M.O.S.T. - Merieke, Opposition, (Survival), Tradewind Rider

[pettdan]

Still not sure what to build but I keep brewing on nic fit, painter and MOST/vial variations.

The new Eldraine set has a lot of adventure spells which actually make the case for considering Fauna Shaman again, because it differs from the Recruiter and Fiend Artisan tutoring by putting cards into your hand so you actually can use their adventures too.

[ESG]

Just read the updated primer. Wow! This deck is so open-ended. Seems almost endlessly customizable, which is a great asset. A common concern I hear is that a deck will be rendered obsolete, but this deck's incredible number of choices make it very robust. It's been years since I played against the classic Fauna Shaman version, but I remember it well. I appreciate you relating your insights about different experiments and potential packages to explore.

[pettdan]

Just read the updated primer. Wow! This deck is so open-ended. Seems almost endlessly customizable, which is a great asset. A common concern I hear is that a deck will be rendered obsolete, but this deck's incredible number of choices make it very robust. It's been years since I played against the classic Fauna Shaman version, but I remember it well. I appreciate you relating your insights about different experiments and potential packages to explore.

Thanks, happy to hear you got something out of it! I'll keep updating the primer slowly and try to include some new decklists here from the discord because it's a pretty interesting and vast deck-building space.

[pettdan]

I'm going to add some decklists from the Discord and link them in the primer.

User: Shazbok
Type: Fiend Artisan, green-heavy version

Comments: Played this to a 4-2 finish at recent paper event. Felt strong with aspects of MOST, ie green based-toolbox. Obviously lots of Cradle control inspiration

Date: 18 September 2023

2 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
4 Gaea's Cradle
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath

2 Allosaurus Shepherd
1 Atraxa, Grand Unifier
3 Birds of Paradise
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Elvish Reclaimer
1 Endurance
4 Fiend Artisan
1 Grist, the Hunger Tide
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Malanthrope
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Opposition Agent

4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Natural Order
3 Once Upon a Time
4 Swords to Plowshares

Sideboard:
1 Endurance
3 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Vigor
3 Leyline of the Void
1 Plague Engineer
3 Thoughtseize
1 Toxicrene

[pettdan]

User: PettDan

Comments (from February, that is):
Here's what I'm currently playtesting
The manabase is a bit lacking, since I tend to sell off fetches as their value climbs on mtgo
Also I normally have an Endurance or two in, not sure how I would fit them
Could for example cut Cling to Dust and Shriekmaw or Opposition Agent

Date: 21 February 2023

Lands: 29
1 Bayou
2 Karakas
3 Marsh Flats
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Prismatic Vista
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Snow-covered Forest
2 Snow-covered Island
1 Snow-covered Plains
1 Snow-covered Swamp
1 Tundra
1 Underground sea
+5

Creatures: 20
1 Charming Prince
4 Baleful Strix
2 Ice-fang Coatl
3 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Spellseeker
1 Opposition Agent
1 Eternal Witness
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Lagrella, the Magpie
2 Grief
2 Solitude
1 Shriekmaw

Spells: 19
1 Ephemerate
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Prismatic Ending
4 Brainstorm
1 Cling to Dust
2 Once Upon a Time
2 Force of Negation
2 Force of Will
1 Green Sun's Zenith

Enchantments, Artifacts, Planeswalkers: 12
4 Abundant Growth
4 Aether Vial
2 Animate Dead
2 Teferi, Time Raveler

[pettdan]

User: Nicksnax
Date: 10-17-2022

Creatures:32
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Birds of Paradise
3 Giver of Runes
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Collector Ouphe
4 Fauna Shaman
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Outland Liberator // Frenzied Trapbreaker
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Endurance
1 Hullbreacher
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Opposition Agent
1 Peacekeeper
1 Plague Engineer
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 Shifting Ceratops
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Spells:13
4 Aether Vial
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Sylvan Library
1 Grist, the Hunger Tide

Lands:15
2 Bayou
2 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Savannah
1 Tropical Island
4 Windswept Heath

Sideboard:15
2 Allosaurus Shepherd
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Deputy of Detention
3 Endurance
2 Opposition Agent
2 Sanctum Prelate
1 Questing Beast
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Deafening Silence

[FTW]

It looks like there are many diverse directions to build the deck, all of them quite different. From your testing, is there 1 version or particular toolbox cards that seem strong in this meta?

I would expect X/1s to be bad with a high % of Bowmasters in the format. That makes the traditional build with many X/1 mana dorks look bad, but Aether Vial & OUAT & GSZ still seem strong. Do you have a build that doesn't rely as much on X/1s?

The Elves build with Elvish Reclaimer, Fiend Artisan and GSZ looked good. If it was less like Elves and more like MOST toolbox, what would it look like?

Eg
//Engine: 23
4 Aether Vial
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Elvish Reclaimer
4 Fiend Artisan
4 Fauna Shaman
3 Once Upon A Time

//Tools: 20
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Allosaurus Shepherd
1 Giver of Runes
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Outland Liberator
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Orcish Bowmasters
1 Grist, the Hunger Tide
1 Endurance
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Opposition Agent
1 Plague Engineer
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 Shifting Ceratops
1 Meren
1 Shriekmaw
1 Generous Ent

//Lands: 17
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
2 Gaea's Cradle
7 fetch
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
2 Forest


Or would you go different colors for different tools?

Play fewer tutors and more answers?

[pettdan]

@FTW: Yeah so most of these lists are from before Orcish Bowmasters was released, so they will probably have to change to be updated, I agree. I'm working on a couple of lists, like every two-three weeks I'm tweaking a new list usually. But I think my approach has been fairly stringent for the past 3-4 years, usually my lists have Yorion and something like 2 OuaT's, 1 GSZ, 1 Spellseeker for the GSZ, 3-4 Recruiter of the Guard, 2-3 Coatl/Strix, 1 Loran, 1 Charming Prince. I also like adding 1 Eternal Witness, 1 Ephemerate to that. Ephemerate is such a powerful spell, in my testing it's almost always good. And the Witness is obviously useful for bringing back a land or a Swords to Plowshares for example, and usually games end up in topdecking battles where Ephemerate + Witness is a game-winning card advantage-engine letting you clear the opponent's board over 2-3 turns usually. And you can tutor for the cards, making it easy to topdeck. I think I've updated the core descriptions in the primer so you'll find a similar comment there.

Today, I'm not sure if I prefer Orcish Bowmasters (and Grief + Animate Dead which creates a reanimation value loop with Yorion) (WUBG) or Fury (WURG). My available cards on MTGO fluctuate a lot, and I don't currently play actively in paper, so my version changes based on which cards I have and I avoid the most expensive cards until their price cools down.

Now I think I prefer the red splash, because... My favourite card in MOST now is Lagrella, the Magpie. It has been very good whenever I see it, I feel like it's been dominating every game I play where it shows up, if the opponent can't answer it (and Vial and Karakas both help make that difficult). And if you splash red, then Imperial Recruiter can find Lagrella, making the case for WURG. The next card I'm interested in playing is Flame of Anor, because it seems quite powerful and Snapcaster is also pretty good in the deck. Once you're making these decisions, the rest of the deck kind of builds itself - 4 Brainstorm, 4 Swords to Plowshares, 3-4 Abundant Growth, 4 FoWs. It becomes hard to match the color requirements for Fury, Endurance, Solitude and FoW, but OuaT at least helps a little by finding a colored creature and I'm trying Omnath (WURG) who's also good with Karakas.

It's possible that playing both Bowmasters and Fury is preferable, but it's hard to cut StPs and hatebears.

Now I'm not sure this is the best answer to your question, and I may go back to reread your question and adjust the reply. I discussed these perspectives, about red or black splash, in a recent post here so there is more discussion on those aspects there (a bit lengthy, sorry), and I'm not commenting much on the Fiend Artisan list yet because I haven't started with that myself. I actually got two Fiend Artisans on MTGO recently so will consider what to do with them, just didnt think of much yet.

Well, a few comments about Fiend Artisan. Fiend Artisan is leveraged by Gaea's Cradle and mana dorks, while Fauna Shaman is leveraged by Aether Vial. Fauna Shaman does work well with adventure cards and that is one approach to try now. If you want to build with both Fauna Shaman and Fiend artisan, I suggest you figure out which will be most impactful for your deckbuilding and maximize that one, and use the other one for a few one of targets. So if you go for Fiend Artisan-focus, play the cradles but skip Vials or just run say 2 Vials. For testing. And if you go for Fauna Shaman-focus, play the 4 Vials and 1 Cradle with maybe 1 KotR and 1 Reclaimer to tutor for the Cradle, that's a setup I used long ago when trying Cradle. Actually, one approach I keep revisiting is Cermak's style of Abzan list with Vials and Wastelands and 1-2 KotR's. There also was a local player running a Bant version which tried to go Thalia, Wasteland, KotR, fetch Cradle, Fauna Shaman for Craterhoof. I guess Fiend Artisan may fit better than Fauna Shaman there.

I see you're reading while Im adding to the reply so I'll make some final additions down here. I haven't seen that much Fiend Artisan action so I don't think I understand how to use it best very well, need to study it better I guess. Also, I didn't write that out clearly but I would go for 3-4 Artisans and 1-2 Fauna Shamans or the other way around, if you want to run both. And I would be tempted to try to add 1 Recruiter of the Guard and 1 Charming Prince too, just so you can always build a board of creatures without investing card advantage into them, it tends to be good. But maybe not in the green-heavy builds.

From my perspective, the 4-color lists with Recruiters for tutors seem best, because they build natural card advantage when putting creatures on the board which is good against control decks and sweepers especially, and they have a lot of free interaction in FoW, Endurance, Solitude, Fury and/or Grief. And that combination of flexible card advantage, tutors, and free spells to respond to combo and aggro seems pretty powerful.

So, if I'm missing too much of the essence of your question, feel free to repeat it to me. :)

[pettdan]

It's possible that the next version of MOST/Vial I try should focus on Up the Beanstalk. Basically running 4 Beanstalks with FoWs, Fury/Solitude and other 5 drops while also running some redundant answers to opposing Beanstalks. Beanstalk not only synergizes with the elementals and fow that we usually play, it also offers extra card drawing with Yorion.

If running both 4 Abundant Growth and 4 Up the Beanstalk, that not only makes Yorion very good, it also puts 8 cantripping enchantments in the deck, making it relevant to look at the enchantment section of the primer again. Just wanted to add this idea here because I think I'll work on that next.


I updated the enchantments segment in the primer and I'll add it here:

• Enchantments

I've made a rough attempt to group these cards, would need to define these categories better because they overlap. Here's an old attempt at an enchantment-focused list.

Utility: Up the Beanstalk, Abundant Growth, Utopia Sprawl, Sylvan Library, Oath of Nissa, Courser of Kruphix, Bitterblossom, Sacred Mesa, Klothys, God of Destiny, Sterling Grove, Urza's Saga, Ranger Class, Wizard Class, Paladin Class,

Removal: Oblivion Ring, Banishing Light, Leyline Binding, Touch the Spirit Realm, Cast Out, Thin Ice, Swift Reconfiguration, Trial of Ambition, Detention Sphere, Banishment

Hatebears, interactive creatures: Aegis of the Gods, Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea, Doomwake Giant, Eidolon of Rhetoric

Draw-engines: Setessan Champion, Sythis, Harvest's Hand, Enchantress's Presence, Argothian Enchantress[/cards], Eidolon of Blossoms
I prefer Setessan Champion in the deck because it's not only a draw-engine, it's also a significant threat by growing with every enchantment.

Payoffs, engines: Arasta of the Endless Web, Riptide Chimera, Zur the Enchanter, Archon of Sun's Grace, Recurring Nightmare, Destiny Spinner, Kestia, the Cultivator, Tameshi, Reality Architect, Weaver of Harmony

Threats: Chromanticore, Paradox Zone, Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr, Kami of Transience

Combos, combo-enablers: Aluren, Food Chain, Academy Rector, Curse of Misfortunes, Sneak Attack
Curse of Misfortunes-targets: Cruel Reality, Curse of Fool’s Wisdom, Curse of Deaths Hold, Overwhelming Splendor, Swift Reconfiguration (with Devoted Druid)

Sideboard cards: Carpet of Flowers, Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace, Planar Void, Choke, Back to Basics, Blood Moon, Blood Sun, Stony Silence, Engineered Plague, Leyline of Sanctity
Back to Basics and Blood Moon aren't typically the best cards in the deck, but you can run a basic-heavy list with Prismatic Vista and Abundant Growth if you really want to. Personally, I'm very interested in the idea of turning Choke into a cantrip with Setessan Champion, letting you run it with little cost (if you're lucky).

Other considerations: Mardu Ascendancy, Second Chance, Shared Animosity, Mirri's Guile, Solitary Confinement, Elephant Grass, Exploration, Serra's Sanctum, Wild Growth, Hall of Heliod's Generosity, Replenish, Karma, Gloom, Nether Void, Chains of Mephistopheles, Brain Maggot, Michiko's Reign of Truth, Nylea, Keen-Eyed, Jukai Naturalist, Sanctum Weaver, City of Solitude, Ghostly Prison, Propaganda, Sphere of Safety, Ground Seal
Mardu Ascendancy is a Najeela, the Blade-blossom without Warrier-requirement and coupled with Doran, the Siege Tower it would be game-ending, but WBRG isn't so easy to build.

Up the Beanstalk and Abundant Growth can add a critical amount of enchantments to the deck, letting other cards that get value from enchantments become considerations to include. Like Riptide Chimera, a flying 4/3 creature is perhaps not as impressive anymore but it has plenty of targets to draw cards every turn. Setessan Champion has been a favourite card and I built an enchantment nic fit list with it, it has great synergy with Recurring Nightmare I think, RN is already a very powerful card and turning it into a draw engine is pretty sweet. I like Arasta punishing the opponent from playing instants and Sorceries, and you can protect it with Karakas, and there are so many cards here that let you draw a ton of cards, I could see an enchantment build coming together but it may lack some prime threats. Maybe Aluren or Food Chain could top off the list with a potential combo win?

---

Setessan Champion + Recurring Nightmare + Riptide Chimera + Up the Beanstalk/Abundant Growth is going to draw you a bunch of cards and provide a lot of etb-effects as you reanimate creatures. Actually, Aluren works pretty well with Setessan Champion, if you have Carpy and a blue/black enchantment creature you can draw loads of cards and Setessan Champion even becomes a potential wincon that turn because it grows. I'm going to have to dig through the enchantress discord now to find some good enchantment payoffs to put in such a list.

[pettdan]

Another list from discord
User: PettDan
Version: WURG
Date: 07-11-2023

Just a recent but rather untested list to show a more updated go at it.

For this list, my approach was something like this: Bowmasters is too expensive to buy right now, but I want to play a deck that is good against Bowmasters. Priorities: 1) use Lagrella, 2) Fury is a great card against both Bowmasters and planeswalkers, great with Yorion and Lagrella (5/5 double striker and easy extra etb triggers), 3) while in red, Minsc & Boo is a superb threat, 3) Imperial Recruiter adds red cards for pitching to Fury and also finds Lagrella which the white recruiter doesn't, 4) Stoneforge is a good threat against Bowmasters and Jitte kills Bowmasters, Kaldra is a proactive threat, 5), I want StP, Prismatic Ending and Solitude to answer Death's Shadow, Grief, Murktide Regent, Delvers and DRC's. 6) Cut down on Strixes and Coatls because they are poor topdecks against Bowmasters which was seemingly very popular at the time, however it's still an important card for making Lagrella useful so I still want some unknown quantity of it in the deck. I was temporarily out of Spellseeker, iirc, or it might have been added. Blue count was too low in this list, so that's something I worked on.

In my next list, I decided to add Flame of Anor, Snapcaster Mage, Samwise the Stouthearted, Lorien Revealed and Omnath, Locus of Creation which theoretically does a great job of replacing Strix/Coatl against Bowmasters and can be bounced with Karakas for protection and value. A problem with Stoneforge Mystic is that in a deck with pitch cards in 4 colors it doesn't provide to the color requirements.



https://ibb.co/QC66KsN

[FTW]

Ok, interesting. Thanks for the updates on strategy and deckbuilding.

The appeal of Fiend Artisan to me is that it's a good beater on its own, synergizes with discarding creature cards, and can grow enough to dodge Bowmasters and weenie removal (which much of the enablers are weak to). It's a proven engine in Elves. However Elves is bad vs Bowmasters and other X/1 hate. I wondered if Fiend Artisan would be good here, like in that 1 list. But it is mana hungry and doesn't synergize with Vial and those engines.

So you seem to prefer Vial and hand tutors (Recruiters). The Recruiter bodies seem bad vs Bowmasters, but good with flicker tech (Charming Prince, Yorion, Samwise, Ephemerate).

If you build in that direction, what makes MOST distinct or better than Esper Vial? Is it the 4th color? (Especially if you go WURG for Lagrella, Fury, Imperial Recruiter, Minsc...)

[pettdan]

If you build in that direction, what makes MOST distinct or better than Esper Vial? Is it the 4th color? (Especially if you go WURG for Lagrella, Fury, Imperial Recruiter, Minsc...)

Short answer: there is nothing that distinguishes Esper Vial from MOST/Vial, it's just a subset. There is no card in Esper Vial that isn't commonly played in MOST, afaik, most of them are staples. Before Recruiter of the Guard was printed, you couldn't run an Esper version but now it seems like a natural approach.

Longer answer: I think Esper Vial basically is a subset of MOST, it plays the same creatures and spells that many MOST versions, not all, played for years, it just cut out the green cards which basically means GSZ and the mana dorks, Fauna Shaman wasn't really cut but substituted for Recruiter of the Guard. So Esper is certainly a valid approach, but I'm more interested in exploring a larger set of cards and actually Esper Vial players are also adding colors, even green with Once Upon a Time was discussed for a while. A red splash was recently introduced that was almost exactly how I splashed red a couple of years back (redblasts, magus, potentially an attacker). Streamlining the deck is relevant and I play the Esper version sometimes, but I'm more about creativity and exploring rather than streamlining and focusing. And I think there are many good cards outside of the Esper standard cards. Actually while I go to 4 and 5 colors, as Bowmasters became popular, Jeff who built Esper Vial as we know it went into 2 colors, Orzhov, and you know all is good, there's endless customizability here and so hard to know what's right. I'm kind of worried to find out in testing that Abundant Growth will be too much of a liability vs Bowmasters decks and that this will force me into 3 colors, but hopefully not.

Actually, just looking at the MOST cards already tells us this: Merieke = Gilded Drake, Survival/Fauna Shaman = Recruiter of the Guard, Tradewind Rider = Venser. Opposition isn't really played anymore, it's a powerful spell but I think Pyroblast just makes it too easy to answer. And it's not a creature anyway so limited synergy in that aspect. So, by applying the historically kind of irrelevant naming convention used to name the deck "MOST", an updated name for MOST/Esper Vial could be G(O)RV.

So you seem to prefer Vial and hand tutors (Recruiters). The Recruiter bodies seem bad vs Bowmasters, but good with flicker tech (Charming Prince, Yorion, Samwise, Ephemerate).

The recruiter bodies aren't bad against Bowmasters, I'd say, because you get the recruiter body for free and your opponent needs to spend their ping to take it out. Well, if they do in response to your flicker or bounce of the recruiter, than that is bad, you're right at the same time. So one needs to try to wait for situations when there isn't 2 mana up. One comment I've seen a few times is that Esper Vial, and similarly MOST/X-color-Vial, is usually better equipped to leverage Bowmasters than other decks who lack Vial and tutors for Bowmasters.

About Fiend Artisan, I need to evaluate what to use it for. I'll start here. Feel free to chime in.

Fiend Artisan
Advantages:
* Creature tutor without color/power/toughness-restrictions.
* Lets you put the creature directly into play without risk of being countered (can be stifled though).
* FA can potentially grow into a game-ending threat.
* Sacrifice-outlet for cards that need it.
Disadvantages:
* Mana-hungry and can't leverage Vial.
* It has a tap-effect and no etb-effect so it can easily be neutralized at parity in card-advantage by removal-heavy decks.

Bullets with high impact to build around:

* Craterhoof Behemoth is probably one of the most impactful, game-ending targets that the Elves deck is built to utilize.
* Elesh Norn, Grand Xenobite and Sheoldred, Whispering One are good Volrath's Shapeshifter targets and natural to consider in this context.
* Culling the Weak lets you generate a lot of mana and Fiend Artisan helps you use that mana without exposing it to a counterspell. Well, they can still counter CtW though. This is mostly a cool card I've been looking at for Nic Fit recently, again.
* Happy to hear more suggestions, which are the most impactful targets?

Typically, we're looking at non-green creatures (because green creatures have been extensively researched due to GSZ's and Natural Order's similar effects, but they are good targets too of course). Actually, we should look at Birthing Pod decks because they have similar targets.

Good characteristics of Fiend Artisan-targets:

* Attackers with haste: If they have haste, that's an advantage, not least because you can't use Vial to eot the creature and attack without sorcery-speed responses.
* Hatebears: Bringing in hatebears can be powerful, surprising the opponent and leaving them unable to stop it once it's in play. Magus of the Moon for example is pretty good here.
* Creatures with EtB-effects: since you can sacrifice the creature after you got value from the etb-effect, it's a quite valuable application.
* Combo-elements: being able to put a combo-relevant creature into play is quite promising, especially for combos that can win at instant speed. Thassa's Oracle/Inverter of Truth, Devoted Druid-combo, maybe Yawgmoth, Bomberman...
* Persist/Undying-creatures for extra value with Artisan.

Haste:
Shaman of the Great Hunt, better with Vial because that frees up mana so you can use the card draw effect immediatly.
Izzet Staticaster

Hatebears:
Magus of the moon, very useful to be able to put this into play when opponent didn't float mana for example.
Sanctum Prelate

Value:
Samwise the Stouthearted, lets you bring back the sacrificed creature immediately.
Glen Elendra Archmage, utility, can have a game-ending effect vs combo decks, be very useful vs control decks and also lends itself to further sacrificing to the Fiend Artisan effect.

Threats, combo, hard to remove:
True-Name Nemesis
Keranos, God of Storms
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

EtBs:
Solitude
Fury
Grief
Seasoned Dungeoneer
Caves of Chaos Adventurer
Orcish Bowmasters

Removal:
Plaguebearer, it's been a long time since I looked at this cards but using this to clean up DRCs, Delvers and Saga tokens seems at least interesting.
Plague Engineer

[snugar_i]

Sweet to hear, thanks for telling me! If you have any thoughts or reflections, I appreciate any future comments.

That was a bot, unfortunately :-(

[H]

That was a bot, unfortunately :-(

No worry, cleaned up now.

[pettdan]

Another card I want to try building around is Up the Beanstalk.

So I'm just going to list a couple of cards that seem good with it. Usually I just put this in a brewing area but why not share it. I'll come back to update.

Companions:
Yorion, Sky Nomad
Jegantha, the Wellspring

X-spells:
Green Sun's Zenith
Forth Eorlingas!

Pitch-spells:
Fury
Solitude
Force of Will

Domain-discount:
Leyline Binding

Delve:
Murderous Cut
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Murktide Regent, I don't usually play vanilla beaters but ok
Hooting Mandrills

Land-discount:
Submerge

Miracle:
Terminus, clearly not for us
Triumph of saint Katherine


Convoke:
Knight-Errant of Eos

Regrowth effects:
Meren of Clan Nel Toth is pretty useful for bringing back Fury and Solitude every turn
Eternal Witness bringing back FoW for example

Goblins:
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden

Artifacts:
Batterskull
Kaldra Compleat
Walking Ballista
Phyrexian Fleshgorger

Affinity or Improvise:
Thought Monitor
Thoughtcast
Kappa Cannoneer
Whir of Invention
Urza, Chief Artificer
Myr Enforcer, only relevant with Birthing Pod-effects

Green:
Green Sun's Zenith
Gaea's Cradle
Titania, Protector of Argoth
Primeval Titan, usually too large for my MOST builds
Avabruck Caretaker
Nissa, Ascended Animist
Nissa, Who Shakes the World
Wrenn and Seven
Storm the Festival, imagine building a deck with this, hmm... Not going to happen, but still. 1 Cradle, 2 KotR, 1 Reclaimer.

Blue:
Hullbreaker Horror
Lorien Revealed, actually it's the cycling that enables this card in a deck

Enchantments:
Setessan Champion
Sythis, Harvest's Hand
Weaver of Harmony
Leyline Binding
Serra's Sanctum


Flashback (if they actually trigger, need to check):
Memory Deluge

Synergy:
Vial Smasher the Fierce


So, I think this indicates a couple of straightforward builds (that already exist, some of them): delve à la RUG Delver, affinity à la 8-cast, UW-based control (w Binding, FoW).
Some brewing options I see for MOST/Vial are:
- a Cradle-based build with lands matter that tutors for Cradle or develops mana through Ramunap Excavator, Veteran Explorer, Primeval Titan, Titania, and/or Reclaimer+Flagstones.
- an enchantment build with Setessan Champion and/or Sythis, potentially even Serra's Sanctum to power up non-enchantment 5-drops.
- a Vial Smasher-build, but BR is not so easy to splash for my normal builds
- Yorion, Solitude, Fury, FoW, Leyline Binding, GSZ, these all go into a pretty standard MOST list.
- a list with a Stoneforge-package, not so spectactular and also not that much synergy, you don't normally want to hardcast the equipments anyway.

[FTW]

Up the Beanstalk is popular and powerful, but it needs the deck to be built around the synergy. It shines best in something like 4c/5c Zenith with Yorion. These decks run
Force of Will
Solitude
Yorion, Sky Nomad
Leyline Binding
Lorien Revealed
Terminus
Forth Eorlingas!

They can also overpay X on Green Sun's Zenith and Prismatic Ending. Overall they have a lot of cards that can trigger Beanstalk. AND none of them are dead cards on 2 mana. That's the beauty of the deck. It's full of 5s that don't have to be 5s (and are also powerful standalone control effects). But lategame they CAN be 5s, turning every spell into a cantrip, letting you go over the top!

A lot of your MOST builds have low curves with a lot at 1-3 cmc. A lot of your key engine pieces are 1-2 cmc. Would you have to bend the deck too much to make Beanstalk work? Would you have to run 5s that risk being dead on lower land counts?

If you go the enchantment direction with Beanstalk, it seems like a bad GW Enchantress.

The Affinity/Improvise direction would mean either forcing cards that are not Legacy playable or being a bad version of 8-cast with less stable mana (4x Thought Monitor 4x Thoughtcast 4x Kappa Cannoneer 4x Sea Gate Restoration 4x Lorien Revealed 4x new Myr Enforcer all triggers Beanstalk but doesn't look like MOST).

If you were to try it in MOST, 80-card Yorion makes the most sense. At worst Yorion will flicker Beanstalk (+2 cards) so it's never bad even if you're in topdeck mode or have nothing to trigger it.

Green Sun's Zenith becomes top choice as an engine card. What other tutors would you run? Recruiters? Abundant Growth fits better than mana dorks, works with Yorion, and doesn't lose to Bowmasters.

You may want to look at landcycling creatures like Generous Ent or Timeless Dragon, which can cycle early to fix duals or be cast late to trigger Beanstalk.

Edit: Does Triumph of Saint Katherine make Worldly Tutor playable? In most decks no. But what about in MOST decks? MOST wants toolbox creature tutors anyway, right? Setting up a 5/5 lifelink that triggers Beanstalk is strong. Tutors also mean you don't need a high number of 5s to play Beanstalk. You just need a high number of ways to get to 5s (when it's profitable to have 5s). You can mitigate the drawback of Worldly Tutor being dead (-1 card) by playing a couple cantrip creatures like Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath so that you can "cycle" Tutor when you need to.

[Reeplcheep]

ThrabenU recently posted a video about beanstalk in a green creature shell. The overlapping enablers used were hooting mandrills, contagion, hogaak, green suns zenith, and murderous cut.

[pettdan]

First of all, it's sweet to have some discussion and comments, thank you FTW! I postponed replying because I needed to digest it a little, there are many things to comment on here and I'm still not sure about the direction of Beanstalk-MOST and I'm not sure how to address each comment so this will just be an attempt to respond something. In the end, I suppose it's when we try to actually build a deck that we can balance and evaluate many of these comments and questions.

Up the Beanstalk is popular and powerful, but it needs the deck to be built around the synergy. It shines best in something like 4c/5c Zenith with Yorion.
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They can also overpay X on Green Sun's Zenith and Prismatic Ending. Overall they have a lot of cards that can trigger Beanstalk. AND none of them are dead cards on 2 mana. That's the beauty of the deck. It's full of 5s that don't have to be 5s (and are also powerful standalone control effects). But lategame they CAN be 5s, turning every spell into a cantrip, letting you go over the top!

I haven't looked closely at those lists, I need to do that. But I think MOST/Vial has some unique and powerful advantages, and I think they can be preserved while running Beanstalk. Beanstalk is a nice value engine, but I don't think it necessarily has to be the main strategy of a deck, it can probably be used to amplify an existing strategy. I guess what I mean is that I don't think the ability to draw cards necessarily maximizes the win percentage in a large variety of matchups. If it did, then we'd see more draw-focused decks. [edit: I guess this needs more motivation since card draw is the easiest way to figure out who wins a game, but I guess my point is that there are other ways to get card advantage and also functionality of cards also matters] However, it certainly is very good and valuable and it could be that it indeed will be the most powerful strategy to just maximize the advantage of beanstalk, but we're not there yet so we cannot assume that to be the case. We have some freedom in strategy of our deckbuilding here.

A lot of your MOST builds have low curves with a lot at 1-3 cmc. A lot of your key engine pieces are 1-2 cmc. Would you have to bend the deck too much to make Beanstalk work? Would you have to run 5s that risk being dead on lower land counts?

This is an especially good question, I think. There are some key cards that are low in cmc, like Recruiters and Aether Vial. Recruiter replaces itself, and Vial casts it for you, so I don't think Recruiter actually is a problem for Beanstalk. If you tutor up 5-cmc creatures, then it could be an advantage even, perhaps. Recruiter does add a lot of value to Yorion, for example. However, Beanstalk does synergize better with GSZ than with vial. But Vial is more powerful than GSZ. There's no simple analytical way to figure out which combination of cards will be more powerful, flexible, better in different ways, it will have to be evaluated I think.

However, Ather Vial does seem to have very low synergy with Up the Beanstalk, just like Vial isn't great with Cradle, Fiend Artisan, pitch-elementals or delve. Sometimes I just change Vial into Cabal Therapy and change the deck into Nic Fit, and that does synergize better with the beanstalk, but like I mentioned, you can't say for sure what is actually better in the end as Vial is a very powerful spell, Vial decks have usually been more successful than GSZ decks. So I think we have to innovate in deck building to see where a Vial version goes, how it looks, what it does well or not well.

If you go the enchantment direction with Beanstalk, it seems like a bad GW Enchantress.

I think this is impossible to say at this point. I enjoy brewing with Enchantress cards, and I always dislike Enchantress as a strategic deck choice. It's a fun interesting deck and I'm happy to see it played, but in the past when I played against the deck it always felt like it had some weak spots and I was usually able to find ways to beat it with my decks. I remember some games, years back, where Karakas, Vial and Leovold just won the game and they couldn't interact with it. Other games when I'm on Nic Fit have been easily won by just dropping Pernicious Deed and clearing the board. I think a more wellrounded strategy which leverages the enchantment value engines could be a very good choice, at least it's a relevant approach to try. I've been building those decks recently, and in the past.

Edit: interestingly, peripherally relevant, Im just listening to the pod Faithless Brewing (excellent podcast for brewers but rarely for legacy, unfortunately; s19e05) and they are actually making a Setessan Champion deck for Modern, 5-0-ing on the first attempt and observing that enchantress style decks are much worse. Well that was my quick interpretation, maybe I missed something there but I found it repeated my message here pretty perfectly but however for Modern.

The Affinity/Improvise direction would mean either forcing cards that are not Legacy playable or being a bad version of 8-cast with less stable mana (4x Thought Monitor 4x Thoughtcast 4x Kappa Cannoneer 4x Sea Gate Restoration 4x Lorien Revealed 4x new Myr Enforcer all triggers Beanstalk but doesn't look like MOST).

Again, I think this is a premature statement and the deck needs to be evaluated before coming to this kind of conclusion. I've played WUBR vial with Painter in the past 2 years and it's been a pretty good deck in testing. There's a lot of deck building space that anyone who wishes to can explore. You could be right, though, naturally.

If you were to try it in MOST, 80-card Yorion makes the most sense. At worst Yorion will flicker Beanstalk (+2 cards) so it's never bad even if you're in topdeck mode or have nothing to trigger it.

Definitely in a Yorion list, yes. A recent MOST/vial-list I ran had 3 fury, 2 solitude, 4 fows in the maindeck. So I think that's already pretty good payoff for the Beanstalks. And changing StP into Leyline Binding is a pretty small deck-building decision, if trying to increase triggers. I guess you'd keep some StP's though. Well, I started drafting a brewing list to help this work, so I'll continue see what I can put together in a while.

Green Sun's Zenith becomes top choice as an engine card. What other tutors would you run? Recruiters? Abundant Growth fits better than mana dorks, works with Yorion, and doesn't lose to Bowmasters.

Edit: It seems like Fauna Shaman is the only creature tutor that fits really well with Up the Beanstalk, and like you say GSZ seems great. I mean, the power/toughness requirements of the recruiters seem to make it a bit more difficult to find 5+ cmc creatures, besides Solitude.

You may want to look at landcycling creatures like Generous Ent or Timeless Dragon, which can cycle early to fix duals or be cast late to trigger Beanstalk.

Yeah, these creatures are already good and I think if running Animate Dead, which creates a value-loop with Yorion, you can also reanimate the pitch elementals which is pretty good. If doing black splash.

Edit: Does Triumph of Saint Katherine make Worldly Tutor playable? In most decks no. But what about in MOST decks? MOST wants toolbox creature tutors anyway, right? Setting up a 5/5 lifelink that triggers Beanstalk is strong. Tutors also mean you don't need a high number of 5s to play Beanstalk. You just need a high number of ways to get to 5s (when it's profitable to have 5s). You can mitigate the drawback of Worldly Tutor being dead (-1 card) by playing a couple cantrip creatures like Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath so that you can "cycle" Tutor when you need to.

Triumph of Saint Katherine is one of the more interesting cards I listed, I feel. I recently added Worldly Tutor to the primer for combinastion with Vesuvan Drifter so it does have a second valuable target [edit: a combo target in this case, I expect to put Emrakul on top of the library, or maybe Elesh Norn, not sure what else has good impact] besides the Triumph. I guess WT is most likely to be run as a one of with Spellseeker so you can effectively use a Recruiter to put Triumph on top of your library which will be pretty good against Delver and control decks, I suppose. Im not sure how powerful Triumph is, I dont think Ive seen it in play, it just seems pretty obnoxious and I can see it being a valuable addition to the creature toolbox. Edit: so that's a yes, I think Worldly Tutor becomes relevant to brew with, in a list with Triumph and perhaps testing the Vesuvan Drifter combo. I wonder what else might work with Drifter...

Edit: I just had a meta game consideration and that's Gaddock + Sylvan Safekeeper, as a good way to stop a bunch of what Beanstalk decks are doing. Now, if you run those two, you probably want to run Ramunap Excavator or another creature that can bring back lands, and then you want GSZ and Titania, Protector of Argoth. Which triggers Beanstalk. So that is one starting point of building a MOST/Vial Beanstalk deck. Of course, depending on how many Gaddocks we run, we want to avoid having too many spells locked down by Gaddock. So I think Leyline Binding is out, while GSZ is ok because it will usually find the Gaddock and it's ok to strand a powerful spell in hand once in a while. FoW is also ok, if opponent answers Gaddock then that freed up FoW, and if they don't answer it, then you're probably in a good spot anyway, in the matchups where it matters. I'll just put the thought here for future consideration. Edit 2: However, this seems to be a more natural fit with a Nic Fit, Maverick or Stax deck.

[pettdan]

ThrabenU recently posted a video about beanstalk in a green creature shell. The overlapping enablers used were hooting mandrills, contagion, hogaak, green suns zenith, and murderous cut.

Thanks! I'll have a look at it.

[pettdan]

Oooh, Shaden representing at the Eternal Weekend and getting a mention in the stream. Unfortunately the force was not with them on this day.

https://mtgdecks.net/Legacy/five-col...shaden-1805919