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  1. #1
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    Barook's Avatar
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    Dwarf Bugs

    I saw this decklist on Anu's stream and surprisingly has potential, even if it has some rough edges.

    Decklist

    Essentially, you're doing all kinds of tribal shenanigans with Changeling, Dwarven Recruiter and Pyre. Decklist looks like it's tons of fun.

    Closer inspection of the deck by the deck creator

  2. #2
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    Re: Dwarf Bugs

    A day or two ago, this happened to me after a bunch of creatures were chain-milled. I had no idea what was happening. Ended up winning through it

    https://i.imgur.com/e4Dr8Oi.png

  3. #3
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    Re: Dwarf Bugs

    Needs more Crucible of Fire in the board vs Plague Engineer @ Insect.

    Edit: Depala, Pilot Exemplar may be a more realistic lord to use. Only +1/+1, but it's a Dwarf creature (Vial, Cavern, Recruiter) and it can draw you a bunch of creatures (e.g. tap to Mothdust Changeling).
    Lord of the Unreal is another option. Not a Dwarf, but only 2 mana and also adds Hexproof.

  4. #4
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    Re: Dwarf Bugs

    The deck looks really fun from the stream.

    I would start by tweaking it like this


    //Creatures: 28
    4 Mothdust Changeling
    2 Universal Automaton
    2 Changeling Outcast
    4 Magda, Brazen Outlaw
    3 Unsettled Mariner
    3 Masked Vandal
    4 Dwarven Recruiter
    1 Realmwalker
    4 Valiant Changeling
    1 Platinum Emperion

    //Planeswalkers: 4
    4 Grist, the Hunger Tide

    //Artifacts: 7
    4 Aether Vial
    3 Pyre of Heroes

    //Lands: 21
    4 Cavern of Souls
    4 Unclaimed Territory
    3 City of Brass
    3 Mana Confluence
    3 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
    2 Ally Encampment
    1 Reflecting Pool
    1 Swarmyard

    //Sideboard: 15
    4 Leyline of the Void
    3 Brain Maggot
    1 Ethersworn Canonist
    1 Crucible of Fire
    1 Depala, Pilot Exemplar
    1 Fairgrounds Warden
    1 Dwarven Blastminer
    1 Goblin Charbelcher
    1 Utvara Hellkite
    1 Mirror Entity


    +1 Grist
    +1 Recruiter
    -1 Swarmyard
    -1 Feline Sovereign

    +2 Outcast
    -2 Automaton

    +1 Vandal
    -1 Mariner

    +2 City of Brass
    -1 Confluence
    -1 Reflecting Pool


    Reasons
    Often the deck really needs to draw Grist, Recruiter or Magda to beat the opponent's game state. Grist is very strong in general. This is probably the best Grist deck in Legacy (so many ways to abuse it), and Grist is the only removal in the deck, so Grist should be 4-of. Redundant copies are not a problem... opponent will remove them or lose.

    Recruiter is a 1-card combo even without Grist (Realmwalker + Magda pile), can tutor for silver bullet answers, and is the only card in the deck really capable of recovering in topdeck mode, so 4 copies seems good main. Copies can always be shaved postboard. This optimizes combo shenanigans in game 1, when it's most likely to work and the opponent won't know what's going on.

    Feline Sovereign is an easy cut. Easily the worst card in the deck. Masked Vandal is a more reliable disenchant effect when you need to remove something, and there are much better lord effects.

    22 lands seems high. I shaved a land and tweaked the configuration to cut down on Reflecting Pool and Swarmyard because they're the lands most likely to manascrew you. Can't afford do-nothing lands in this format. That one board state with 2 Pool + 2 Swarmyard was just painful. The original deck had 4 Confluence + 1 City of Brass. That seemed wrong to me. Sure City is bad against Port, but Confluence can't tap for mana with Emperion out, so Confluence is no longer strictly better. 3-3 split?

    I swapped 2 Automatons for 2 Outcasts. The creator used Automaton because it can block Ragavan but I think 4 copies is overreacting to the monkey. Monkey already dies to everything in the deck and doesn't even want to cast most of your stuff. Automaton walks harder into disenchants (Force of Vigor, Serenity, Wear//Tear). Outcast can tap for Magda (unblockable) and can't get ambushed by flash blockers.

    I made a lot of changes to the sideboard. I don't think you are winning games by trying to Plague Engineer/Kozilek's Return another weenie deck. Kozilek is hard to cast and sets this deck backwards too, even if the 2nd ability is cute with Valiant Changeling. Better to be the aggressor and try to combo harder than bringing in slow 3-mana reactive answers to their creatures. They'll have better trades overall and their creatures are better, so they should be favored after the board wipe.

    Against combo you do need answers, so I kept Leylines and Canonist. I added Brain Maggot for discard. It's a 2-mana Insect so it's uncounterable with Caverns, can be Vialed in at instant speed, and can be Pyred into Grist. Proactive plays like Maggot and Canonist seem better than passing with 2 mana up for Warping Wail. This deck is often forced to use lands at sorcery speed.

    Fairgrounds Warden seems good vs fatty decks. This replaces Dragonlord Silumgar. Dragonlord might be better, but Warden is much easier to get in play (Pyre @ 2, Recruiter, Vial @ 3, cast with lands).

    Opponents will absolutely board in X/1 hate (Plague Engineer, Blazing Volley, Liliana Last Hope, Jitte, etc). The SB needs an answer. Crucible of Fire's +3/+3 is a clean 1-card proactive solution and alternate wincon, but 4 mana is also a lot. Needs testing. Depala is a Dwarf lord that draws cards. Seems good. Any other 2-mana lord (Lord of the Unreal hexproof, Master of the Pearl Trident vs Islands.format) could be good for curve reasons.

    Utvara Hellkite is a 2nd 8-mana fatty target when you want something aggressive to end the game instead of Emperion's defense. Magda can find it (Dragon). So can Pyre + Valiant Changeling. Mirror Entity is another option.

    Edit: More on why I don't like Plague Engineer here. To get turn 3 Engineer, you need one of the following sequences
    1) Lucksack it in opening hand & hit 3 mana with a reliable black source
    2) T1 Vial, T2 Pyre, T3 Vial in 2-mana changeling & Pyre it into Engineer
    3) T1 Mothdust, T2 Magda + make treasures + play changelings, T3 5 treasures into Pyre into Engineer

    In #2 you dump your hand and first 3 turns just to make Plague Engineer. Sure you might kill some guys, but then you have no board state and no game plan, you wasted a Vandal or Mariner as fodder, and if they remove Engineer they probably recover faster than you.
    #3 you're already winning, you could just get Emperion or anything else.
    In #1 you rely on getting lucky and not getting disrupted (more luck).
    Otherwise it takes longer to get out Engineer. By then, the tribal deck might already win. Slower Engineer might help against slow D&T but they also have a lot of removal for it and mana denial to keep you off 2B.
    These just seem like losing fights to pick.

    A big problem here: Pyre is slow. It takes 4 mana + a creature to do anything. Then you're still down a card, so you better get something unfair. If you get a fair card, opponent trades up and you're playing from behind on both cards and tempo. Pyre starts to pay off after multiple activations. But that's really slow. If you're only activating once, Neoform is much faster. Neoform is very hard to cast in this manabase though... but maybe there is a way to fix the mana.
    Last edited by FTW; 09-15-2021 at 11:37 AM.

  5. #5

    Re: Dwarf Bugs

    I agree with you FTW about almost everything: i want to take this deck at my proxy tournament this sunday (and make some leagues with it before on modo), but yeah pyre seems slow, at the same time it feels necessary with so many cc1 with niche applications: in the anu video seems like we want a chain to have specific piece often. Not saying that Neoform can't be better, but i think it would be so when moving away from this hilarious manabase to something different (if possible).

    Fairgrounds Warden is a nice card, agree. I think this deck needs a b plan and Crucible works in evading engineer pretty well for sure, but yeah cc4 seems a lot/not reliable. In a version with Springleaf Drum it would be better for sure.

    Another thing to consider is a Coat of Arms md as a secondary, cheaper artifact with huge impact if we draw Emperor. Is way easier to cast and the bonus can easily get out of control. I think i'm gonna play one bw it and Mirror Entity md in the league.

    Another idea could be playing mox opal to accelerate things up, with glimmervoid and Spire of Innovation as rainbow lands but maybe it's asking for more problems post side.

    About the sideboard, i think that something like Kozilek's Return is still needed: i agree that Engineer seems slow/not enough impactful at that point, but we are a combo deck more than an aggro one against those decks that we want return for, and casting it from the grave is usually gg (niche application, but faesible with so many tutors i think). I like the brain maggot idea and the proactive approach, even if some of the cool things you said (uncounterable, insect for grist) don't really applies in the mu where we want it probably (combo). I mean, are we podding away it for grist in what mu, Miracle? Are we boarding them in against delver or other fair mu? don't think so

  6. #6
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    Re: Dwarf Bugs

    Quote Originally Posted by Memories of the Time View Post
    i want to take this deck at my proxy tournament this sunday (and make some leagues with it before on modo)
    Good luck! Looking forward to hearing results.

    Quote Originally Posted by Memories of the Time View Post
    Another thing to consider is a Coat of Arms md as a secondary, cheaper artifact with huge impact if we draw Emperor. Is way easier to cast and the bonus can easily get out of control. I think i'm gonna play one bw it and Mirror Entity md in the league.
    If you draw Platinum Emperion you can cast it with the 5 treasures. 5 treasures = +5 mana.

    Coat of Arms is a great idea. Maybe better SB because it's symmetrical. You do not want it if they have more creatures than you (your changelings buff their team). Also too many Magda targets lead to dead draws. Coat of Arms is a good answer for Plague Engineer (net -0/-0 to your changelings). Probably better than Crucible because you can get it with Magda and it doesn't need colored mana.


    Quote Originally Posted by Memories of the Time View Post
    Another idea could be playing mox opal to accelerate things up, with glimmervoid and Spire of Innovation as rainbow lands but maybe it's asking for more problems post side.
    I think there aren't enough artifacts to support that reliably. The meta is also full of artifact hate. Not worth it.


    Quote Originally Posted by Memories of the Time View Post
    but yeah pyre seems slow, at the same time it feels necessary with so many cc1 with niche applications: in the anu video seems like we want a chain to have specific piece often. Not saying that Neoform can't be better, but i think it would be so when moving away from this hilarious manabase to something different (if possible).
    Yeah, I kept Pyre above because it still fits better than other options.

    In Anu's video, there were also many cases where Pyre was too slow or when he only needed to activate it once. He considered swapping some for Birthing Pods, but Pod is a turn 3 card so it's still slow. Pyre/Pod is only better if you activate multiple times. If you only activate once, Neoform is less mana for a better effect (+1/+1 counter & any creature type). But UG is hard... Eldritch Evolution does +2 but GG is still hard.

    Quote Originally Posted by Memories of the Time View Post
    I like the brain maggot idea and the proactive approach, even if some of the cool things you said (uncounterable, insect for grist) don't really applies in the mu where we want it probably (combo). I mean, are we podding away it for grist in what mu, Miracle? Are we boarding them in against delver or other fair mu? don't think so
    Uncounterable helps vs Doomsday. They have too much disruption for a few counterable SB cards to matter.
    Also OmniTell, SneakShow... any combo deck with counters.

    Insect for Grist could matter on the killing turn. Pyre it into Grist (giving them card back), play Recruiter same turn, +1 Grist.
    You risk them winning with the returned card, but if you don't go for a fast enough kill they may just draw into another win anyway. This is a lot safer if you have Emperion out and just need to win before they remove it.
    Maybe this is still too slow vs combo and only good against control.


    Quote Originally Posted by Memories of the Time View Post
    About the sideboard, i think that something like Kozilek's Return is still needed: i agree that Engineer seems slow/not enough impactful at that point, but we are a combo deck more than an aggro one against those decks that we want return for, and casting it from the grave is usually gg (niche application, but faesible with so many tutors i think).
    Yeah, maybe keep some Returns and see if it works.

    I'm just thinking of the Elves match Anu played. He drew the 2-of SB card and cast it and wiped their board and his own, but they recovered faster and won. It didn't help him actually win vs Elves. This deck topdecks bad changelings, card disadvantage and conditional lands while most creature decks have better draws. Opponent should recover from the wipe better. Even if he was able to recur that Valiant Changeling to trigger Kozilek, he clears the board to stay alive longer but isn't much closer to winning himself. To cast that Valiant, you need another changeling too (to reduce cost). That's using 2 cards to trigger Kozilek. Then you're still far from assembling winning combos. Kozilek's Return hurts the opponent, but does it help this deck progress towards a winning state? Needs more testing.

    Against D&T, Maverick or Goblins they can Waste you off Red mana. Thalia makes it cost 4.

    Doesn't combo usually play the "aggressor" role vs creature piles? Boarding into 3-mana board wipes is taking a control role.

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