Had a fun game last night against
Reaper King Changelings,
Teysa Karlov Death Triggers, and
Shadrix Silverquill Politics. Started out pretty slow, doing some ramping, and getting a
Rhythm of the Wild of the wild down (I didn't have good Blitz creatures really, so I didn't want to deploy
Henzie "Toolbox" Torre early). Eventually I draw an
Elder Brain and ask who wants a new hand since I am not in a position to make enemies yet. Everyone thinks I have a wheel effect (I don't deny it, but I don't correct them), so the
Teysa Karlov player says if I draw them a new hand, they won't ping me for a few turns. I then play the
Elder Brain and give it haste off of
Rhythm of the Wild and attack the Teysa player. He says that he may have made a mistake as his hand is two plains, a swamp, a
Reliquary Tower, and a
Luminous Broodmoth.
The Shadrix player is forced to
Farewell before I can play the
Luminous Broodmoth, thanks to my
Elder Brain and the fact that the Changeling player is getting a little too dangerous due to playing
Knight Exemplar and having a
Taurean Mauler with an
Endless Evil on it. Next turn, I untap, play
Cream of the Crop, the broodmoth, blitz out
Mezzio Mugger which grabs me a bunch of ramp which I play, and while the game goes on for about eight more turns, at that point the game is over. No one had spot removal for the broodmoth and I just gained so much advantage off of it that even after
Merciless Eviction exiling my board, I easily rebuilt and grind out for the win.
So long story short, there is a reason
Henzie "Toolbox" Torre isn't white and people really need to play spot removal.
After playing the deck some more, I've noticed a few things:
- The deck is a true snowball deck. It starts out really slow, but if you get to five or six mana, it can go nuts.
- The deck is really, really consistent for a commander deck with no tutors. Cream of the Crop is such a dirty card with big, blitz creatures it is insane. Last night, for example, I looked through my entire deck because of it. The Great Henge is in a similar vein, as it is really easy to cast cheap and start to go out of control.
- Henzie "Toolbox" Torre has a similar thing going on like Golos, Tireless Pilgrim in that because of his blitz discount every time you cast him, its like you are gaining mana.
- The deck is kind of weak to decks planning to combo as fast as possible since it has limited ways to disrupt or prevent combos. It is more that you are hoping another player can prevent the combo win.
- The Evolutionary Leap, The Great Henge, Woodfall Primus combo is either surprisingly easy to put together in this deck or I've just been getting very lucky.
- Industrial Advancement is a really neat (and powerful) card in the deck. Last night, for example, I used it to quickly rebuild my board each time someone wiped my board.
- I would like to get more games with some of the support cards like First Responder or Prowling Geistcatcher, specifically when they are played on curve. They rarely are in my opening hand, and by the time I do find them, I usually have better things to do.
- Despite the deck being so color hungry, I am seriously considering Thought Vessel and Reliquary Tower. In several games I've ended turns with 10+ cards in my hand.
- I might also take out a few of the less synergistic recursion effects like Sword of Light and Shadow and winmore cards like Warstorm Surge. The deck has so much built in resilience and card draw that they are probably not needed. Also, I am sort of wondering if Primal Rage is needed as well, but I am a waffle on that card.
- Going back to recursion and things like Living Death, there is just so many exiling effects and graveyard hate in my meta that it is hard to keep any more than a few creatures in a graveyard at a time.
- The list on the first post is out of date. I will update it... eventually... maybe. But the Warhammer decks brought a few new cards that the deck has really been enjoying.
- I am going back and forth on cutting The Great Henge. It is perfect for the deck, but it is so powerful, that it often feels that games become can they deal with it. No. I win.
