Wort had a raiding-bellow that could shatter steel, melt auras, and slice countermagic in half.
Who is Wort?
When the Aurora pushed the idyllic world of Lorwyn into darkness, none of its many inhabitants could resist being transformed. Wort, once the sheppard and protector of the Boggart clan has turned her powers (and the power of her ever-growing brood) towards raining fire and destruction upon the plane.
Why play Wort?
Wort is your kind of Commander if:
You like creature tokens.
You like copying spells.
You like playing lots of Instants and Sorceries.
You like blowing things up.
You don't mind winning games in different ways each game.
You don't mind having to work a bit to acheive your combos.
You may not like playing Wort if:
Fiddling around with creature tokens is not your thing.
You like playing more with creatures or artifacts.
You feel bad about destroying your opponent's stuff.
Killing players with large burn spells feels cheap to you.
You like lots of tutors and winning the game the same way every time.
You don't ever like to combo-kill anyone.
Deck History
This deck is part of my goal (and the goal of many Commander enthusiasts) to have a deck of every color combination. When researching red-green, I was first drawn to Rosheen Meanderer, which seemed to have a very natural theme of 'X-spells matter' tailor-made for it. The problem became clear that Rosheen Meanderer was rarely the all-star of the X-spell deck; it was Wort, the Raidmother and her ability to double my spell output.
With Wort at the helm, the deck took on a much different strategy, looking to cheaper spells that it can use to control the board state while biding time for a big finisher. The deck really turned the corner when I realized that copying token-producing spells was not only a great way to get ahead, but it also lead to some pretty hilarious situations of being able to chain tons of spells together if I had enough mana. Adding some mana engines to the deck that synergized with token-making, and voila... Wort becomes the baddest ***** on the block.
1/25/2014:
+1 Clan Defiance, -1 Demonfire: Upgrade
+1 Dragon Broodmother, -1 Firecat Blitz: Broodmother is awesome both as a token maker and a sacrifice outlet. Blitz is a great card, but it made the most sense to cut another token enabler.
+1 Guttersnipe, -1 Manamorphose: Guttersnipe dealing damage to each player for over half my spells is too good to pass on. Manamorphose ended up being not good enough.
+1 Decimate, -1 Aftershock: I've found that the more I play, the more I don't fear Decimate being a dead card. As long as you have the potential targets, this is a huge upgrade.
1/30/2104:
-1 Burn at the Stake: I hated to remove this because it has often worked very well, but in the end I think it falls under the label of "to cute".
-1 Lightning Surge, -1 Flame Javelin: Cards weren't pulling heir weight.
-1 Overrun: Surprisingly, this card wasn't pulling its weight either. I would consider running Garruk Wildspeaker over this.
+1 Warstorm Surge: Pandemonium effects are your friend here.
+1 Fresh Meat: Combo card with sac effects plus a little Wrath protection.
+1 Bonfire of the Damned: A little more creature control that can still kill an opponent when needed.
+1 Rude Awakening: Trying this out as an additional mana booster.
3/15/2017:
-1 Beacon of Creation: If you run more Forests than I do I can see going with Beacon, but I'm not getting enough value out of it.
-1 Rude Awakening: I was never sold on running this and I didn't really like where it was pulling the deck. I don't blame others for wanting to go that route, but I would have to change a lot more things to make it work.
-1 Yavimaya Elder: This one hurt to pull, but I needed the space.
-1 Blasting Station: I found myself never really wanting to use this and I've been looking at cutting back the sacrifice theme overall.
-1 Vicious Shadows: An awesome card that was pulled for cheaper cards that might not do as much damage as VShad, but they do enough to get the job done.
-1 Warstorm Surge: Another card that was pulled for a cheaper card, but given that the deck produces a lot of 0-power or 1-power guys makes Surge less exciting at times.
-1 Banefire: I needed to pull an X-spell for Fall of the Titans.
-1 Primal Vigor: Cost plus symmetrical effect caused me to lose a little faith in this card.
-1 Scatter the Seeds: A Fine card in this deck that is a casualty of space.
-1 Phyrexian Altar: Its a toss-up between this and Ashnod's Altar, but one had to go for space.
-1 Sensei's Divining Top: Obviously an awesome card that mas removed to create space.
-2 Forest, -1 Mountain: Cut for better lands.
+1 Predator's Howl: Excellent cheap token-maker.
+1 Xenagos, the Reveler: An excellent source of tokens or mana.
+1 Stoke the Flames: A nice burn spell that deals with smaller threats while still being good enough to want to copy.
+1 Goblinslide: An excellent sink for colorless mana that nets you a lot of value over time.
+1 Hordeling Outburst: Another excellent cheap token-maker.
+1 Sylvan Offering: Ridiculous in this deck.
+1 Outpost Siege: Flexible card that fills two roles.
+1 Impact Tremors: A great early play that gets the player damage rolling early.
+1 Fall of the Titans: There are enough cheap spells to trigger Surge and getting two targets makes a big difference.
+1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance: A nice swiss-army knife that is included mostly for the potential CA.
+1 Divergent Transformations: Can be a token upgrader or removal.
+1 Cinder Glade, +1 Game Trail: More duals!
+1 Sea Gate Wreckage: A little card drawing never hurt.
4/9/2017:
+1 Phyrexian Altar - mana engine needed to go back into the deck
+1 Spawning Pit - another sac outlet that can produce more than it uses
-1 Outpost Siege - was not pulling its weight
-1 Divergent Transformations - ended up being much worse than I had hoped.
1/29/2018:
+1 Tilonalli's Summoner, -1 Sakura-Tribe Elder - swapped a non-Conspirable ramp creature for a potentially excellent and inexpensive token producer.
+1 Path of Discovery, -1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Path is potentially a massive source of +1/+1 counters or way to dig through clumps of lands.
+1 Primal Amulet, -1 Mirari - Both are ways to copy spells, but Primal Amulet does it so much better once it gets online.
+1 Pirate's Pillage, -1 Brimstone Volley - Pillage is a nice draw spell worth conspiring; Brimstone Volley is a casualty of space
Deck Strategy - Note that this section does not necessarily reflect all the recent changes.
General
The general premise of the deck is to ramp your mana, get Wort into play with some tokens, then start doubling up on your destruction spells till you can get a mana engine online or you just overwhelm the board with tokens. Once players are in burn range, a few X-spells should do the trick. Otherwise, there are more than enough ways to win from seemingly innocuous situations.
Early Game
In the first few turns, you want to play as many ramp spells as you can so that you can get Wort online as soon as the coast is relatively clear. It is preferable that you also get some tokens into play that you can use to start Conspiring spells immediately. At this point in the game, its not necessary to wait to have a mana engine online, and you definitely don't want to wait to destroy something dangerous just so that you can can Conspire the spell. The key is to not get too greedy.
Mid-game
As soon as you can get Wort to stick with some tokens in play, the real fun can begin. The first thing to do is assess the situation and make sure there are no immediate threats from your opponents. If there are, start blowing things up even if that means blowing a Demonfire on an opponent's commander.
Since the deck is not hyper-focused on doing any one particular thing, what you do next is very context dependent and driven more by what you have in hand and what you have in play. The big question is whether you have a mana engine in hand. If you do, then things can start getting really interesting.
The Mana Engines
Once you start generating tokens, creating mana to continue chaining spells becomes one of your primary goals. These engines are explained below:
Earthcraft: I don't need to tell you how good this card is. It's the backbone of many an infinite combo, and although this deck doesn't go infinite (its probably the fairest use of Earthcraft there is), it can still do some ridiculous things. The token makers in this deck are all chosen such that Earthcraft will essentially make them cost only 1-2 mana, and that if you have a Mana Reflection or a Doubling Season variant on the battlefield you will net positive mana out of the deal.
Mana Echoes: This card is such a workhorse in this deck it can singlehandedly help you win games even when Wort is not an option. A prime example of its ridiculousness is that when you have this in play when you cast Avenger of Zendikar, you will get 50 colorless mana in your mana pool. A lot of the creatures and tokens that this deck can spit out share various creature types, so Mana Echoes is always a big mana producer.
Ashnod's Altar/Phyrexian Altar: Once you've got plenty of tokens, sometimes its better to just convert them directly to mana. You don't need many tokens around to conspire spells, and once they are tapped for Earthcraft or to Wort's ability you can then sac them and get one last usage out of them.
Gaea's Cradle/Mana Reflection: These cards need no introduction. They are just as busted here as they are in many other decks.
Rude Awakening: With Wort, Mana Reflection, or a powered-up Gaea's Cradle, Rude Awakening can push your mana production into overdrive for a turn, giving you an explosive turn to "go off".
End Game
Finishing the game can come from a variety of sources. Some of the more common ways to finish are as follows:
X-Spells: Whether fueled by one of the mana engines or copied by Wort or Mirari, sending large fireballs directly at your opponent's will be a common way to kill them
Token Swarm: Sometimes nobody has a Wrath-effect and your horde of tokens will be too much to handle. Throw in Purphoros, God of the Forge to push through damage.
Combo kills: Death by Blasting Station or Purphoros ETB triggers will often lead to victory. There are also various ways to win with cards like Sprout Swarm (infinite Saproling tokens), Ant Queen (Infinite Insects), or Siege-Gang Commander (throwing a large number of Goblins at your opponents).
Wort Conspiracy: Sometimes its just good enough to point a few smaller burn spells directly at an opponent if you can copy them all, especially if your other opponents are doing damage to them as well putting their life total in range.
Card Choice Explanation
I find it is better to explain why certain cards in a deck by grouping them by function. My card choices are explained below:
Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Skyshroud Claim, Oracle of Mul Daya: These are your fairly standard 3-4 mana options for ramping mana in green. If you can get a chance to copy any of the first three, you can put yourself way ahead.
Rude Awakening: This is a recent addition to the deck's suite of mana producers, and in a sense it plays out more like a Ritual effect than a pure ramp spell.
Removal Spells:
Chaos Warp, Beast Within, Desert Twister, Primal Command: This is your suite of removal spells that are most flexible, each able to take out almost any kind of permanent that may be threatening. Primal Command is also your one creature tutor in the deck.
Rain of Thorns, Decimate: These cards have multiple modes and lots of flexibility, but most importantly each can take out multiple problem cards at once making them prime candidates for copying.
Artifact Mutation: Being able to take out an artifact and get tokens for your trouble makes this perfect for this deck.
Burn:
Brimstone Volley: This is often used for dealing with early creature threats, but it also packs enough punch so as to be worth copying when you are burning an opponent out. If your meta has lots of cheap commanders that require being removed, I would include other low costing options as well.
Vengeful Rebirth: This is one of my favorite cards in the deck to copy. Having zero card cost is amazing, and it adds a certain flair to the deck.
X-Spells:
Clan Defiance, Banefire, Comet Storm, Devil's Play: For when you have generated tons of mana, these can end the game on the spot. In a pinch, they can obviously be used to take out a troublesome creature, but you mostly want these to finish off an opponent.
Goblin Offensive, Gelatinous Genesis: These other X-spells can be finishers, but they are mostly to bridge the gap when you have lots of mana, but not enough to burn someone out. Goblin Offensive plays nicely with Siege-Gang Commander, and Gelatinous Genesis is great at making tokens big enough to avoid red sweepers.
Bonfire of the Damned: Having an Earthquake effect around (especially one that leaves your tokens alone) is very useful in case one player's creature hoarde gets out of hand.
Mycoloth, Siege-Gang Commander, Ant Queen, Spout Swarm, Avenger of Zendikar, Dragon Broodmother: These are your premiere token generators, each with game changing possibilities. Big Mike is not only is a huge threat on his own, but he will net you tokens each upkeep. Ant Queen and Sprout Swarm each have infinite token possibilities (mostly revolving around any of the mana engines). Siege-Gang is not only a token producer, but he is also a potentially game-ending source of damage by throwing Goblins at your opponent's stunned faces. Avenger of Zendikar is a one-man army that can fuel game-ending X-spells in the right combos or allow you to crash in with large plants. Broodmother is awesome in combination with lots of cards, not only as a source of tokens but also as a sac outlet.
Tooth and Claw: This was a late find for this deck that serves as both a sac outlet and a token producer. With Earthcraft or Mana Echoes out out you can net mana or you can use it to upgrade 1/1s.
Doubling Season, Primal Vigor, Parallel Lives: These all push the token-making cards into overdrive. We don't use the added counter bonus of the first two except with Mycoloth, Avenger of Zendikar triggers, or for Dragon Broodmother Devour triggers, but that's alright. Sometimes, its nice to see cards used for their intended purpose (as opposed to using Planeswalker ultimates the turn they enter play).
Mana Engines:
Earthcraft, Mana Echoes: I touched on these earlier, but its good to note that these are the two best cards in the deck when it comes to outright explosiveness. When combined with any of the token doublers or Mana Reflection, you will net positive mana with Earthcraft on a large percentage of your spells.
Mana Reflection: This gets rather silly with cards like Gaea's Cradle, but its mostly used to give your mana a boost independent of anything else that may be going on. I say this a lot about this deck, but of all the ways that Mana Reflection can be really abused (mostly in Elf decks) it is actually rather tame in this deck by comparison.
Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar: With tons of fodder, these cards can generate lots of mana. Don't forget to tap your critters to Earthcraft before sacrificing them...
Combo Cards:
Purphoros, God of the Forge: With all the token making going on, this can dole out tons of damage that many decks are not able to answer. His pump ability is also not wasted here as he enables your token army to alpha-strike any opponent who lacks sufficient blockers.
Warstorm Surge: With all the creature generation going on, this will trigger a lot as well.
Blasting Station, Goblin Bombardment: You can convert all of your token-making spells directly into burn spells with these in play. Just make sure you stack all the Blasting Station untap triggers and sacrifice a creature before each one resolves.
Vicious Shadows: With Skullclamp, Goblin Bombardment, Blasting Station, Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, and Tooth and Claw in the deck, its not hard to trigger this on demand to burn opponents out.
Fresh Meat: The card's obvious use is as a counter to a sweeper from an opponent, but it is an excellent card in conjunction with all the various sacrifice effects and corresponding ETB damage effects.
Guttersnipe: I play this in my Gisela, Blade of Goldnight deck that runs 22 instants/sorceries and in my Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind deck that runs 29, and in both decks it works very well. In this deck I run 32 and I'm surprised that I didn't think of including it in my original list. I have added it in and been pleased with the results.
Fecundity: We create lots of critters and we have several ways of sacrificing them for profit.
Mirari: Sometimes, Wort is not an option to copy spells due to his being tucked or killed too many times to be able effectively cast. Mirari provides a very reasonable alternative.
Skullclamp: Digging for whatever you need becomes easy with Skullclamp around.
Kessig Wolf Run: An excellent suggestion from Tangaray, this is basically an X-spell in land form.
Other Card Options
These are cards that I have considered to include, but are not in the deck for one reason or another. Some of them are just waiting for a spot. Others are just different options for someone to tweak the deck to their liking. This will also include cards that were in the deck at one time, but were cut.
Ramp Spells:
Into the North: If you want an additional 2-mana ramp spell, this is a very good option. You obviously need to include snow-covered basics and it would also make running Highland Weald an option.
Hull Breach: If this card didn't want the tokens, this would be a great swap for Artifact Mutation. If further tweaking requires more removal, this card would be a great add.
Fissure, Fissure Vent, Lava Flow, Creeping Mold, Plow Under: These are all fine inclusions if your inclination is to turn the deck into more of a mana denial strategy. Each card is also flexible enough to run to take out non-land threats as well.
Incendiary Command: This card was never amazing when it was in the deck and it got cut. I think Hull Breach should go in before this.
Lightning Bolt and friends: If your meta is full of decks that have lots of smaller creatures that demand immediate answers, running lower casting cost alternatives is certainly a fine option.
Beacon of Destruction, Rekindled Flame, Browbeat: These are all fine options to run if you are so inclined, with each capable of dealing damage equal to or greater than their casting cost (although in Browbeat's case, it will almost never be a damage spell).
Lightning Surge: 4 damage for 5 mana is not particularly good, but with Threshold the deal gets much better at 6 damage. This card made the original cut because it has Flashback, as being able to copy this two separate times can make this an all-star. I have since removed it for more efficient cards.
Burn at the Stake: You obviously want plenty of tokens on the battlefield when you play this for maximum effectiveness, but its more than worth it even if you only have one or two creatures in play. I pulled it because I felt there were better options.
X-Spells:
Hurricane, Squall Line: Since none of your creatures fly, these are fine options to include. They only don't make the cut due to their also damaging their controller, but that is a drawback I would be willing to work around if I felt we needed more defense against flyers.
Demonfire: A great X-spell that is outclassed by other options in this format.
Token Generators:
Awakening Zone, Emrakul's Hatcher, Thopter Squadron, etc.: These are all fine token producers, but since they produce colorless tokens they can't be used with Wort (which requires the creatures tapped for Conspire to be the same color as the spell being copied).
Hellion Eruption: Fun card that would be very cool here, but I don't think it does enough to be included.
Mogg Infestation: This card was part of the suggestions. I can see how it might have a place here, so its on my shortlist of things to try in the near future.
Manamorphose: A cute choice to copy with Wort or Mirari, its not good enough to keep its spot in the deck.
Combo Cards:
Tooth and Nail: I would be remiss if I did not mention Tooth and Nail. With sufficient creatures in play, getting Craterhoof Behemoth into play is an instant win in many cases. The second creature could be anything, but cards like Hellkite Charger can go towards killing multiple opponents in one turn. Obviously, if you can copy Tooth and Nail then you can get Avenger of Zendikar, Sylvan Primordial, Urabrask, the Hidden and Cratherhoof Behemoth for a potential instant win no matter what the board state might be.
Overrun: Not really a combo card, but this plus tokens will usually equal a dead opponent. The problem is that in practice, this rarely works out the way you want it to.
Mana Vault: I think the mana acceleration is good enough without it, but tacking on more artifact acceleration is always a possibility.
Gemstone Array: When you have so much colorless mana producing potential, sometimes its good to be able to convert it to colored mana.
Doubling Cube: I am not a fan, and here it feels like a 'win-more' card.
Combos and Synergies
Here is a listing of some of the various combos, synergies, unique card interactions, and other useful information for piloting the deck:
Mana Echoes
One of the things to remember with Mana Echoes is that the ability triggers when the creature is on the battlefield, meaning that as long as the creature has a creature type (which all of the creatures and tokens in this deck do) you will always get at least 1 colorless mana. Things get significantly more interesting when you generate tokens. Here is a listing of how much mana each token generator will create:
Note: These numbers assume no other creatures with the appropriate creature type in play and no token doubler. These number get a lot sillier when either occurs.
Goblin Offensive: The value of X squared. (Note that you will net positive mana at X=3; spell costs , you get in return).
Gelatinous Genesis: The value of X squared. (Note that you will net positive mana at X=3; spell costs , you get in return).
Combos with Mana Echoes (A). Sprout Swarm: Note that the convoke ability reduces the buyback cost and can be used to pay for the green mana cost every iteration. So with Mana Echoes in play and no other creatures in play, this is what the chain looks like.
Pay : 1 Saproling,
Pay additional , tap Saproling to convoke:: 2 Saprolings,
Pay no additional mana, tap Saproling to convoke:: 3 Saprolings,
You can now continue to make as many Saprolings you want, generating a boatload of colorless mana in the process. Note that this only took in order to start the chain on an empty board.
(B). Ant Queen: Ant Queen is a nice card with Mana Echoes because it makes tokens that have the same creature type as Ant Queen. The number of Insects you can make is bound only by the amount of green mana you can create (which is completely circumvented if you have Earthcraft or Phyrexian Altar in play, allowing you to generate as much colorless mana as you want). Here is a chart of how much colorless mana you can generate depending on you green mana output.
As you can see, this is a great way to convert green mana to lots of colorless mana.
(C). Tooth and Claw: The beauty of Tooth and Claw is that it costs zero mana to activate, making it such that each activation will net you mana. Depending on how many creatures you start with, you can generate the following amounts of colorless mana with Mana Echoes in play (assuming no other Beasts or other creatures in play when you start and that you stop when you only have 1 Beast left).
As an avid Wort player I would advise at least Lightning Greaves for her protection. Check out my Wort link for my list, as well as 2 other very potent list(which i have derived a lot of inspiration) GFirefly and Ryujin. I think the three of us utilize her ability to the max, just each of us take a different approach.
I look forward to having more input into developing this EDH General.
I also would recommend Kessig Wolf Run I have a lot of games of this and Wort.
As an avid Wort player I would advise at least Lightning Greaves for her protection. Check out my Wort link for my list, as well as 2 other very potent list(which i have derived a lot of inspiration) GFirefly and Ryujin. I think the three of us utilize her ability to the max, just each of us take a different approach.
Lightning Greaves and Swiftboot Boots are often on my mind for every deck, especially ones that are really dependent on its general for its gameplan. I guess if people start trying to target Wort more and more, one or more of these will make it in.
When I developed this list, I didn't really look at other lists. Wort seemed to be kind of a forgotten commander, which was some of the allure for me for switching. Looking at some of the lists (and the links to other lists) I can see that a lot of them a very different than what I'm doing. For example, Conspiring Tooth and Nail has little appeal to me (although if I brough this to a tourney of some sort, adding in Vorinclex, Craterhoof, Urabrask, and TaN would not be hard). Anyway, I'll keep some of those other lists in mind as I play the deck.
I also would recommend Kessig Wolf Run I have a lot of games of this and Wort.
Kessig Wolf Run should definitely be in the deck. I will add it immediately.
VShad is interesting, although I don't have many sac outlets (Blasting Station, Skullclamp, the 2 Altars, Phyrexian Vault). If I configure things a little differently, perhaps to add in some things like Goblin Bombardment then I could add this in. I was already wanting to add in Fecundity, so perhaps I'll get some more sac outlets in the deck and make this happen.
EDIT: So after playing with the deck for a bit, I decided to add in a sacrifice package of Goblin Bombardment, Tooth and Claw, Fecundity, and Viscious Shadows. I have removed Eternal Witness, Genesis, Incendiary Command, and Phyrexian Vault. I also forgot that I have sac outlets in both Mycoloth and Seige-Gang, although those are both limited in their usage. I'd love to be able to add in a Goblin Sharpshooter.
I always looked at Mogg Infestation as a "cute" option, and never took it too seriously. I'll have to try it out.
As for Beacon of Creation, how many Forests do you feel are enough to make it worth it? Right now I have 16 (14 basics plus Taiga and Stomping Grounds).
EDIT: I'm going to play this instead of Hunting Triad for a while to see how it goes.
With Born of the Gods being an overall disappointment as far as this deck goes, I decided to move forward with a couple of other changes instead:
+1 Clan Defiance, -1 Demonfire: The flexibility on Clan Defiance is amazing and I've been wanting to pull Demonfire for another X-spell for a while. This one is a no-brainer in my book.
+1 Dragon Broodmother, -1 Firecat Blitz: Broodmother is awesome both as a token maker and a sacrifice outlet. It gets all sort of amazing with Primal Vigor or Doubling Season doubling up the +1/+1 counters. Blitz was a great card, but it made the most sense to cut another token enabler to fit in Broodmother and Blitz is the 'worst' of the ones I was running.
+1 Guttersnipe, -1 Manamorphose: Guttersnipe dealing damage to each player for over half my spells is too good to pass on. Manamorphose is cute, especially when Conspired but it ended up being not good enough.
+1 Decimate, -1 Aftershock: I've found that the more I play, the more I don't fear Decimate being a dead card. As long as you have the potential targets, this is a huge upgrade.
Absolutely love this one I have been searching for a Gruul commander that works for me and this is the one because unconventional use of a mass of tokens is my favorite kind of Token swarm.
What I have noticed in your quest to double and extend the use of things I think Strionic Resonator would do really well in the deck especially because Mana Echoes along with a lot of your ETB token effects and other weird things like Skullclamp
I'd reccomend running both Early Harvest and Rude Awakening to help you combo out. I know you already have a lot of mana producers from your tokens, but a conspired Early Harvest can often end games. I recently found Boundless Realms and am considering putting that into my Wort deck myself.
Absolutely love this one I have been searching for a Gruul commander that works for me and this is the one because unconventional use of a mass of tokens is my favorite kind of Token swarm.
This has become one of my favorite decks to pilot. Never a dull moment with Wort at the helm.
Quote from Taleran
What I have noticed in your quest to double and extend the use of things I think [CARD »
Strionic Resonator[/CARD] would do really well in the deck especially because Mana Echoes along with a lot of your ETB token effects and other weird things like Skullclamp
Strionic Resonator never even crossed my mind when I assembled this deck. I guess its mostly because it doesn't work with conspiring spells with Wort, and it really doesn't combo well with Mana Echoes (each instance of the trigger is separate; most of the time I'm getting mana in 2, 3, or 4 mana chunks). It also doesn't work with the Doubling Season cards either. It is worth investigating what Strionic Resonator brings to the table...
I don't have a lot of experience with Strionic Resonator, but I do with Rings of Brighthearth. My usual rule of thumb is that I want 15+ cards that work really well with it for it to not seem like a dead card. There are only really 8 that I would consider worthwhile to pay the two mana to copy. I'll take a look a some of my other possible playables to see if that number could grow, but I don't see it making the cut.
I'd reccomend running both Early Harvest and Rude Awakening to help you combo out. I know you already have a lot of mana producers from your tokens, but a conspired Early Harvest can often end games. I recently found Boundless Realms and am considering putting that into my Wort deck myself.
The first problem I ran into with Early Harvest is that it only untaps basic lands, which would require some tweaking of the mana base in order to include in this deck. The second issue is that with only Mana Reflection to help get double duty out of my lands, I would need a significant number of lands in play to generate any sort of mana (7 Basic lands plus Early Harvest = +4 mana; 9 lands plus Rude Awakening = +4 mana). The third problem was that I was also giving my opponents mana (due to the mana flare effects)... I think that unless I switch up the deck's mana engines, they don't make the cut here.
Boundless Realms is an awesome card that is kinda unnecessary here. If you think about when you might be casting a 7 mana Sorcery in this deck, I would much rather be adding tokens to the battlefield and/or Conspiring spells that destroy stuff. Not to mention that it also only fetches basic lands... not a huge problem, but I think I would want to tweak the mana base to make it work (where I would be confident in getting full value out of Conspiring it and having enough basics to fetch). The way I see it I think I would prefer to add in Hunting Wilds and/or Explosive Vegetation before bumping up to Boundless Realms.
These are all very good suggestions. Thanks to both of you very much. Even if its a suggestion that I don't ultimately use, just making me think about the deck in different ways is very worthwhile.
Um..I don't think you read your cards well enough. You have two instances in this thread that say cards do something that they don't.
First is Bonfire of the Damned in your excluded x spells section. There you say you left those spells out because they wipe out your tokens. Bonfire doesn't touch your creatures, only those of the player you target with it.
Secondly, Early Harvest doesn't give your opponents mana either. It only untaps basic lands of the player you target, which I don't think you'll ever target your opponents. Another thing you may not realize is that with harvest you can conspire it, let the first resolved, tap all your lands and float mana, then let the second resolve and now you have waaaaaaay more mana than you started with. Of course, its best used with conspire, and if you don't have wort out then you do need a good bit of basics out, so in your build it may not be the best choice, but I do recommend testing it first.
"Some of the other guys dared me to go out, but I knew it weren't no ordinary giant giga-blasting blaze of unending flames that would scorch the whole world."
—Norin the Wary
Um..I don't think you read your cards well enough. You have two instances in this thread that say cards do something that they don't.
First is Bonfire of the Damned in your excluded x spells section. There you say you left those spells out because they wipe out your tokens. Bonfire doesn't touch your creatures, only those of the player you target with it.
Yes, I mistakenly grouped Bonfire with the other Earthquake spells. It was only recently cut and I didn't think twice about just shoving it in with the rest of them. In fact, I'm seriously considering putting it back in to replace Lightning Surge. I'll fix the OP to correct that.
Secondly, Early Harvest doesn't give your opponents mana either. It only untaps basic lands of the player you target, which I don't think you'll ever target your opponents.
That was in reference to all the Mana Flare effects I was running when this was a Rosheen Meanderer deck, and not a reference directly to Early Harvest. Sorry if the sentence wording was confusing.
Another thing you may not realize is that with harvest you can conspire it, let the first resolved, tap all your lands and float mana, then let the second resolve and now you have waaaaaaay more mana than you started with. Of course, its best used with conspire, and if you don't have wort out then you do need a good bit of basics out, so in your build it may not be the best choice, but I do recommend testing it first.
No, I get it. Every Instant/Sorcery that goes into the deck is there specifically to be Conspired when possible. I actually had to think really hard as to why I'm not running them, and even then I still find the idea intriguing enough to potentially test out.
I understand the hesitation with Early harvest with your mana base, mine is almost entirely composed of basics. With, a conservative 7 lands in play (so the turn after we play wort if we have another land drop), conspired Early Harvest will net me 18 mana. If I have the tokens to again conspire whatever I cast...it's rough for my opponents. If you're using Rude Awakening instead that still should leave you with 16 mana.
Edit: and the reason I think boundless realms is so good is I can run into a lot of board wipes and creature removal in my meta, so if I untap with wort and have seven mana on the field, whatever I cast usually won't win me the game right there. But if I untap and get a boatload of land, I'm setup for the rest of the game since my play group frowns on mass land destruction.
I'm not a huge fan of some of the non-conspireable spells here. In my experience, Mycoloth never survives long enough to actually net you any value. I cut him from my list for Verdant Force a long time ago and have not looked back.
You're playing a deck with lots of green ramp spells, so you have an overabundance of fixing options. With that in mind, I would cut back on a lot of the non-basic lands and max out on the basics (this deck shouldn't need a Taiga). I'll also second the inclusion of Boundless Realms - that card is insane, especially when copied because the second copy counts all the lands from the first copy. Even without it, my deck routinely gets 15-20 basics on the table, so you should be plenty fixed up at that point.
Any of the burn spells that do a finite amount of damage are not worth it. You're going to generate huge piles of mana, so don't limit the amount of damage you can do.
I would highly recommend a couple of storm cards in here. Hunting Pack has been really sick for me, and since it's an instant, you can cast it after someone else builds the storm count for you (after a messy counter-war, for example). Even if you only generate a storm count of 3 or 4, that's still a lot of guys on the table after conspire. I'll be trying out Empty the Warrens in my list as well.
You already run Purphoros, which is a great effect for this deck. I'd also run Warstorm Surge for the same reasons.
Finally, I would make some room for Wild Ricochet. That card is extremely useful against any blue or black player. Sometimes you just get to copy their Demonic Tutor, other times you get to steal AND copy their Time Stretch.
I understand the hesitation with Early harvest with your mana base, mine is almost entirely composed of basics. With, a conservative 7 lands in play (so the turn after we play wort if we have another land drop), conspired Early Harvest will net me 18 mana. If I have the tokens to again conspire whatever I cast...it's rough for my opponents. If you're using Rude Awakening instead that still should leave you with 16 mana.
Edit: and the reason I think boundless realms is so good is I can run into a lot of board wipes and creature removal in my meta, so if I untap with wort and have seven mana on the field, whatever I cast usually won't win me the game right there. But if I untap and get a boatload of land, I'm setup for the rest of the game since my play group frowns on mass land destruction.
You guys have convinced me to at least give Rude Awakening a try. Depending on how things turn out, I may revamp the mana a bit to add in Early Harvest or Boundless Realms.
I'm not a huge fan of some of the non-conspireable spells here. In my experience, Mycoloth never survives long enough to actually net you any value. I cut him from my list for Verdant Force a long time ago and have not looked back.
I love Verdant Force, if for nothing other than nostalgic value. The upside is just so much bigger with Mycoloth in my opinion.
It's more about the converted mana cost than anything. You need cheaper token generators to get the mana engines started. This deck has plenty of things to do once it has tons of mana or cards, and I think Howl of the Nightpack is just worse than what has already been considered.
Quote from OCPunisher »
Any of the burn spells that do a finite amount of damage are not worth it. You're going to generate huge piles of mana, so don't limit the amount of damage you can do.
The lower CMC burn spells are in the deck for a specific reason; to make sure that some utility dork or someone's commander doesn't drop on the field early and make the game unwinnable. You have to have some sort of spot removal, otherwise you are leaving the task of controlling the board to other players.
With that said, I have already begun questioning the validity of Flame Javelin, Lightning Surge, and to a slightly lesser extent Burn at the Stake. One of the things I realized is that the deck is still very soft to Gaddock Teeg (which was the bane of Rosheen Meanderer's existence), so Flame Javelin wasn't the right answer for a "3 CMC burn spell" (which I would often have to pay 2RR to play anyway, so even then it was underperforming).
Quote from OCPunisher »
I would highly recommend a couple of storm cards in here. Hunting Pack has been really sick for me, and since it's an instant, you can cast it after someone else builds the storm count for you (after a messy counter-war, for example). Even if you only generate a storm count of 3 or 4, that's still a lot of guys on the table after conspire. I'll be trying out Empty the Warrens in my list as well.
Empty the Warrens is an interesting card that I thought about including at one point. Red tokens are always welcome and Siege-Gang loves having los of fodder around. Hunting Pack doesn't seem like it would be very good at all, and holding mana up on other player's turns hoping that they cast multiple spells to make it worthwhile doesn't sound appealing to me.
Quote from OCPunisher »
You already run Purphoros, which is a great effect for this deck. I'd also run Warstorm Surge for the same reasons.
I already have this penciled in as a replacement for one of the burn cards. With some of the other changes I have in store, its going to really be a good addition.
Quote from OCPunisher »
Finally, I would make some room for Wild Ricochet. That card is extremely useful against any blue or black player. Sometimes you just get to copy their Demonic Tutor, other times you get to steal AND copy their Time Stretch.
I love Wild Ricochet, but its not good enough to include in this deck. When it works, its great. Having to leave up mana hoping somebody does something worth Forking/Misdirecting is just not in this deck's blood.
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Thanks again for the input from everyone. I have decided to make the following changes to the deck.
-1 Flame Javelin: Hard to cast for only 3 mana, can't kill Gaddok Teeg, and overall not fulfilling its intended role.
-1 Lightning Surge: The card is fine on a certain level, especially in a longer drawn-out game where Threshold and casting it for Flashback can both be a factor. However, it comes up enough that its just 4 damage for 5 mana that I think we need better options.
-1 Overrun: I never draw it when I need it and when I do draw it I always wish it was something else.
-1 Burn at the Stake: This is a hard, but necessary cut. The triple red in the casting cost was sometimes a problem and I feel that for every time this was a compete blowout it could have just been something else.
+1 Warstorm Surge: I love Pandemonium and Surge is just a house in this deck. This allows for even more reach for the deck outside of the attack phase.
+1 Fresh Meat: Caller of the Claw was also an option here, but I went with the slightly more expensive yet potentially more explosive option. Not only does this give he deck a bit of Wrath protection, but its a neat combo piece in conjunction with any of the sac outlets.
+1 Rude Awakening: Another potential mana engine for when the deck needs an explosive turn.
So if you are adding Warstorm Surge which I think my final deck is going to have I think that and Purph merit an inclusion of Hellion Eruption
especially because you can Conspire Hellion Eruption and if Surge is out it will do 4(Number of Creatures) x 2 in damage and Purph would be 4 x Number of creatures (which should both be ridiculous numbers.) (and if any Card Draw or Vicious Shadows or doubling effect is on the field every goes BANANAS)
I am also debating running Reiterate & Reverberate and similar cards because the ability to efficiently copy those spells can lead to some very dumb interactions.
So if you are adding Warstorm Surge which I think my final deck is going to have I think that and Purph merit an inclusion of Hellion Eruption
especially because you can Conspire Hellion Eruption and if Surge is out it will do 4(Number of Creatures) x 2 in damage and Purph would be 4 x Number of creatures (which should both be ridiculous numbers.) (and if any Card Draw or Vicious Shadows or doubling effect is on the field every goes BANANAS)
Hellion Eruption will probably be very good for you in the right situation, but I chose to go with Fresh Meat for a similar effect instead. Try it out and let me know how it works out!
I am also debating running Reiterate & Reverberate and similar cards because the ability to efficiently copy those spells can lead to some very dumb interactions.
For me, it came down to the question of "How many times do I really want/need to copy a spell?". The answer I gave myself was that I wanted at least one backup plan in case Wort got tucked, hence the inclusion of Mirari. I wouldn't run more than one of these cards, but it is nice to have a plan B for copying spells. Of the two listed, I would go with Reiterate as the option for paying the Buyback is pretty sweet. Remember that Chandra, the Firebrand and Increasing Vengenace are also an option for copying spells.
Those I wasn't looking at my own list but as answers to other peoples spells.
They both work as Counterspells in the right situations and also for abusing other peoples interesting deck tech like a Bribery / Demonic Tutor (being able to have 2 of those for 1RR + 2 creatures or RR + 2 creatures is AWESOME) or what have you.
Helix Pinnacle - A great sink for the obscene amounts of mana this deck can make if it has nowhere else to go.
Hellion Eruption - As I said above this spell + Wort + Any of the Damage on creatures entering the battlefield turns the board into a great deal of damage rather quickly
The 3 copy spells - work for stealing other peoples tech and or as counter spells if required.
Essence Warden & Stream of Life - I decided to run X spells which also hit me so these and the land help bump my health over that of my opponents so I can hit myself and not lose from it.
Yes. With the release of C14 there are lots and lots of things to consider and I have lots of decks to update. I had just gotten around to updating everything post-Khans...
I'm considering lots of cards for this list since I last updated it after Born of the Gods. These cards are as follows:
Conspiracy Grenzo's Rebuttal - I'm not sure that this is appropriate for this deck or not, but the fact that it leaves your enchantments alone makes this intriguing. Predator's Howl - With Mobid this is better than most of the other mid-range token creators at this mana cost. I just don't know how often that will be the case and the non-Morbid mode is not worth it.
Journey into Nyx Revel of the Fallen God - I like this one on a couple different levels, but one of the best is that the tokens are both red and green. Reviving Melody - This deck loves cards that have multiple modes especially when you can choose both. This deck runs lots of important enchantments to regrow, but it only runs 11 enchantments and 12 creatures. There has got to be a threshold where the number of either type is high enough to make this good enough to include, so I'll keep an eye out to see if we hit that number.
M15 Feral Incarnation - A token maker with convoke is inherently busted in this deck, but I'm unsure on the cost to benefit ratio for this one. Usually, I won't consider a token maker unless the CMC equals or is 1 more than the number of tokens it makes, but since these are 3/3 tokens I might have to reconsider. Stoke the Flames - This is a surprisingly efficient card for the cost. I've already added this to my Gisela deck with great results, so it might end up with a spot here.
Khans of Tarkir Goblinslide - I'm determined to show how good this card can be and this actually might be the right fit for the card. I like that they are Goblins for things like Mana Echoes and Siege-Gang Commander. Hordeling Outburst - 3 tokens for 3 mana is a great deal. The fact that they are Goblins makes it all the better. Howl of the Horde - I have shied away from Fork spells for the most part, but getting to copy a spell twice for only 3 mana really gets my attention.
Commander 2014 Sylvan Offering - The amount of tokens you can generate with this is astounding and being an X-spell with this level of token creation efficiency makes it an ideal candidate for the deck. You are also set up much better to get more value out of this than your opponents.
So right now, I'm trying out several of the above cards in an attempt to figure out which ones are better than the others. Its hard because several of them are situational and its a matter of how often I can maneuver the game state to a position where each card is optimal. Hordeling Outburst and Goblinslide are both quite awesome here, so those will likely stay no matter what, replacing the disappointing Rude Awakening and probably Yavimaya Elder (even though I hate taking out Elder). The others I'm subbing in for Scatter the Seeds and/or Sensei's Divining Top to see how they perform. I'll let you know how it goes.
@Predator's Howl: The fact that it's an instant makes it good enough for me. Morbid triggers are pretty easy to come by, so this seems like solid value for its cost.
@Revel of the Fallen God: I don't like this one quite as much. 7 mana is quite a lot to invest in a sorcery. At that much, you could be conspiring Howl of the Night Pack or Boundless Realms for a lot more value. The fact that they are dual-color is fine, but not enough to justify the cost IMO.
@Reviving Melody: Only 23% of your deck hits with this card, so I think I'd rather just run more Regrowth-effects.
@Feral Incarnation: See Revel of the Fallen God.
@Stoke the Flames: Completely unplayable in this format. The only burn spells worth playing have X in their casting cost.
@Goblinslide: This seems like winning. Wort is all about adding that extra value, which is exactly what this card does.
@Hordeling Outburst: (movie announcer voice) In a world full of dragons, titans, and other haymakers, this seems so...lame. If you are looking to fill your early curve, do it with more Rampant Growths and Cultivates.
@Howl of the Horde: Shouldn't be hard to trigger raid by throwing away one of many tokens, which means this should be double-Fork for three mana, and that seems just fine.
@Sylvan Offering: Obvious auto-include.
Couple others I don't see on here that are worth discussing:
- Tormenting Voice: I've had great success already with its reprint Wild Guess, enough that I'll be adding the second copy.
- Burn Away: Normally I don't get behind burn spells, but this one does a good amount of damage, at instant-speed, and it adds versatility in exiling one's yard. Haven't tested it yet, but it seems better than the average burn spell.
- Act on Impulse: This is probably a lot better in the late-game, but getting access to three (or six) new cards for three mana is pretty efficient.
- Life's Legacy: Any card that has "as an additional cost" in it is usually better in Wort because conspire ignores that part. This is a great example. For the price of one measly 2/2, you can draw four cards for two mana.
- Shield of the Avatar: Seems like a fine way to prevent Wort from taking damage. If you play damage-based sweepers like I do, this might be helpful.
- Thunderfoot Baloth Not that Wort needed a bigger target, but this would be quite effective at pumping the team.
- Wave of Vitriol: If your meta is full of greedy manabases with few basics, this could be a pretty big blowout.
Hi, I was looking for options to improve my Wort TRM deck and this look very promising. I have a very similar deck(without most of the expensive cards) but seeing this I want to know what you think about some cards:
Creatures:
Seeing you have Dragon Broodmother, why you don't play Verdant Force or Dragonlair Spider too?
Also, why no Chancellor of the Forge? Its like Avenger of Zendikar but checks creatures + haste. And can give you a 1 Turn token
Other creatures I think can be useful are Citanul Hierophants, making all your tokens Llanowar Elves can help a lot sometimes, Krenko, Mob Boss, him + Wort = a lot of goblins.. more if you have Chancellor. And maybe the Galvanoth + Charmbreaker Devil for our instants of sorceries.
Other Permanents: Caged Sun a Half mana refletion (posibly 1/4) + pump to half your creatures. Eldrazi Monument the only real reason of why I play this its because flyers. With Broodmother and Verdant Force I can maintain it alive a lot of time if not destroyed by opponents.
EDIT: I forgot to add Fires of Yavimaya/Hammer of Purphoros/Fervor effects to my suggestions. A great goblin offensive is great, buy could be better if hasted I think...
Also, sorry for my bad English, not main language.
Just started building Wort and I came across this. Seems like a great start for my deck and I thank you for your list however I do have some questions.
Personally I think Fresh Meat, Rain of Thorns, and Mana Reflection are better than the other two but I'd like to hear what a more experienced Wort player has to say.
Just started building Wort and I came across this. Seems like a great start for my deck and I thank you for your list however I do have some questions.
Personally I think Fresh Meat, Rain of Thorns, and Mana Reflection are better than the other two but I'd like to hear what a more experienced Wort player has to say.
I've been tweaking Wort a lot recently since I felt that the deck got away from its core mechanical themes, which is why I've not responded to Blade777 yet (which I will do right now; see below).
As for your comments, here are my responses:
1) Dragon Broodmother is much better than Verdant Force or Dragonlair Spider for a couple of reasons; 1) The tokens it makes are both Red and Green making them usable to Conspire any color spell, 2) The tokens have Flying, and 3) The tokens having Devour 2 works very well with Doubling Season, Primal Vigor, and all the cards that care about my tokens dying like Fecundity and Vicious Shadows. Overall I think that the deck can run an or all 3 of these cards; its mostly a matter of preference. In my opinion the first that I would add is Broodmother, then Verdant Force, then Dragonlair Spider if you have room.
2) Chaos Warp can hit any kind of permanent and that added flexibility makes it well worth it despite not being able to tuck commanders anymore. I've also used it offensively, setting up the top of my library with Sensei's Divining Top, then using Chaos Warp on one of my own tokens to cheat out an expensive permanent like Vicious Shadows or Avenger of Zendikar at Instant speed.
3) I would probably agree that Fresh Meat, Mana Reflection, and Rain of Thorns are probably better in the grand scheme of things that Guttersnipe or Vicious Shadows, but I would not want to cut either of them if I could help it. Guttersnipe gets in so much ancillary damage, he's a Goblin which helps with things like Seige-Gang Commander and Mana Echoes, and it fills out your curve nicely. Vicious Shadows is expensive, but its not hard to get to 7 mana with this deck and its the ultimate Wrath protection.
Good luck with the deck. Wort is a fantastic commander not only because he can be so good but because there are many, many ways that you can build around him. There are probably 200 cards that could go into the deck and be fantastic so I suggest trying out several configurations and just see what you like.
Hi, I was looking for options to improve my Wort TRM deck and this look very promising. I have a very similar deck(without most of the expensive cards) but seeing this I want to know what you think about some cards:
Creatures:
Seeing you have Dragon Broodmother, why you don't play Verdant Force or Dragonlair Spider too?
Also, why no Chancellor of the Forge? Its like Avenger of Zendikar but checks creatures + haste. And can give you a 1 Turn token
Other creatures I think can be useful are Citanul Hierophants, making all your tokens Llanowar Elves can help a lot sometimes, Krenko, Mob Boss, him + Wort = a lot of goblins.. more if you have Chancellor. And maybe the Galvanoth + Charmbreaker Devil for our instants of sorceries.
Other Permanents: Caged Sun a Half mana refletion (posibly 1/4) + pump to half your creatures. Eldrazi Monument the only real reason of why I play this its because flyers. With Broodmother and Verdant Force I can maintain it alive a lot of time if not destroyed by opponents.
EDIT: I forgot to add Fires of Yavimaya/Hammer of Purphoros/Fervor effects to my suggestions. A great goblin offensive is great, buy could be better if hasted I think...
Also, sorry for my bad English, not main language.
Sorry it took me w while to respond to this. See my responses below:
2) I don't play Chancellor of the Forge or any other token-making card that requires that I have a bunch of other tokens in play in order to generate anything. Yes there can be tremendous upside in doubling the number of tokens you have on the battlefield, but the downside of creating no tokens if your board is empty makes it a no-go for me. As a general rule, I usually don't play cards that are bad topdecks unless they are significantly cheaper or synergize with the rest of the deck more.
3) Citanul Heirophants is a great card; I'm not running it because the tokens don't have Haste and its not as good as Earthcraft so doing essentially the same thing. I also don't find that I have many untapped tokens due to Earthcraft, Conspire, or sacrificing them to do stuff.
4) I don't think you run enough Goblins to make Krenko, Mob Boss worth it, but try it out and let me know how it works out. Put Goblinslide in the deck for more Goblins...
5) Galvanoth and Charmbreaker Devils are fine cards; I run both of them in my Gisela deck. I think they would be fine here. I just chose to concentrate on other themes for my deck, but that doesn't mean you can't explore this path more for your version of Wort. If you do, Young Pyromancer and Spinx-Bone Wand are also fine cards to consider.
6) Caged Sun (and its little bother Gauntlet of Power) are not worth it here in my opinion. With your mana split almost 50/50, its hard to get good value out of it.
7) Eldrazi Monument would be fine I think. You could take the whole X-spell theme out of the deck and just make this a token deck if you wanted to, utilizing all sorts of creature pumps. I think my first choice would be Coat of Arms.
8) Fork, Reiterate, and Wild Ricochet are all good; its just that you probably don't necessarily need them. Reiterate is the best of them in my opinion.
9) Massive Raid and Mob Justice are good cards. At one time I was running Burn at the Stake which is better than both. I think that you have to make the deck less about X-spells to make these cards worth it, but nobody will fault you for running them.
10) Regrowth and Recollect are both really good here. If you can conspire them, then you are getting great value. My preference if to run more raw card advantage (which I am actively looking to adding into the deck).
11) Past in Flames is not worth it. It has no synergy with your X-spells.
12) Xenagos, the Reveler is now in the deck (or at least it will be when I get a chance to update the OP). It is awesome not only as a mana source but as a source of tokens as well (tokens that are both red and green ).
13) Battle Hymn is not worth it for me. Running a card that is just a one-shot boost to mana doesn't cut it for me (and its why I'm going to cut Rude Awakening).
14) Volcanic Geyser and Ghitu Fire are not as good as the other X-spells in the deck and you don't have a lot of room to add more.
16) Fires of Yavimaya/Hammer of Purphoros are fine if this was strictly a token beatdown deck, but you don't need haste for your team like other tokens do.
Who is Wort?
When the Aurora pushed the idyllic world of Lorwyn into darkness, none of its many inhabitants could resist being transformed. Wort, once the sheppard and protector of the Boggart clan has turned her powers (and the power of her ever-growing brood) towards raining fire and destruction upon the plane.
Why play Wort?
Wort is your kind of Commander if:
You may not like playing Wort if:
Deck History
This deck is part of my goal (and the goal of many Commander enthusiasts) to have a deck of every color combination. When researching red-green, I was first drawn to Rosheen Meanderer, which seemed to have a very natural theme of 'X-spells matter' tailor-made for it. The problem became clear that Rosheen Meanderer was rarely the all-star of the X-spell deck; it was Wort, the Raidmother and her ability to double my spell output.
With Wort at the helm, the deck took on a much different strategy, looking to cheaper spells that it can use to control the board state while biding time for a big finisher. The deck really turned the corner when I realized that copying token-producing spells was not only a great way to get ahead, but it also lead to some pretty hilarious situations of being able to chain tons of spells together if I had enough mana. Adding some mana engines to the deck that synergized with token-making, and voila... Wort becomes the baddest ***** on the block.
The Decklist (decklist through Dominaria)
1 Wort, the Raidmother
Creatures - 10
1 Tilonalli's Summoner
1 Young Pyromancer
1 Guttersnipe
1 Grand Warlord Radha
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Ant Queen
1 Dragon Broodmother
1 Avenger of Zendikar
Sorceries - 26
1 Farseek
1 Rampant Growth
1 Nature's Lore
1 Dragon Fodder
1 Krenko's Command
1 Saproling Migration
1 Cultivate
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Hordeling Outburst
1 Fight With Fire
1 Harmonize
1 Pirate's Pillage
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Decimate
1 Goblin Rally
1 Primal Command
1 Vengeful Rebirth
1 Rain of Thorns
1 Desert Twister
1 Gelatinous Genesis
1 Sylvan Offering
1 Fall of the Titans
1 Comet Storm
1 Devil's Play
1 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Clan Defiance
1 Artifact Mutation
1 Sprout Swarm
1 Chaos Warp
1 Beast Within
1 Stoke the Flames
1 Fresh Meat
1 Predator's Howl
Enchantments - 10
1 Earthcraft
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Impact Tremors
1 Fecundity
1 Goblinslide
1 Mana Echoes
1 Tooth and Claw
1 Doubling Season
1 Parallel Lives
1 Mana Reflection
Artifacts - 8
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
1 Spawning Pit
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Primal Amulet
1 Helm of the Host
Planeswalkers - 2
1 Xenagos, the Reveler
1 Jaya Ballard
Lands - 36
1 Taiga
1 Stomping Grounds
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Karplusan Forest
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Game Trail
1 Cinder Glade
1 Raging Ravine
1 Command Tower
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Temple of the False God
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Kher Keep
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Fooothills
1 Kessig Wolf Run
12 Forest
5 Mountain
Change Log
1/18/2014:
+1 Kessig Wolf Run, -1 Mountain: Thanks Tangaray!
1/19/2014:
+1 Goblin Bombardment, Fecundity, Tooth and Claw, and Viscious Shadows: Add sac package
-1 Phyrexian Vault, Eternal Witness, Genesis, Incendiary Command: Removed underperformers
+1 Beacon of Creation, -1 Hunting Triad: Testing out what could end up being a straight upgrade. Thanks trancer99!
1/20/2014:
Added 'Combos and Synergies' section.
1/25/2014:
+1 Clan Defiance, -1 Demonfire: Upgrade
+1 Dragon Broodmother, -1 Firecat Blitz: Broodmother is awesome both as a token maker and a sacrifice outlet. Blitz is a great card, but it made the most sense to cut another token enabler.
+1 Guttersnipe, -1 Manamorphose: Guttersnipe dealing damage to each player for over half my spells is too good to pass on. Manamorphose ended up being not good enough.
+1 Decimate, -1 Aftershock: I've found that the more I play, the more I don't fear Decimate being a dead card. As long as you have the potential targets, this is a huge upgrade.
1/30/2104:
-1 Burn at the Stake: I hated to remove this because it has often worked very well, but in the end I think it falls under the label of "to cute".
-1 Lightning Surge, -1 Flame Javelin: Cards weren't pulling heir weight.
-1 Overrun: Surprisingly, this card wasn't pulling its weight either. I would consider running Garruk Wildspeaker over this.
+1 Warstorm Surge: Pandemonium effects are your friend here.
+1 Fresh Meat: Combo card with sac effects plus a little Wrath protection.
+1 Bonfire of the Damned: A little more creature control that can still kill an opponent when needed.
+1 Rude Awakening: Trying this out as an additional mana booster.
3/15/2017:
-1 Beacon of Creation: If you run more Forests than I do I can see going with Beacon, but I'm not getting enough value out of it.
-1 Rude Awakening: I was never sold on running this and I didn't really like where it was pulling the deck. I don't blame others for wanting to go that route, but I would have to change a lot more things to make it work.
-1 Yavimaya Elder: This one hurt to pull, but I needed the space.
-1 Blasting Station: I found myself never really wanting to use this and I've been looking at cutting back the sacrifice theme overall.
-1 Vicious Shadows: An awesome card that was pulled for cheaper cards that might not do as much damage as VShad, but they do enough to get the job done.
-1 Warstorm Surge: Another card that was pulled for a cheaper card, but given that the deck produces a lot of 0-power or 1-power guys makes Surge less exciting at times.
-1 Banefire: I needed to pull an X-spell for Fall of the Titans.
-1 Primal Vigor: Cost plus symmetrical effect caused me to lose a little faith in this card.
-1 Scatter the Seeds: A Fine card in this deck that is a casualty of space.
-1 Phyrexian Altar: Its a toss-up between this and Ashnod's Altar, but one had to go for space.
-1 Sensei's Divining Top: Obviously an awesome card that mas removed to create space.
-2 Forest, -1 Mountain: Cut for better lands.
+1 Predator's Howl: Excellent cheap token-maker.
+1 Xenagos, the Reveler: An excellent source of tokens or mana.
+1 Stoke the Flames: A nice burn spell that deals with smaller threats while still being good enough to want to copy.
+1 Goblinslide: An excellent sink for colorless mana that nets you a lot of value over time.
+1 Hordeling Outburst: Another excellent cheap token-maker.
+1 Sylvan Offering: Ridiculous in this deck.
+1 Outpost Siege: Flexible card that fills two roles.
+1 Impact Tremors: A great early play that gets the player damage rolling early.
+1 Fall of the Titans: There are enough cheap spells to trigger Surge and getting two targets makes a big difference.
+1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance: A nice swiss-army knife that is included mostly for the potential CA.
+1 Divergent Transformations: Can be a token upgrader or removal.
+1 Cinder Glade, +1 Game Trail: More duals!
+1 Sea Gate Wreckage: A little card drawing never hurt.
4/9/2017:
+1 Phyrexian Altar - mana engine needed to go back into the deck
+1 Spawning Pit - another sac outlet that can produce more than it uses
-1 Outpost Siege - was not pulling its weight
-1 Divergent Transformations - ended up being much worse than I had hoped.
1/29/2018:
+1 Tilonalli's Summoner, -1 Sakura-Tribe Elder - swapped a non-Conspirable ramp creature for a potentially excellent and inexpensive token producer.
+1 Path of Discovery, -1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Path is potentially a massive source of +1/+1 counters or way to dig through clumps of lands.
+1 Primal Amulet, -1 Mirari - Both are ways to copy spells, but Primal Amulet does it so much better once it gets online.
+1 Pirate's Pillage, -1 Brimstone Volley - Pillage is a nice draw spell worth conspiring; Brimstone Volley is a casualty of space
5/10/2018:
+1 Grand Warlord Radha, -1 Oracle of Mul Daya: I love Oracle, but I figured it was a safe pull for something like Radha.
+1 Saproling Migration, -1 Gilt-Leaf Ambush: Cheaper to cast and more upside in the late game.
+1 Helm of the Host, -1 Mycoloth: I've become less of a fan of Big Mike over time.
+1 Fight with Fire, -1 Goblin Offensive: As much as I like generating Goblin tokens, this is easily the worst X-Spell in the deck.
+1 Jaya Ballard, -1 Path of Discovery: Path doesn't really do as well in the deck as I hoped and I can get more CA out of Jaya.
Deck Strategy - Note that this section does not necessarily reflect all the recent changes.
General
The general premise of the deck is to ramp your mana, get Wort into play with some tokens, then start doubling up on your destruction spells till you can get a mana engine online or you just overwhelm the board with tokens. Once players are in burn range, a few X-spells should do the trick. Otherwise, there are more than enough ways to win from seemingly innocuous situations.
Early Game
In the first few turns, you want to play as many ramp spells as you can so that you can get Wort online as soon as the coast is relatively clear. It is preferable that you also get some tokens into play that you can use to start Conspiring spells immediately. At this point in the game, its not necessary to wait to have a mana engine online, and you definitely don't want to wait to destroy something dangerous just so that you can can Conspire the spell. The key is to not get too greedy.
Mid-game
As soon as you can get Wort to stick with some tokens in play, the real fun can begin. The first thing to do is assess the situation and make sure there are no immediate threats from your opponents. If there are, start blowing things up even if that means blowing a Demonfire on an opponent's commander.
Since the deck is not hyper-focused on doing any one particular thing, what you do next is very context dependent and driven more by what you have in hand and what you have in play. The big question is whether you have a mana engine in hand. If you do, then things can start getting really interesting.
The Mana Engines
Once you start generating tokens, creating mana to continue chaining spells becomes one of your primary goals. These engines are explained below:
End Game
Finishing the game can come from a variety of sources. Some of the more common ways to finish are as follows:
Card Choice Explanation
I find it is better to explain why certain cards in a deck by grouping them by function. My card choices are explained below:
Ramp Spells:
Sakura-Tribe Elder, Rampant Growth, Farseek, Nature's Lore: These are your fairly standard 2-mana options for ramping mana in green.
Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Skyshroud Claim, Oracle of Mul Daya: These are your fairly standard 3-4 mana options for ramping mana in green. If you can get a chance to copy any of the first three, you can put yourself way ahead.
Rude Awakening: This is a recent addition to the deck's suite of mana producers, and in a sense it plays out more like a Ritual effect than a pure ramp spell.
Removal Spells:
Chaos Warp, Beast Within, Desert Twister, Primal Command: This is your suite of removal spells that are most flexible, each able to take out almost any kind of permanent that may be threatening. Primal Command is also your one creature tutor in the deck.
Rain of Thorns, Decimate: These cards have multiple modes and lots of flexibility, but most importantly each can take out multiple problem cards at once making them prime candidates for copying.
Artifact Mutation: Being able to take out an artifact and get tokens for your trouble makes this perfect for this deck.
Burn:
Brimstone Volley: This is often used for dealing with early creature threats, but it also packs enough punch so as to be worth copying when you are burning an opponent out. If your meta has lots of cheap commanders that require being removed, I would include other low costing options as well.
Vengeful Rebirth: This is one of my favorite cards in the deck to copy. Having zero card cost is amazing, and it adds a certain flair to the deck.
X-Spells:
Clan Defiance, Banefire, Comet Storm, Devil's Play: For when you have generated tons of mana, these can end the game on the spot. In a pinch, they can obviously be used to take out a troublesome creature, but you mostly want these to finish off an opponent.
Goblin Offensive, Gelatinous Genesis: These other X-spells can be finishers, but they are mostly to bridge the gap when you have lots of mana, but not enough to burn someone out. Goblin Offensive plays nicely with Siege-Gang Commander, and Gelatinous Genesis is great at making tokens big enough to avoid red sweepers.
Bonfire of the Damned: Having an Earthquake effect around (especially one that leaves your tokens alone) is very useful in case one player's creature hoarde gets out of hand.
Token Generators:
Young Pyromancer, Dragon Fodder, Krenko's Command, Gilt-Leaf Ambush: These are your "cheap" token generators, each able to provide plenty of fodder to Conspire your bigger spells once Wort gets online.
Goblin Rally, Scatter the Seeds, Deranged Hermit, Beacon of Creation: These are your mid-range token producers, each with a lot of bang for the buck.
Mycoloth, Siege-Gang Commander, Ant Queen, Spout Swarm, Avenger of Zendikar, Dragon Broodmother: These are your premiere token generators, each with game changing possibilities. Big Mike is not only is a huge threat on his own, but he will net you tokens each upkeep. Ant Queen and Sprout Swarm each have infinite token possibilities (mostly revolving around any of the mana engines). Siege-Gang is not only a token producer, but he is also a potentially game-ending source of damage by throwing Goblins at your opponent's stunned faces. Avenger of Zendikar is a one-man army that can fuel game-ending X-spells in the right combos or allow you to crash in with large plants. Broodmother is awesome in combination with lots of cards, not only as a source of tokens but also as a sac outlet.
Tooth and Claw: This was a late find for this deck that serves as both a sac outlet and a token producer. With Earthcraft or Mana Echoes out out you can net mana or you can use it to upgrade 1/1s.
Doubling Season, Primal Vigor, Parallel Lives: These all push the token-making cards into overdrive. We don't use the added counter bonus of the first two except with Mycoloth, Avenger of Zendikar triggers, or for Dragon Broodmother Devour triggers, but that's alright. Sometimes, its nice to see cards used for their intended purpose (as opposed to using Planeswalker ultimates the turn they enter play).
Mana Engines:
Earthcraft, Mana Echoes: I touched on these earlier, but its good to note that these are the two best cards in the deck when it comes to outright explosiveness. When combined with any of the token doublers or Mana Reflection, you will net positive mana with Earthcraft on a large percentage of your spells.
Mana Reflection: This gets rather silly with cards like Gaea's Cradle, but its mostly used to give your mana a boost independent of anything else that may be going on. I say this a lot about this deck, but of all the ways that Mana Reflection can be really abused (mostly in Elf decks) it is actually rather tame in this deck by comparison.
Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar: With tons of fodder, these cards can generate lots of mana. Don't forget to tap your critters to Earthcraft before sacrificing them...
Combo Cards:
Purphoros, God of the Forge: With all the token making going on, this can dole out tons of damage that many decks are not able to answer. His pump ability is also not wasted here as he enables your token army to alpha-strike any opponent who lacks sufficient blockers.
Warstorm Surge: With all the creature generation going on, this will trigger a lot as well.
Blasting Station, Goblin Bombardment: You can convert all of your token-making spells directly into burn spells with these in play. Just make sure you stack all the Blasting Station untap triggers and sacrifice a creature before each one resolves.
Vicious Shadows: With Skullclamp, Goblin Bombardment, Blasting Station, Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, and Tooth and Claw in the deck, its not hard to trigger this on demand to burn opponents out.
Fresh Meat: The card's obvious use is as a counter to a sweeper from an opponent, but it is an excellent card in conjunction with all the various sacrifice effects and corresponding ETB damage effects.
Guttersnipe: I play this in my Gisela, Blade of Goldnight deck that runs 22 instants/sorceries and in my Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind deck that runs 29, and in both decks it works very well. In this deck I run 32 and I'm surprised that I didn't think of including it in my original list. I have added it in and been pleased with the results.
Card Advantage:
Yavimaya Elder: Used to be called the 'Green Ancestral'.
Harmonize: The actual 'Green Ancestral'...
Fecundity: We create lots of critters and we have several ways of sacrificing them for profit.
Mirari: Sometimes, Wort is not an option to copy spells due to his being tucked or killed too many times to be able effectively cast. Mirari provides a very reasonable alternative.
Skullclamp: Digging for whatever you need becomes easy with Skullclamp around.
Sensei's Divining Top: Probably in every EDH deck ever.
Mana:
Gaea's Cradle: In a deck that can produce tons of creatures, this will generate tons of mana. No secrets here.
Ancient Tomb, Temple of the False God: Lands that tap for 2 are good for accelerating out Wort.
Taiga, Stomping Ground, Fire-Lit Thicket, Karplusan Forest, Rootbound Crag, Raging Ravine, Command Tower: All the best RG dual lands available.
Wooded Foothills, Bloodstained Mire, Verdant Catacombs: Outside of Avenger of Zendikar and shuffling away unwanted cards revealed by Sensei's Divining Top, there is little incentive to running too many fetchlands. However, running a few as I do here is always nice to fetch your ABU and Ravnica duals.
Kher Keep: Another solid token producer.
Boseiju, Who Shelters All: For a deck filled with big-mana sorceries, having some protection from counter-magic is imperative in some matchups.
Sol Ring, Mana Crypt: Should be in almost all EDH decks.
Kessig Wolf Run: An excellent suggestion from Tangaray, this is basically an X-spell in land form.
These are cards that I have considered to include, but are not in the deck for one reason or another. Some of them are just waiting for a spot. Others are just different options for someone to tweak the deck to their liking. This will also include cards that were in the deck at one time, but were cut.
Ramp Spells:
Into the North: If you want an additional 2-mana ramp spell, this is a very good option. You obviously need to include snow-covered basics and it would also make running Highland Weald an option.
Three Visits, Search for Tomorrow: These are also fine options for inexpensive ramp spells if you feel the deck needs more.
Solemn Simulacrum: Unbelievable that this didn't make the cut, but it really doesn't fit what we are trying to accomplish with the deck.
Hunting Wilds, Explosive Vegetation: Very good ramp cards if you feel the deck needs/wants more.
Removal Spells:
Hull Breach: If this card didn't want the tokens, this would be a great swap for Artifact Mutation. If further tweaking requires more removal, this card would be a great add.
Fissure, Fissure Vent, Lava Flow, Creeping Mold, Plow Under: These are all fine inclusions if your inclination is to turn the deck into more of a mana denial strategy. Each card is also flexible enough to run to take out non-land threats as well.
Incendiary Command: This card was never amazing when it was in the deck and it got cut. I think Hull Breach should go in before this.
Aftershock: Great removal card that I eventually swapped with Decimate.
Burn Spells:
Lightning Bolt and friends: If your meta is full of decks that have lots of smaller creatures that demand immediate answers, running lower casting cost alternatives is certainly a fine option.
Beacon of Destruction, Rekindled Flame, Browbeat: These are all fine options to run if you are so inclined, with each capable of dealing damage equal to or greater than their casting cost (although in Browbeat's case, it will almost never be a damage spell).
Lightning Surge: 4 damage for 5 mana is not particularly good, but with Threshold the deal gets much better at 6 damage. This card made the original cut because it has Flashback, as being able to copy this two separate times can make this an all-star. I have since removed it for more efficient cards.
Burn at the Stake: You obviously want plenty of tokens on the battlefield when you play this for maximum effectiveness, but its more than worth it even if you only have one or two creatures in play. I pulled it because I felt there were better options.
X-Spells:
Hurricane, Squall Line: Since none of your creatures fly, these are fine options to include. They only don't make the cut due to their also damaging their controller, but that is a drawback I would be willing to work around if I felt we needed more defense against flyers.
Earthquake, Molten Disaster, Rolling Earthquake: All great sweeper/damage spells that unfortunately also kill all your tokens, making them less desirable.
Demonfire: A great X-spell that is outclassed by other options in this format.
Token Generators:
Awakening Zone, Emrakul's Hatcher, Thopter Squadron, etc.: These are all fine token producers, but since they produce colorless tokens they can't be used with Wort (which requires the creatures tapped for Conspire to be the same color as the spell being copied).
Hellion Eruption: Fun card that would be very cool here, but I don't think it does enough to be included.
Mogg Infestation: This card was part of the suggestions. I can see how it might have a place here, so its on my shortlist of things to try in the near future.
Hunting Triad: Decent card, but I cut it for Beacon of Creation.
Firecat Blitz: Very good card that got cut for space.
Card Advantage:
Regal Force, Skullmulcher, Slate of Ancestry, Collective Unconscious: All very good options for additional card drawing, but my fear is that they don't do anything when I need them most.
Phyrexian Vault: Was in the original deck, but it is slow and can only be used once a turn.
Eternal Witness, Genesis: Both cards are green staples that just don't synergize with anything in this deck, so they got cut.
Carnage Altar: May end up being better than Phyrexian Vault due to being able to be used multiple times per turn even though it costs 3 to activate.
Wheel of Fortune, Wheel of Fate, Reforge the Soul: I think that there may be a place for one or more of these as the deck evolves.
Manamorphose: A cute choice to copy with Wort or Mirari, its not good enough to keep its spot in the deck.
Combo Cards:
Tooth and Nail: I would be remiss if I did not mention Tooth and Nail. With sufficient creatures in play, getting Craterhoof Behemoth into play is an instant win in many cases. The second creature could be anything, but cards like Hellkite Charger can go towards killing multiple opponents in one turn. Obviously, if you can copy Tooth and Nail then you can get Avenger of Zendikar, Sylvan Primordial, Urabrask, the Hidden and Cratherhoof Behemoth for a potential instant win no matter what the board state might be.
Overrun: Not really a combo card, but this plus tokens will usually equal a dead opponent. The problem is that in practice, this rarely works out the way you want it to.
Hissing Iguanar, Goblin Sharpshooter, Rage Thrower, Stalking Vengeance: These are all good/decent options if you want to play up the sacrifice theme more.
Mana:
Highland Weald, Snow-covered Lands: If you run Into the North, these become possibilities. Scrying Sheets and Mouth of Ronom are also possibilities.
Mana Vault: I think the mana acceleration is good enough without it, but tacking on more artifact acceleration is always a possibility.
Gemstone Array: When you have so much colorless mana producing potential, sometimes its good to be able to convert it to colored mana.
Doubling Cube: I am not a fan, and here it feels like a 'win-more' card.
Combos and Synergies
Here is a listing of some of the various combos, synergies, unique card interactions, and other useful information for piloting the deck:
Mana Echoes
One of the things to remember with Mana Echoes is that the ability triggers when the creature is on the battlefield, meaning that as long as the creature has a creature type (which all of the creatures and tokens in this deck do) you will always get at least 1 colorless mana. Things get significantly more interesting when you generate tokens. Here is a listing of how much mana each token generator will create:
Note: These numbers assume no other creatures with the appropriate creature type in play and no token doubler. These number get a lot sillier when either occurs.
Dragon Fodder, Krenko's Command, Gilt-Leaf Ambush:
Scatter the Seeds:
Goblin Rally:, Siege-Gang Commander:
Deranged Hermit:
Beacon of Creation: The number of Forests you control squared (e.g. 5 Forests = )
Mycoloth: The number of +1/+1 counters squared (Note: You'll get this mana during your upkeep, so it will go to waste sometimes)
Avenger of Zendikar: ! (with only 7 lands out)
Goblin Offensive: The value of X squared. (Note that you will net positive mana at X=3; spell costs , you get in return).
Gelatinous Genesis: The value of X squared. (Note that you will net positive mana at X=3; spell costs , you get in return).
Combos with Mana Echoes
(A). Sprout Swarm: Note that the convoke ability reduces the buyback cost and can be used to pay for the green mana cost every iteration. So with Mana Echoes in play and no other creatures in play, this is what the chain looks like.
Pay : 1 Saproling,
Pay additional , tap Saproling to convoke:: 2 Saprolings,
Pay no additional mana, tap Saproling to convoke:: 3 Saprolings,
You can now continue to make as many Saprolings you want, generating a boatload of colorless mana in the process. Note that this only took in order to start the chain on an empty board.
(B). Ant Queen: Ant Queen is a nice card with Mana Echoes because it makes tokens that have the same creature type as Ant Queen. The number of Insects you can make is bound only by the amount of green mana you can create (which is completely circumvented if you have Earthcraft or Phyrexian Altar in play, allowing you to generate as much colorless mana as you want). Here is a chart of how much colorless mana you can generate depending on you green mana output.
1: 1 Insect,
2: 2 Insects,
3: 3 Insects,
4: 4 Insects,
5: 5 Insects,
6: 6 Insects,
etc.
As you can see, this is a great way to convert green mana to lots of colorless mana.
(C). Tooth and Claw: The beauty of Tooth and Claw is that it costs zero mana to activate, making it such that each activation will net you mana. Depending on how many creatures you start with, you can generate the following amounts of colorless mana with Mana Echoes in play (assuming no other Beasts or other creatures in play when you start and that you stop when you only have 1 Beast left).
2 tokens:
3 tokens:
4 tokens:
5 tokens:
6 tokens:
7 tokens:
8 tokens:
etc.
Tooth and Claw also synergizes well with Purphoros, God of the Forge, Vicious Shadows, and/or Fecundity, dealing damage or drawing cards with every sacrifice as needed. And it is worth mentioning that with any Doubling Season card in play, you can trigger these cards as many times as you want and generate infinite mana with Mana Echoes or Earthcraft.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
I look forward to having more input into developing this EDH General.
I also would recommend Kessig Wolf Run I have a lot of games of this and Wort.
EDH Decks
Thanks To DarkNightCavalier For the Sig!!!
..
Azusa - Derevi - Glissa - Mizzix - Sharuum - Wanderer - Wort
Lightning Greaves and Swiftboot Boots are often on my mind for every deck, especially ones that are really dependent on its general for its gameplan. I guess if people start trying to target Wort more and more, one or more of these will make it in.
When I developed this list, I didn't really look at other lists. Wort seemed to be kind of a forgotten commander, which was some of the allure for me for switching. Looking at some of the lists (and the links to other lists) I can see that a lot of them a very different than what I'm doing. For example, Conspiring Tooth and Nail has little appeal to me (although if I brough this to a tourney of some sort, adding in Vorinclex, Craterhoof, Urabrask, and TaN would not be hard). Anyway, I'll keep some of those other lists in mind as I play the deck.
Kessig Wolf Run should definitely be in the deck. I will add it immediately.
VShad is interesting, although I don't have many sac outlets (Blasting Station, Skullclamp, the 2 Altars, Phyrexian Vault). If I configure things a little differently, perhaps to add in some things like Goblin Bombardment then I could add this in. I was already wanting to add in Fecundity, so perhaps I'll get some more sac outlets in the deck and make this happen.
EDIT: So after playing with the deck for a bit, I decided to add in a sacrifice package of Goblin Bombardment, Tooth and Claw, Fecundity, and Viscious Shadows. I have removed Eternal Witness, Genesis, Incendiary Command, and Phyrexian Vault. I also forgot that I have sac outlets in both Mycoloth and Seige-Gang, although those are both limited in their usage. I'd love to be able to add in a Goblin Sharpshooter.
I always looked at Mogg Infestation as a "cute" option, and never took it too seriously. I'll have to try it out.
As for Beacon of Creation, how many Forests do you feel are enough to make it worth it? Right now I have 16 (14 basics plus Taiga and Stomping Grounds).
EDIT: I'm going to play this instead of Hunting Triad for a while to see how it goes.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
+1 Clan Defiance, -1 Demonfire: The flexibility on Clan Defiance is amazing and I've been wanting to pull Demonfire for another X-spell for a while. This one is a no-brainer in my book.
+1 Dragon Broodmother, -1 Firecat Blitz: Broodmother is awesome both as a token maker and a sacrifice outlet. It gets all sort of amazing with Primal Vigor or Doubling Season doubling up the +1/+1 counters. Blitz was a great card, but it made the most sense to cut another token enabler to fit in Broodmother and Blitz is the 'worst' of the ones I was running.
+1 Guttersnipe, -1 Manamorphose: Guttersnipe dealing damage to each player for over half my spells is too good to pass on. Manamorphose is cute, especially when Conspired but it ended up being not good enough.
+1 Decimate, -1 Aftershock: I've found that the more I play, the more I don't fear Decimate being a dead card. As long as you have the potential targets, this is a huge upgrade.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
What I have noticed in your quest to double and extend the use of things I think Strionic Resonator would do really well in the deck especially because Mana Echoes along with a lot of your ETB token effects and other weird things like Skullclamp
This has become one of my favorite decks to pilot. Never a dull moment with Wort at the helm.
Strionic Resonator never even crossed my mind when I assembled this deck. I guess its mostly because it doesn't work with conspiring spells with Wort, and it really doesn't combo well with Mana Echoes (each instance of the trigger is separate; most of the time I'm getting mana in 2, 3, or 4 mana chunks). It also doesn't work with the Doubling Season cards either. It is worth investigating what Strionic Resonator brings to the table...
Small synergies
Young Pyromancer - another 1/1 Elemental
Guttersnipe - another 2 damage when I cast an instant or sorcery.
Purphoros, God of the Forge - another 2 damage when a creature ETB.
Dragon Broodmother - another dragon every upkeep
Fecundity - Draw another card when a creature dies
Bigger synergies
Yavimaya Elder - search for an additional two lands.
Siege-Gang Commander - another 3 1/1 Goblins
Deranged Hermit - another 4 1/1 Squirrels
Mycoloth - double the 1/1 Saprolings every upkeep
Avenger of Zendikar - another 7+ plant tokens
Vicious Shadows - another damage trigger
Skullclamp - Draw another two cards when the creature dies.
Mirari - Get an opportunity to pay another 3 to copy a spell again.
I don't have a lot of experience with Strionic Resonator, but I do with Rings of Brighthearth. My usual rule of thumb is that I want 15+ cards that work really well with it for it to not seem like a dead card. There are only really 8 that I would consider worthwhile to pay the two mana to copy. I'll take a look a some of my other possible playables to see if that number could grow, but I don't see it making the cut.
Early Harvest and Rude Awakening intrigue me a lot. When this was a Rosheen Meanderer deck, I had both in there along with all the other 2-color mana doublers (Mana Flare, Heartbeat of Spring, Keeper of Progenitus, Zhur-Taa Ancient, etc.) along with Magus of the Candelabra and Candelabra of Tawnos.
The first problem I ran into with Early Harvest is that it only untaps basic lands, which would require some tweaking of the mana base in order to include in this deck. The second issue is that with only Mana Reflection to help get double duty out of my lands, I would need a significant number of lands in play to generate any sort of mana (7 Basic lands plus Early Harvest = +4 mana; 9 lands plus Rude Awakening = +4 mana). The third problem was that I was also giving my opponents mana (due to the mana flare effects)... I think that unless I switch up the deck's mana engines, they don't make the cut here.
Boundless Realms is an awesome card that is kinda unnecessary here. If you think about when you might be casting a 7 mana Sorcery in this deck, I would much rather be adding tokens to the battlefield and/or Conspiring spells that destroy stuff. Not to mention that it also only fetches basic lands... not a huge problem, but I think I would want to tweak the mana base to make it work (where I would be confident in getting full value out of Conspiring it and having enough basics to fetch). The way I see it I think I would prefer to add in Hunting Wilds and/or Explosive Vegetation before bumping up to Boundless Realms.
These are all very good suggestions. Thanks to both of you very much. Even if its a suggestion that I don't ultimately use, just making me think about the deck in different ways is very worthwhile.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
First is Bonfire of the Damned in your excluded x spells section. There you say you left those spells out because they wipe out your tokens. Bonfire doesn't touch your creatures, only those of the player you target with it.
Secondly, Early Harvest doesn't give your opponents mana either. It only untaps basic lands of the player you target, which I don't think you'll ever target your opponents. Another thing you may not realize is that with harvest you can conspire it, let the first resolved, tap all your lands and float mana, then let the second resolve and now you have waaaaaaay more mana than you started with. Of course, its best used with conspire, and if you don't have wort out then you do need a good bit of basics out, so in your build it may not be the best choice, but I do recommend testing it first.
Cockatrice Username: seriph0
Yes, I mistakenly grouped Bonfire with the other Earthquake spells. It was only recently cut and I didn't think twice about just shoving it in with the rest of them. In fact, I'm seriously considering putting it back in to replace Lightning Surge. I'll fix the OP to correct that.
That was in reference to all the Mana Flare effects I was running when this was a Rosheen Meanderer deck, and not a reference directly to Early Harvest. Sorry if the sentence wording was confusing.
No, I get it. Every Instant/Sorcery that goes into the deck is there specifically to be Conspired when possible. I actually had to think really hard as to why I'm not running them, and even then I still find the idea intriguing enough to potentially test out.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
Edit: and the reason I think boundless realms is so good is I can run into a lot of board wipes and creature removal in my meta, so if I untap with wort and have seven mana on the field, whatever I cast usually won't win me the game right there. But if I untap and get a boatload of land, I'm setup for the rest of the game since my play group frowns on mass land destruction.
You're playing a deck with lots of green ramp spells, so you have an overabundance of fixing options. With that in mind, I would cut back on a lot of the non-basic lands and max out on the basics (this deck shouldn't need a Taiga). I'll also second the inclusion of Boundless Realms - that card is insane, especially when copied because the second copy counts all the lands from the first copy. Even without it, my deck routinely gets 15-20 basics on the table, so you should be plenty fixed up at that point.
Some of the other permanents in here could probably be replaced with instants or sorceries. For example, Deranged Hermit could be something like Howl of the Night Pack or Crush of Wurms. Siege-Gang Commander gets a pass because he can throw the extra Goblins once in awhile.
Any of the burn spells that do a finite amount of damage are not worth it. You're going to generate huge piles of mana, so don't limit the amount of damage you can do.
I would highly recommend a couple of storm cards in here. Hunting Pack has been really sick for me, and since it's an instant, you can cast it after someone else builds the storm count for you (after a messy counter-war, for example). Even if you only generate a storm count of 3 or 4, that's still a lot of guys on the table after conspire. I'll be trying out Empty the Warrens in my list as well.
You already run Purphoros, which is a great effect for this deck. I'd also run Warstorm Surge for the same reasons.
Finally, I would make some room for Wild Ricochet. That card is extremely useful against any blue or black player. Sometimes you just get to copy their Demonic Tutor, other times you get to steal AND copy their Time Stretch.
Yeva (88/92 foils)
Raff
Scarab
Rakdos
Wort ($50 budget, 94/97 foils)
Trostani
You guys have convinced me to at least give Rude Awakening a try. Depending on how things turn out, I may revamp the mana a bit to add in Early Harvest or Boundless Realms.
I love Verdant Force, if for nothing other than nostalgic value. The upside is just so much bigger with Mycoloth in my opinion.
It's more about the converted mana cost than anything. You need cheaper token generators to get the mana engines started. This deck has plenty of things to do once it has tons of mana or cards, and I think Howl of the Nightpack is just worse than what has already been considered.
The lower CMC burn spells are in the deck for a specific reason; to make sure that some utility dork or someone's commander doesn't drop on the field early and make the game unwinnable. You have to have some sort of spot removal, otherwise you are leaving the task of controlling the board to other players.
With that said, I have already begun questioning the validity of Flame Javelin, Lightning Surge, and to a slightly lesser extent Burn at the Stake. One of the things I realized is that the deck is still very soft to Gaddock Teeg (which was the bane of Rosheen Meanderer's existence), so Flame Javelin wasn't the right answer for a "3 CMC burn spell" (which I would often have to pay 2RR to play anyway, so even then it was underperforming).
Empty the Warrens is an interesting card that I thought about including at one point. Red tokens are always welcome and Siege-Gang loves having los of fodder around. Hunting Pack doesn't seem like it would be very good at all, and holding mana up on other player's turns hoping that they cast multiple spells to make it worthwhile doesn't sound appealing to me.
I already have this penciled in as a replacement for one of the burn cards. With some of the other changes I have in store, its going to really be a good addition.
I love Wild Ricochet, but its not good enough to include in this deck. When it works, its great. Having to leave up mana hoping somebody does something worth Forking/Misdirecting is just not in this deck's blood.
*************************
Thanks again for the input from everyone. I have decided to make the following changes to the deck.
-1 Flame Javelin: Hard to cast for only 3 mana, can't kill Gaddok Teeg, and overall not fulfilling its intended role.
-1 Lightning Surge: The card is fine on a certain level, especially in a longer drawn-out game where Threshold and casting it for Flashback can both be a factor. However, it comes up enough that its just 4 damage for 5 mana that I think we need better options.
-1 Overrun: I never draw it when I need it and when I do draw it I always wish it was something else.
-1 Burn at the Stake: This is a hard, but necessary cut. The triple red in the casting cost was sometimes a problem and I feel that for every time this was a compete blowout it could have just been something else.
+1 Warstorm Surge: I love Pandemonium and Surge is just a house in this deck. This allows for even more reach for the deck outside of the attack phase.
+1 Fresh Meat: Caller of the Claw was also an option here, but I went with the slightly more expensive yet potentially more explosive option. Not only does this give he deck a bit of Wrath protection, but its a neat combo piece in conjunction with any of the sac outlets.
+1 Rude Awakening: Another potential mana engine for when the deck needs an explosive turn.
+1 Bonfire of the Damned: Having a "sweeper" that is Conspirable helps in a lot of situations. I am also considering Goblin Sharpshooter and Hissing Iguanar here.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
especially because you can Conspire Hellion Eruption and if Surge is out it will do 4(Number of Creatures) x 2 in damage and Purph would be 4 x Number of creatures (which should both be ridiculous numbers.) (and if any Card Draw or Vicious Shadows or doubling effect is on the field every goes BANANAS)
I am also debating running Reiterate & Reverberate and similar cards because the ability to efficiently copy those spells can lead to some very dumb interactions.
Hellion Eruption will probably be very good for you in the right situation, but I chose to go with Fresh Meat for a similar effect instead. Try it out and let me know how it works out!
For me, it came down to the question of "How many times do I really want/need to copy a spell?". The answer I gave myself was that I wanted at least one backup plan in case Wort got tucked, hence the inclusion of Mirari. I wouldn't run more than one of these cards, but it is nice to have a plan B for copying spells. Of the two listed, I would go with Reiterate as the option for paying the Buyback is pretty sweet. Remember that Chandra, the Firebrand and Increasing Vengenace are also an option for copying spells.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
They both work as Counterspells in the right situations and also for abusing other peoples interesting deck tech like a Bribery / Demonic Tutor (being able to have 2 of those for 1RR + 2 creatures or RR + 2 creatures is AWESOME) or what have you.
Oh and I forgot the best one: Reversal of Fortune so ****ing good with Wort
6 Wort, the Raidmother
Creatures
1 Essence Warden
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Eternal Witness
3 Guttersnipe
3 Yavimaya Elder
3 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Purphoros, God of the Forge
5 Ant Queen
5 Mycoloth
5 Deranged Hermit
5 Silklash Spider
6 Dragon Broodmother
7 Avenger of Zendikar
8 Craterhoof Behemoth
Artifacts
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Swiftfoot Boots
2 Carnage Altar
3 Phyrexian Altar
3 Ashnod's Altar
4 Vedalken Orrery
5 Mirari
Enchantments
1 Helix Pinnacle
2 Goblin Bombardment
3 Rites of Flourishing
3 Fecundity
4 Tooth and Claw
4 Parallel Lives
4 Mana Echoes
5 Doubling Season
5 Primal Vigor
6 Warstorm Surge
2 Comet Storm
2 Sprout Swarm
2 Reverberate
3 Harrow
3 Chaos Warp
3 Reiterate
3 Beast Within
4 Wild Ricochet
Sorcery
1 Gelatinous Genesis
1 Red Sun's Zenith
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Tempt with Vengeance
1 Hurricane
1 Stream of Life
2 Clan Defiance
2 Life from the Loam
2 Krenko's Command
2 Nature's Lore
2 Hull Breach
2 Explore
2 Dragon Fodder
2 Molten Disaster
2 Titan's Revenge
3 Cultivate
3 Spoils of Victory
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Bramblecrush
4 Beacon of Creation
4 Harmonize
5 Primal Command
6 Desert Twister
6 Hellion Eruption
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Temple of Abandon
1 Kazandu Refuge
1 Gruul Guildgate
1 Stomping Ground
1 Gruul Turf
1 Mosswort Bridge
1 Command Tower
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Temple of the False God
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
13 Forests
10 Mountain
Some brief explanations
Helix Pinnacle - A great sink for the obscene amounts of mana this deck can make if it has nowhere else to go.
Hellion Eruption - As I said above this spell + Wort + Any of the Damage on creatures entering the battlefield turns the board into a great deal of damage rather quickly
The 3 copy spells - work for stealing other peoples tech and or as counter spells if required.
Essence Warden & Stream of Life - I decided to run X spells which also hit me so these and the land help bump my health over that of my opponents so I can hit myself and not lose from it.
I'm considering lots of cards for this list since I last updated it after Born of the Gods. These cards are as follows:
Conspiracy
Grenzo's Rebuttal - I'm not sure that this is appropriate for this deck or not, but the fact that it leaves your enchantments alone makes this intriguing.
Predator's Howl - With Mobid this is better than most of the other mid-range token creators at this mana cost. I just don't know how often that will be the case and the non-Morbid mode is not worth it.
Journey into Nyx
Revel of the Fallen God - I like this one on a couple different levels, but one of the best is that the tokens are both red and green.
Reviving Melody - This deck loves cards that have multiple modes especially when you can choose both. This deck runs lots of important enchantments to regrow, but it only runs 11 enchantments and 12 creatures. There has got to be a threshold where the number of either type is high enough to make this good enough to include, so I'll keep an eye out to see if we hit that number.
M15
Feral Incarnation - A token maker with convoke is inherently busted in this deck, but I'm unsure on the cost to benefit ratio for this one. Usually, I won't consider a token maker unless the CMC equals or is 1 more than the number of tokens it makes, but since these are 3/3 tokens I might have to reconsider.
Stoke the Flames - This is a surprisingly efficient card for the cost. I've already added this to my Gisela deck with great results, so it might end up with a spot here.
Khans of Tarkir
Goblinslide - I'm determined to show how good this card can be and this actually might be the right fit for the card. I like that they are Goblins for things like Mana Echoes and Siege-Gang Commander.
Hordeling Outburst - 3 tokens for 3 mana is a great deal. The fact that they are Goblins makes it all the better.
Howl of the Horde - I have shied away from Fork spells for the most part, but getting to copy a spell twice for only 3 mana really gets my attention.
Commander 2014
Sylvan Offering - The amount of tokens you can generate with this is astounding and being an X-spell with this level of token creation efficiency makes it an ideal candidate for the deck. You are also set up much better to get more value out of this than your opponents.
So right now, I'm trying out several of the above cards in an attempt to figure out which ones are better than the others. Its hard because several of them are situational and its a matter of how often I can maneuver the game state to a position where each card is optimal. Hordeling Outburst and Goblinslide are both quite awesome here, so those will likely stay no matter what, replacing the disappointing Rude Awakening and probably Yavimaya Elder (even though I hate taking out Elder). The others I'm subbing in for Scatter the Seeds and/or Sensei's Divining Top to see how they perform. I'll let you know how it goes.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
@Revel of the Fallen God: I don't like this one quite as much. 7 mana is quite a lot to invest in a sorcery. At that much, you could be conspiring Howl of the Night Pack or Boundless Realms for a lot more value. The fact that they are dual-color is fine, but not enough to justify the cost IMO.
@Reviving Melody: Only 23% of your deck hits with this card, so I think I'd rather just run more Regrowth-effects.
@Feral Incarnation: See Revel of the Fallen God.
@Stoke the Flames: Completely unplayable in this format. The only burn spells worth playing have X in their casting cost.
@Goblinslide: This seems like winning. Wort is all about adding that extra value, which is exactly what this card does.
@Hordeling Outburst: (movie announcer voice) In a world full of dragons, titans, and other haymakers, this seems so...lame. If you are looking to fill your early curve, do it with more Rampant Growths and Cultivates.
@Howl of the Horde: Shouldn't be hard to trigger raid by throwing away one of many tokens, which means this should be double-Fork for three mana, and that seems just fine.
@Sylvan Offering: Obvious auto-include.
Couple others I don't see on here that are worth discussing:
- Tormenting Voice: I've had great success already with its reprint Wild Guess, enough that I'll be adding the second copy.
- Burn Away: Normally I don't get behind burn spells, but this one does a good amount of damage, at instant-speed, and it adds versatility in exiling one's yard. Haven't tested it yet, but it seems better than the average burn spell.
- Act on Impulse: This is probably a lot better in the late-game, but getting access to three (or six) new cards for three mana is pretty efficient.
- Life's Legacy: Any card that has "as an additional cost" in it is usually better in Wort because conspire ignores that part. This is a great example. For the price of one measly 2/2, you can draw four cards for two mana.
- Shield of the Avatar: Seems like a fine way to prevent Wort from taking damage. If you play damage-based sweepers like I do, this might be helpful.
- Thunderfoot Baloth Not that Wort needed a bigger target, but this would be quite effective at pumping the team.
- Wave of Vitriol: If your meta is full of greedy manabases with few basics, this could be a pretty big blowout.
Yeva (88/92 foils)
Raff
Scarab
Rakdos
Wort ($50 budget, 94/97 foils)
Trostani
Will look for cards to tweak it.
Great deck anyway.
Will look for cards to tweak it .
Great deck anyway .
Cheers !
Creatures:
Seeing you have Dragon Broodmother, why you don't play Verdant Force or Dragonlair Spider too?
Also, why no Chancellor of the Forge? Its like Avenger of Zendikar but checks creatures + haste. And can give you a 1 Turn token
Other creatures I think can be useful are Citanul Hierophants, making all your tokens Llanowar Elves can help a lot sometimes, Krenko, Mob Boss, him + Wort = a lot of goblins.. more if you have Chancellor. And maybe the Galvanoth + Charmbreaker Devil for our instants of sorceries.
Other Permanents:
Caged Sun a Half mana refletion (posibly 1/4) + pump to half your creatures.
Eldrazi Monument the only real reason of why I play this its because flyers. With Broodmother and Verdant Force I can maintain it alive a lot of time if not destroyed by opponents.
Spells:
Fork, Reiterate, Wild Ricochet, etc: To add more copies for your spells or to copy that damned monoblack tutor you don't have.
Massive Raid, Mob Justice effects for your enemies to exploud.
Regrowth, Recollect effects for cheap recursion, also, conspiring one to get the other + one card gives you "infinite" recursion.
Past in Flames for that final recursion.
Saproling Symbiosis, Parallel Evolution x2 or x4 your creatures or more if you can copy this more than one time
Xenagos, the Reveler, Battle Hymn extra mana is good.
Volcanic Geyser, Ghitu Fire: X damage, instant speed.
Lands:
Mosswort Bridge and Spinerock Knoll for the Hideway, I don't know, maybe they're not worth it.
These are my suggestions. I want to know what you think about them.
Also in your decklist. Rude Awakenig isn't an instant, Comet Storm isn't a Sorcery
EDIT: I forgot to add Fires of Yavimaya/Hammer of Purphoros/Fervor effects to my suggestions. A great goblin offensive is great, buy could be better if hasted I think...
Also, sorry for my bad English, not main language.
RGShamanism - Tribal Aggro
EDH
RGWort, the Raidmother - Ramp Combo
WRJor Kadeen, the Prevailer - Metalcraft Aggro
WUBSharuum the Hegemon - Graveyard Combo
UBRNekusar, the Mindrazer - Wheel Combo
WRGUril, the Miststalker - Enchantres Voltron
Check them, comment, help!
First off I want to reference some of Blade777's suggestions since you haven't responded to him and I am still curious to your thoughts on dragonlair spider, verdant force, and chancellor of the forge.
Is Chaos Warp still worth it now that tucking is "banned"? I think it is not but I'm curious to what you have to say.
Lastly which cards are the most important in your deck out of these? (I'm having trouble fitting in my last few cards)
Fresh Meat, Mana Reflection, Guttersnipe, rain of thorns, and Vicious Shadows
Personally I think Fresh Meat, Rain of Thorns, and Mana Reflection are better than the other two but I'd like to hear what a more experienced Wort player has to say.
GB Midrange HomebrewBG
Modern
Affinity X
EDH
Jarad, Golgari Lich LordBG
I've been tweaking Wort a lot recently since I felt that the deck got away from its core mechanical themes, which is why I've not responded to Blade777 yet (which I will do right now; see below).
As for your comments, here are my responses:
1) Dragon Broodmother is much better than Verdant Force or Dragonlair Spider for a couple of reasons; 1) The tokens it makes are both Red and Green making them usable to Conspire any color spell, 2) The tokens have Flying, and 3) The tokens having Devour 2 works very well with Doubling Season, Primal Vigor, and all the cards that care about my tokens dying like Fecundity and Vicious Shadows. Overall I think that the deck can run an or all 3 of these cards; its mostly a matter of preference. In my opinion the first that I would add is Broodmother, then Verdant Force, then Dragonlair Spider if you have room.
2) Chaos Warp can hit any kind of permanent and that added flexibility makes it well worth it despite not being able to tuck commanders anymore. I've also used it offensively, setting up the top of my library with Sensei's Divining Top, then using Chaos Warp on one of my own tokens to cheat out an expensive permanent like Vicious Shadows or Avenger of Zendikar at Instant speed.
3) I would probably agree that Fresh Meat, Mana Reflection, and Rain of Thorns are probably better in the grand scheme of things that Guttersnipe or Vicious Shadows, but I would not want to cut either of them if I could help it. Guttersnipe gets in so much ancillary damage, he's a Goblin which helps with things like Seige-Gang Commander and Mana Echoes, and it fills out your curve nicely. Vicious Shadows is expensive, but its not hard to get to 7 mana with this deck and its the ultimate Wrath protection.
Good luck with the deck. Wort is a fantastic commander not only because he can be so good but because there are many, many ways that you can build around him. There are probably 200 cards that could go into the deck and be fantastic so I suggest trying out several configurations and just see what you like.
Sorry it took me w while to respond to this. See my responses below:
1) I don't play Verdant Force or Dragonlair Spider because I have no room left in the deck for them. I don't think they are bad, but I don't think they are better than Dragon Broodmother.
2) I don't play Chancellor of the Forge or any other token-making card that requires that I have a bunch of other tokens in play in order to generate anything. Yes there can be tremendous upside in doubling the number of tokens you have on the battlefield, but the downside of creating no tokens if your board is empty makes it a no-go for me. As a general rule, I usually don't play cards that are bad topdecks unless they are significantly cheaper or synergize with the rest of the deck more.
3) Citanul Heirophants is a great card; I'm not running it because the tokens don't have Haste and its not as good as Earthcraft so doing essentially the same thing. I also don't find that I have many untapped tokens due to Earthcraft, Conspire, or sacrificing them to do stuff.
4) I don't think you run enough Goblins to make Krenko, Mob Boss worth it, but try it out and let me know how it works out. Put Goblinslide in the deck for more Goblins...
5) Galvanoth and Charmbreaker Devils are fine cards; I run both of them in my Gisela deck. I think they would be fine here. I just chose to concentrate on other themes for my deck, but that doesn't mean you can't explore this path more for your version of Wort. If you do, Young Pyromancer and Spinx-Bone Wand are also fine cards to consider.
6) Caged Sun (and its little bother Gauntlet of Power) are not worth it here in my opinion. With your mana split almost 50/50, its hard to get good value out of it.
7) Eldrazi Monument would be fine I think. You could take the whole X-spell theme out of the deck and just make this a token deck if you wanted to, utilizing all sorts of creature pumps. I think my first choice would be Coat of Arms.
8) Fork, Reiterate, and Wild Ricochet are all good; its just that you probably don't necessarily need them. Reiterate is the best of them in my opinion.
9) Massive Raid and Mob Justice are good cards. At one time I was running Burn at the Stake which is better than both. I think that you have to make the deck less about X-spells to make these cards worth it, but nobody will fault you for running them.
10) Regrowth and Recollect are both really good here. If you can conspire them, then you are getting great value. My preference if to run more raw card advantage (which I am actively looking to adding into the deck).
11) Past in Flames is not worth it. It has no synergy with your X-spells.
12) Xenagos, the Reveler is now in the deck (or at least it will be when I get a chance to update the OP). It is awesome not only as a mana source but as a source of tokens as well (tokens that are both red and green ).
13) Battle Hymn is not worth it for me. Running a card that is just a one-shot boost to mana doesn't cut it for me (and its why I'm going to cut Rude Awakening).
14) Volcanic Geyser and Ghitu Fire are not as good as the other X-spells in the deck and you don't have a lot of room to add more.
15) Mosswort Bridge and Spinerock Knoll don't play well with X-spells.
16) Fires of Yavimaya/Hammer of Purphoros are fine if this was strictly a token beatdown deck, but you don't need haste for your team like other tokens do.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections