Diglett.decWhat is Diglett.dec?
Diglett.dec is aaggro-control deck that splashes
for the use of Astral Slide and Swords to Plowshares. The deck's goal in the early game is to build its resources by playing its mana fixers and accelerators while applying disruptive pressure on the opponent via discard. Once it stabilizes, it can end the game quickly by beating down with large creatures backed up by Astral Slide to remove blockers.
How did Diglett.dec evolve?
Diglett.dec was born indirectly from my fetish for CiP effects, particularly ones you can use over and over and over again. This love for 187 creatures eventually fueled my love for Astral Slide, which in turn led to the development of Diglett’s predecessor deck, Jigglypuff (in case you’re wondering, yes, I do name all my decks after Pokemon. Don’t ask). Jigglypuff was only green and white and used cards like Wall of Blossoms and Sakura-Tribe Elder as defensive creatures with Jotun Grunt and Loxodon Hierarch being your primary offensive ones. The deck was solid but uninspired and had trouble with both Goblins and Solidarity, and after trying but failing to fix both these problems I dropped it shortly after the release of Coldsnap to work on other projects.
Fast forward to a year and a half later, after the release of Lorwyn. With this set’s release, a number of very good creatures in Jigglypuff colors are floating around in the Legacy card pool, the most important of which is Tarmogoyf. Furthermore, shortly after Goyf’s release, a certain Sean DeCoursey wrote an article for MTGSalvation about the use of Tarmogoyf in Astral Slide. While I found the article intriguing at the time, and felt that fast and powerful offensive creatures like Goyf could be the solution to Jigglypuff’s problems (or part of it, anyway), I didn’t begin to put two and two together to get IngSoc until early December. At the time, I was looking for some constructive use for Doran, since what is effectively a 5/5 guy for three mana in one of my favorite tribes just seemed so cool to me. Unfortunately, as bad-ass as Doran is, I could not for the life of me find a deck where I liked him, and I had sold my 3 non-foil copies and given up on the Siege Tower when I stumbled across the remnants of my old Slide deck while digging around in my collection. At this point, a number of things hit me in quick succession:
1) Sean DeCoursey had written about a Doran-colored Slide deck in that article,
2) I had never previously tried a black splash in Slide, but I remembered such a deck doing well in a local tournament some time back,
3) Doran is a bad-ass motherfucker,
4) Treefolk Harbinger is pretty good with both Doran and Astral Slide.
Reeling from the flashflood of epiphany I had just been submerged in, I realized that there might be a deck somewhere in all of this, perhaps even a competitive one. And so, after a half-hour of furious building and rebuilding, the following was born…
4 Treefolk Harbinger
4 Wall of Roots
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Eternal Witness
1 Doran, the Siege Tower
4 Astral Slide
3 Solitary Confinement
3 Life from the Loam
4 Renewed Faith
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Orim’s Chant
2 Savannah
2 Bayou
4 Forest
4 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
4 Tranquil Thicket
4 Secluded Steppe
I had high hopes for this build but initial playtesting results were disappointing. The deck consistently felt underpowered – as one observer noted, it “didn’t do anything broken” – and the core engines of the deck took too long to bring online. While the deck’s synergy was great, it felt too weak to be viable. A number of changes were made, the most significant of which involved dropping the Treefolk, but the deck didn’t fare much better here either.
I was on the verge of giving up on Diglett.dec as unplayable when I had an interesting conversation with a friend who lurks here under the name of “Twinkee.” I don’t recall exactly what was discussed, but a number of important things came out of it: first, that the deck as-is was too weak to be played; second, that Astral Slide is nice but not game-breaking enough to devote an entire deck to; third, that Life from the Loam is a retarded draw engine. Since the LftL draw engine was simply too good to pass up, I decided that any changes to the deck would need to keep the deck primarily in green. Looking at thecolor combination, I realized that there was already a deck trying to do what I was doing, but in a different way: The Rock. Plugging Life from the Loam into the Rock would allow me to add Astral Slide as well, which could replace the Genesis/Stronghold recursion engines that deck sometimes uses and give me a potent offensive and defensive weapon.
A number of things were reworked, but I think the biggest difference between this version and its predecessor is not the card changes but rather the logic behind the deck. The big tipping point came once I realized that Slide shouldn’t be the main focus of the deck, but rather an accessory to it. The first Diglett.dec was much like a bad build of Survival: with its namesake enchantment in play, it was powerful, but it tended to flounder badly if that didn’t happen. One of the important things to keep in mind when building Survival is that the deck has to work both with and without Survival in play. Why shouldn’t that apply here? Taking the focus off Slide in favor of making the deck good freed up a lot of restrictions I had placed on myself and allowed me to significantly restructure the list to bring it up to snuff. With that in mind, I present: Diglett.dec.
The List
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wall of Roots
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Eternal Witness
2 Loxodon Hierarch
3 Shriekmaw
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Thoughtseize
3 Life from the Loam
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Astral Slide
4 Barren Moor
4 Tranquil Thicket
4 Bayou
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
Sideboard:
4 Gaddock Teeg
4 Krosan Grip
7 Undecided Slots
Card Choices:
Birds of Paradise: The classic one-mana accelerator and fixer is quite good here in multiple ways. First, it gives you mana of any color in the early turns, when the deck is at its most vulnerable. Secondly, and more importantly in some ways, they become expendable after about turn four or so and therefore make excellent Therapy fodder.
Wall of Roots: Chosen for much the same reasons as the Birds, the Wall makes mana without tapping itself and is large enough to contain rampaging enemy Goyfs for the first few turns without biting the dust. As an added bonus, you can Slide out your Wall to reset the number of counters on it, and it flashes back Therapy like a pro.
Tarmogoyf: He’s big, he’s cheap, he stomps on all kinds of shit in this format. Yeah, I’ll take him.
Eternal Witness: Almost a “duh” choice in any deck playing green and Astral Slide together, Eternal Regrowth is the gal that allows this deck to play the control game. People tend to scoop when you get Witness and Slide in play, but even without Slide Witness is still good at retrieving dead Goyfs/discard and blocking things.
Loxodon Hierarch: This is one of the more open slots right now, and the Elephants may get dropped later. My logic here was that Hierarch is big and has an ability that plays well with Astral Slide while still being good in Slide’s absence. Testing has shown him to be so-so without an active Slide and a “win more” with one, but the big body is always appreciated. Might still become Exalted Angel.
Shriekmaw: The Salamander-Parrot of Doom is perfect for this deck. Not only is he a 3/2 evasive attacker, which is excellent in games where you can’t get Slide to stick, he kills shit. That’s really important in a wide variety of matchups, and helps give the deck an edge in a lot of cases. That you don’t have to pay full price to nerf a guy is an added bonus.
Astral Slide: In my last primer, I justified this with, “It’s an Astral Slide deck, what the fuck did you expect?” The deck has come a long way since then, so I probably have to work a little harder to explain it this time. First, Slide piggybacks on your (insane) draw engine without taking up much room. Second, it can be used to remove blockers from the game, effectively giving all of your Goyfs and Elephants “This creature can’t be blocked except by Nimble Mongoose.” You can also use it defensively in the early game to remove scary attackers, or to block with your own guys, assign combat damage, and then Slide them out to save them. Finally, Slide allows this deck to settle in for the long game, if things go awry, since it gives the deck a great deal of inevitability. The best analogy I can think of for Slide is that it’s a kind of Counterbalance that only works on creatures that are in play, but draws you cards too. With an Astral Slide out, combat tilts decidedly in your favor.
Life from the Loam: This is the most batshit insane draw engine made since Necropotence. I mean, seriously. This thing ensures a never-ending supply of cycling cards to power up Slide as well as ripping through your deck at a stupid rate. Hi5!
Swords to Plowshares: Standard spot removal for decks running white. Not much to say here.
Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize: it’s a bit difficult to justify the two discard spells separately, even though the work in different ways, so I’m lumping them together. Basically, the discard is one of the big improvements this deck has because it gives you some active, disruptive cover to resolve key spells under. I cannot even begin to describe how awesome turn one Seize, turn two Birds, Therapy, flash back Therapy is. Therapy’s ability to removal multiple cards, combined with Thoughseize’s ability to pick off dangerous singletons while letting you look at the opponent’s hand, gives the deck quite a more power than it previously had. The shift away from passive disruption (Solitary Confinement, Chant) that did nothing to correct problem situations is big here, since you no longer have to worry about what will happen when your cover gets blown. Recovering from crippling hand destruction on turns one and two is very difficult for many decks, and the choice of these two spells in particular ensures that your discard is very rarely dead in any given matchup.
Gaddock Teeg: Shriekmaw tends to be bad against combo because of its high cost and a lack of useful targets for it to kill. While it isn’t dead, it isn’t really great either. Enter Teeg. Teeg is a bear that shuts down all of combo’s win conditions, starting on turn two, and he beats for only one less damage than Shriekmaw while doing so three turns faster. He’s also some good against control as a way to stop a lot of sweepers and business spells, whereas Shriekmaw tends to be okay but not great.
Krosan Grip: Deed and EE are a kick to the balls for you, the former more so than the latter. You can mitigate both somewhat by Sliding Witness out in response and then letting her grab Slide when she pops back in, but why try to repair the damage when you can just stop it from happening in the first place? This also takes care of other random problem utility cards like Needle, Chalice, Humility, etc.
Cards Not Included:
These are the things that didn’t make the cut…or at least, the ones that I can think of off the top of my head. If someone mentions something else I considered and rejected, I’ll add it here.
Vindicate: The most flexible targeted removal spell in my colors didn’t make it in because it simply isn’t powerful enough. Three mana for a one-for-one trade with your opponent seems poor even if it has greater flexibility than your other removal spells.
Hoofprints of the Stag: I mention this because it was in the deck at one point, and it may come up. Yes, you do draw a retarded amount of cards, and yes, should you wish to do so you could make a 4/4 flying token every turn. However, by the time the game gets to the point where you’re able to fully abuse this card, you don’t want to have to tap three mana on your turn just to win more. Quite often, I would play games where Hoofprints built up 10+ counters because I would rather keep the mana open for cycling cards.
Wall of Blossoms: Wall of Roots is just plain better, because it produces mana and has a five-point ass. This is actually relevant because Tarmogoyf can easily and quickly grow to a 4/5, but has trouble getting beyond that. The card draw is useful but not so much when compared to acceleration or the ability to hold off almost every problem creature in the format indefinitely.
Some Notes:
This deck is actually quite forgiving of play mistakes, as long as you don’t make grievous ones. That said, I’ll outline the general approach I take to playing the deck, as well as a few tips to keep in mind, before I get to the matchups.
Play Tips: Your first few turns are quite crucial with this deck, as you have a wide variety of plays open to you. Which is the correct one? If you don’t know what your opponent is playing, or aren’t sure, it’s probably best to lead off with discard spells to act as reconnaissance. If you’re on the draw, their turn one play should give you some idea of what to name with Therapy, but if you’re shooting blind and don’t have a Thoughtseize, my default assumption if Therapy resolves is that my opponent is most likely playing some sort of Threshold deck, and I usually name some sort of counter with it. Even if your initial Therapy misses, you will gain valuable information about what the opponent is playing as well as targets for future Therapies.
If, however, you do know what your opponent is playing, your first few turns may change. Against control or Threshold decks, it is best to lead with your Birds and Walls so that you can out-resource your opponent as quickly as possible. Players with access to more resources over the course of the game tend to win, and you are basically in a superior position once you get Loam active - the key is making it there intact. Against Goblins and combo, the best play is again to lead with your discard. Ripping powerful cards buys you time to set up a defense and put your opponent in a position they cannot recover from. Discard is especially good against Goblins because there are some spells (Matron, Ringleader, SGC) that you don’t want your opponent to resolve.
Second, what do you do when you draw multiple Astral Slides (and you occasionally will)? That depends largely on the matchup. In aggro matchups, it’s generally best to play them all out so you can get the most removal mileage out of each cycling card, and it also allows you to tag one of your guys and one or more of theirs per cycle card. If you have more Slides than relevant targets, you can target one guy with more than one Slide trigger and let the ones after the first fizzle. In control and aggro-control matchups, you generally want to hold extra Slides because the chances of them answering Slide are better, and they have fewer creatures for you to worry about. Slide is mostly irrelevant versus combo because they often won’t have creatures that you can beneficially Slide out.
Third, when should you use StP instead of Slide or Shriekmaw to remove guys? You generally want to save Swords for the guys that you feel you’d want to Slide out every turn – in other words, the really dangerous threats. You’ll also want StP guys with CiP abilities if they’re dangerous enough – this goes without saying, but just in case someone misses it, DO NOT SLIDE OUT YOUR OPPONENT’S CIP GUYS. For the record, I do not have personal experience in this matter. Swords is also your best way to deal with Bob, since Shriekmaw can’t touch him and he tends to become a problem. Finally, Swords is excellent against man lands where Shriekmaw isn’t.
Finally, what do you do about graveyard hate? That depends largely on what the hate is and what they do with it. If the hate is Crypt or Leyline, Grip that shit and don’t worry about it. If you don’t have Grip, keep a cycle land in your hand at all times for emergency dredges on Loam (if it’s Crypt), or just try to avoid cycling cards until you can draw Grip (if it’s Leyline). The real problem here is Extirpate, since there’s nothing you can do about it and a smart opponent can neuter you if they hit the right things. If you know they have it, you’ll want to allocate all of your draw resources to getting as many guys as possible into play as quickly as possible to go for the damn-the-torpedoes beatdown victory. Also, only cycle ONE of your two different cycle lands - hold all copies you draw of the other so that you still have cycle cards if they peg your first cycle land. Losing Loam is a pain in the ass but not GG. Losing your cycling cards is quite often fatal unless you were within spitting distance of winning or your opponent is unlucky.
Sample Hands: To do this, I sat down and goldfished the deck (preboard, obviously) quite a large number of times to see what general things you want to look for in an opening hand. Well, let me rephrase that. Before I began working on this primer, good opening hands for Diglett.dec were like pornography: tough to define, but I knew them when I saw them. Hopefully this is an adequate demonstration of what I consider to be a good hand. Try to evaluate the hand before you read my decision.
~Hands will come later, I’m tired.~
Matchup Analyses:
~In the works~
Yeah, yeah, I’ll catch shit for this from somebody, but my sideboard is only half-done and I’m trying to figure out what to dedicate the remaining slots to before I wrap up this section. My testing has been against:
Green Goblins
Red Thresh (with a tempo focus)
Black Thresh (with a control focus, Counterbalance main here)
TES
Ichorid
WUBG Landstill
Chalice Aggro (Dragon and Faerie)
Goblins: Even to marginally in your favor. Whether you win or lose depends a lot on the relative explosiveness of your respective opening hands. The bit about wanting to maximize your early-game activity is doubly true here. Try to nab CiP effect Goblins and Piledrivers with your discard and get a Slide active ASAP. Slide + Shriekmaw is pretty much good game for them.
Red Thresh (tempo version): to clarify – this deck runs 4 Stifle, 4 Wasteland, and more Threshold guys than normal these days, with what is essentially an aggro focus. This matchup is about even to slightly unfavorable for you. Birds are very fragile in the face of burn, and you often can’t recover from heavy anti-mana pressure in the early game. That said, Wall of Blossoms is GOLDEN here because it is retardedly difficult to get rid of for them and it produces mana. Also, getting a Loam going is usually good game unless you’re so far behind that it doesn’t matter. Basically, if you can weather the early disruption, your game plan is better than theirs. The problem is that whether or not you can weather it (heh) is largely up to their draws, since a Wasteland followed by a Fire on your Birds can tip the match away from you.
Black Thresh (control version): Positive. The biggest threats they have are Counterbalance and Bob. Ripping one or both with early discard basically seals the game for you, as you tend to beat Threshold in the long run (think Red Thresh, but without mana disruption). That said, a resolved Counterbalance is game over for you and you should try as hard as possible to prevent this from happening in game one (game two gets better because you have Grips). Bob can give you a run for your money in the card advantage department and allow them to draw into (and play) Counterbalance, so he should never be allowed to live more than a turn if you can help it.
TES: Even to slightly unfavorable. Hands with heavy discard are golden here, and you generally want to remove their mana accelerators in the first few passes. Therapy is usually better than Thoughtseize because you can get more mileage out of it, and sacrificing Birds right away to flash back Therapy is often the best possible play when you’re trying to keep them from going off. Therapy first for LED and then take anything else relevant that you see – hitting LED slows them down and a second pass on their hand will only hurt further. However, without discard to throw them off balance early on, you tend to lose.
Ichorid: X___X
Landstill: Marginally in your favor. Deed makes you a sad panda, and counters on your important spells do as well, but that doesn’t mean you lose. You’re going to be in for the long haul here, so try not to be too liberal with your life total in the early game. Good Therapy targets are sweepers (especially Deed) and things that let them recur lands (in the builds I’ve tested against, it’s usually Crucible). Standstill should only be blown by discard spells, because that way you can quickly neutralize anything good they get with it. The longer they wait to drop Standstill, the better-off you are, and an active Goyf can win you the game if you resolve it before they can resolve Seal of Ancestral Recall. Slide is really good here because getting one in play gives them essentially no way to win.
Chalice Aggro: Depends, but both are roughly even. Chalice at one and two stunt your development massively, perhaps even fatally, but if they don’t do both or you’re on the play then you can still gun for a fast Goyf/Slide. Life gain from Jitte gives you problems, but if they’ve got no guys to attach it to, it becomes a lot less dangerous (hint hint). Like Goblins, this gets markedly better for you the longer you live, as weathering the early game allows you to play power cards they have no answers for and turn things around. Prime Therapy targets are Chalices and equipment.
My biggest issue with this deck right now is how it tends to get rolled early on by mana disruption. Suggestions?
Last edited by Aggro_zombies; 01-12-2008 at 05:13 AM.
I didn't see you put Wall of Blossoms on the "been there done that" list. Have you tried him out? I guess he may not be necessary since you run a lot of cycling but he could help find Doran faster. Also, I know he's not too good but how about the black cycler (forgot his name) that cycles for 2life and there's the green one that cycles on a land sac. Just some options!
Also, I would try out thoughtseize over Orim's Chant, have you tried this at all?
Fairly well written primer, seems like the deck could be a silent killer in an aggro metagame.
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Originally Posted by OBFREELY
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DECK NEWS AND UPDATES
1-12-2008: I'm working on fixing the OP to reflect the build that is currently being tested. It will most likely take me a few days to make all the necessary corrections, so please be patient.
Last edited by Aggro_zombies; 01-12-2008 at 03:22 AM.
Given that the deck is practically two-colour, fills the graveyard quickly, has uses for colourless mana, and runs Life from the Loam, can a couple spots be cut in the manabase for Nantuko Monasteries? While there's no particular synergy with the rest of the deck, a 4/4 first striker is a nice addition to any deck if the price is that small.
EDIT: I also occasionally have trouble with the 'edit' feature. My suggestion is to use the "Go advanced" button: it seems not to have such problems there.
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I'm not sure how many cyclers you need, but wouldn't Pulse of the Fields be decent, at least as a 2 of over some of the Renewed Faiths? This is obviously a no-go if your list is already tight on Cycling cards, but if you can spare a few slots, it seems better then Faith here.
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Try "Go Advanced" (unless that is an Admin only option).In case I need it. Also, I wanted to edit my post to make it easier to read, but for some reason it won't save my edits...
I want to second the inclusion of Street Wraith. He seems like a natural inclusion for cheaper Sliding. But of course, we have to wonder what to replace. Maybe you could shave off a land or two, but you said that the Renewed Faith were pretty necesary. Could you take out a Witness? Overall, it's a tough fit for a card that does "nothing."
Couple more things. #1:
What's wrong here with: T1 Steppe, go. T2 Forest, Wall of Roots, go. T3 Astral Slide (using Wall's ability if needed). T4 (or T3 if you've drawn a non-CIP land) start getting it on with the two Thickets in your hand?Hand 1: Forest, Thicket, Thicket, Steppe, Slide, Goyf, Wall of Roots.
Send it back. You don’t want to play your cycling lands for mana if you can possibly avoid it, which means you need to hit another land with either an EoT Thicket or your next turn’s draw step so you can play your Wall and follow it with either a Slide or a Goyf. You *can* hold onto this, which may be the correct decision against a slow deck like control, but against anything capable of moving at a faster-than-glacial-speed pace, it’s not worth the risk. By the way, if one of those Thickets had been a Savannah, Heath, or Plains, this hand would have been godly.
#2:Kidding, right? Short of your first nine cards being 3 Chant, 4 Goyf, 2 land, I can't see you beating this one. And I can't imagine how you could set up Solitary Confinement and put TES on a fast enough clock to beat Burning Wish.TES: Even pre-board.
YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
You can't take out the 2nd witness because if one gets sworded that is it. Plus with the 2 witnesses it allows you to combo for a chant lock. Actually I would put more witnesses in myself because they are very helpful.
Also, why no Eternal Dragon? I always loved this guy in the deck.
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You could probably play dark confidant in this list. It fills your hand for confinement when you dont have life from the loam.You can probably play e plauge but it seems that they are going to bring in enchantment hate anyways against you. I also agree that the fast combo matchup is alot worse then you say it is.
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Wow, lots of commentary. Thanks for the edit tips, it worked this time around. Okay...
Monastery: The last time I tested these was in the straight
Street Wraith: Yeah, I know, I'm torn on this one too. The free cycling is hot, but the life loss isn't, and...well...he doesn't do anything otherwise, like you said. I mean, I could cast him if I bend over backwards, but...he was in the deck initially but he got cut in favor of Chant (I think) at some point during testing. I could put him back, but he felt lackluster except as Slide fodder.
TES: Eh, well, couple things. First, I may have hit an incompetent pilot, I'll admit that. I can test this against someone else this evening, but I don't know if I'll have time. But...do note that they don't always go off in the first two turns, and if they don't, you can drop Confinement and gun for Doran/Goyfs ASAP. A Doran, 3/4 or so Goyf, and a Harbinger are 12 damage per turn, and this isn't entirely unrealistic. Again, I will admit that this matchup is less good than it looks without Teeg, because then they have two different problem permanents to answer on top of Chant disruption.
Pulse of the Fields: The list does occasionally feel tight on cycling cards until you get Loam, so I'm not sure what the right call here is. I'm also not sure what matchups it would help that simply playing Renewed Faith wouldn't, but I'll look into it.
Thanks for the comments, guys!
EDIT:
Plague: I want to try Elephant Grass instead because what I really need is something to cover me for the first few turns. Once I stabilize I can let it die, but in the meantime I really need something that hits fast and keeps me afloat for 2-3 turns. It would also help against Ichorid, a lot, because of its speed. Btw, I guess Ichorid would probably be a better analogue for the fast combo matchup, except instead of a bunch of Goblins or Tendrils, you have to deal with a shitload of hasty zombies on turn 1-2. Ugh. I may consider Abeyance again, but the hell if I know where I'll put it.
Eternal Dragon: I ran him at one point but Harbinger is a better land searcher and the Dragon is kinda lame until you can start recurring him.
Bob: ...no. This deck has problems with life loss and no way to stack the top of your library. You'd lose an average of about 2 life per turn to this guy, which is bad.
More Witness: Yes, I feel this way as well, but I don't know what to cut. It's possible that I'd cut a fourth Wall, but that card is so vital in the early game that I really don't want to...
Sample Hand discussed by Nihil: You can do that, but I should have mentioned that Wasteland is very bad for you if you try that. It's still worth doing if you suspect you can get away with it.
Edge of Autumn can be a free cycler that can help you get to Slide mana if you're screwed. The sacrificed land might not even matter with Life from the Loam.
Now, it may just be a cute trick, but I remember some standard deck a thousand years ago that ran mesmeric fiend and slide, which would allow them to play the fiend, slide it out with the comes into play trigger on the stack (putting the leaves play trigger on the stack on top), effectively tying a castigate onto their fiend. Might be okay in the board for the control mirror.
That was the funniest thing I've seen all day.
When I tried a Green-White version of this deck, Loxodon Hierarch used to be MVP: he gains obscene amount of life with slide, provides beats, blocks and an alternate protection for your critters!
That was a different deck (using krosan tusker and eternal dragon as mana engines) but why not including Hierarch anyway?
What's funny is that I see this as one of those decks that is hard to figure out what you SHOULDN'T put in. All of those suggestions seem at least reasonable (Fiend in the SB for combo/control). SO where do we draw the line between necessity and just cool?
You need Nantuko Monestary. It's not a question.
If they can keep you off Astral Slide, which most decks will attempt to do, you have exactly five intimidating cards in the deck. 4 Tarmogoyfs and 1 Doran, The Siege Tower. And you have absolutely no way to protect them.
Monestary gives you much-needed inevitability against Control by getting your Loam Engine, and makes your deck actually function if you can't get a Slide to stick.
This has been my dilemma. So far, I've been looking to include cards that are flexible, objectively strong, or both; early and mid-game plays are important, and I've tried to set the deck's curve such that you can develop fairly consistently and quickly. The biggest thing, though, has been whether or not a card is a one-trick horse. In a deck like this where space is at a premium, I need options out of my "non-givens." That's why things like Street Wraith ultimately didn't make the cut - they did only did one thing when I needed them to be flexible.
I think the deck needs more threats and I'm not so sure that 4x monastaries are the best solution, so here's a list of creatures to help out that low threat density.
1. Exalted Angel (really really really good with doran.)
2. Eternal Dragon
3. Loxodon Heirarch
4. Krosan Tusker
5. Tivadar of Thorn (goblins matchup)
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Team Brown & Team Unicorn. Does that make me a Brown Unicorn?
You never mention Shriekmaws wonderful synergy with Slide. Was this just overlooked? Double Terror and a 3/2 Fear for 2 mana and whatever the cyclying cost (obviously with slide out) seems hot.Shriekmaw: The deck runs black, but it doesn’t run the Terminator? Well…I’m still up in the air over this one, but I’ll lay out my arguments for not including it to see what the rest of you think. First, he costs five mana, which is quite a lot considering his only colored mana requirement is the color you have the least access to. Secondly, he’s not so hot with Doran. Third, targeting their guys with Slide accomplishes much the same thing, albeit in a less permanent manner, and I wasn’t sure I wanted that much redundancy with Swords already in the deck. That said, he is a one-parrotsalamanderthing killing machine, so…
I concur. After reading your reasoning I figured you were probably right, A_Z, but being able to pay 1BW (or some other color) for a Terror, and then another Terror with a 3/2 fear attached, seems awfully good to me. Did you realize that sliding out Shreikmaw means he doesn't die when he comes back in? Synergy with Doran is not so hot, but if you have Doran, you have, well, Doran. A 5/5 on the table that turns your Harbingers into 3/3s and your Walls into 5/5 blocking machines will probably outweigh the fact that Shriekmaw is only a 2/2 fear. That you can slide to nuke a dude.
Okay, now that I've thought about it, I'm not sure there's a reason not to run our beaked slamander friend.
On a cursory note, I liked the name 'Chocolate Rain' for this deck as well, you know.
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With my limited testing, I can definitely vouch for two things. First, more Doran. Maybe even just a second copy, but I repeatedly found myself needing backup copies for whatever reason. Second, Shriekmaw. 3 for 1s are hot I hear, and blowing decks out of the water with his effect seems amazing.
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