That list looks pretty good. You summed up my ideas also. I was sitting at the table looking at the cards trying to figure out which to cut, and SW ended up on the chopping block. Then it was a matter of determining what to do about the combo package.
I think Flayer is a pretty good choice, especially with Chill in the list. I think Flayer is also better than the M21 dragon, though people on Reddit were thinking otherwise. What do you think about the new dragon?
Removing Street Wraith is cheeky, but you'd probably increase your average speed and redundancy with Creeping Chill and Silversmote Ghoul that way. Cutting Shambling Shell is always a red flag for me, considering how much the utility of Phantasmagorian decreases post board I would only play 3 of it over 3 Shambling Shell. The magic number for Force of Vigor is 15, the MD should be able to support that number over SBing Once Upon a Time (I'd rather SB Street Wraith anyway).
I am not sure I agree about Phantasmagorian, but I think that it may just be a personal bias - I love that card. 3 copies may well be enough. I will run this list the next time I test (likely tonight).
4 Shambling Shell
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ichorid
3 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
4 Silversmote Ghoul
4 Prized Amalgam
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
2 Balustrade Spy
3 Dread Return
3 Phantasmagorian
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
4 Creeping Chill
Sideboard:
4 Force of Vigor
4 Faerie Macabre
2 Ashen Rider
1 Progenitus
4 Serum Powder
Instead of Street Wraith in the sideboard, Faerie can be used to protect ourselves vs. Surgical or target the opponent's cards. It is not as effective as Street Wraith or Leyline of the Void, but it serves two purposes.
I am not sure about the Serum Powders. There are a lot of fun cards that could go in that slot, like Chancellor of the Annex, Vengeful Pharaoh, Leyline of Sanctity, Mindbreak Trap, etc. Those slots could easily change depending on the meta, but the previous 11 slots do work against a lot of the normal decks.
Swapping out a Phantasmagorian for an extra Shambling Shell is a change I can get behind. Good idea!
Speaking of Terror of the Peaks...
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/c...r-of-the-peaks
It does trigger on zombie tokens, and Hogaak... It doesn't do damage on its own though, where Flayer can be a solid 9 damage w/ a Cabal Therapy.
Flayer is a little bit harder to kill though. But w/ TotP you can just cast Hogaak a few times if you're all out of Dread Returns. I'm not sure yet
Wouldn't you still be able to loop Hogaaks with a Flayer on the battlefield? I guess one advantage to the dragon is you can cast those Hogaaks out of your hand—it doesn't only trigger when things come back from the dead. I think having greater resilience and built-in damage makes Flayer stronger, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's something I'm missing. Last time I played the deck I was running Lotleth Giant, anyway, so maybe I'm just behind the times.
I've been a bit out of the loop lately. Is anyone still running a blue suite in the sideboard? I feel like I keep trying to reinvent the wheel, but it'd be pretty dreamy to run two quads of Forces someday.
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
Basically, w/ TotP you don't need any more DRs to burn down your opponent that turn where you would w/ Flayer. Although that could be up for debate with the addition of 4 Creeping Chill and 8 3 power creatures that ETB on your EoT after you DR Balustrade Spy. Plus you can CT Flayer to make 21 damage w/ a full set of Chills. Or 18 w/ 3 Chills if your opponent like fetched twice or fetched & FoW'd.
The combo kill creature seems like a small part of the deck to bother micro managing, I've tested most of them and still think just being black for Hogaak/Ichorid is probably more important than how good the actual kill condition is. I might be more inclined towards one of the others now that I'm not running 2 Lotleth Giant for redundancy, but energy is probably better spent elsewhere than fiddling with a one of.
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
whoops, my bad.
Last edited by Final Fortune; 06-18-2020 at 08:13 AM.
With the Creeping Chill and Silversmote package, does anyone else find themselves SBing out Narcomoebas at all? I generally cut the Dread Return targets before anything else, but whenever I'm bringing in 8 cards or so Narcomoeba seems to be the most redundant slot now. I started off cutting the whole Creeping Chill and Silversmote package, but the problem I found was that I never had 11 cards to bring in for one match up so the DR targets just sat there as low value cards. Which brings me to the next point, maybe we should be running Griselbrand and Iona??? over the combo kill, just so that cutting one or two of the DR creatures doesn't reduce the value of the others so much? Griselbrand draws such an absurd number of cards that the Cabal Therapies, Creeping Chills and board of creatures can close out the game by themselves. Iona is probably win more, but maybe Ashen Rider or Terastadon to increase the green count?
I started looking through scryfall for options. I don't know though. I think the near-automatic win from the combo is tough to move away from. Your post did inspire an idea though (also moving away from the combo):
4 Shambling Shell
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave Troll
3 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ichorid
3 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
4 Silversmote Ghoul
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast
3 Dakmor Salvage
3 Phantasmagorian
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
4 Creeping Chill
Sideboard:
4 Force of Vigor
4 Faerie Macabre
2 Ashen Rider
1 Progenitus
4 Serum Powder
Put the Silversmote and Bloodghast packages in, dropping Dread Return, its targets, and 1 Narcomoeba. I haven't tested with this list yet.
Concerning the options I found on scryfall so far (some good, some bad, just to keep some options in mind and maybe spark some further ideas):
Griselbrand
This can draw cards, gain life (Silversmote Ghoul), and beat down. Pitches to Unmask.
Iona
This can shut down a large number of decks.
Ashen Rider
This pitches to Unmask. It is strong against Show and Tell.
Terastadon
Pitches to Force of Vigor. Good for clearing problematic permanents.
Hoverguard Sweepers
Pitches to Force of Will. Good against creatures. Not a particularly good choice though.
Tishana, Voice of Thunder
Prime Speaker Zegana
Both of those are dependent on the number of creatures we control when they enter. They allow us to draw, and they pitch to both Forces.
Craterhoof Behemoth
This pitches to Force of Vigor. However, it is also pretty dependent on us having a fair number of creatures on the battlefield.
End-Raze Forerunners
Similar to Craterhoof.
Flame-Kin Zealot
This is similar to Craterhoof/End-Raze. We need fewer creatures for it to make an impact, but it does not pitch. Flayer is almost certainly better due to the existence of things like Ensnaring Bridge.
Hellkite Overlord
8 flying, hasty, trample damage is pretty strong, and this pitches to Force of Vigor and Unmask.
Empyrial Archangel
This is weaker than Iona, but she pitches to both Forces.
Sphinx Sovereign
This pitches to Force of Will and Unmask. It has some extra utility with Silversmote Ghoul, but it is really too slow compared to other options.
Celestial Force
This is not really helpful, but it does have some interaction with Silversmote, so I am including it here.
Torgaar, Famine Incarnate
Pitches to Unmask. Something to keep in mind against life gaining decks, should any become popular due to the new cards (the 1 mana white one that makes angels and Vito). It can also help against something like Burn, and could trigger Silversmote Ghoul if we are at 7 or lower.
Vengeful Pharaoh
This doesn't need DR. It pitches to Unmask. It helps against creatures.
Additionally, Street Wraith could go back in in some number. Once Upon a Time could also be considered.
I will browse Scryfall more later.
If you're no longer interested in resolving DR, why still bother with Cabal Therapy..? That frees up some extra slot for I-dunno-what. Maybe dump Street Wraith back in? Or round all 3's back up to 4.
Also, this is crazy and I love it
Interesting idea. Also, if we remove Therapy, then Narcomoeba becomes pretty bad. I wonder if those slots could be better used. We already have Nether Shadow, Ichorid, Silversmote Ghoul, and Bloodghast to trigger Prized Amalgam, which is mostly what Narcomoeba does for us if DR and CT are out.
EDIT:
I present the following for consideration:
Utility:
Gigapede
Lifegain:
Firemane Angel
Soul Spike
Spinning Darkness
Needlebite Trap
Recurring Creatures:
Scourge of Nel Toth
Ashen Ghoul
Scrapheap Scrounger
Nim Devourer
Nether Traitor
Despoiler of Souls
From Hand:
Delraich
Summoning Trap
Contagion
Unmask
Force of Despair
Mindbreak Trap
Leylines:
Leyline of the Void
Leyline of Sanctity
Leyline of Vitality
Leyline of Combustion
Leyline of the Meek
Another list:
4 Shambling Shell
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ichorid
3 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
4 Silversmote Ghoul
4 Prized Amalgam
2 Ashen Ghoul
4 Bloodghast
4 Dakmor Salvage
3 Phantasmagorian
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Bridge from Below
4 Creeping Chill
Sideboard:
4 Force of Vigor
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Ashen Rider
4 Serum Powder
Last edited by Whoshim; 06-25-2020 at 08:38 PM.
Narcomoeba isn't terrible though. Having a flyer can be crucial when playing vs. anything that can make an EoT Marit Lage
I wish we could cut the Shambling Shells, but there aren't many other runnable cards that can be pitched to FoV. I mean, as a dredger we don't really need it anymore when you run the Bloodghast package. I enjoy that we're making a whole new take on Horde Mode . I imagine we could also take your previous list and just swap out the CTs for a set of Ashen Ghoul. That'd leave us with...
4 Shambling Shell
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave Troll
3 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ichorid
3 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
4 Silversmote Ghoul
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Ashen Ghoul
4 Bloodghast
3 Dakmor Salvage
3 Phantasmagorian
4 Bridge from Below
4 Creeping Chill
Although you might want to go like 3 Ashen Ghoul and add a 4th Narcomoeba, I dunno. One good thing about Narcomoeba is that it can block quite some stuff without killing it, so your Bridges don't die as a result of blocking (or getting blocked). So there's that to consider as a sort of pro.
You're going to lose too much time to dredging 2, playing Dakmor Salvage and activating Ashen Ghoul, what makes Silversmote Ghoul good is that it doesn't cost you 4 Dredge or reduce your hand size.
Cabal Therapy punishes fast decks who have slow start, which are your biggest problem. If you want to play "horde mode" then I think just cutting the combo creatures is enough as Prized Amalgram, Silver Smote Ghoul and Hogaak, Risen Acropolis are a lot of added beaters compared to just the Ichorids, Zombie Tokens and Golgari Grave Trolls of old.
I doubt the combo kill is even necessary for the fundamental turn anymore, to me it has always been insurance vs Moat effects and with Creeping Chill I even question that thinking.
While it may be too slow if that were the only reason we were playing it, the Bloodghasts make it pretty worth it. If you hit 2+ Bloodghasts early, then you have access to 1 mana to pay for a hasty 3/1 the following turn. For longer matches, I think that it is worth it to get the value from the Ashen Ghoul over Cabal Therapy. If we aren't trying to cast Dread Return, then I think it is better to go with Ghoul over Therapy. I may be completely wrong, but it seems pretty good so far. Having access to Bloodghasts + Ashen Ghoul feels like a nice extra line of attack in my (very limited but increasing) testing.
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