#varolz

[animatedlegendsedh-blog]

Varolz, The Scar-Striped

Original Art: Adam Paquette

Fan creation only, not intended for commercial use

[googlyeyesonmagiccards]

Varolz, the Scar-Striped

Had to scavenge around for it

[magicjudge]

I have a bit of an odd one. A friend is using varolz, the scar striped in their skullbriar, the walking grave deck. if they were to scavenge the skullbriar, would the +1/+1 counters be taken in to effect as those counters are always on skullbriar.

Yes. They affect Skullbriar’s power and toughness when it’s in the graveyard.

[commandertheory]

Another challenge. This one is personal. A friend and I are building each other budget decks, and I'm having kind of a hard time keeping budget in line with synergy. I'd like to see a Varolz deck with a $50 price ceiling. (As usual, basic lands don't count.)

Since Varolz is cheap and can protect and buff himself, our deck is going to be first and foremost a Voltron list. Let’s start with a few dudes with insane power-to-cost ratios for Varolz to scavenge.

+Death’s Shadow: One of the more expensive cards in this budget list, but he’s pretty much mandatory because he reads “BB: Put 13 +1/+1 counters on target creature.”

+Phyrexian Soulgorger

+Force of Savagery

Other Voltron Enablers

+Inquisitor’s Flail: The drawback is basically meaningless because Varolz is so hard to kill.

+Fireshrieker

+Empyrial Plate

+Brawn: Thanks to Varolz’s regeneration ability, it’s much easier to get Brawn in the yard in this deck than it is in most.

+Bramblewood Paragon: Not only does he buff Varolz if you drop him early, but he also grants evasion to all the creatures you’ve scavenged on to.

+Phyresis/Tainted Strike/Glistening Oil/Grafted Exoskeleton: Make Varolz twice as lethal.

+Corpsejack Menace

Dudes Worth Putting Counters On

Although beefing up Varolz is our primary game plan, it doesn’t have to be the only one. Here are a few dudes that can greatly reward you if you’re willing to share some counters with them.

+Needle Specter: The ability to knock out a player’s hand every turn is pretty insane.

+Plague Stinger/Whispering Specter/Flesh-Eater Imp: Make for good redundancy with Tainted Strike/Phyresis/Glistening Oil/Grafted Exoskeleton. Instead of putting counters on Varolz and granting him infect, you can always just throw the counters on one of our evasive infect creatures.

Making Use of Varolz’s Size

Since our Commander is likely to be very damn large, it makes sense to run a few cards that scale with the size of your creatures.

+Hunter’s Insight/Hunter’s Prowess/Soul’s Majesty: Tons of cards

+Retribution of the Ancients: Gives you something else to do with your counters besides beat in. Since Commander damage rarely works out to a perfect 21, you’ll often have a few spare counters that you can use to pick off utility creatures.

+Ulvenwald Tracker/Arena

Making Use of Our Sac Outlet

Having a Commander that’s a sacrifice outlet is pretty fucking neato. Here are some of the better ways we can abuse this ability:

+Dictate of Erebos/Butcher of Malakir/Savra, Queen of the Golgari: We haven’t really gotten to the creature suite yet, but rest assured that this deck is going to have tons of expendable dudes to feed into these murder machines.

+Skullclamp/Grim Haruspex: Make sacrificing dudes for regeneration shields a lot more palatable.

Making Use of Varolz’s Regeneration

Commanders with regeneration are pretty unusual, but they’re very powerful, mostly because it’s pretty easy to use them to break symmetry on board wipes.

+Crux of Fate/Extinguish All Hope/Life’s Finale

Filling Your Graveyard

We’re going to need a few ways to get large creatures into our graveyard, as drawing them, casting them, sacrificing them, and then scavenging them is painfully inefficient. These cards all help us skip one or more of those steps.

+Buried Alive/Corpse Connoisseur/Jarad’s Orders: These three make your ability to find your biggest sources of counters a little more consistent.

+Hermit Druid/Avenging Druid: Cheap sources of card advantage that have the added bonus of filling your yard with creatures to scavenge.

+Llanowar Mentor: Mana acceleration and a discard outlet.

+Birthing Pod: Works double duty as a tutoring engine and a sacrifice outlet.

Wrapping Up

Most of the rest of the deck is mana dorks, cheap creatures with ETB/death triggers, and spot removal. In total, the deck comes out to $56, including the cost of basics. Here’s a link to the full list:

Varolz, the Scar-Striped

If you want some ideas for adding money to the deck later on, the deck could definitely use a Fauna Shaman, a Phyrexian Dreadnought, a Grave Pact, and maybe a Lord of Extinction. Beyond those cards, there’s always room for goodstuff.

Thanks for the challenge, thelovelymedusa! I hope your friend has fun with the deck!

[emrakul-flying-spaghetti-monster]

Varolz tiny leaders is sooooooooo good. I love it.

[northernweird]

MTGotivation: Varolz

Varolz: "There is no need to feel ashamed of your scars, for they are proof that you were stronger than whatever tried to harm you time and time again."

[nissarevane]

Designed a pretty good Varolz Tiny Leaders deck, honestly though I think it needs more trample.

[emrakul-flying-spaghetti-monster]

I could use some opinions on my tiny leader deck! Click here to go see it!