Thalia and The Gitrog Monster

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

Behold, the fruits of our collective labor.




Thalia and The Gitrog Monster
Approximate Total Cost:




After a few days of iteration, theorycrafting, and goldfishing, I feel comfortable starting a thread for the final draft of the deck itself. While it remains untested, I believe it to be a fantastic starting point for when Thalia and The Gitrog Monster releases in two months.

Well, let's get to it.

Why Thalia and The Gitrog Monster?

Have you read the card? The Princess and the Frog are a hyper-efficient Swiss Army knife, culminating in a card that is unadulterated value. Vigilance and deathtouch make this pairing a top-tier blocker. This deck is very aggressive with its life total and deterring attacks is her floor. Given that this is a deck that this deck is focused on lands, being able to drop multiples per turn is clearly the main attraction. Not only does this put us ahead on mana, but it also allows us to trigger multiple Landfall effects as well, While putting you ahead, they also slow your opponents down, punishing the incredibly greedy manabases of most EDH decks. If that wasn't enough, if you feel safe attacking, they draw a card at a pittance. Thalia and The Gitrog Monster are the One True Pairing.

The high power level of the card is centralizing for the deck, so much so that the current decklist is largely devoted to ramping into them on turn 3. When accounting for the requisite land drops and ramp spells, there's a roughly 70% chance of that happening, statistically speaking. With intelligent mulligans, this should be happening far more often than not and is thus worth optimizing around.

"They're too much value," you might say. "The deck builds itself," you could argue. "It's boring to play against," you might protest. These things may be true, but neither the Abzan nor their Junk ancestors care. Long have the people waited for a card that enabled a Lands deck in this color identity, and Wizards, shockingly, delivered.

The following aren't exhaustive notes, but they should give a lot of insight into how I envision to deck to both play out as well as the sort of deck I'm striving for it to be.

Land

46 seems like a lot, but for a Lands deck I think it's towards the bottom end of the amount you should normally run. With our commanders allowing extra land drops we want to make as many drops as possible not only to cast them on turn 3, but also to take advantage of those extra land drops the following turn. The full suite of fetchlands are played, of course, as well as the best color fixers in the color identity. The deck strives to find a balance between a chunk of utility lands while also being able to produce its colors as quickly and consistently as possible. Colorless lands are minimized. The deck used to run more lands that came into play tapped, including the cycling lands, but those lower our chances of accelerating into an early TATGM. The cons outweigh the pros, to me. As for basics, they're split between snow and non-snow to both improve Field of the Dead and Into the North, which is now functionally just Rampant Growth. Not great, but still worth running.

Ramp

While only 10 ramp spells are listed in this category, there are in fact 14 ways to enable a turn 3 TATGM: a land, two tutors for a creature, and Exploration with some lands in hand. These cards help make the deck remarkably consistent and most of them trigger Landfall effects as well. I chose as few dorks as possible to avoid losing my mana in a random board sweeper, but Birds of Paradise and Bloom Tender are too good to pass up.

Land Drop

A staple of Lands decks, I suspect these cards don't do as much work as they do in other decks here. We already have this effect in the command zone. While some redundancy in case of removal is good, we don't need to run a critical density of them to ensure hitting one every game.

Recursion

Playing lands from the graveyard with extra land drops is an absurd combination, particularly fetchlands. This makes what our deck does even better in just about every category, so we want to play all of the good ones. As an additional card advantage engine we're also running Seasons Past since it combines so well with Demonic Tutor. This combo can come out much earlier than you might think since this deck can produce so much mana.

Spot Removal

I think 6 is a good amount here. We're not a control deck, we don't want 10+, but Rest in Peace is a card we'd need to deal with immediately and when combined with our universal tutors gives us a reasonable chance to find an answer to a problem.

Board Wipe

Maybe Farewell isn't great here, but I would feel awkward running less than 4 board wipes. Sometimes, you need to save yourself from a lethal board state. Sometimes, you have to clean the board up so you can rebuild faster than everyone else and run them over.

Draw

In my opinion, this is the weakest aspect of the deck. Lands decks can run out of gas halfway through the game because they've emptied their hands into land drops but have no relevant plays. Having the option to refill your hand is something every deck needs, this deck more than others. I tried to include the best black draw spells that dug deep, but there aren't so many of them that are actually playable. Even then, it's difficult to find room for them.

Tutor

Not much to say here. We run the best universal tutors, the best land tutors, and the two green versatile creature tutors. They do what they say on the tin.

Sustain

Multiple fetchland activations per turn add up, and there needs to be some way to stanch the bleeding. Shout out to Overgrown Estate for finally being mildly playable 20 years later.

Win Condition

Pretty standard stuff here. Landfall tokens or ways to pump those tokens into lethal. I suppose they're sort of anti-climactic, but they feel like the inevitable result of a land that ramps so hard.

That's the deck. I plan on fleshing this out a little bit more in the future, but for now I wanted to get the ball rolling on a specialized thread in the decklist subforum.
Last edited by TheGildedGoose 1 year ago, edited 7 times in total.

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umtiger
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Post by umtiger » 1 year ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
I think you underestimate the centralizing effect of an extra land drop ability in the command zone. Normally with such effects you have to play a ton of them to see them consistently enough to take advantage of them. TATGM remove this burden and while some degree of redundancy is acceptable, I think it frees up deck space to do other things.

As for 50 lands, y'all gotta stop tempting me. Obviously, we're a Lands deck. We want the lands. But we have to do more than just drop a bunch of lands and call it a day. 47 is my ceiling and I have no idea what I would cut to get there.
I cannot Strip Mine/Wasteland out 3 opponents of the game with just the commander. :)

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Post by Phoenixlance » 1 year ago

I've been tossing around ideas in my brain for this too, so it's cool to see some brainstorming already happening.

I haven't looked through the original thread in its entirety as of yet, so forgive me if these have already been discussed:
--Awaken the Woods allows you to fire off a bunch of landfall triggers at once while also providing sacrificial fodder to TATGM
--Given how tight the mana base is, and the desire to minimize colorless lands, thoughts on Thespian's Stage as an additional way to copy Field of the Dead?
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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

umtiger wrote:
1 year ago
I cannot Strip Mine/Wasteland out 3 opponents of the game with just the commander. :)
You make a valid point. :teach:
Phoenixlance wrote:
1 year ago
I've been tossing around ideas in my brain for this too, so it's cool to see some brainstorming already happening.

I haven't looked through the original thread in its entirety as of yet, so forgive me if these have already been discussed:
--Awaken the Woods allows you to fire off a bunch of landfall triggers at once while also providing sacrificial fodder to TATGM
--Given how tight the mana base is, and the desire to minimize colorless lands, thoughts on Thespian's Stage as an additional way to copy Field of the Dead?
Awaken the Woods was in an initial draft but I don't think it lasted very long and there wasn't much discussion on it. I think it's a little too expensive for what it does and is a little winmore. I guess it's another army-in-a-can card we could play that also gives us a bunch of Landfall triggers, but what Landfall effects are we taking advantage of that don't already produce bodies or make them bigger? Are we really taking advantage of all that ramp? As for Thespian's Stage, it's not bad really, but it might be too cute. Copying Field of the Dead is, of course, pretty good, though Vesuva does the same thing for free and can also be used to clone Bojuka Bog, Maze of Ith, or a random utility land an opponent has. On the other hand, zombies.
duducrash wrote:
1 year ago
I think we need to consider the boring stuff.

Heroic Intervention , Sylvan Safekeeper , Plumb the Forbidden Eternal Witness , with this much mana maybe even A-Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes and so on
Heroic Intervention is probably worse than Teferi's Protection overall, and I don't think we have room for two of these effects. Sylvan Safekeeper on the other hand is pretty borderline. I like it, but what does it actually do? We only have a handful of creatures worth protecting, first of which is our commander, who can just be recast endlessly as necessary. Plumb the Forbidden requires a board to be useful, and at that point I'd rather just use my board to apply pressure. If we had more dies effects like an Aristocrats deck does, it would be a different story. Eternal Witness is a fine card, but I think it's marginally worse than Bala Ged Recovery.

I think Necropotence is worth playing. Sorry to whoever it was that suggested it in the original thread. The pros are obvious, but can we really hit triple black consistently? I think so. By my count, we're running 14 actual sources of black mana and 16 ways to find black mana, so by the time we actually need Necro to refill our hand the mana cost should be trivial. Ad Nauseam is probably similarly good, as our curve including lands is around 1.59 which means it's likely we can dig enough to find a way to win. Those two are much, much better than Painful Truths and Stinging Study. I guess I felt bad for including them, but we're pulling very few punches with this deck.

- Painful Truths
- Stinging Study

+ Necropotence
+ Ad Nauseam

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

Honestly i don't think this deck needs many board protection elements

It recovers from sweepers really well. Volraths and field combine to be very resilient.

I don't really like tp as it doesn't loop with witness. Intervention being able to be recurred and a mana cheaper makes it much better overall but I could see just skipping both and playing sac another land destruction land to protect field (eg wasteland).

Mostly we would be fine with even all nonland sweepers most of the time.

If we feel like we need an answer to craterhoof it's glacial chasm or inkshield imho.

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Post by Gorillajay » 1 year ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
I think Necropotence is worth playing. Sorry to whoever it was that suggested it in the original thread.
Hey that was me! Excited to see that may make it in. Does this potentially incentivize us to play Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth for the color fixing?
pokken wrote:
1 year ago
If we feel like we need an answer to craterhoof it's glacial chasm or inkshield imho.
I'll be playing Arachnogenesis in lieu of Maze of Ith as It is a pet card of mine and I already play Maze in another deck and I try to diversify a bit.
TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
I guess I felt bad for including them, but we're pulling very few punches with this deck.
I'm ok if this is "that" deck as I don't really have one of those at the moment and this lets me play a lot of the good staples I have but been trying to find a home for. In recent past I've tried worst variations of it with Gitrog and Borg/Coffers exsanguinate finishers as well as FoTD. It just didn't come together and it felt to solitare-esque. Kinda like a bad and clunky version of the actual Gitrog CEDH deck.

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
"They're too much value," you might say. "The deck builds itself," you could argue. "It's boring to play against," you might protest. These things may be true, but neither the Abzan nor their Junk ancestors care. Long have the people waited for a card that enabled a Lands deck in this color identity, and Wizards, shockingly, delivered.
Overall really excited for it. This sums up my feelings pretty damn well, nothing like good old fashioned JUNK VALUE.

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

pokken wrote:
1 year ago
Honestly i don't think this deck needs many board protection elements

It recovers from sweepers really well. Volraths and field combine to be very resilient.

I don't really like tp as it doesn't loop with witness. Intervention being able to be recurred and a mana cheaper makes it much better overall but I could see just skipping both and playing sac another land destruction land to protect field (eg wasteland).

Mostly we would be fine with even all nonland sweepers most of the time.

If we feel like we need an answer to craterhoof it's glacial chasm or inkshield imho.
I think you're right about board protection spells being unnecessary. I always prefer Teferi's Protection because it fills a lot of roles in just one card, but the deck can just constantly rebuild. Glacial Chasm is an all-time favorite of mine and I can't believe it slipped my mind. I think that's an easy swap.

Speaking of being fine with nonland sweepers, I think Tragic Arrogance is worth playing over Damn. Flexibility probably isn't as useful as raw power in a deck like this.
Gorillajay wrote:
1 year ago
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth for the color fixing?
I think you could easily find room for it, but I suspect it's less necessary than you'd think. Necro isn't something we're jamming on turn 3, we're playing it on turns 5+ when we're running out of cards and need to dig for removal or a win condition, like Ad Nauseam. I would rather run more basics to get more double Landfall triggers with fetchlands for a longer period of time.

- Damn
- Teferi's Protection

+ Glacial Chasm
+ Tragic Arrogance

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
Speaking of being fine with nonland sweepers, I think Tragic Arrogance is worth playing over Damn. Flexibility probably isn't as useful as raw power in a deck like this.
My feelings on tragic arrogance are that it's usually a risky option, and I'd rather run something like Devastating Mastery or something if you need another sweeper. Vanquish the Horde are also good of course. Vanquish is pretty severely underplayed imho :)

oh, side note:
Malakir Rebirth // Malakir Mire is actually really good? might be worth a thought

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Post by Gorillajay » 1 year ago

I feel like Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines is worth a consideration here. (As it goes for most decks with white). The card is so damn generically good feels like we need to at least consider it.

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Post by duducrash » 1 year ago

I dont love arrogance if enchantments are not a theme, Id rather run old school unconditional wrath

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 1 year ago

I think Bolas's Citadel might be good here. You can play extra lands off the top and build-a-bargain with divining top.
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Post by Gorillajay » 1 year ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
Gorillajay wrote:
1 year ago
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth for the color fixing?
I think you could easily find room for it, but I suspect it's less necessary than you'd think. Necro isn't something we're jamming on turn 3, we're playing it on turns 5+ when we're running out of cards and need to dig for removal or a win condition, like Ad Nauseam. I would rather run more basics to get more double Landfall triggers with fetchlands for a longer period of time.
Agreed we don't need Triple black until later and I'm sure we will have it by then, however it does help us tap Maze of Ith and Glacial Chasm for mana at any point in the game. Maybe that changes things?

Also it feels weird not playing Deathrite Shaman in this deck. I know we don't want to be in the business of exiling our own lands but with the number of fetches we have its potentially another Birds of Paradise, so it contributes to the turn 3 Thalia Gitrog plan, while also having some extra utility to hate on yards. That said the list is right so I can see why it's not in there. It just feels like it should is all lol

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

Urborg should definitely be played. Fixing is great but it also makes painlands pain free. It and yavi are automatic imho.

I should add that they also let you sandbag fetchland activations and still tap them even out if fetch targets. They're very important

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

pokken wrote:
1 year ago
My feelings on tragic arrogance are that it's usually a risky option, and I'd rather run something like Devastating Mastery or something if you need another sweeper. Vanquish the Horde are also good of course. Vanquish is pretty severely underplayed imho :)

oh, side note:
Malakir Rebirth // Malakir Mire is actually really good? might be worth a thought
duducrash wrote:
1 year ago
I dont love arrogance if enchantments are not a theme, Id rather run old school unconditional wrath
Maybe I rank Tragic Arrogance so highly because I can put my thumb on the scales with Phelddagrif. A full board wipe is probably more useful. I like Devastating Mastery a lot as well. I'm less hot on Malakir Rebirth here. In other decks that really want to keep their commander or a specific creature in play it's a fantastic card, but we don't really have that here. Our commander is very good, but the deck isn't reliant on TATGM being in play all the time.
Gorillajay wrote:
1 year ago
I feel like Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines is worth a consideration here. (As it goes for most decks with white). The card is so damn generically good feels like we need to at least consider it.
We're already kind of stax-y with Thalia, so Torpor Orb for thee, Panharmonicon for me seems good. What deck slot does it compete with? Maybe Ancient Greenwarden? What's better, conditional disruption or a redundant Crucible effect?
TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
1 year ago
I think Bolas's Citadel might be good here. You can play extra lands off the top and build-a-bargain with divining top.
You're right. It's certainly better than Moonlight Bargain.
Gorillajay wrote:
1 year ago
Agreed we don't need Triple black until later and I'm sure we will have it by then, however it does help us tap Maze of Ith and Glacial Chasm for mana at any point in the game. Maybe that changes things?

Also it feels weird not playing Deathrite Shaman in this deck. I know we don't want to be in the business of exiling our own lands but with the number of fetches we have its potentially another Birds of Paradise, so it contributes to the turn 3 Thalia Gitrog plan, while also having some extra utility to hate on yards. That said the list is right so I can see why it's not in there. It just feels like it should is all lol
pokken wrote:
1 year ago
Urborg should definitely be played. Fixing is great but it also makes painlands pain free. It and yavi are automatic imho.

I should add that they also let you sandbag fetchland activations and still tap them even out if fetch targets. They're very important
We can drop two basics for Urborg and Yavimaya. I probably overreached with that many basics.

As for Deathrite Shaman, how does it compare to Bloom Tender or Ilysian Caryatid? DRS will often have to eat one of our lands to ramp and its graveyard removal abilities are useful, but of secondary usage. Tender doesn't fix our colors, but is explosive once TATGM are in play. The Carytid fixes mana and ramps a little bit when TATGM are out, being the middle ground and safer choice. This slot, Rampant Growth, and Into the North are all flex ramp slots where the difference is likely pretty marginal. I could even see abandoning the 2mv land ramp spells entirely and adding Skullclamp as a draw engine, though I think that's a little risky.

- Tragic Arrogance
- Moonlight Bargain
- Forest
- Snow-Covered Forest

+ Devastating Mastery
+ Bolas's Citadel
+ Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
+ Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

man, top/bolas/extra land drops should be crazy, I like that.

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Post by Gorillajay » 1 year ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
We're already kind of stax-y with Thalia, so Torpor Orb for thee, Panharmonicon for me seems good. What deck slot does it compete with? Maybe Ancient Greenwarden? What's better, conditional disruption or a redundant Crucible effect?
Yeah, this is the only reasonable swap I think to make. I'll probably leave it as Greenwarden for now as Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines Is a little more feel bad for opponents, and very much a lightening rod for removal. Also, I just love the pure synergy of Greenwarden as we really like playing lands from the yard. If I come across a Norn, or feel like we need to update control/stax effect a bit more after testing the deck It's an easy swap later down the line.
TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
As for Deathrite Shaman, how does it compare to Bloom Tender or Ilysian Caryatid? DRS will often have to eat one of our lands to ramp and its graveyard removal abilities are useful, but of secondary usage. Tender doesn't fix our colors, but is explosive once TATGM are in play. The Carytid fixes mana and ramps a little bit when TATGM are out, being the middle ground and safer choice. This slot, Rampant Growth, and Into the North are all flex ramp slots where the difference is likely pretty marginal. I could even see abandoning the 2mv land ramp spells entirely and adding Skullclamp as a draw engine, though I think that's a little risky.
Good comparison. I like comparing it to a two drop slot as if you play it on turn 1 and also have the fetch land in the yard you're likely going to need to save that land to get Turn 3 TATGM. It's not like Birds of Paradise where you could T1: BoP, Turn 2: Land + 2 Drop + 1 Drop (Vamp Tutor/Top), Turn 3: TATGM. The likelyness of having DRS and 2 fetches is obviously less then that, unless you're opponents are also playing fetches. Again, probably a marginal meta call like you mentioned if you need a little bit more GY hate, or if opponents are often using fetches, then throw this in there in place of any of the above.
pokken wrote:
1 year ago
man, top/bolas/extra land drops should be crazy, I like that.
Yep this seems bonkers. I love it. between Necro, Naus, and This we will certainly be hurting ourselves a bit. Overgrown Estate is turning out to be QUITE the card in this deck. If we need redundancy on that effect we can always add Zuran Orb as well.

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

Gorillajay wrote:
1 year ago
Yeah, this is the only reasonable swap I think to make. I'll probably leave it as Greenwarden for now as Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines Is a little more feel bad for opponents, and very much a lightening rod for removal. Also, I just love the pure synergy of Greenwarden as we really like playing lands from the yard. If I come across a Norn, or feel like we need to update control/stax effect a bit more after testing the deck It's an easy swap later down the line.
Yeah, new Norn is clearly a very powerful card, but we're already going to be an annoying deck to play against. It's probably not worth raising our threat profile.
TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
Good comparison. I like comparing it to a two drop slot as if you play it on turn 1 and also have the fetch land in the yard you're likely going to need to save that land to get Turn 3 TATGM. It's not like Birds of Paradise where you could T1: BoP, Turn 2: Land + 2 Drop + 1 Drop (Vamp Tutor/Top), Turn 3: TATGM. The likelyness of having DRS and 2 fetches is obviously less then that, unless you're opponents are also playing fetches. Again, probably a marginal meta call like you mentioned if you need a little bit more GY hate, or if opponents are often using fetches, then throw this in there in place of any of the above.
The more I think about it, the more I like Ilysian Caryatid more than the other options. Bloom Tender is very explosive after TATGM come out, yes, but as I said earlier the Caryatid does more consistently propel us into a turn 3 TATGM, which is the primary purpose of that slot. Is a higher floor and lower ceiling better than a lower floor and a higher ceiling here? Probably marginal either way. I think I prefer consistency with upshot and thus the Caryatid.
Yep this seems bonkers. I love it. between Necro, Naus, and This we will certainly be hurting ourselves a bit. Overgrown Estate is turning out to be QUITE the card in this deck. If we need redundancy on that effect we can always add Zuran Orb as well.
pokken wrote:
1 year ago
man, top/bolas/extra land drops should be crazy, I like that.
Yup. Seems decent. I'm thinking we can cut Skeletal Scrying, as much as I love that card, because our card advantage package is just so strong at this point that we don't need such a high density of them. Any one of them could propel us back into the game or put us far ahead.

I think Zuran Orb could be useful here, but is it better than, say, Druid Class? I feel like the enchantment would gain more life more consistently and evolves into an extra land drop spell. As for the Orb, are we an Urza's Saga deck? Being able to find the Orb and Top seems okay, but I don't think it's an auto-include.

- Bloom Tender
- Skeletal Scrying

+ Ilysian Caryatid
+ open slot for Druid Class, Zuran Orb, or a card draw spell

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 1 year ago

I would add another tutor with the free slot. Let's just cut to the chase and get the draw we need or set up a devastating value play.

Edit: specifically Enlightened Tutor. How many more targets do we need?
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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
1 year ago
I would add another tutor with the free slot. Let's just cut to the chase and get the draw we need or set up a devastating value play.

Edit: specifically Enlightened Tutor. How many more targets do we need?
I'm lukewarm on ETutor. We can find Crucible, land drops, a win condition, several draw spells, some sustain, and with a minor adjustment, a board wipe. It notably doesn't get our primary token producer or either of our best finishers. It's okay. I think I prefer Druid Class a little bit. It's mediocre on paper, but it does three things we like in one compact package. Don't sleep on that last ability.

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

It gets expedition map lol. Build your own diabolical tutor with card disadvantage

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

pokken wrote:
1 year ago
It gets expedition map lol. Build your own diabolical tutor with card disadvantage
One does what one can with what one has.

It pains me to think about it, but Seasons Past is probably not worth playing here. We would be better off playing either another, cheaper recursion spell like Regrowth or Eternal Witness, a tutor like Enlightened Tutor, Sylvan Scrying, or Grim Tutor, or some kind of bomb draw spell I can't think of at the moment. SP is great, but it's a little inefficient at what it does. While we can tutor for it and play it again and again and again, that seems like the textbook definition of winmore. We're usually recurring a key card with it, like a win condition or a tutor to find one, so the mass recursion aspect of SP is overkill.

My gut says a basic Regrowth is fine. I don't think we're missing much at this point, but I think we could also do better.

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Gorillajay
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Post by Gorillajay » 1 year ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
The more I think about it, the more I like Ilysian Caryatid more than the other options. Bloom Tender is very explosive after TATGM come out, yes, but as I said earlier the Caryatid does more consistently propel us into a turn 3 TATGM, which is the primary purpose of that slot. Is a higher floor and lower ceiling better than a lower floor and a higher ceiling here? Probably marginal either way. I think I prefer consistency with upshot and thus the Caryatid.
Cutting Bloom is a teeny bit more consistent, the huge mana jump we get from having Bloom + TATGM is pretty explosive though. We could also cut a 2 drop land ramper like Sakura tribe elder or into the north. At that point we would be risking losing both Bloom and/or Caryatid to a sweeper later in the game (As i expect they would stick around to at least cast TATGM. Effectively this would be sacrificing consistency later down the line for explosiveness up front.

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
Draw

In my opinion, this is the weakest aspect of the deck. Lands decks can run out of gas halfway through the game because they've emptied their hands into land drops but have no relevant plays. Having the option to refill your hand is something every deck needs, this deck more than others. I tried to include the best black draw spells that dug deep, but there aren't so many of them that are actually playable. Even then, it's difficult to find room for them.
TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
Yup. Seems decent. I'm thinking we can cut Skeletal Scrying, as much as I love that card, because our card advantage package is just so strong at this point that we don't need such a high density of them. Any one of them could propel us back into the game or put us far ahead.
Remember when card advantage was our weakest spot? 🤣
TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
I'm lukewarm on ETutor. We can find Crucible, land drops, a win condition, several draw spells, some sustain, and with a minor adjustment, a board wipe. It notably doesn't get our primary token producer or either of our best finishers. It's okay. I think I prefer Druid Class a little bit. It's mediocre on paper, but it does three things we like in one compact package. Don't sleep on that last ability.
Agreed, Given Bolas's, shocks, Fetches, Necro, Ad Naus we do a ton of incremental damage and could just end up accidentally dead to a few combats or aristocrats effects. I think we should dedicate the slot to something that gains life in case we can't find/tutor our one main source of life in Overgrown Estate. Druid Class Seems like a good option to try. There's quite a few other life gain landfall options as well. Primeval Bounty, Lifegift, Retreat to Kazandu, or Zuran Orb as we said.

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

Ewit plus shigeki plus maybe skullwinder for me I think. But tho I am gonna try norn/doomwake/livingplane/natures revolt first

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

Gorillajay wrote:
1 year ago
Cutting Bloom is a teeny bit more consistent, the huge mana jump we get from having Bloom + TATGM is pretty explosive though. We could also cut a 2 drop land ramper like Sakura tribe elder or into the north. At that point we would be risking losing both Bloom and/or Caryatid to a sweeper later in the game (As i expect they would stick around to at least cast TATGM. Effectively this would be sacrificing consistency later down the line for explosiveness up front.
Well, what are we exploding into? Most of the time we're going to untap on turn 4 with 5 mana in play and likely one or two more land drops to make. We'll call it consistently 6 mana on turn 4. If we use Tender, that number becomes 8. Are we capitalizing on that extra mana more often than not? I think it's close either way. Our manabase is strong enough to almost unfailingly cast TATGM when we need to, so it's likely a wash. Personally, I think a consistent mediocre plan is better than an inconsistent good plan in EDH. Inconsistency is the enemy in this format, not your opponents. It just so happens that we happen to have a very, very good plan, so executing that consistently is all the better.
Remember when card advantage was our weakest spot? 🤣
What can I say? For some reason I was trying to hold back on playing the dumb black card draw spells. That's on me.
Agreed, Given Bolas's, shocks, Fetches, Necro, Ad Naus we do a ton of incremental damage and could just end up accidentally dead to a few combats or aristocrats effects. I think we should dedicate the slot to something that gains life in case we can't find/tutor our one main source of life in Overgrown Estate. Druid Class Seems like a good option to try. There's quite a few other life gain landfall options as well. Primeval Bounty, Lifegift, Retreat to Kazandu, or Zuran Orb as we said.
How many sustain effects do we need? Maze of Ith and Glacial Chasm are auto-includes, and I think Overgrown Estate isn't too cute. I don't think I'd play both Druid Class and Zuran Orb or Dark Heart of the Wood but those three are the ones I'd consider.
pokken wrote:
1 year ago
Ewit plus shigeki plus maybe skullwinder for me I think. But tho I am gonna try norn/doomwake/livingplane/natures revolt first
Oh, Shigeki, Jukai Visionary is neat. It does two things I like, one at instant speed! The ramp aspect doesn't help us get TATGM out a turn early, but it's still very playable. Once and Future is another card I like that might be worth considering. No pain card advantage!

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Post by EonAon » 1 year ago

I still say Retreat to Hagra is decent for a bit more kill them keep yourself alive, but retreat to Kazandu would probably be better effective in this deck since both sides allow more fluidity to the overall goal here. Also Enlightened Tutor gets both crucibles and would be a good way to get exploration early on turn two depending on draw..

Truely if you add eitherGreed, Erebos, God of the Dead, or Arguel's Blood Fast // Temple of Aclazotz to the deck it might be an option. I would suggest Erebos for a few reasons as its hard to deal with shuts off any opponents lifegain and still draws cards. Greed of course would be more efficient considering the lack of back mana.

Also and this is more for a lark than a serious suggestion, you could also use it to find Ornithopter of Paradise.

On the more serious note if when I build this myself Im probably going to use Titania, Protector of Argoth & Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer rather than Avenger. Avenger is a really nice build up of blockers and can contribute to a win but he always feels too high end for me. That and in landfall matters once you hit a certain amount of lands your more about cycling what you have rather than adding more to the pile in some cases, or at least thats what it feels like.

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