[work in progress] Wort, the Raidmother

[TsumiBand]

Commander:
Wort, the Raidmother

Lands: 34
Stomping Ground

Gruul Guildgate
Kazandu Refuge
Shivan Oasis

Forgotten Cave
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood

Mountain Valley
Wooded Foothills

Skaarg, the Rage Pits

Mountain x9
Forest x16


Creatures: 22
Wood Elves
Fierce Empath
Acidic Slime
Roughshod Mentor
Primordial Sage
Krosan Tusker
Sylvan Primordial
Skarrg Goliath
Terastodon
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
Craterhoof Behemoth
Verdant Force

Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
Flameblast Dragon
Hamletback Goliath

Savageborn Hydra
Zhur-Taa Ancient
Deus of Calamity
Rubblehulk
Gruul Ragebeast
Borborygmos

Pathrazer of Ulamog

Sorceries: 29

Nature's Lore
Rampant Growth
Summer Bloom
Cultivate
Kodama's Reach
Untamed Wilds
Explosive Vegetation
Skyshroud Claim

Green Sun's Zenith
Regrowth
Elven Cache
Praetor's Counsel
Gelatinous Genesis
One Dozen Eyes
Crush of Wurms
Harmonize
Collective Unconscious
Gift of the Gargantuan
Lead the Stampede
Calming Verse

Fireball
Red Sun's Zenith
Faithless Looting
Winds of Change
Wild Guess
Insurrection

Clan Defiance
Savage Twister
Armed // Dangerous

Instants: 7

Harrow

Worldly Tutor
Early Harvest
Slice in Twain

Comet Storm
Reiterate

Signal the Clans

Enchantments: 5

Beastmaster Ascension
Vernal Bloom

Where Ancients Tread
Gratuitous Violence

Fires of Yavimaya

Artifacts: 2
Mirari
Caged Sun

Deck is starting to settle; one part big dumb creatures, one part big dumb spells.

This deck is destined to be pretty Johhny in nature. Big spells that are hilarious when they are double/tripled thanks to Wort and/or Mirari or both. A healthy complement of creatures is necessary, since Conspire requires two creatures to tap in order to copy the spell. May as well just be big beefy dudes, why the hell not.

Wort has shenanigans all over her face, so playing her early or passing with her in play pretty much just guarantees she'll die. It's crucial to have Good Thing To Do with her when she enters the battlefield if your playgroup has even an ounce of sense, because otherwise you just untap and X-spell all the things for 56.

Might be a little land-light now. 34 lands even with so many "go get land" spells - but still need to get to flipping 2G to cast the good ones. Meh. For some reason I'm not playing artifact acceleration. I'm... wondering if that's the right way to go. I get that Wort can never double-up on a Sol Ring or a Signet, but I also want to put a little gas in the tank. For now I've just upped the land-search spell count slightly and replaced Yavimaya Elder AKA "Old Man Card Advantage" for Wood Elves. We'll see.

want list:
Gamble
Urabrask
more Hydras?
Greater Good
Sarkan Vol
some kind of RG creature lord (Liege from Lorwyn or whatever)

sloppy wtf guys list:
Deus of Calamity

[Kuma]

My buddy built this with Mana Echoes, token generators, and a few more X spells than you're running. It was pretty incredible. He'd cast Fireball for 171 and split it among the players to kill them. Also, I think Genesis Wave should probably be in here.

I can't recommend Mana Echoes enough. Hell, you get :7: from it just for resolving Wort, the Raidmother.

[TsumiBand]

My buddy built this with Mana Echoes, token generators, and a few more X spells than you're running. It was pretty incredible. He'd cast Fireball for 171 and split it among the players to kill them. Also, I think Genesis Wave should probably be in here.

I can't recommend Mana Echoes enough. Hell, you get :7: from it just for resolving Wort, the Raidmother.

Mana Echoes sounds amaze-balls. Don't you get :9: from Wort though? You should be able to stack it such that Echoes' ability resolves after the Goblin Warrior tokens ETB. Also this means I have to play Sprout Swarm for the infinite mana, infinite tokens herp derp. God forbid I don't play an EDH deck with at least one Ohshi Handle.

[Kuma]

Mana Echoes sounds amaze-balls. Don't you get :9: from Wort though? You should be able to stack it such that Echoes' ability resolves after the Goblin Warrior tokens ETB. Also this means I have to play Sprout Swarm for the infinite mana, infinite tokens herp derp. God forbid I don't play an EDH deck with at least one Ohshi Handle.

Yeah, you're right. You get :9: from Mana Echoes when you cast Wort, the Raidmother.

Since you're running it, Reiterate makes infinite mana with Rude Awakening and possibly Early Harvest provided you can tap your lands for at least seven mana.

[Davran]

Why Armillary Sphere over Cultivate/Kodama's Reach? The sphere doesn't work at all with Wort, and both of those put a land into play which is much better than putting it into your hand.

Clan Defiance is another option for an X spell. It can be a pretty big blowout on its own, and conspiring it seems pretty fun. Maybe it's better than Disintegrate?

It's a little vanilla in terms of suggestions, but I think you definitely want a Sol Ring in here.

Lastly, conspiring a Genesis Wave could be pretty fun, same with Tooth and Nail.

[TsumiBand]

Why Armillary Sphere over Cultivate/Kodama's Reach? The sphere doesn't work at all with Wort, and both of those put a land into play which is much better than putting it into your hand.

Clan Defiance is another option for an X spell. It can be a pretty big blowout on its own, and conspiring it seems pretty fun. Maybe it's better than Disintegrate?

It's a little vanilla in terms of suggestions, but I think you definitely want a Sol Ring in here.

Lastly, conspiring a Genesis Wave could be pretty fun, same with Tooth and Nail.

Yes, Clan Defiance and both the Zeniths are on my to-do list and will undoubtedly take their place in the Circle of Life over Disintegrate. The list has some random filler in here. I'm kind of a dork when it comes to putting a deck together, I abhor proxies and have no patience so I throw together a list that I know is like 50% ready and just take the deck for a test drive and get pwned really hard. My old man always called it the "ready, fire, aim" approach. :P

T&N is a goofy exclusion on my part, I was planning on dicking with Wild Pair a little bit too. Doesn't work with token generators, but then neither does T&N, so yeah.

[TsumiBand]

Main post updated.

Got a lot of filler out, though I'm not positive that Savage Twister was a good cut. Damage-based board sweepers are generally not very impressive in my experience except against the occasional derp that shows up with a weenie rush deck and needs to be shown why that's usually a bad idea.

Early Harvest was a no-duh include. Sure I'll conspire that and float a bunch of mana thanks to all that ramp I played earlier, seems real fair.

Haven't included the Sprout Swarm + Mana Echoes thing yet, because I just haven't. I have the cards sitting around, I'm mainly just concerned about playing a two-card combo in a deck with less card draw and tutors than I'm used to. Mana Echoes on its own will generate manas just by casting my commander, no question - but Sprout Swarm needs support to matter a damn. If I ever topdecked Spout Swarm with no way to fuel it I would probably unsleeve it and eat it.

Winds of Change and Summer Bloom are on the watchlist, for the very reason I don't feel much like including Sprout Swarm. Summer Bloom *could* be amazing, but it can also just not do anything. Winds of Change is only okay.

[Amon Amarth]

For damage-based sweepers you can't get much better than Blasphemous Act. It costs nothing and kills basically everything. It's so ridiculous when you wipe the board for a R mana and then drop a bomb. BOOM. I'm always happy to draw it.

[TsumiBand]

For damage-based sweepers you can't get much better than Blasphemous Act. It costs nothing and kills basically everything. It's so ridiculous when you wipe the board for a R mana and then drop a bomb. BOOM. I'm always happy to draw it.

I think mostly my concern is that a damage-based sweeper will just not always do what I want it to do. Blasphemous Act would be funny as shit, Conspire or otherwise, but I feel like I'm going to bump into like Progenitus or like Sphinx of the Steel Wind and just cry. Also being able to stick a Gruul Ragebeast turns playing fat men into spot removal - or when it's with Crush of Wurms, Gelatinous Genesis or even like, One Dozen Eyes with Beastmaster Ascension in play, is often a very one-sided Wrath effect. Still I suppose close-enough is better than not-at-all, so I should probs consider looking at B-Act or consider putting Savage Twister and/or Starstorm in.

Is there a sweet tutor besides, like, Gamble, that I'm forgetting about? Chord of Calling, I guess. But I can't think of too many others.

So, random, had $50 in my budget for Magic this month and bought a bunch of cards for this deck and others (hence the update), and totally passed on Tooth and Nail. No, I don't know why either. :(

[TsumiBand]

Strongly considering going all out Johnny and throwing in Armed // Dangerous. The minute it was spoiled I knew it would be some herpy-derpy game stealer in Limited; "oh you're at 12 with good board position? So like, Armed my 6/2, Dangerous this crappy guy, beat?"

See, that's the thing I want to do, only it will go like "Ohh you're at 30? Armed // Dangerous with Conspire, Reiterate it, I guess I'll give this guy and this guy and this guy double-strike and make you block a crappy token." It's terribad, I don't even care. It's going to be epic. Maybe I will even crush face with Wort TRM after I pitch Rubblehulk to him for the Bloodthirst technology. Commander damage win with a 3/3 sounds like an epic troll-ass troll thing to do.

Out of break time, will update main post soon(ish).

[Davran]

Strongly considering going all out Johnny and throwing in Armed // Dangerous. The minute it was spoiled I knew it would be some herpy-derpy game stealer in Limited; "oh you're at 12 with good board position? So like, Armed my 6/2, Dangerous this crappy guy, beat?"

See, that's the thing I want to do, only it will go like "Ohh you're at 30? Armed // Dangerous with Conspire, Reiterate it, I guess I'll give this guy and this guy and this guy double-strike and make you block a crappy token." It's terribad, I don't even care. It's going to be epic. Maybe I will even crush face with Wort TRM after I pitch Rubblehulk to him for the Bloodthirst technology. Commander damage win with a 3/3 sounds like an epic troll-ass troll thing to do.

Out of break time, will update main post soon(ish).

The thought of eliminating the last 2 players at the table with this makes me giddy.

You're not really on the goblin plan, but Krenko, Mob Boss can certainly spit out enough token dorks to suit up with lure for your "combo" turn given that with Wort in play you're already at +4 goblins per activation. Alternatively, conspiring something like Goblin Rally has to be worth something...

[FTW]

Definitely Mana Echoes and Reiterate and Sprout Swarm.

More cheap creatures would be good, since all your fatties make conspiring kind of non-bo.

Eternal Witness > Elven Cache? You can't infinite combo Elven Cache conspired since the copy resolves first, so I don't see the point of using Cache. Nature's Spiral or Restock are better spells to copy if you want recursion tricks.

Comet Storm seems like a good X spell to copy and squash everyone. If you Fireball for 13 and copy it twice (Mirari + conspire), that's 39 damage or 13 to each player. If you Comet Storm for 10 at 3 targets and copy it twice (Mirari + conspire), that's 90 damage total or 30 to each player for the same amount of mana.

[TsumiBand]

Definitely Mana Echoes and Reiterate and Sprout Swarm.

More cheap creatures would be good, since all your fatties make conspiring kind of non-bo.

Eternal Witness > Elven Cache? You can't infinite combo Elven Cache conspired since the copy resolves first, so I don't see the point of using Cache. Nature's Spiral or Restock are better spells to copy if you want recursion tricks.

Comet Storm seems like a good X spell to copy and squash everyone. If you Fireball for 13 and copy it twice (Mirari + conspire), that's 39 damage or 13 to each player. If you Comet Storm for 10 at 3 targets and copy it twice (Mirari + conspire), that's 90 damage total or 30 to each player for the same amount of mana.

I definitely have Reiterate and Comet Storm already. I need to update the main post if they aren't in there.

I thought about the cheap guys like Wood Elves and Eternal Witness and stuff, and I do have Yavimaya Elder in there I guess. I haven't found the creatures to be a 'non-bo' at all though. Kind of need creatures to use Conspire in the first place. Maybe if I can get some better card drawing or if there are better tutors or whatever, I won't feel so pressured to play dudes. But I don't even think there are that many, there's like 20ish guys in the deck. I play more than that in most regular formats. It might be good to enable more Conspire earlier, though.

And it's funny you'd mention Elven Cache as being weaker than other spells though, because I totally did just go off using Early Harvest, Elven Cache, and Regrowth to make fuck-you mana, followed by Insurrection recursion to untap my dudes to Conspire every draw and/or burn spell into the "X-spell for billions" win. I wouldn't count on having all the Regrowth effects at once again, by any means, but it was A Thing That Happened.

[TsumiBand]

MAIN POST UPDATE

Took Wort out for her second 'real' spin and won 2 games in a row in a 5-player situation.* Zhur-Taa Ancient was iffy going into it, but never turned out to bite me in the ass. Then again no one else had a heavy Green lean or was looking to ramp a ton; I had Vernal Bloom AND ZTA in play, and somehow no one blew me out. That will probably never happen again.

Also if the guy across from you drops a Survival of the Fittest and then gets the table to hate you for playing Fires of Yavimaya, hire a cougar to punch him in the dick. "you guys better read that Fires card" ... "AW HASTE WHAAAT" :/

Vorinclex is in! Amazing little fucker, I dunno why I forgot about it. Could not take the Chaos Imps out fast enough. I still think a 7/6 trampler flyer for 6 is not bad, but this is not the deck for it. Maybe I'll be a cheesedick and build an Exava deck, because yeah. (no, probably not)

Took out my man Rumbling Slum :( oh well. Also, Yavimaya Elder is out over Wood Elves. I felt outraced by people with artifact acceleration, which is dumb as shit.

Karoos are the goddamned enemy and I have no need to play them. I have always hated them even in decks where they are supposedly good; fuck Karoo style lands, I just hate them so bad. Toss them in the garbage. Fuck em. Done. Over it. Also took out random nonbasics like Temple of the False God (redundant) and Terrain Generator, because why play them at all in this deck? Answer: no good reason.

EDIT - derp, so without context this means little. 2 of 3 games 5player games.

[TsumiBand]

There've been changes, but I'm not at my house, which is where my computer with my decklists is. Are. Is/are. Whatever.

This deck is pretty good. It's not 'fully powered' by any means, there are still some things that could be better, but when it gets a head of steam it is kind of a funny thing to behold. Choosing between the 'Comet Storm everyone for 84' win, versus the 'make a stack of tokens and swing, ohai Beastmaster Ascension' win actually feels pretty good, because I don't think either strategy is boning the other one up. It could just be a consequence of the colors the deck plays, but RG being light on tutors was never going to lead to a consistent combo win anyway IMO.

Although.

I've been shying away from including Genesis Wave because I never wanted to run into a situation where I dumped all my perfectly good spells in the bin. However, as many of you know, I am a dyed-in-the-wool dumpster diver when it comes to MtG. My local store has been letting people go through unsorted bins of cards at $.05 per card, - or - 500 for $5.00. It was a lazy Sunday, what else was I gonna do. Mow the lawn? Church? Bleh.

So I came across this old beauty, and it occurs to me that I need not fear putting my Sorceries in the garbage.

Recoup

Essentially the idea is a giant Genesis Wave, conspired, Mirari'd or otherwise, can grant me the potential to go through my library and throw permanents into play - as well as good spells in the graveyard. Some of those spells win the prize in a more significant way than the creatures, so in order to not fail at life after a GW for 20, Conspired, I should want to go get Praetor's Counsel and get my stuff back, then start in on the whole 'max value' thing that all these good players keep harping about.

As an aside - friends, enemies, trolls, strangers, and IBA - the use of the word "value" in conjunction with game actions in Magic has got to stop. At one time, it was fine, but now it is overused and tired and dried out and bad. It's the 'hella' of Magic jargon. It's fingernails on chalk. It's Miley Cyrus singing the theme from Highlander: The Series. It's Robert Jayne in Tremors. Stop stop stop stop stop.

I mean really, a Green deck that casts Genesis Wave should feel pretty good and just bash with creatures, but that's not enough for Wort The Raidmother. I think she can do better. I think Recoup is a step in the correct direction, because it means that the chances of going G-Wave > retrieve either Counsel or a method of finding it > P-Counsel goes way up when you start adding things like Recoup and Gamble to the mix. I could even dump Past in Flames into the deck, but I'm not trying to throw my entire deck away, I'm hoping to get there with a little bit of recursion after all.

This is probably a well-paved strategy and I just stumbled into it, like one of those teenagers who thinks they are the first person to invent fapping, it's just no one told them about it and teenagers eventually end up pulling on themselves, so good on 'em but no. I'd like to give it a spin, just gotta figure out where the cuts are. Like I said, the list feels a bit tight even if it isn't optimal, especially in regard to creatures b/c the Red creature density is to the point where it doesn't mess up Conspiring spells in a deck that is largely Green. I should want to post my updated list, such as it is, and maybe then we shall see where the low-ballers are.

So to be clear I'd want to include Recoup, and Eternal Witness - the latter I ought to be playing anyway but I just haven't gotten around to - in order to make Genesis Wave not just a means of getting at the good permanents at the expense of my good spells.

[TsumiBand]

The thought of eliminating the last 2 players at the table with [Armed//Dangerous] makes me giddy.

This absolutely happened JUST THE OTHER DAY.

Urabrask + Vorinclex + some junk in play. The two other players tap out; one for some irrelevant stuff, the other to kill Vorinclex in some non-board wrecking way. So I untap, play Zhur-Taa Ancient knowing I get an extra turn to take advantage of the extra manas, call up Wort, play some land-getting spells with Conspire and things, it's good. Other players are still tapped from Vorinclex - so basically I take my 'extra turn' and untap into a big Savageborn Hydra for one player, and an Armed ZTA + Rubblehulk FTW on the other player.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5FZl9pNbRs