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Magic the Gathering Arena

Scruffy

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Codex 2012 Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014
i mean, there has to be something wrong with the algorithm, it makes no sense to go 6-8 turns without drawing a land THIS oftern. Sure, it CAN happen, sometimes, but this is ridiculous.
 

Jason Liang

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Anyone have ideas how to make Star Captain combo (Star of Extinction + Truefire Captain) more viable? I'm getting sick of crushing people with Golgari and I want to believe in a 2 card combo built around a decent 4cc beater and a 7cc boardwipe in my two least favorite colors. Actually Boros is my secondary deck and it's pretty fun to win out of nowhere with top deck Heroic Reinforcements.

1cc
2cc- Azor's Gateway? Treasure Map?
3cc- Clarion Call, I guess. Tajic. Captain Lannery Storm. Boros mana rock?
4cc- Truefire Captain, Karn, Experimental Frenzy?
5cc- Jaya Ballard
6cc
7cc- Star of Extinction

I feel like this deck needs black for Duress and/or blue for Negates.

I miss Sram. Sram was a gud dog dwarf.

Actually I miss Kari Zev the most.
 
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v1rus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
2,253
I made a half-improvised Grixis Dragon deck :3 Also got three mythics yesterday.

Mostly shit, all of em, but still.

Also, reached silver, fuck yeah.
 

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
How long does it take to go up a rank, jeez? That progress circle is... I don't even...
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,381
Yeah, the display seems bugged at the moment. It goes up and down erratically, I think it even went down after I won a game.
I heard they are using Glicko 2, so why bother with this shit instead of giving a clear number?
Going out of Silver requires autistic levels of grinding and if you can pull the necessary winrate, your time is better spent in constructed event or competitive constructed anyways.

Rank is pretty much meaningless at the moment. I've seen people with tier 1 netdecks in bronze. Probably smurfing, because rank doesn't give you anything.
Or 90% of the players is stuck in bronze/silver. Morons should have introduced hard (or harder) brackets.
 
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Monocause

Arcane
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
3,656
It seems like meta has shifted away from board wipes as I'm having an 7-win streak with this deck

3 Sporecrown Thallid (DAR) 181
8 Forest (RIX) 196
2 Thallid Omnivore (DAR) 106
12 Swamp (RIX) 194
3 Deathbloom Thallid (DAR) 84
4 Yavimaya Sapherd (DAR) 189
4 Saproling Migration (DAR) 178
3 Slimefoot, the Stowaway (DAR) 205
1 Tendershoot Dryad (RIX) 147
2 Fungal Infection (DAR) 94
2 Vraska, Golgari Queen (GRN) GR8
3 Poison-Tip Archer (M19) 220
2 Golden Demise (RIX) 73
3 Murder (M19) 110
2 Blood Divination (M19) 86
2 Woodland Cemetery (DAR) 248
2 Foul Orchard (M19) 251
2 Vraska's Contempt (XLN) 129

Want to add a second tendershoot and maybe swap out one of the sapherds for a 4th sporecrown as weirdly enough even though I've three of those I haven't drawn one in any of the 7 games (?).

Comments appreciated.
 

Jason Liang

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It seems like meta has shifted away from board wipes as I'm having an 7-win streak with this deck

3 Sporecrown Thallid (DAR) 181
8 Forest (RIX) 196
2 Thallid Omnivore (DAR) 106
12 Swamp (RIX) 194
3 Deathbloom Thallid (DAR) 84
4 Yavimaya Sapherd (DAR) 189
4 Saproling Migration (DAR) 178
3 Slimefoot, the Stowaway (DAR) 205
1 Tendershoot Dryad (RIX) 147
2 Fungal Infection (DAR) 94
2 Vraska, Golgari Queen (GRN) GR8
3 Poison-Tip Archer (M19) 220
2 Golden Demise (RIX) 73
3 Murder (M19) 110
2 Blood Divination (M19) 86
2 Woodland Cemetery (DAR) 248
2 Foul Orchard (M19) 251
2 Vraska's Contempt (XLN) 129

Want to add a second tendershoot and maybe swap out one of the sapherds for a 4th sporecrown as weirdly enough even though I've three of those I haven't drawn one in any of the 7 games (?).

Comments appreciated.

If you are committed to Saprolings or any sort of token deck, Divine Visitation is nuts if it sticks. And um, also nuts is March of the Multitudes. Barring those drastic power-ups, a Fungal Plot is worthwhile, I run it in my Golgari and the only other Fungus I have in there is a Slimefoot.
 

spectre

Arcane
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Oct 26, 2008
Messages
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Jason Liang Funny you mention Divine Visitation, it's an excellent example of a win-more trap card. I often let it resolve on purpose and keep killing everything that comes out of it just to drive the point home.
Sometimes it is a legitimate threat, but it won't turn a losing game around, not when you're in topdeck mode.

Monocause Get some more evolving wilds and/or tapduals in there, otherwise getting a double BB in time for Vraska or Murder is down to pure luck.

the short list for things to do away with are Thallid Omnivore, Blood Divination and Deathbloom Thallid. You have little business playing those outside of limited. Blood Divination is especially poor being a sorcery at that price.
If you want these types of effects in your life, Costly Plunder is a better choice as it can fizzle removal at instant speed, giving you the same card advantage at half the cost. Still, it doesn't make it a good card.

You have at least two Plaguecrafters, you can really make them do good work here since it can swap out a puny fungus for a 3/2 body. Elvish Rejudenators can also work all right, though I'd fill the remaining slots with targeted discard.
Not much point playing black over white in a token deck otherwise.
 

Scruffy

Ex-janitor
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Codex 2012 Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014
Elvish Rejudenators

high-jew-elf-king.png
 

v1rus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
2,253
I really wanna play Boros Angels, but im missing like 14 mythics, and i got only 5 wildcards :negative:
 

v1rus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
2,253
Seriously pondering which packs should I buy from now on.

Been buying dominaria, since I started playing and I think I have enough of it. Got decent number of dual-lands, still missing some ok cards tho. Think i should skip core set for sure. Ravnica seems like a good choice, but theres not only the weekly supply of it, I already have 4 izzet shocklands, and I just know another is gonna drop on me. OTOH, Neither Ixalan nor Rivals have anything special to offer, except more dual lands.

Playing Grixis Dragons atm, want Boros angels or some golgari/abzan/steel-leaf stompy. Perhaps i should stick with Dominaria after all?
 

Cromwell

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2013
Messages
5,443
i mean, there has to be something wrong with the algorithm, it makes no sense to go 6-8 turns without drawing a land THIS oftern. Sure, it CAN happen, sometimes, but this is ridiculous.

May sound like anecodtal stuff but what happend to me was I had strings of games where I either had too much land or not enough. It got weird when I could pretty much tell from the drawing if I would get land (and too much of it) or not. This would go on for a few games and then all seemed normal again. Of course maybe I was just unlucky but it happened with such a regularity that it at least felt wrong.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,381
i mean, there has to be something wrong with the algorithm, it makes no sense to go 6-8 turns without drawing a land THIS oftern. Sure, it CAN happen, sometimes, but this is ridiculous.

May sound like anecodtal stuff but what happend to me was I had strings of games where I either had too much land or not enough. It got weird when I could pretty much tell from the drawing if I would get land (and too much of it) or not. This would go on for a few games and then all seemed normal again. Of course maybe I was just unlucky but it happened with such a regularity that it at least felt wrong.

I've seen this happen, there are games in which the game seems to get stuck in mana flood or mana drought mode. Land count doesn't matter. If I get a starting hand of four lands in a 20 land deck, at least thre or four more were shortly coming my way.
I started playing Bo3 and it stopped bothering me. Even if you get a non-game like that, you can now make meaningful choices when mulliganning and it helps.


Seriously pondering which packs should I buy from now on.

Been buying dominaria, since I started playing and I think I have enough of it. Got decent number of dual-lands, still missing some ok cards tho. Think i should skip core set for sure. Ravnica seems like a good choice, but theres not only the weekly supply of it, I already have 4 izzet shocklands, and I just know another is gonna drop on me. OTOH, Neither Ixalan nor Rivals have anything special to offer, except more dual lands.

Playing Grixis Dragons atm, want Boros angels or some golgari/abzan/steel-leaf stompy. Perhaps i should stick with Dominaria after all?

The approach that's been working for me is to look up the commons/uncommons for stuff that you want the most. Pretty much every set has useful stuff in these rarities (e.g. RIX and IXN gives you a lot of pieces for midrange blue - chart the course, spell pierce, negate,
siren stormtamer, favorable wind and the assoretment of flying pirates if you're into that sort of thing. Then there's useful rare stuff apart from the duals like Agruel's Blood Feast and Search for Azcanta - you don't want a lot of those, two is usually enough and it saves you a wildcard if you get these)

I agree that M19 feels underpowered and I haven't really been getting any packs from it. Wouldn't say no to a Cleansing Nova, but I got what I needed with wildcards.
 

Carceri

Arcane
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Yo, guys, maybe someone here can enlighten me. I see they're reprinting some cards, so after the rotation of sets can I just use the 'older' ones, with the same name, from the rotated sets, or do I have to get/craft those again? Same for dual-lands: do I have to craft this crap every rotation?
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,381
Yo, guys, maybe someone here can enlighten me. I see they're reprinting some cards, so after the rotation of sets can I just use the 'older' ones, with the same name, from the rotated sets, or do I have to get/craft those again? Same for dual-lands: do I have to craft this crap every rotation?
Nobody can really answer that question, the guys calling the shots for Arena are pretty skimpy with information regarding such long-term plans. Heck, they are pretty bad about communicating their short-term plans as well.
Haven't checked the official boards in a bit, but the only concrete information was that playing with friends is coming... by the end of this month... probably? Oh, and there was that schedule for limited events.
It bothers me as well because I'd rather this shit stick around unlike the Duels series, which were only good for one season and after that, they dropped support.
It would be logical to let you play with older prints because that's how paper operates. But nothing's set in stone until the first rotation comes round the corner.
 

Jason Liang

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spectre usually I'm skeptical of 5cc enchantments as well but I'm a believer in Divine Visitation. There are so many stupid ways to generate tokens cheap and upgrading Saprolings to Serra Angels is for real. When Divine Visitation is out even Fungal Infection is amazing. It's more effective than most 5cc planeswalkers (Teferi excluded).

That being said, I'm convinced that the best mythics to wildcard for are currently 1) March of the Multitudes 2) Carnage Tyrant 3) Arclight Phoenix. Having played Golgari to ad nauseum, I can safely vouch that Carnage Tyrant is a superior 6 drop to Vraska Relic Seeker. Note that so far I have 6 mythic wildcards saved up and I've only burned one mythic wild card on a Vraska Relic Seeker (I did luck into a 2nd Carnage Tyrant). Also have 16 rare wild cards banked.

I switched to getting Ixalan packs 3 weeks ago and Ixalan has been great for me. Got a Vraska's Contempt, a Drowned Catacomb, a Legion's Landing, a Tocatli Honor Guard, Mavren, a Ruin Raider, and a Huatli Warrior Poet. Not to mention Ixalan is stacked with playable uncommons. Worst rares I've gotten are a pair of Captivating Crew and I got plans for those. Looks like I'll continue to mine Ixalan for the foreseeable future, since I lucked into one of my targets in Dominaria on Sunday:

mtga030.jpg


Would rate the packs as follows:
1) GRN (backbone of any deck you'd play competitively in standard right now, essential and chock full of playable rares and mythics)
2) IXN (Stacked in both rares and uncommons but some shitty mythics)
3) DOM (Steel Leaf Champion, Chainwhirler, Karn, History of Benalia and overall great mythics)
4) RIX (some good cards especially for Pirates and you can chase Rekindling Phoenix but no dual lands)
5) M19 (some good rares and mythics but no duals, just wildcard what you need, and you already get a large chunk of cards from rewards)
 
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spectre

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Oct 26, 2008
Messages
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spectre usually I'm skeptical of 5cc enchantments as well but I'm a believer in Divine Visitation. There are so many stupid ways to generate tokens cheap and upgrading Saprolings to Serra Angels is for real. When Divine Visitation is out even Fungal Infection is amazing. It's more effective than most 5cc planeswalkers (Teferi excluded).
Well, it may be so if you compare it with stuff like jani, Wise Counselor. Although Liliana the Necromancer actually has potential to kill people with its +1 ability.
A decent 5cc planeswalker (like Mr Izzet) can and will win you games on their own, even if everything else you play from then on is countered or neutered.
My problems with Divine Visitation is it doesn't do anything the moment it resolves, and multiples are useless. Sure, it's fine if you're doing a mexican standoff vs. a mirror, but I expect 5 cmc cards to win games on their own, not to be facilitators.
Play it vs. control, and it probably won't matter if it resolved or not (if you played your cards right, they'll be at single digit life, if they're at one, doesn't matter if you beat down with a 4/4 or a 1/1, I've been in such a scenario more than once).
Play it vs. aggro and you either have stabilized the board by now (in which case you won anyway), or it's too late and you spent your mana and will still be dead next turn.


That being said, I'm convinced that the best mythics to wildcard for are currently 1) March of the Multitudes 2) Carnage Tyrant 3) Arclight Phoenix. Having played Golgari to ad nauseum, I can safely vouch that Carnage Tyrant is a superior 6 drop to Vraska Relic Seeker. Note that so far I have 6 mythic wildcards saved up and I've only burned one mythic wild card on a Vraska Relic Seeker (I did luck into a 2nd Carnage Tyrant).

That actually depends on the situation. I've lost a number of games to Golgari where I kept a lot of shit Ixalan Bound and Gagged then Vraska turned up and crapped all over my collection. First a Vivien popped out, then came the Eldest Reborn... ooops.
Carnage Tyrant is a body that needs specific answers to remove, but Vraska can stabilize and win the game all in one package. I like having both, not always in the same deck.

When it comes to spending mythic wildcards, it depends on what you're trying to build. March of the Multitudes and Arclight Phoenix pretty much fit into just one deck. If you're not interested in it, why bother?
I was very happy crafting a full set of History of Banalia - together with banefires it solves the control matchup post sideboard for me and I can plug it into various other decks - WR aggro, mono W... etc. etc.
Same for Rekindling Phoenix, goes into a lot of places.
I could even justify crafting Chance for Glory if I were to build the five colored Lich Mastery Deck. Only things I wouldn't bother with are all the crappy multicolor dinos and dragons, but I know there are folks who absolutely adore them.


I switched to getting Ixalan packs 3 weeks ago and Ixalan has been great for me. Got a Vraska's Contempt, a Drowned Catacomb, a Legion's Landing, a Tocatli Honor Guard, Mavren, a Ruin Raider, and a Huatli Warrior Poet. Not to mention Ixalan is stacked with playable uncommons. Worst rares I've gotten are a pair of Captivating Crew and I got plans for those. Looks like I'll continue to mine Ixalan for the foreseeable future, since I lucked into one of my targets in Dominaria on Sunday:

Would rate the packs as follows:
1) GRN (backbone of any deck you'd play competitively in standard right now, essential and chock full of playable rares and mythics)
2) IXN (Stacked in both rares and uncommons but some shitty mythics)
3) DOM (Steel Leaf Champion, Chainwhirler, Karn, History of Benalia and overall great mythics)
4) RIX (some good cards especially for Pirates and you can chase Rekindling Phoenix but no dual lands)
5) M19 (some good rares and mythics but no duals, just wildcard what you need, and you already get a large chunk of cards from rewards)

I used a similar progression. Bought packs and ran a bunch of drafts for GRN and DOM first, until it felt I milked it enough, then moved to IXN. I will probably continue milking those three (GRN is the least appealing cause of the weekly rewards)
until the next set rolls out.

The tribal decks from the ixalan block can be quite effective, they might even make a comeback when we get the proper shocklands to make them roll.
 

Carceri

Arcane
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Jul 3, 2007
Messages
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Location
Transylvania
Yo, guys, maybe someone here can enlighten me. I see they're reprinting some cards, so after the rotation of sets can I just use the 'older' ones, with the same name, from the rotated sets, or do I have to get/craft those again? Same for dual-lands: do I have to craft this crap every rotation?
Nobody can really answer that question, the guys calling the shots for Arena are pretty skimpy with information regarding such long-term plans. Heck, they are pretty bad about communicating their short-term plans as well.
Haven't checked the official boards in a bit, but the only concrete information was that playing with friends is coming... by the end of this month... probably? Oh, and there was that schedule for limited events.
It bothers me as well because I'd rather this shit stick around unlike the Duels series, which were only good for one season and after that, they dropped support.
It would be logical to let you play with older prints because that's how paper operates. But nothing's set in stone until the first rotation comes round the corner.
Alright, thanks for the answer.
 

Monocause

Arcane
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
3,656
Pulled a Rowdy Crew today from random rewards. Am I not seeing something here, or is that potentially the worst MR card currently in Arena?

Image.ashx


4 mana for 3/3 with trample which gets easily bolted. At best, it's a 5/5 with trample + draw one card that has some synergies with pirate decks and self-milling decks. Help me see the light.
 

Jason Liang

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Pulled a Rowdy Crew today from random rewards. Am I not seeing something here, or is that potentially the worst MR card currently in Arena?

Image.ashx


4 mana for 3/3 with trample which gets easily bolted. At best, it's a 5/5 with trample + draw one card that has some synergies with pirate decks and self-milling decks. Help me see the light.
It's a fairly efficient Hill Giant (3/3) that has trample and cantrips (like Crackling Drake). The ability gives you a chance of slightly improving your hand (by binning cards you don't want to cast, or Arclight Phoenixes) and the odds of getting the +2/+2 are basically slightly worse than 50% so on paper it's slightly worse than a 4/4. At 4cc it survives Ritual of Soot and Vraska GQ.

On the plus side it's a large Pirate with trample, which makes it an ideal target for Buccaneer's Bravado.

Image.ashx

Cast it on a 5/5 Rowdy Crew and it's a super-efficient 7 damage for 2 mana. Bravado is basically a Pirate Berserk.

As a Pirate with an etb ability, it's also a decent target for Siren's Ruse, giving you another free card and another shot to give it +2/+2, potentially during combat (although the only window to do that profitably would be before blocking as the defender).

If you look hard enough, it's sometimes a Red Juzam that cantrips. It passes the "this card could be bannable if it costed 1 less mana" test. Imagine if it were 3/3 for RRR, Bloodbraid cascading into this.
 
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da_rays

Augur
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Jan 23, 2014
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Filthy Pub , Quebec City
Working on a Abzan bugler deck , the shock lands really help turning anything you want 3 or more colors.

3 x Militia Bugler
4 x Wildgrowth walker
3 x Autumn Knights
3 x Nullhide Ferix
2 x Ravenous Chupacabra
3 x Shalai , Voice of plenty
4 x Seeker Squire
2 x Merfolks Branchwalkers
2 x Trostani Discordant

2 x Path of Discovery
3 x Seal away
2 x Cast down
2 x Find // Finality
2 x Ixalan Binding
2 x Eldest Reborn

Sideboard

2 x City Wide bust
2 x Golden Demise
4 x Kitesail Freebooter
4 x Duress
1 x Seal away
1 x Ixalan binding
1 x Ravenous chupacabra


Really not sure about the Path of discovery. Since I seem to have enough explore , but the few time it dropped and sticked , really paid of with Discordant and Shalai is nice to have at 4/5 . Still might take it out eventually. too much good card can remplace it.

I got real hard time vs control deck , Guess i could put in some Trophy or Vraska contemps

Toughts anyone? Maybe could gear the deck toward something else . Lyra would be an awesome addition
 

Jason Liang

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I'm actually looking more at Bant (W/g/u) these days. Since you aren't playing with Ass Trophies yet, I would be more critical of why you are running black for essentially 6 cards (the squires could be more Branchwalkers and/or Jadelight Rangers), none of which are actually that awesome (the bloom's come off of Eldest Reborn for me). Chucacubaras could be Conclave Tribunals etc... you could even cast Find with just gg.

g/w has a ton of cards I want to be playing with (especially for quick grinding) like March of the Multitudes, Knight of Autumn, Trostani, Emmara, Tribunals, etc... also not interested in splashing red for Deafening Clarion when Slaughter the Strong handles both Vine Mare AND Carnage Tyrant. Looking at blue since I want to live the dream of casting Raff, Ship's Mage into Karn, Teferi, Mirari Conjectures, etc... March with Conjecture...
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,381
Path of discovery is all right with token generators, and you really don't have too many of those. You would want something like Legion's Landing or Dawn of Hope (the latter is a pretty swell midrange card. Not easy to counter early, and if it sticks, it tends to really give you value in the long run) PoD also it suffers from the same problems as Divine Visitation. Doesn't do anything on its own and the effect needs to trigger a bunch of times to pay for itself.

I don't think a full set of Walkers is justified with only 6 explorers. If you rely on Path of Discovery to make it happen, you'll be waiting forever for the first trigger. I think these guys really need Jadelight Rangers to take off. Imo you should either go all in with the theme, or just let it go, still the Branchwalkers are good enough to play on their own (the squires a bit less so). If you're looking for a great 2 drop, Aldente Vanguard is right there for you and in color.

I'm not entirely sold on the Bugler, he's all right if you consider him a 2/3 creature with cantrip, but I think I'd rather have Adventurous Impulses to do something on the first turn (it also works great to fix your shit if the shuffler decides to be an ass). Or ramp up with Elvish Rejudenator. Would be cool if you had something to ramp into though, like big vraska, carnage tyrant (you should have at least one), vona, butcher of megatron(?) etc.

It's also possible to test a halfway solution, not to butcher this deck too much, there was this sorcery for G that lets you explore with any creature and plop an extra land.

I won't be arguing with the statline on the Ferox, but doesn't he make it awkward to cast shit?

If you're having trouble vs. control, I always recommend a bunch of Plaguecrafters, if your mana base can handle Memorials to Folly, these are cool as well. You should probably lose the chupacabras for Vraska's Contempt. I'm not a big fan of chupas if you don't have anything interesting to do with the body (though exploring it into a 3/3 is nyet bad).
 

Jason Liang

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Probably one of the most absurd matches I've had yet, me (Golgari) vs pretty standard Red burn.

By turn 12, I'd drawn 12 lands and 7 spells, 6 removal (two Vraska's Contempts, two Ass Trophies, a Golden Demise and the Ritual of Soot you see in my hand) before finally drawing into my first permanent, a Carnage Tyrant.
mtga031.jpg


And I'd go on to win this match too! My next two cards were a Vraska Relic Seeker and a Llanowar Elf, his next three cards were mountain, a Flames of Keld, and a mountain.

If anyone is interested in Golgari, here is my build which I'm finally quite happy with (obviously it can be further upgraded by full sets of duals). The biggest change from standard Golgari is that I'm happier going vampire for life gain instead of explore merfolk.

Golgari Control v2
1 Vraska, Relic Seeker (XLN) 232
1 Vraska, Golgari Queen (GRN) GR81
1 Karn, Scion of Urza (DAR) 1
2 Carnage Tyrant (XLN) 179
3 Vine Mare (M19) 207
1 Golgari Findbroker (GRN) 175
2 Plaguecrafter (GRN) 82
4 Dusk Legion Zealot (RIX) 70
4 Llanowar Elves (DAR) 168
1 The Eldest Reborn (DAR) 90
1 Phyrexian Scriptures (DAR) 100
1 Journey to Eternity (RIX) 160
2 Ritual of Soot (GRN) 84
2 Golden Demise (RIX) 73
1 Arterial Flow (RIX) 62
2 Vraska's Contempt (XLN) 129
4 Assassin's Trophy (GRN) 152
1 Moment of Craving (RIX) 79
4 Golgari Guildgate (GRN) 248
2 Foul Orchard (M19) 251
2 Overgrown Tomb (GRN) 253
1 Woodland Cemetery (DAR) 248
8 Swamp (RIX) 194
8 Forest (RIX) 196
1 Evolving Wilds (RIX) 186

Deck answers aggro with wipes (Ritual of Soot, Golden Demise, Phyrexian Scriptures) and life gain (Vraska's Contempt, Arterial Flow, Moment of Craving), while it addresses control and midrange with hexproof creatures (Carnage Tyrant, Vine Mares) and versatile removal (Ass Trophies, Plaguecrafters, Vraska's Contempt, Eldest Reborn).

Some specific card comments:

Vine Mare: I eventually realized that Vine Mare was winning me games while Golgari Findbroker was not. Findbroker is a value card and recursion, but the key to building Golgari is to realize you actually don't need much if any recursion, and you have plenty of value 1-3 cc, your 4+ cc cards are better off as game winners. Resolving a Vine Mare often leads directly into wins.

Dusk Legion Zealot:
In this meta you need some chuds or tokens to soak sacrifice effects like Eldest Reborn, and the Zealot works. Since we don't care about undergrowth anymore, draw me my card NOW instead of exploring with Merfolk Branchwalker. Great when you get the bonus with Arterial Flow. Zealots and Elves effectively provide enough chuds. Zealots are also a good body to slap on Journey to Eternity.

Carnage Tyrant:
Would run a 3rd Carnage Tyrant instead of the Vraska Relic Seeker at this point, or a 3/1 splt between the two. Every color except green can easily and cheaply answer a Planeswalker these days, and that makes Vraska a liability. I want my 6cc spell to be uncounterable and removal resistant, thanks.

Plaguecrafters:
Would 100% rather have these instead of Chucacubaras, since they cost 3 instead of 4 and are way better against control and against opposing Carnage Tyrants.

Golden Demise: Having extra board wipes means you can spam them more liberally (for example to kill an Electromancer), giving you a chance to survive against Red, Boros, Blue Tempo, Selesnya etc... Finality is too slow and costs too much for the wipe and again, you don't really need the value/ recursion from Find especially running minimal Findbrokers and Chucacubaras. And it's not impossible to get to Ascend, which turns Golden Demise into a decent mid-late game spell.

Eldest Reborn:
Good, but too inconsistent. High ceiling but also very low floor, and opponents can play around it or blow it up. The first effect is very hit or miss if they have tokens or no creature out, the middle effect is really weak, and the final effect is slow and can also miss if there's nothing good in either bin. Eldest Reborn is often a good spell, but other times it falls very short.

Moment of Craving: Mostly for the life gain and early removal for the Burn match up, but Moment of Craving can also be an effective combat trick later on, doing good work with Vine Mare, Carnage Tyrant, or even letting a chud trump a 1/3 or 2/3 like Militia Bugler or Tocatli Honor Guard. Kills Adanto Vanguards dead, sets back Arclight Phoenixes for a turn, removes Rekindling Phoenix tokens. At this point it's about tweaking the balance between these, Golden Demises and Arterial Flows.

26 lands - I was missing land drops too often at 22 lands. I've been much happier at 26.
 
Last edited:

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,381
Random remarks:
Don't you feel like you're giving the opponent too many freebies with four Assassin's Trophies? Might bite you in the ass at some point.

Moment of Craving is one of my priority crafts, it immensly helps to stabilize vs. RDW. I believe the target naumber should be a 4 or nothing.

You're probably waiting to include a second Journey to Eternity at some point. I think a 1-2x Memorial to Folly could serve as an ersatz. It's still a good, uncounterable backup plan.
Anyways, with Journey to Eternity, I would add or swap out some of the Dusk Legion Zealots for Burglar Rats. Instant speed discard is fun for everybody.

I'm not sure about Llanowar Elves. They're pretty unreliable as ramp (if you want them to stay, they usually catch a fungal infection or a shock), and they die to your own Ritual of Poop. Can't be bothered to look up your mana curve,
but you may be better served by a ramp that's harder to remove (Grow from the Asses (it's nice enough the put the land untapped), or Elvish Rejudenator if you want more bodies to feed to Baby Vraska or whatever).

I think there was a Torgaar, Famine Incarnate in one the starters. Great guy to feed excess bodies too. Can quickly close the game, or save you from burn.

Arterial Flow at 1x looks a bit like a placeholder card.
 

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