Morska, Undersea Sleuth

Post by **WizardMN** » 2 years ago

With the release of Streets of New Capenna, I have decided to revisit the decks I currently have in my rotation. Or, more specifically (since I have 3 decks I already know I want to get rid of), the decks/color combos I am missing. Notably, as a 3 color set is likely to illuminate, I am missing various 3 color combinations. 2 of which I have tried numerous options for in the past: Bant and Naya. I am also missing a Grixis deck though that color combination tends to be less appealing to me for some reason. It always seems to be centered around Instants and Sorceries or tribal options and I can't really find much that I like.

With Naya I am giving serious consideration to rebuilding Hazezon Tamaar and if I ever get around to building a Naya deck I am sure I will go over my thoughts on that in its own thread.

Here though are my thoughts on a Bant deck. I do have plenty of options for directions I can take the deck, unlike a lot of other combinations that seems so one sided (see the aforementioned Grixis options in addition to things like Boros that tend to favor combat above all else). This is an oversimplification of those colors of course: there are more options than I am giving them credit for but a lot of options do seem to fit within these narrow confines. Bant though seems a bit more broad.

The main issue I seem to have though is that even with the broader options of the color combination, none of the individual commanders appeal to me. Arcades, the Strategist wants to be Defenders Matters and I had tried to build a deck around it at one point but quit early on in the deckbuilding process. Chulane, Teller of Tales is too generic (and gets a bit of hate) and Derevi, Empyrial Tactician also gets a lot of hate. Plus if I am not trying to combo or stax the ability doesn't seem appealing enough.

Falco Spara, Pactweaver, Kros, Defense Contractor, and Perrie, the Pulveriser are too focused on counters matter which doesn't sound fun. And of course there are the various combat oriented commanders (which Perrie also falls under) that aren't appealing to me either.

There are the Enchantress commanders that I have given a lot of thought to utilizing but Enchantress never seems to end up being as fun as I expect it to be. Either it overloads the game with significant advantage or it gets blown out by Bane of Progress or something. I do keep coming back to it but it just never feels right.

Rigo, Streetwise Mentor looks like one of the more promising options but seems like it might go too far into the idea of strict optimization to get the full use out of it. And because the creatures would tend to be small, optimization almost becomes a necessity but that means there aren't a ton of options for different includes that can still let the deck win consistently.

So, even with all of the options out there for me, few really push in a direction I actually care about. Though, as shown by the title of this thread, there is one that seems like it could end up being a decent commander: Jenara, Asura of War. She offers a bit of generic-ness that allows me to pivot later if I ever find a Bant general I like more than her and still ends up being more than just a body for the colors. I had Rubinia here before but the comments below convinced me to try Jenara out.

Here is where I am for now:

Jenara, Asura of War

Approximate Total Cost:

This is not meant to be final but it allows for me to start the conversation and put my thoughts down about what I want to do and where I want to go. I also want to leave this somewhat generic in case I want to move into a different direction. I am still not opposed to Chulane, Teller of Tales but Chulane is too generically good as to be close to oppressive which lessens the fun.

In the end, I think I am hoping for a new Bant commander eventually that can replace Jenara and I don't want Partners either so I am sort of stuck with Jenara for now as the best I can get. I might go back through the options again though to see if there is just something I missed.

Change Log

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5/2/2022

CUTS

1 Sower of Temptation

1 Thassa, Deep-Dwelling

1 Soulherder

1 Gilded Drake

1 Island

1 Charming Prince

ADDS

1 Spara's Headquarters

1 Soul of Emancipation

Approximate Total Cost:

5/20/2022

CUTS

1 Greater Good

ADDS

1 The Great Henge

Approximate Total Cost:

6/13/2022

CUTS

1 Plains

1 Island

1 Forest

ADDS

1 Dreamroot Cascade

1 Deserted Beach

1 Overgrown Farmland

Approximate Total Cost:

11/13/2022

CUTS

1 Soul of Emancipation

ADDS

1 Silverback Elder

Approximate Total Cost:

5/19/2023

CUTS

1 Evacuation

ADDS

1 Faerie Mastermind

Approximate Total Cost:

7/5/2023

CUTS

1 Elder Gargaroth

ADDS

1 Radagast the Brown

Approximate Total Cost:

Post by **pokken** » 2 years ago

I had a very good time with Jenara, Asura of War as a bant commander back in the day. Solid backup plan, doesn't really need any support.

Rubinia Soulsinger is kinda...a feelbad in a box to me.

pzbw7z · Post by **pzbw7z** » 2 years ago

pokken wrote: ↑
2 years ago
I had a very good time with Jenara, Asura of War as a bant commander back in the day. Solid backup plan, doesn't really need any support.

Rubinia Soulsinger is kinda...a feelbad in a box to me.

I played a Bant, good-stuff, Jenara list for years; it was big fun. I would rotate the combos after they got stale and there were always more to try! And Jenara was -as you say - always a solid backup plan.

Post by **WizardMN** » 2 years ago

Jenara was certainly an option but it she ends up being fairly generic to the point of nearly being a Vanilla creature. I realize she is more than that but there doesn't seem to be much "spice" to her.

But that line of thinking might be fair and might just mean something like Ragnar or Angus Mackenzie might be worthwhile to run. I mentioned that I am really just looking for a Bant deck to run the color combo and get access to various cards as they come out. Angus wouldn't be awful and still allows me to pivot later if a new commander is released.

In the end, perhaps I am simply not giving Jenara enough credit. A 3/3 Flyer that pumps itself is pretty solid already and might just give me everything I need in a commander right now. I usually gloss over her because she is so generic but that might be a mistake. I will run through the list and tweak it with her in mind. Maybe having a deck that simply functions on its own without much guidance from the commander won't be a huge deal here.

Post by **pokken** » 2 years ago

My experience with her was I spent a lot of time keeping mana up, so getting to sink that into making her a threat was nice. Your build is a little lower on interactive spells than I'd expect for that approach though, since you look like you're more of a simic deck than an azorius deck. I am pretty high on Mystic Snake effects though so some more of that might be good?

Personally I'd also give some really serious thought to the ramp package of non-synergistic ramp sorceries. It's probably too easy to drift into either a Gaea's Cradle or Exploration direction, but maybe this is more of a Bloom Tender / Ilysian Caryatid deck, especially with Jenara, Asura of War. Maybe even Selvala, Heart of the Wilds?

My inclination would be to play Ponder or Wall of Blossoms / Wall of Omens type effects to hit land drops than Cultivate effects I think? I dunno though, it's hard to say as I haven't built bant in a while and I know you actively dislike mana dorks.

Still, Noble Hierarch et. al are very good. You can just play all the really good dorks and then a sweeper avoidance/recovery package instead of the boring land ramp spells?

pzbw7z · Post by **pzbw7z** » 2 years ago

There are too many approaches with Bant to really begin making suggestions; my deck was quite casual, but big fun.

My main themes were flicker and EtB with a Wizard's sub-theme. Most of the Wizards were Bantish with a focus towards EtB effects. Azami, Lady of Scrolls was an exception and really the main reason for the Wizard sub-theme.

There was some Green ramp spells and Oracle of Mul Daya along with Coiling Oracle and Wood Elves and similar.

The first approach I used was using Biovisionary and Infinite Reflection. Later I went to infinite turns with Eternal Witness and a flicker effect and one of three extra turns cards.

After I got a hold of Survival of the Fittest, I went to a combo using Body Double, Reveillark, Mirror Entity and usually Venser, Shaper Savant. I'd just bounce all of the permanents and people would usually lose interest in continuing. Survival generally made it very simple to assemble.

Another pseudo-win-con was Gilded Drake. Flicker it a few times an folks would just give up en masse.

The last thing I remember throwing in was Living Plane and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. That would dampen people's enthusiasm too.

I played a few counters, including Mystic Snake and Voidslime and a few others.

All in all. very casual but it could win out of nowhere via multiple vectors and I, at least, usually had fun!

yeti1069 · Post by **yeti1069** » 2 years ago

WizardMN wrote: ↑
2 years ago
There are the Enchantress commanders that I have given a lot of thought to utilizing but Enchantress never seems to end up being as fun as I expect it to be. Either it overloads the game with significant advantage or it gets blown out by Bane of Progress or something. I do keep coming back to it but it just never feels right.

With all the options for individual or mass enchantment recursion available to us now, along with stuff like Teferi's Protection and Heroic Intervention, scooping to an enchantment board wipe has become much less of an issue. I have a Tuvasa deck that has gone through a couple of evolutions, and it's been fun. It had been configured for pillowfort for a while, but I found that games just ran too long, and everyone else felt kind of miserable, so I dropped a lot of those pieces for more voltron enchantments. Runs a little faster. In either iteration I've not made much use of the blue portion of her colors, but had been toying with the idea of running some (many?) of the blue theft enchantments. If you're looking at Rubina, that's an option as well.

Just some food for thought.

yeti1069 · Post by **yeti1069** » 2 years ago

On the Grixis front, have you considered Marchesa, the Black Rose? Doesn't care much about instants and sorceries, and while there are tribal versions, it doesn't need to be tribal (probably stronger overall without leaning too heavily into being tribal). Can be controlling, aggro, or combo. Can work in a lot of theft effects, aristocrats, or value engines.

Post by **WizardMN** » 2 years ago

pokken wrote: ↑
2 years ago
My experience with her was I spent a lot of time keeping mana up, so getting to sink that into making her a threat was nice. Your build is a little lower on interactive spells than I'd expect for that approach though, since you look like you're more of a simic deck than an azorius deck. I am pretty high on Mystic Snake effects though so some more of that might be good?

Personally I'd also give some really serious thought to the ramp package of non-synergistic ramp sorceries. It's probably too easy to drift into either a Gaea's Cradle or Exploration direction, but maybe this is more of a Bloom Tender / Ilysian Caryatid deck, especially with Jenara, Asura of War. Maybe even Selvala, Heart of the Wilds?

My inclination would be to play Ponder or Wall of Blossoms / Wall of Omens type effects to hit land drops than Cultivate effects I think? I dunno though, it's hard to say as I haven't built bant in a while and I know you actively dislike mana dorks.

Still, Noble Hierarch et. al are very good. You can just play all the really good dorks and then a sweeper avoidance/recovery package instead of the boring land ramp spells?

I guess I never really mind the "boring" land ramp spells. I know other decks I have fall into that but I have been hoping I can find a way to move this into a slightly different direction with the rest of the spells. So, I realize there will be some overlap between this and things like Karador and Volrath but I am hoping to find a way to make this still have its own identity even with that overlap.

I do like your idea of doing something with mana dorks that produce more than one mana. I am not sure about adding in the "basic" mana dorks but Bloom Tender, Dryad, and Selvala seems like they could be really fun to try to utilize. I might see if there is a way to build the list with that in mind as that can definitely give it a unique identity among my decks.

pzbw7z wrote: ↑
2 years ago

SPOILER
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There are too many approaches with Bant to really begin making suggestions; my deck was quite casual, but big fun.

My main themes were flicker and EtB with a Wizard's sub-theme. Most of the Wizards were Bantish with a focus towards EtB effects. Azami, Lady of Scrolls was an exception and really the main reason for the Wizard sub-theme.

There was some Green ramp spells and Oracle of Mul Daya along with Coiling Oracle and Wood Elves and similar.

The first approach I used was using Biovisionary and Infinite Reflection. Later I went to infinite turns with Eternal Witness and a flicker effect and one of three extra turns cards.

After I got a hold of Survival of the Fittest, I went to a combo using Body Double, Reveillark, Mirror Entity and usually Venser, Shaper Savant. I'd just bounce all of the permanents and people would usually lose interest in continuing. Survival generally made it very simple to assemble.

Another pseudo-win-con was Gilded Drake. Flicker it a few times an folks would just give up en masse.

The last thing I remember throwing in was Living Plane and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. That would dampen people's enthusiasm too.

I played a few counters, including Mystic Snake and Voidslime and a few others.

All in all. very casual but it could win out of nowhere via multiple vectors and I, at least, usually had fun!

For the most part, I don't really like combos, infinite turns, or MLD so that removes a couple of your suggestions from contention (I appreciate the suggestions either way; just not quite my playstyle). However, a minor flicker theme, especially with things like Mystic Snake and Frilled Mystic, could work out pretty well also. I do love ETB triggers after all.

yeti1069 wrote: ↑
2 years ago
With all the options for individual or mass enchantment recursion available to us now, along with stuff like Teferi's Protection and Heroic Intervention, scooping to an enchantment board wipe has become much less of an issue. I have a Tuvasa deck that has gone through a couple of evolutions, and it's been fun. It had been configured for pillowfort for a while, but I found that games just ran too long, and everyone else felt kind of miserable, so I dropped a lot of those pieces for more voltron enchantments. Runs a little faster. In either iteration I've not made much use of the blue portion of her colors, but had been toying with the idea of running some (many?) of the blue theft enchantments. If you're looking at Rubina, that's an option as well.

Just some food for thought.

That is a good point and one I hadn't really thought of. However, you bring up two other points: pillowfort gets boring or goes too long (as your experience shows) and I am not really that big a fan of voltron. It is probably a better path to take an enchantress build but there are more than a few reasons I want to stay away from Enchantress.

yeti1069 wrote: ↑
2 years ago
On the Grixis front, have you considered Marchesa, the Black Rose? Doesn't care much about instants and sorceries, and while there are tribal versions, it doesn't need to be tribal (probably stronger overall without leaning too heavily into being tribal). Can be controlling, aggro, or combo. Can work in a lot of theft effects, aristocrats, or value engines.

I appreciate this suggestion. That actually seems like a pretty good idea and, as you pointed out she allows for quite a few options. I will look into her to see if there is a way I can make a deck I like while also playing up her ability at least a little bit. Granted, since she grants everything Dethrone I might not need to do much in that department.

Post by **pokken** » 2 years ago

WizardMN wrote: ↑
2 years ago
I do like your idea of doing something with mana dorks that produce more than one mana. I am not sure about adding in the "basic" mana dorks but Bloom Tender, Dryad, and Selvala seems like they could be really fun to try to utilize. I might see if there is a way to build the list with that in mind as that can definitely give it a unique identity among my decks.

The ones I like are:

I think you'd get a lot of mileage making this deck be a bit heavier on mana dorks especially ones that can overrun - pretty big differentiation between your other decks

Post by **WizardMN** » 2 years ago

pokken wrote: ↑
2 years ago

WizardMN wrote: ↑
2 years ago
I do like your idea of doing something with mana dorks that produce more than one mana. I am not sure about adding in the "basic" mana dorks but Bloom Tender, Dryad, and Selvala seems like they could be really fun to try to utilize. I might see if there is a way to build the list with that in mind as that can definitely give it a unique identity among my decks.
The ones I like are:

noble hierarch

incubation druid

ilysian caryatid

bloom tender

faeburrow elder

selvala, heart of the wilds

Devoted druid

I think you'd get a lot of mileage making this deck be a bit heavier on mana dorks especially ones that can overrun - pretty big differentiation between your other decks

That is a fair point too: I could lean more into things like Overrun and effects like that. That is certainly one aspect of things I rarely explore beyond throwing Craterhoof in something and even then I don't do that often (none of my current decks run Craterhoof). I might decide to try more of that kind of thing and mana dorks do make a bit more sense in that

Post by **WizardMN** » 2 years ago

I updated the first post in the thread with a new list. I am not going to highlight all the changes I made since there were a lot. But I did add in a few overrun type effects and I still have a small blink subtheme. I did try it with Brago, King Eternal in the deck but there aren't enough ETB triggers right now to make him worth it. Even Soulherder isn't doing much. I am going to leave the blink theme in for now while I test things out. There are also the following cards from Streets of New Capenna I might want to try but they aren't Online yet:

Post by **WizardMN** » 2 years ago

Now that I have some of the new cards, here are some changes I am going to try out. Basically, I am cutting out the small Blink theme except for Ephemerate and I will use Chulane, Teller of Tales and Temur Sabertooth to "blink" things:

5/2/2022

CUTS

1 Sower of Temptation

1 Thassa, Deep-Dwelling

1 Soulherder

1 Gilded Drake

1 Island

1 Charming Prince

ADDS

1 Spara's Headquarters

1 Soul of Emancipation

Approximate Total Cost:

Spara's Headquarters and the Island are straight swaps so those are easy. I decided to cut an Island because green mana is typically much more important early on.

Brokers Ascendancy and Charm are more here due to being new cards. I think both have their uses but I am not sure either one is absolutely certain to remain in the deck long term. Both are good and Ascendancy is the stronger the of the two but I feel like Charm is the better card to remain due to flexibility and different uses. We will see how they perform in the end.

Endless Detour seems like a pretty good card in general and can deal with a fair number of different things so I want to try it out.

Soul of Emancipation is just a Terastodon that can't hit lands (but can hit creatures) but also gives better bodies. And is 1 mana cheaper. I think I like this version a bit better.

Bloom Tender is being added now since I forgot about it when I added Faeburrow Elder.

The cuts are, as mentioned, basically just cutting the blink effects. I just don't have room for them right at the moment. I might revisit one or two of them later on if I find other cards aren't working as well as I would like. Gilded Drake was cut more for not really being all that necessary and because removing blink effects made it slightly less useful. Sower was mostly just a holdover from when this started as a Rubinia deck.

DeadPresident · Post by **DeadPresident** » 2 years ago

It's cool to see a Jenara thread pop up again. I've played a good stuff Bant deck for the longest time. It was a Jenara deck, became a Derevi for a while, spent a very short time being an Atraxa and then Thrasios + Tymna deck, and even shorter being a Kenrith list before reverting back to Jenara. I always ran into the problem that a good stuff deck without inherent synergy (even having a blink theme didn't really count) meant I often just durdled and got outpaced by synergistic decks.

I've recently added a +1/+1 counters theme to my Jenara list with the aim of hopefully having my own synergy to snowball with from time to time. Here's the list below if you'd like to have a look. I've kept my favorite/most effective ETB creatures for the value component, and then added the more efficient +1/+1 counter pieces I had.

Cards like Sigil of Valor, Angelic Exaltation and Rafiq are (hopefully) going to turn incidental ETB value creatures into added P/T for Jenara attacks.

SPOILER

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Decklist

Creature (29)

1 Avacyn's Pilgrim

1 Birds of Paradise

1 Circle of Dreams Druid

1 Coiling Oracle

1 Conclave Mentor

1 Craterhoof Behemoth

1 Gyre Sage

1 Linvala, Shield of Sea Gate

1 Palace Jailer

1 Palinchron

1 Phantasmal Image

1 Phyrexian Metamorph

1 Prime Speaker Zegana

1 Qasali Pridemage

1 Rafiq of the Many

1 Roalesk, Apex Hybrid

1 Skullwinder

1 Sun Titan

1 Thassa, God of the Sea

Artifact (5)

1 Sol Ring

Land (33)

3 Forest

3 Island

3 Plains

1 Temple of Enlightenment

Sorcery (6)

1 Ponder

1 Wargate

Planeswalker (1)

1 Oko, Thief of Crowns

Commander (1)

1 Jenara, Asura of War

Enchantment (13)

1 Angelic Exaltation

1 Aura Shards

1 Brokers Ascendancy

1 Citadel Siege

1 Evolutionary Escalation

1 Finest Hour

1 Wilderness Reclamation

Instant (12)

1 Brainstorm

1 Heroic Intervention

1 Mystical Tutor

1 Solidarity of Heroes

1 Stubborn Denial

1 Swords to Plowshares

1 Tamiyo's Safekeeping

Approximate Total Cost:

Post by **WizardMN** » 2 years ago

I think my biggest issue with goodstuff decks is that they just don't seem cohesive which sounds somewhat similar to your experience. I wouldn't necessarily say that the lack of cohesion or synergy ends up being a huge detriment in terms of being able to win, but I can see where it can at least affect things in some way.

I have thought of adding a little more counters matter cards but I haven't done much with it yet. Granted, I also have not played a real game with the deck yet so I am not entirely clear where the strengths and weaknesses lie.

Of your list, I do like a few cards that I haven't done much with yet. Such as Circle of Dreams Druid, Prime Speaker Zegana, and Seedborn Muse. They seem to have some pretty good uses and could end up being pretty good overall.

Another thing worth keeping in mind is that I am still going to be on the lookout for new Bant generals as Jenara doesn't really have any synergy with the deck (as mentioned) and I wouldn't mind trying to find something else that I can build around a bit more. I do like the open-endedness of Jenara though so I might stick with her in the long run either way. Not really sure yet.

I should start grinding some games with this list though to determine how much I do (or don't) like it and what I feel needs to be changed. Hopefully I will start doing that soon and, once I do, I will provide some summaries in this thread.

DeadPresident · Post by **DeadPresident** » 2 years ago

Yes, exactly. While good stuff decks have a higher floor than some decks because of the individual card quality, in my experience they've had very low ceilings because there's no cohesion and nothing to snowball into.

As an anecdote (and just for context my comparison is to my own optimized Korvold and Marchesa, the Black Rose decks) the biggest issue I had with playing Derevi/Thrasios + Tymna/Atraxa was that there was no inherent threat to close out the game.

I'm not sure if that was an issue in my play groups and pods or if it's in EDH in general, but good stuff without a way to pressure opponents makes for very drab gameplay. Jenara, probably Arcades, Galea, and likely Rafiq solve that problem by creating varying levels of pressure through combat. That was one of the key issues I was having with my Bant/BantX decks, and my +1/+1 counters theme removed that drawback a decent amount.

I'm curious to hear about your experiences with your own list and trying out other Bant legends because I'll always keep my Bant deck and I wouldn't mind converting it to an inherently better or more synergistic deck.

Edit: With regard to the Druid, Zegana, and Seedborn Muse I'd definitely recommend testing the Muse out. My play style with this deck was always more tempo and control based, and Seedborn allowing you to interact/boost Jenara is fantastic. It's one of the few do-nothing on ETB creatures I can recommend.

Post by **WizardMN** » 2 years ago

I definitely get the idea of not having threats to close out games. It is one of the main reasons I was so on board with @pokken leading into the idea of overrun effects in this deck. His suggestions were more geared towards simply having the creatures to overrun with but it made sense to have Craterhoof Behemoth and Earthshaker Giant and things like that.

I guess I tend to shy away from going heavy on +1/+1 counters simply because they are so ubiquitous. That isn't necessarily saying they are bad but they just seem...played out, I guess? It is powerful and is one of the reasons I threw in Brokers Ascendancy and The Great Henge into the deck (though The Great Henge is just good overall) but I am not sure I will go too much more into it.

I might do something more with Muse but I also want to try to balance the power level (or, at least, the perceived power level) of the deck. I will type up a summary below that will highlight this but, online at least, people are often quick on the trigger for quitting in the middle of the game. So I don't want to go so far into things that will just make people scoop. Muse is very good in this deck. Though, she is good in a lot of decks

Post by **WizardMN** » 2 years ago

I played a game online with this deck against Kambal, Consul of Allocation, Farideh, Devil's Chosen, and Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter.

Start of Summary

I started off with a few good cards in hand but only had Wood Elves for ramp and no earlier plays. Luckily, I drew into Devoted Druid so I cast that turn 2, followed by Wood Elves and Jenara turn 3. I had thought about casting Chulane, Teller of Tales here but decided to get my commander down first and cast Chulane next while keeping up Ephemerate if I needed it.

The other players were doing their thing as well. Farideh got down a Pixie Guide and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki on the field. Kambal got their commander down and so did Oviya. Oviya also got down a Utopia Sprawl and started churning out tokens. And they got Gaea's Cradle off Crop Rotation.

Kambal ended up getting Smothering Tithe as well so with that and the other artifacts and enchantments on the board, I cast Bane of Progress to set them all back a little. This was right after Farideh blew up Chulane with Pongify. I chose not to save Chulane with Ephemerate since that would have tapped me out and I still wanted to be able to use the Path to Exile I ended up drawing. Besides, Chulane is quite the beast and I was trying not to entice everyone to just scoop.

Bane ended up being a 7/7 and unfortunately Oviya still scooped. Probably because this hurt their mana production a bit and they hadn't been doing much else before this. They still weren't in a terrible spot but it must have been enough to get them to quit.

Of course, right after that Kambal cast Reanimate on my Chulane and then Farideh scooped so my attempts to keep the game going with all 4 of us ended up being fruitless. I am not sure that ended up being a good idea on Farideh's part simply because I was clearly the threat either way but now it was down to the two of us. I chose to leave them with Chulane because their board wasn't very threatening and mine was. I had gotten down an Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait and an Old Gnawbone in the two turns after they stole Chulane. Which actually led me to exile their Righteous Valkyrie so I could connect with my fliers.

This led to me getting 3 Treasures the turn Gnawbone came down and 18 the next turn. Keruga, the Macrosage helped keep my hand full and Voidslime countered their Avacyn, Angel of Hope which led to them scooping. I ended up discarding Winds of Abandon because I had Voidslime and Cyclonic Rift in hand so I was pretty sure I could just win next turn anyway.

End of Summary

Overall, the deck performed very well. I admit that I did have some decisions that were less about being optimal and more about just trying to get people to stay in the game (mainly around Chulane). But I didn't have any negative feelings towards the way it played out and I was quite happy with Devoted Druid even though I only got to double up on it once. It was good sac fodder for when Kambal got out Dictate of Erebos which means that the Dictate had almost no effect on the game since I just sacrificed Druid, Wood Elves, and the Ape token from Pongify.

I am going to try it again to see what happens in the next game but it seems to be working out alright so far.

Post by **WizardMN** » 2 years ago

I got another game in and this one didn't seem too bad. I did have to spend a counterspell which I knew was risky and ended up losing me the game, but the deck still performed fairly well. This was against Krark, the Thumbless and Sakashima of a Thousand Faces partners, Killian, Ink Duelist, and Beledros Witherbloom.

Start of Summary

I didn't have the greatest start but I had lands and a Faeburrow Elder so I got that down followed by Chulane, Teller of Tales. Killian got their commander out early and partners got out Krark fairly early as well. Beledros didn't do much to start with.

Krark got down Sakashima as a copy of Krark and then they were attacked by Killian. Killian gave their commander Infect and Double Strike and Flying so that was the end of their game unfortunately. I decided to cast Bane of Progress to try to slow them down. I did so after countering Beledros with Mana Drain. This may have been a mistake as I knew Killian was trying to win quickly but it seemed correct in the moment. This did cause Beledros to scoop though.

Unfortunately, this left me pretty vulnerable to Killian. They had already attacked me for 5 after killing Partners and they were able to get Killian back to 8 power with different Auras and gave it flying as well so the turn after I cast Bane of Progress, I just died. I had hoped to survive one more turn and use Momentous Fall to draw into something but I never got that chance. They were just too quick.

End of Summary

At best, I made a mistake in countering Beledros. I am not entirely sure that is necessarily true though and Beledros can be a pretty significant threat as well and I knew Killian just spent two cards killing Partners so I figured the risk was worth it. The main difference maker was clear their Kor Spiritdancer as it really just kept their hand full. And I had no way to stop them. Perhaps I should have tried to team up with Beledros a bit more and saved my Mana Drain for when I was about to die.

In the end I don't think I made a mistake in terms of the way the game was playing out. I knew the risk and it turned out that it was as risky as I thought. Which is fine. The deck performed fairly well and I am still happy with the way it is playing out. There are still decisions to be made (as shown by me making the wrong one here

) but I like having a deck that is mostly just "play big things; see who can stop me".

Post by **WizardMN** » 2 years ago

I just realized there was a change I neglected to note:

5/20/2022

CUTS

1 Greater Good

ADDS

1 The Great Henge

Approximate Total Cost:

I had wanted to add The Great Henge for a couple reasons. It is a good card draw engine and it also buffs up my creatures as they enter. It is sort of slow depending on how quickly I can get a high power creature on the board, but the effects are really good that I think they work well here. And since it is a good enough draw engine, coupled with the fact that I have other good draw effects, Greater Good seems like the obvious cut for it.

Post by **WizardMN** » 1 year ago

Since Baldur's Gate previews have concluded, here are my thoughts on some of the cards from the set that might work in this deck as well as some lands from the previous set I missed.

Blue Cards

Ancient Silver Dragon - This deck can probably get to a big flying Dragon at 8 mana a bit easier than most. The main questions are whether it does it in a way that actually gets us use out of it and whether it is even needed. This deck has ways to draw cards as it is so throwing in a big dragon that may or may not hit and expecting to draw cards off of it might not work out that well in practice.

Green Cards

Owlbear Cub - This can help with the Dragon above but it also just ends up being free card advantage. It is unfortunate that I don't get the choice of whether the free creature is attacking (unless I simply choose not to put anything on the field) which is enough for me to stay away from it for now.

Colorless and Land Cards

Dreamroot Cascade, Deserted Beach, Overgrown Farmland - These are all pretty good lands. While they aren't the best on Turn 2 and maybe turn 1, they are great from turn 3 onwards. They seem pretty solid in terms of fixing in all but the most aggressive decks and, even then, seem still worthwhile as they are very unlikely to be the only land one keeps.

Post by **WizardMN** » 1 year ago

Here are the newest changes for this deck:

6/13/2022

CUTS

1 Plains

1 Island

1 Forest

ADDS

1 Dreamroot Cascade

1 Deserted Beach

1 Overgrown Farmland

Approximate Total Cost:

Since the mana base for this deck isn't fully fleshed out anyway, this was one of the easier decks to find room for these new lands. I just cut one of each basic which still leaves me plenty of basics. I likely need to look closer at this deck's mana base later anyway which means a few more basics getting cut at that time.

Post by **WizardMN** » 1 year ago

With the full spoiler of Dominaria United, here are my thoughts on some of the cards that might make sense in this deck:

Blue Cards

Joint Exploration - 3 mana to draw a card, Scry 2, and ramp seems pretty reasonable. And, worst case, I can just use it as an Instant timing Preordain which isn't bad at all either. I think I will try to find a spot for this somewhere.

Green Cards

Silverback Elder - I am not really sure this actually fits in this deck but I do like the card so I might try it out anyway. It seems pretty strong and it has 3 relevant abilities which is nice.

Post by **WizardMN** » 1 year ago

With the release of the full Brother's War set, I have gone through to determine what cards might be good for this deck. Or, in some cases, which ones are worthy of discussion even if I may not add them:

White Cards

Loran of the Third Path - Green has other options that are decent and blue and green mostly take care of the card draw as needed. It isn't a bad card though and I might still find a spot for it.

Soul Partition - I could maybe see this being added here even though it isn't permanent. Stopping a combo in its track and then leaving up counter magic isn't the most ideal use of resources, but it could be serviceable as needed

Post by **WizardMN** » 1 year ago

Here are some further changes I am making to this deck:

11/13/2022

CUTS

1 Soul of Emancipation

ADDS

1 Silverback Elder

Approximate Total Cost:

I am quite surprised on how difficult I am finding it to make cuts in this deck considering it is a new deck. Usually there are plenty of cards that end up just being fun adds but can be swapped out easily. Not here though. Granted, some of this is because I don't have the added benefit of playing the deck since building it so I don't get to say something like "Broker's Charm is always used for destroying an Enchantment" or something. So I still look at everything as potentially its best use case.

With that in mind, I have decided to just add in one new card instead of trying for others. I really like Silverback Elder and think that an Aura Shards on a body is pretty useful. Of course, the second ability is really good too and the life gain can be good in the right scenarios.

I don't really know exactly which card makes sense to cut so I am just going to go with the curve consideration and cut Soul of Emancipation. Soul is a good card and offers up some much needed removal in cases, but giving Flying creatures and being 7 mana means it might not always help when needed. I probably will revisit this choice once I get around to playing the deck and finding other cards that are less useful in practice than on paper.

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