This is a token horde Ghave deck that steers clear of any infinite combos. Most games I ramp, draw some cards, and/or build some resources up into the mid-game where the deck's attrition elements kick in. Lots of removal (I can kill any kind of permanents pretty dead) and Grave Pact-style effects clear the board while my token production goes crazy. I can take a few Wraths to the chin and keep coming most of the time, especially once I've got something fun like Grave Pact and Ghave on the board to keep everyone's board creature-free.
However, the deck is capable of some pretty explosive wins if it lands a God-hand. I've won games against pretty solid decks (by my meta's standard lol) before they could manage to deal a single point of damage to me. That's not common, but it's happened a couple times.
It also has good late game staying power. I have enough token producers to keep churning out armies, I can dip into the graveyard if enough things die, and I can kill the living crap out of things throughout the entire game. I don't have a whole lot of card draw, but in a longer game I usually have enough to avoid running out of gas.
I love this deck. It's definitely my favorite to play. When I first built it, I made a conscious choice to avoid running any tutors. I know they make decks better and I do have a handful of really good ones but I built this deck to be strong but fun and the variety of a 99 card highlander deck seemed really fun. If I need to up the power on the deck for some reason I'll toss Demonic Tutor, Tooth and Nail, Chord of Calling, and the like in and see what happens.
Considering how much I've enjoyed this deck I've been willing to buy more money cards for this deck than any of my others. Cards like Doubling Season, Judge Foil Bitterblossom, and Overgrown Tomb are a ways outside my budget but I've managed to pick them up via Christmas gifts and me recently trading away some cards I have no need of (Goblin Guides and Emrakul, the Aeons Torns among others). With that in mind, any suggestions for this deck should be relatively budget friendly. Anything over $10 needs to be really important, anything over $20 just isn't gonna happen outside of special occasions.
With all that said, whadya think? What's good? What sucks? What doesn't quite look right? Any and all feedback is appreciated.
Personally, I'd replace the Hornet Queen with a Requiem Angel; she's cheaper, color-friendlier, and has a repeatable effect. Also, I know Coat of Arms draws a lot of hate, but it's better than Eldrazi Conscription. Sprout Swarm wins games for me (my play group has almost every Wrath effect out there), and Grim backwoods and Viscera Seer are both decent, if not great, sac outlets.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Personally, I'd replace the Hornet Queen with a Requiem Angel; she's cheaper, color-friendlier, and has a repeatable effect. Also, I know Coat of Arms draws a lot of hate, but it's better than Eldrazi Conscription. Sprout Swarm wins games for me (my play group has almost every Wrath effect out there), and Grim backwoods and Viscera Seer are both decent, if not great, sac outlets.
Requiem Angel is a card I had my eye on, but I've kept Hornet Queen because it offers an immediate impact and the Deathtouch is nice. The Angel is still tempting though.
Sprout Swarm is something I've heard a lot of good things about from a lot of different people. I have a copy sitting around not doing anything, so I might have to give it a try and see what all the fuss is about lol.
I see where you're going with this but it's not the direction I'm interested in. I build this to be a token swarm deck primarily. I purposely avoided infinite combos because my group doesn't much care for them. I personally dislike lockdowns as well.
Tutors are much more tempting to add in, the only reason I haven't is because I was seeing how the deck ran without them and I've really enjoyed it. The added variance was a nice change of pace and this deck was meant to be more fun than competitive. I might change my mind and add in my Demonic Tutor, Chord of Calling, Tooth and Nail, et al.
With the release of AVR, I feel like it's time to post the updates I've made to the deck. Most of them have proven to be good calls while the cards from AVR still need testing.
I'm also unsure of how well Savra, Queen of the Golgari's gonna work out. I've only drawn her once and she got herself killed in a sweeper soon after, but I worry that I've got enough white creatures and white token producers that are too good to take out and I won't be able to get great value out of her. If that fails then I'll just plug Sorin, Lord of Innistrad back in. If that happens, I'll probably replace Hornet Queen with Requiem Angel or (more interestingly) Twilight Drover to see if they're good enough.
With Ashnod's Altar, you can make a large/large Twilight Drover without going infinite.
Very true, but it goes infinite with so many other cards in this deck. I don't wanna have to hold back with this deck because I put Ashnod's Altar in with the best of non-infinite intentions. Just doesn't seem worth it.
I really like your version of the deck. So many others tend to make Ghave just an infinite combo deck. I have a similar build to yours, and it's a ton of fun to play.
Have you considered running cauldron of souls? I find it to be one of the most important cards in the deck, made better by Ghave's abilities. I actually usually transmute it up over doubling season.
My playgroup is the same. We don't run any combo decks that require less than four pieces, so I am looking to build this duder up as a token deck instead (the combo deck is just too easy).
How about the Garruks??? Overrun is fun, as is putting wurms into play for +1. Draws some hate, but your just making durdly tokens, so most people don't care =P.
I also like kjeldoran outpost, but you need the dual lands to really get it live reliably.
Garruk Wildspeaker is one of my favorite Planeswalkers, but he's not quite good enough in this deck (in my opinion). I've got plenty of better ramp options, I'd never make tokens with him, and while his Overrun is good I've got plenty of other buff abilities.
Garruk, Primal Hunter isn't bad for this deck but A) I don't own a copy, B) if I did track down a copy I'd prolly get more use out of it in my Stonebrow deck and C) everyone in my playgroup would care about my durdly tokens lol. They've learned that letting me make a ton of tokens unhindered is incredibly bad for their health. They'd try to murderize this guy the second he hits play to make sure I don't make a ton of 6/6s. He is tempting though.
(Side note: No Garruk puts Wurms into play as a +1. I assume you meant Primal Hunter's +1 which puts Beasts into play.)
They're both plenty good, but I feel like I've got better options.
I've thought about Kjeldoran Outpost, but it's a tough card to find. I only know one person who owns a copy and he's playing it in one of his decks lol. I run six Plains and I'll definitely pick up Godless Shrine when Gatecrash comes out, so having a Plains to nuke isn't a big deal. This is going right in the list if I can ever find a copy of it...
Bloodline Keeper is in over Verdant Force because of how much cheaper it is. Coming out three plus turns early has been very relevant a couple times. Plus, the couple times I've flipped Keeper has led to some serious blowouts.
Savra was in as an experiment. She never really worked out. Grave Pact was better, Martyr's Bond was better and if I wanted a third I'd probably just go with Butcher of Malakir. Savra didn't mesh. In went Triumph of the Horde...it's just a really powerful Overrun.
Army of the Damned was put in because it interacted well with Savra. Now that Savra's gone, Increasing Devotion goes back in.
Ok, so after casting Storm Herd for 35-40 and having it answered by a sweeper for the dozenth time it occurred to me that Gaddock Teeg could be really, really good in this deck. I'm not looking to drop him in an attempt to slow the board down or anything, I just think it would be a really good way to protect my board before I go off. Dropping it before I build up a massive token army stops almost all board wipes and thus makes my opponents' lives much worse. Anyone used Teeg in a token deck before? Results?
So have you updated this deck with the RTR stuff? Personally, I've added in Korozda Guildmage and Corpsejack Menace.
I also added in Skullmulcher for "Cast skullmulcher, sac any number of tokens, draw that many cards, then if Korozda Guildmage happens to be around, sac skullmulcher and make that many tokens again."
God forbid you have Cathar's Crusade or any of the key enchantments out while this is going on. Just silly.
Note 3 ) Consider any planeswalker whose ultimate is half the PW's starting loyalty or lower. Doubling Season doubles the loyalty that the PW enters with, so it is essentially a free ultimate.
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1x Ghave, Guru of Spores
1x Ant Queen
1x Avenger of Zendikar
1x Bitterblossom
1x Bloodline Keeper
1x Creakwood Liege
1x Doubling Season
1x Grave Titan
1x Hornet Queen
1x Increasing Devotion
1x Martial Coup
1x Parallel Lives
1x Rampaging Baloths
1x Rhys the Redeemed
1x Storm Herd
1x White Sun’s Zenith
1x Blade of the Bloodchief
1x Cathars' Crusade
1x Vulturous Zombie
1x Black Sun’s Zenith
1x Final Judgment
1x Grave Pact
1x Martyr's Bond
1x Path to Exile
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter
1x Acidic Slime
1x Angel of Despair
1x Aura Shards
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Return to Dust
1x Woodfall Primus
1x Crescendo of War
1x Eldrazi Monument
1x Triumph of the Horde
1x True Conviction
1x Corpse Dance
1x Debtors’ Knell
1x Genesis
1x Praetor’s Counsel
1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
1x Necrogenesis
1x Suffer the Past
1x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Mirari’s Wake
1x Nature’s Will
1x Perilous Forays
1x Seedborn Muse
1x Seedguide Ash
1x Skyshroud Claim
1x Sylvan Scrying
1x Fecundity
1x Mentor of the Meek
1x Sensei’s Divining Top
1x Skullclamp
1x Dauntless Escort
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1x Falkenrath Noble
1x Genesis Wave
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Whispersilk Cloak
1x Command Tower
6x Forest
1x Gaea’s Cradle
1x Gavony Township
1x Golgari Rot Farm
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Isolated Chapel
1x Krosan Verge
1x Marsh Flats
1x Mosswort Bridge
1x Murmuring Bosk
1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
1x Orzhov Basilica
1x Overgrown Tomb
6x Plains
1x Selesnya Sanctuary
1x Sunpetal Grove
6x Swamp
1x Temple Garden
1x Vault of the Archangel
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Windswept Heath
1x Woodland Cemetery
1x Yavimaya Hollow
This is a token horde Ghave deck that steers clear of any infinite combos. Most games I ramp, draw some cards, and/or build some resources up into the mid-game where the deck's attrition elements kick in. Lots of removal (I can kill any kind of permanents pretty dead) and Grave Pact-style effects clear the board while my token production goes crazy. I can take a few Wraths to the chin and keep coming most of the time, especially once I've got something fun like Grave Pact and Ghave on the board to keep everyone's board creature-free.
However, the deck is capable of some pretty explosive wins if it lands a God-hand. I've won games against pretty solid decks (by my meta's standard lol) before they could manage to deal a single point of damage to me. That's not common, but it's happened a couple times.
It also has good late game staying power. I have enough token producers to keep churning out armies, I can dip into the graveyard if enough things die, and I can kill the living crap out of things throughout the entire game. I don't have a whole lot of card draw, but in a longer game I usually have enough to avoid running out of gas.
I love this deck. It's definitely my favorite to play. When I first built it, I made a conscious choice to avoid running any tutors. I know they make decks better and I do have a handful of really good ones but I built this deck to be strong but fun and the variety of a 99 card highlander deck seemed really fun. If I need to up the power on the deck for some reason I'll toss Demonic Tutor, Tooth and Nail, Chord of Calling, and the like in and see what happens.
Considering how much I've enjoyed this deck I've been willing to buy more money cards for this deck than any of my others. Cards like Doubling Season, Judge Foil Bitterblossom, and Overgrown Tomb are a ways outside my budget but I've managed to pick them up via Christmas gifts and me recently trading away some cards I have no need of (Goblin Guides and Emrakul, the Aeons Torns among others). With that in mind, any suggestions for this deck should be relatively budget friendly. Anything over $10 needs to be really important, anything over $20 just isn't gonna happen outside of special occasions.
With all that said, whadya think? What's good? What sucks? What doesn't quite look right? Any and all feedback is appreciated.
5/5/12
OUT:
- Contagion Engine
- Forgotten Ancient
- Increasing Devotion
- Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
- Primeval Titan
- Savra, Queen of the Golgari
- Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
- Spike Weaver
- Unmake
- Verdant Force
- Yavimaya Elder
IN:
- Ant Queen
- Army of the Damned
- Bloodline Keeper
- Cathars' Crusade
- Craterhoof Behemoth
- Dauntless Escort
- Elspeth, Knight-Errant
- Final Judgment
- Increasing Devotion
- Knight of the Reliquary
- Savra, Queen of the Golgari
- Sheoldred, Whispering One
- Sylvan Scrying
- Triumph of the Horde
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
Legacy
Sneak and Show
UR Delver
Scapeshift Nic Fit
Modern
Merfolk
First up I'd recommend running Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite with Natural Affinity for pseudo Land Destruction for 1 wincon. Then for a 2nd wincon run Abyssal Persecutor with Identity Crisis and Mindcrank. For a 3rd wincon, maybe Bitter Ordeal for each time you've sacrificed creatures with Ghave?
You can also get infinite colorless mana with Ashnod's Altar and Juniper Order Ranger with Ghave. You also have another infinite mana engine with Phyrexian Altar and Young Wolf for counter shenanigans. One thing I noticed is you lack Permanent protection with Privileged Position, Asceticism, and Sterling Grove.
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger would also be great in this deck. Lock their lands down while you have board advantage. As for more Graveyard hate run Grafdigger's Cage to shutdown Reveillark and Sun Titan, better yet Tormod's Crypt or even Relic of Progenitus. I'd prefer the Crypt so that you can recur stuff yourself.
If you want to you can run alot of the Black Transmute cards from Ravnica to help you get to your key cards faster. Demonic Tutor and Diabolic Tutor would be great in here as well. Chord of Calling would be great in here as well as Eladamri's Call and Worldly Tutor.
As for Planeswalkers, Liliana of the Veil works so good with Grave Pact and Martyr's Bond If you can afford to get her. Nullmage Shepherd helps get rid of Artifacts and Enchantments If you aren't getting Aura Shards out yet, and Savra, Queen of the Golgari wouldn't be bad for lifegain I suppose.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Requiem Angel is a card I had my eye on, but I've kept Hornet Queen because it offers an immediate impact and the Deathtouch is nice. The Angel is still tempting though.
The problem with Coat of Arms is that I run a rather diverse amount of token types. I get Faeries from Bitterblossom, Saprolings from Ghave, Guru of Spores, Cats from White Sun's Zenith, Zombies from Grave Titan, Plants from Avenger of Zendikar, and others. I don't think I'd be able to get the most out of it.
Sprout Swarm is something I've heard a lot of good things about from a lot of different people. I have a copy sitting around not doing anything, so I might have to give it a try and see what all the fuss is about lol.
I see where you're going with this but it's not the direction I'm interested in. I build this to be a token swarm deck primarily. I purposely avoided infinite combos because my group doesn't much care for them. I personally dislike lockdowns as well.
Tutors are much more tempting to add in, the only reason I haven't is because I was seeing how the deck ran without them and I've really enjoyed it. The added variance was a nice change of pace and this deck was meant to be more fun than competitive. I might change my mind and add in my Demonic Tutor, Chord of Calling, Tooth and Nail, et al.
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
Legacy
Sneak and Show
UR Delver
Scapeshift Nic Fit
Modern
Merfolk
I'm also unsure of how well Savra, Queen of the Golgari's gonna work out. I've only drawn her once and she got herself killed in a sweeper soon after, but I worry that I've got enough white creatures and white token producers that are too good to take out and I won't be able to get great value out of her. If that fails then I'll just plug Sorin, Lord of Innistrad back in. If that happens, I'll probably replace Hornet Queen with Requiem Angel or (more interestingly) Twilight Drover to see if they're good enough.
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
Legacy
Sneak and Show
UR Delver
Scapeshift Nic Fit
Modern
Merfolk
Hightower | Vial/Thrasios | Mogis | Grenzo | Endrek |
Tatyova|Sisay|Zurgo|Breya|Chisei|Marchesa|Olivia|KaradorPauper | Pauper |
Legacy|4fun|4fun|Modern|Frontier|StandardVery true, but it goes infinite with so many other cards in this deck. I don't wanna have to hold back with this deck because I put Ashnod's Altar in with the best of non-infinite intentions. Just doesn't seem worth it.
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
Legacy
Sneak and Show
UR Delver
Scapeshift Nic Fit
Modern
Merfolk
Have you considered running cauldron of souls? I find it to be one of the most important cards in the deck, made better by Ghave's abilities. I actually usually transmute it up over doubling season.
I have considered Cauldron of Souls, but I've never been able to get my hands on a copy. I'm also not sure what I'd take out for it.
Sidebar: Just swapped Knight of the Reliquary in for Yavimaya Elder. I'll be interested to see how that works out.
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
Legacy
Sneak and Show
UR Delver
Scapeshift Nic Fit
Modern
Merfolk
How about the Garruks??? Overrun is fun, as is putting wurms into play for +1. Draws some hate, but your just making durdly tokens, so most people don't care =P.
I also like kjeldoran outpost, but you need the dual lands to really get it live reliably.
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Garruk, Primal Hunter isn't bad for this deck but A) I don't own a copy, B) if I did track down a copy I'd prolly get more use out of it in my Stonebrow deck and C) everyone in my playgroup would care about my durdly tokens lol. They've learned that letting me make a ton of tokens unhindered is incredibly bad for their health. They'd try to murderize this guy the second he hits play to make sure I don't make a ton of 6/6s. He is tempting though.
(Side note: No Garruk puts Wurms into play as a +1. I assume you meant Primal Hunter's +1 which puts Beasts into play.)
They're both plenty good, but I feel like I've got better options.
I've thought about Kjeldoran Outpost, but it's a tough card to find. I only know one person who owns a copy and he's playing it in one of his decks lol. I run six Plains and I'll definitely pick up Godless Shrine when Gatecrash comes out, so having a Plains to nuke isn't a big deal. This is going right in the list if I can ever find a copy of it...
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
Legacy
Sneak and Show
UR Delver
Scapeshift Nic Fit
Modern
Merfolk
I've swapped out Verdant Force, Savra, Queen of the Golgari, and Army of the Damned and replaced them with Bloodline Keeper, Triumph of the Horde, and Increasing Devotion.
Bloodline Keeper is in over Verdant Force because of how much cheaper it is. Coming out three plus turns early has been very relevant a couple times. Plus, the couple times I've flipped Keeper has led to some serious blowouts.
Savra was in as an experiment. She never really worked out. Grave Pact was better, Martyr's Bond was better and if I wanted a third I'd probably just go with Butcher of Malakir. Savra didn't mesh. In went Triumph of the Horde...it's just a really powerful Overrun.
Army of the Damned was put in because it interacted well with Savra. Now that Savra's gone, Increasing Devotion goes back in.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and Sylvan Scrying is replacing Primeval Titan now that the ban hammer's cracked his skull open.
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
Legacy
Sneak and Show
UR Delver
Scapeshift Nic Fit
Modern
Merfolk
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
Legacy
Sneak and Show
UR Delver
Scapeshift Nic Fit
Modern
Merfolk
I also added in Skullmulcher for "Cast skullmulcher, sac any number of tokens, draw that many cards, then if Korozda Guildmage happens to be around, sac skullmulcher and make that many tokens again."
God forbid you have Cathar's Crusade or any of the key enchantments out while this is going on. Just silly.
Note 2 ) Some card suggestions for you to look at without further comment :
* Decree of Justics or Entreat the Angels
* Mycoloth
* Academy Rector
* Sterling Grove
* Coalition Relic
Note 3 ) Consider any planeswalker whose ultimate is half the PW's starting loyalty or lower. Doubling Season doubles the loyalty that the PW enters with, so it is essentially a free ultimate.