running and also helps actually trigger Near-Death Experience so it has some synergy with other cards in your deck.

As for your deck in it's entirety, I have not read through the full thread but from the looks of it I think the deck would function better if you settle on a few less wincons that group logically rather than cram every wincon there is in the deck. You would be able to actually pull one off a lot more often and to me that seems like it would be more fun. As in, my deck doing what I want it to do more often. Especially the category that actively wants you to destroy your own stuff and requires you to have lots of creatures seem at odds with the rest of the deck.

Dragonlover
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Joined: 4 years ago
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Post by Dragonlover » 1 year ago

Ertai Planeswalker wrote:
1 year ago
I think the deck would function better if you settle on a few less wincons that group logically rather than cram every wincon there is in the deck.
Oh absolutely, but the genesis of the deck wasn't "How many wincons can I make work that all pull in the same direction?" it was "How many wincons can I get into a single deck?". Currently the answer is 22, and I've won with about half of them I think.

Unblockable Ramses with a Hatred would definitely do the trick, and the side use of helping out the Near Death Experience is not to be sneezed at. I'll definitely consider it, especially since my LGS probably has a gold bordered version in stock. I've also been considering Angel of Destiny as a loss condition that also fuels several other wincons.

Dragonlover
All my decks are here

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