My personal MtG blog. I play varied decks consisting of black, green and black-green. My personal blog, for all things not mtg, can be found at enchantedspoons.tumblr.com
Been getting back into MTG through Arena. Been enjoying Bloomburrow a lot.
I've been enjoying the challenge of building decks around new mechanics and cards, using the limited resources of my collection (I just started Arena at the end of Outlaws of Thunder Junction).
I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen hardly any use of the Gift cards. Parting Gust might be the exception but even that I hardly see.
So I decided to make a deck based around Gifting and I had a lot of fun playing it today so I wanted to share it somewhere. So anyways, here's Kambal's Birthday Party:
The deck idea is based around two cards: Kambal, Profiteering Mayor and Jolly Gerbils.
Most of the Gift cards give a token, so Kambal feels like a great card to build around. Plus, I've had a fair amount of good experiences with this card this set thanks to all of the Offspring tokens running around.
So this is the deck: Give gifts and Tokens, make profit.
Since I'm now looking at black and white, there's a great selection of removal, specifically with the gift mechanic:
This is where Jolly Gerbils shine: (Most of) your spot removal are now cantrips. Its nuts. (As a side note, I don't know why Nocturnal Hunger isn't seeing more play in Bat decks. Like its a great way to trigger life loss if you don't have the pain lands: but maybe pain lands are the reason)
Parting Gust doubling as a protection spell provides some good versatility, but most of the time I use it for removal (and giving my opponent a fish is just funny. Like "Oh you want to hit me with your mid-range beatdown creature? Well, have a fish instead!") Most of our creatures want to stay at 2 power (is that foreshadowing?), so we don't usually really want the +1/+1.
So we are sitting as a sort of control deck. Lots of spot removal and lots (and I mean LOTS) of card draw. My selection of board wipes is kind of bad so my list doesn't include any, but I might consider changing that.
We also have some non-gifting removal:
Savor is great for dealing with early threats. There's also always a need to keep the board clear of 2/2 blockers so the our little creatures can swing in (Ooo more foreshadowing). This is good versus mono-red, killing those Heartfire Heros before they get to big and you won't take any damage to boot. The food token is a bit of icing on the cake, but it does trigger Kambal which is great!
Stroke of Midnight is an honorary gift. Sure it doesn't trigger Gerbils, but it does trigger Kambal. It hits any nonland permanent so its super valuable.
We are going to include some more lifegain on creatures in a bit, and we have a lot of food tokens running around, so Gumdrop Poisoner is a really nice piece. Often its good to just kill a 3/3 with the ETB and then trade her with another 3/3. Corner case use where you use Parting Gust to flicker her to protect her from removal, but would usually rather her eat a removal spell and use Parting Gust as removal or to protect your Gerbils.
Now I just need to fill in some more creature slots.
Delney is just amazing. Honestly, its mostly just that you get the doubling effect for only 3 mana. This is essentially a way to get more card draw out of Gerbils: having two Gerbils is really good, and their 2/3 body makes them really good for swinging into 2/2 blockers.
Kambal's drain for 1 also triggers twice, but unfortunately his copy effect is limited to once a turn so you don't get to double up there.
I have a full playset of Vadmir for some reason (I'm only running 2 at the moment in the deck), but, man, do we commit a lot of crimes. Building him up, he makes a good blocker. Once you hit 4 counters and start swinging, you're basically on the road to winning with a 6/6 Menace Lifelink.
Deep-Cavern Bat can get a lot of chip damage in in the right match-up, and even if your opponent uses removal on it, well that's one less removal spell on your value engine pieces. If Delney is on the field, you can even steal two cards, which is pretty sweet, but that's by turn 4 and doesn't happen too often where your opponent even has 2 cards left.
But that does bring up protection. We have a lot of pieces that are fairly small and fragile, so we need some ways to keep them alive, or bring them back.
I've had two copies of Dawn's Truce since the beginning of the set. It seems like a really good card: you can fizzle removal, it can be used as a combat trick, and you can save your board from (some) board wipes. You need to keep mana up, but you are often holding your mana to use removal on your opponent's turn anyways to try to 2-for-1 them, so it works really nicely here. With Gerbils out, I even find it useful to use the Gift effect just to draw more cards from the deck, even if you don't need the indestructible.
I'm trying out Dewdrop Cure. Its part of the reason why I'm running Vadmir and Deep-Cavern Bat. Once opponents figure out the gift plan, the Gerbils get a big target. Because you draw so many cards, you often end up with multiple Gerbils either in play or in the graveyard. As I mentioned with Delney, getting multiple Gerbil effects really makes you go off. I've only got one of these in my collection, but if it performs well, I'll definitely increase it.
Cruelclaw's Heist helps deal with removal better than Deep-Cavern: if you gift the card, you can use your opponents removal against them! There's also a really great play where you open with Bat, take a look at their hand and take some mediocre early / mid-game card, then follow up with a Cruelclaw's heist if the opponent has anything good (you need to decide to gift the card as you cast the spell, so you don't want to wiff and give your opponent a card). I've only got 1 in my collection, and I don't have the wildcards to invest right now (I've been trying to invest in my mana base so that my two-colour decks are smoother and three-colour decks are viable), but it might be a worthwhile investment in the future.
Also, Consumed by Greed from our removal suite has its own gift effect letting us bring any of our dead creatures back to hand. This is good since Dewdrop can't hit Kambal or Delney.
To close out the game, I'm just using some big bodies I've got on hand:
I've got 1 Beza and 1 Viper in my collection. Beza is probably only good for the life and a big body as you are often fairly low on life by the time you take control of the game. Between your removal and hand disruption, you don't often get to draw the cards or get the fish tokens off Beza so it's kind of mid. Could probably just run another big creature with lifelink and you might get better value.
Viper is interesting: because of the removal and hand disruption, your opponent often has to take the life or sacrifice artifacts and enchantments that we don't have much removal for. We also often end up with spare tokens thanks to Kambal and Savor, so it can be pretty easy to get a cost reduction.
I've got 2 copies of Season of the Burrow. It's unfortunate that the 2-print effect doesn't say gift a card, but it's still good removal for their big payoff cards. The three-print effect can be game winning on a Vadmir or a Delney. Indestructible Vadmir give you a win-con that's hard to deal with: just keep swinging and gaining life. Delney provides so much value in the deck that the indestructible just keeps them protected. Do note that Kambal triggers once per effect that creates tokens, so if you decide to make 5 rabbits, he will only trigger once. Usually I do a 2-3 split, but I could see a 1-2-2 split being viable to remove 2 big threats and give you a token.
That's pretty much the deck. I usually like to play mid-range strategies, and find control kind of boring, but the synergies going on here are a lot of fun. Jolly Gerbils is really undervalued in best-of-one, so you often get a few card draws off before your opponent figures out what your doing. By then, they've probably wasted their removal on your other creatures. The protection and resurrection effects really piece it together at that point as you have the mana to spare to hold up protection while casting removal spells.
Honorary mentions:
Coiling Rebirth felt like a great inclusion. I've got 2 in my collection, but often the only thing I can bring back is a legendary creature, so we can't reliably use the gift. It is nice when you bring back a Gerbil and get a Gerbil token. If I get more Vipers, I'll probably include these again, because double viper effect (or triple with Delney as they will double the token's effect) is absolutely nuts. Cut from the deck: too expensive to resurrect a 2-mana or 3-mana creature.
I started the deck with Builder's Talent because of the synergy with Kambal and gifting tokens, but 1) its very much just win-more, 2) it only works with Kambal and Savor, 3) there are no targets for the level 3 effect, and 4) I only ever want to put the counters on a Deep-Cavern Bat, Vadmir, or Gumdrop Poisoner. I'm committed to finding a deck for Builder's Talent (it can be like Innkeeper's Talent but can trigger more than once per turn...), but this is just to clunky for this deck.
I have one copy of Starfall. We also usually have more than 1 creature on the board so even with the gift it doesn't feel great. Good with Beza though. Sideboard worthy, I suppose.
Crumb and Get It could be more protection. Because of Delney limiting most blockers to 2 power, and Gerbils' 2/3 body, we don't often need the pump in combat. A food token is a better trade than a card gift, so an argument could be made for Crumb and Get It over Dawn's Truce. Something to experiment with for sure.
Hey anyone out there that plays commander in MTG, how would you describe your playstyle? Mine, for example, is to just keep throwing any punch I have at my disposal until I win or run dry. I don’t let up, I don’t play afraid, and I don’t concede unless there’s a demonstrated infinite loop that nobody wants to sit through. How about you guys?
Depends on the deck. I really enjoy the Blue method of, “sit back and wait for everyone else to kill each other before finishing the last one off,” but if I’m in Green or Red the strategy is usually, “how big can I make this creature? Okay, now make it even bigger and give it evasion. Rinse and repeat until no one is left.”
Been thinking about some custom saproling designs. Let me know what you think about them:
Isaac, Fungal Herder - 1GB
Legendary Planeswalker [2]
At the beginning of your upkeep, if Isaac lost loyalty last turn, transform them.
+2: Create a 1/1 green saproling creature token. Gain life equal to the number of creatures you control.
-8: Create an emblem with "Saproling creature tokens you control gain ‘Sacrifice this creature: gain control of target creature, it gains defender. Activate this ability only anytime you can cast a sorcery.’ "
Isaac, Fungal Predator
Legendary Planeswalker [0]
At the beginning of your upkeep, if Isaac did not lose loyalty last turn, you may transform them.
+0: Sacrifice a creature. If you do, create X 1/1 green saproling creature tokens and Isaac gains X loyalty where X is the toughness of the creature sacrificed this way.
-2: Each opponent sacrifices an artifact and an enchantment.
Vine Control - 2G
Enchantment
3GG, Sacrfice X saprolings: Gain control of target creature with toughness X, it gains defender. Activate this ability only once per turn and only anytime you can cast a sorcery.
Old Growth Tender - G/B
Creature - Dryad
Old Growth Tender's power and toughness is equal to the number of dryad, fungus, plant, and saproling creatures you control.
Sacrifice this creature: Create X 1/1 Green Saproling creature tokens, where X is Old Growth Dryad's toughness.
*/*
Spore Pouch - 2
Artifact
Whenever you create one or more saproling creature tokens, create an additional token of that kind.
Isaac is my OC Saproling planeswalker, and I wanted to capture my favourite aristocrats / saproling strategies. His ultimate and Vine Control (Hehehe: Mind Control) is a flavourful way I thought that green could incorporate mind control effects: you ensnare them in plants and use them as meat shields. This way its still not as good as blue control but its also fundamentally different from red control (who often uses control to attack with the creature, instead here we defend with it).
Isaac also plays with the transform mechanic, and instead of getting a full suite of abilities, each side only gets 2. Furthermore: the transform effect is not tied to a loyalty ability, and is sort of like a “Hulk mode” for when your opponent pisses them off. I like how he punishes chip damage as he creates little blockers on both sides that help prevent damage, and he gets much more loyalty on the reverse side if you have things to sacrifice. And if he ultimates and survives, he can use the control effect to slowly decompose the opponent’s board.
Old Growth Tender is like a Fungal Sprouting that counts total number of plant-like creatures, and is on a body.
Spore Pouch is just a fun little extra value that I envisioned to complement cards like Golgari Germination.
So it turns out that Psychic Corrosion combos really well with Dovin’s Acuity. This is basically what I’m playing now. I’ve also got 4 Ill-Gotten Inheritances in the deck as well... but I might just swap them out for Fountains of Renewal once I have the wild cards. I like the alternate win con of just slowly draining my opponent out, but there’s just too many things I want to do on turn 3 and 4 that I find I’d almost always rather play something else.
Preseason 2 started today, so I thought I'd share the two decks I'm actively playing / tweaking. These won't be full decklists: just a few key cards and an explanation of the strategy. I'm also missing a bunch of cards i need so I'll be trying different stuff to perfect the deck over time. My big holdup right now is that I'm out of wild cards since I've been saving all my gold for the past couple weeks so I can splurge on ranked Allegiance drafts when they become playable for gold... this weekend I think. Maybe next.
Anyways, onto the decks!
RhythmGolgari is my take on Rhythm of the Wild. Its a GRB aggro deck that plays above-curve creatures with RotW to go even higher. The main idea is I wanted to get more value out of Kraul Harpooner when there isn't anything for it to fight (by giving him haste: swinging in with a 7/2 can be real good), or just give him a bit more booty to survive fighting a flyer. I'm also playing a suite of Pelt Collectors and Wanted Scoundrels to help them grow (and smack face). But, when I start to lose speed, I've got one Ghalta to swing in with haste, thanks to RotW, and two Banefires to get that sweet uncounterable last points of damage.
RhythmGolgari has been my go-to deck for the past couple weeks: its fun to play and has a bit more to it than ItsRed's "Turn it sideways" strategy. I've just about got most of this deck figured out; I'm just trying to optimize my removal so that I have a better match up against more control style decks.
AcuityCampaign is a new brew that I've just started working on in WBU. The goal: durdle around with Dovin's Acuity and Disinformation Campaign to keep drawing cards and gaining life (and making your opponent discard a couple as well). The natural win con for this deck is Psychic Corrosion, and I've already been winning with this deck here and there despite missing half my key cards. The rest of the deck is removal, some counter spells and a couple late game plays: Lyra, Azor and The Immortal Sun. I've also got Chromatic Lantern because the ramp is nice and I've got really heavy demands for double colours. Also Resplendent Angel has saved my life so many times: going Revitalize to return DA and then casting DA is a great synergy to procing the angel.
I've had a few sweet plays with this one, but none tops being dead on board, opponent swinging with everything, cast Mission Briefing to recast Settle the Wreckage. Bought me enough time to mill the rest of their deck.
I'm still missing loads of cards for this deck, mostly boardwipes. I'm also thinking of maybe dropping DC since I don't see any surveil cards that I particularly want to play.
Honestly, when I first saw this set, I thought Dovin's Acuity was kind of bad (especially since it doesn't play very well with counterspells), but its actually really strong and helps hose aggro.
Anyways that’s it. What decks are you guys playing right now?
I gotta say though, the fact that you get less coins from wins the more you win each day is a little annoying. I get that it slows down FTP players from playing 100 games and buying all the cards in one day...
... but I want to keep playing for funsies, however I can't stand to have my gold count end in 25.
Started playing Arena cause I was missing Magic. The first couple of days were dissapointing, because I didn't really have the cards to make a deck I like, but I got by with the standard black deck.
I do like, however, the you earn starter decks once a day (not sure for how long this keeps up). I don't know if I got lucky, but I ended up getting the GB aristocratsy style deck one day 3 or so.
For a while I was running a GB deathtouch / trample deck. It was fun but its hard to get both keywords on one creature.
Today I opened a few neat selesnya cards, so I've made a pretty kickass Abzan Token Aristocrats deck now (I used a couple of my wild cards for an additional copy of Tendershoot Dryad and Path of Discovery).
Also, Dryad Greenseeker is an AMAZING card: early game block that helps you churn through your deck. Its pretty random in this deck, but since I typically stall out the game, it draws like 3 or 4 lands for me across the match.
Anyways, if you're playing Arena and play against someone named "Spoons": thats me 😊
With Jay off on hurricane duty, Andrew, Brian, and Ashley tackle a week of juicy Guilds of Ravnica previews before recapping Ravnica’s history from the Mending to the present day.
If you enjoy The Vorthos Cast, consider supporting us on Patreon at www.patreon.com/thevorthoscast!
01:08 – Baby Kraul!
02:12 – Dream Eater
03:37 – Guild Summit
04:45 – Assassin’s Trophy
07:41 – Command the Storm
09:08 – Affectionate Indrik
10:45 – Erratic Cyclops
11:32 – Skyknight Legionnaire
12:31 – Notion Rain
14:07 – March of the Multitudes
15:29 – Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
17:02 – Niv-Mizzet, Parun
19:13 – Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice
20:18 – Lazav, Multifarious
22:34 – Vraska, Golgari Queen
25:50 – Find // Finality, Expansion // Explosion, Response // Resurgence
26:54 – Guildgates
28:49 – The Post-Mending History of Ravnica
44:25 – Final Thoughts
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