Wasteland Viper

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Wasteland Viper

Creature — Snake

Deathtouch

Bloodrush, Discard Wasteland Viper: Target attacking creature gets +1/+2 and gains deathtouch until end of turn.

rwn1971 on Buttercup: Princess Bride

4 months ago

It's down to Mirkwood Spider and Wasteland Viper for me as a 1/1 flying deathtouch creature i would not want to get rid of. Thinking about it i probably take out Wasteland Viper as his ability is not that good compared to Spider i think.

Darb_the_Bard on Buttercup: Princess Bride

4 months ago

rwn1971 Your criticism of Skullwinder is fair. I agree that in a 1-on-1 situation it can feel bad. However, with 2 or more opponents it becomes a political card and you have the potential to make a beneficial deal with whichever opponent gets the card. Of course, if you are the archenemy then it may be that no opponent will cooperate, but even in that situation it's possible (depending on your meta, likely?) that at least one opponent has nothing threatening in their graveyard. I am hesitant to remove any graveyard recursion as I'm afraid we may often be a target for removal (since tutors tend to be pretty good...) and I think it may be important to be able to replay some of our key cards like Jegantha, Odric, or Jodah. Of course, I can't get a feel for how often this will come up until getting in a bunch of games with actual opponents.

Other ways to get stuff from our graveyard include: Bala Ged Recovery  Flip, Kethis, the Hidden Hand, Nashi, Moon's Legacy, and Kenrith, the Returned King. Three of these sources can even be tutored for with Buttercup, so perhaps you're right that Skullwinder is unnecessary. For now, I'll put in Jhoira for Skullwinder. This means losing another deathtouch creature, but perhaps at this point we just find other ways to give all our creatures deathtouch.

That brings us to Ankle Shanker. If it were legendary, I think it would be an auto-include. As is, we can't tutor for it and the three colored pips in the mana cost are all downside since they won't buff Buttercup at all. It might still be worth it as an alternative way to give everything deathtouch for Westley, but I'll have to think about it. Again, it's getting harder for me to make cuts...

As for Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim, I like that card and have even thought about creating another deck with it as my commander, but I'm not sure it has enough synergy for what I want to do. Yes, it's legendary and two colors and has deathtouch, but its other effects won't really do much in this deck.

Would you take out Mirkwood Spider, Wasteland Viper, or Tidehollow Strix for one or both of those cards? Or is there another card that should be on the chopping block?

Darb_the_Bard on Buttercup: Princess Bride

5 months ago

rwn1971 I was thinking the same thing. Even before your last comment, I had added Spark Double. As you said, we should hopefully have enough deathouch creatues that we can copy one if we feel we need another (or we can tutor for Westley and then copy him). I took out Deathbloom Gardener as I felt that 3 mana to ramp only 1 turn ahead was too awkard with a 3-mana commander and a companion. Plus if we really need more ramp or color fixing, we can also potentially copy Jegantha or another mana producer like Birds of Paradise or Faeburrow Elder.

I also added Legion Loyalist and swapped out Bilious Skulldweller. I'm just afraid that without evasion the Skulldweller will too often not able to get in and thus the toxic won't matter. Plus, with the budget mana base I am often playing a tapped land on turn 1 to ensure I have an untapped land to play on turn 2 (so we can ramp). I left in Wasteland Viper as I like the versatility and surprise factor too much. Of course, this is based on individual preference, so feel free to do something different with your list.

Darb_the_Bard on Buttercup: Princess Bride

5 months ago

Cutting Wasteland Viper is less straightforward to me. I like that it can be used at instant speed to surprise someone with deathtouch, which could mean causing your unblocked creature to create two poison counters with Westley, or it could mean surprise-killing a creature that your opponent thought was blocking favorably. You could even give deathtouch to an opposing creature, taking out a threat when you're not even involved in the combat. And I like that, in a pinch, the Viper could be used to buff Buttercup's power by 1, which could sometimes be the difference between tutoring for the creature you want or not. Of course, all of those are somewhat niche situations and you have to be holding up the one green mana. And if I had one green mana available, I wonder if I would truly choose to hold it up or to simply put the Viper on the board...

As for Spark Double, it's a generically powerful card so it would never be bad. It would be useful to double up on Reki, the History of Kamigawa for more card draw or Jodah, the Unifier to double his buff, or get a second copy of Shalai, Voice of Plenty so they give each other hexproof. It doesn't do anything for the keyword soup strategy since we only need 1 of each keyword on board, but it could copy Westley to double the poison counter we create, or copy Jegantha for even more mana. There's a lot you could with it. Having two copies of Halana and Alena, Partners could also get crazy, as they could buff each other on each of your combats.

And I like that it even gives itself a +1/+1 counter to synergize with Max! That's probably my favorite part. If it dies while Max is on the battlefield, then it comes back at the next end step and can copy something else (or the same thing if it's still around), and it even enters with another +1/+1 counter so it creates a slow loop that can potentially happen over and over. This one might be too good to pass up, so I'll have to find room for it...

I think it has even come down in price as I swear it used to cost more money. Still not "budget" necessarily but it's a reasonable price for what it does. Thanks for the suggestion!

rwn1971 on Buttercup: Princess Bride

5 months ago

Wasteland Viper is the most useless of the bunch. Bilious gives us poison, deathbloom gives us mana and mirkwood helps out a legendary creature.

Darb_the_Bard on Buttercup: Princess Bride

5 months ago

Another thing I really like about Legion Loyalist is the first strike. Even without Odric, giving first strike and trample to our deathtouch creatures is really powerful. As long as our deathtouch creatures have 2+ power, then the trample damage will carry over to trigger Westley for poison counters (assuming each is blocked by a single creature). For that reason, deathtouch creatures with only 1 power and without a second form of evasion (like flying) are quite a bit weaker. Plus, if we want to go all in on the Odric plan, then having so many creatures with deathtouch is less necessary. That said, I'm still hesitant to remove too many deathtouch creatures as I still want to stay true to my original plan of focusing around Westley, and I would still like him to be functional without Odric on the battlefield.

The next deathtouch creatures potentially on the chopping block for me are Bilious Skulldweller, Deathbloom Gardener, Mirkwood Spider, and Wasteland Viper. All of them are super budget, so I'm not sure I'd want to swap them out for the $5.00 Legion Loyalist right away, but it could be something I do down the road after playing the deck in paper several times. rwn1971, thoughts on what you would cut first?

Elsterooo on The most toxic pioneer ever was!

1 year ago

Thank you as well for your advice!

I've taken all the points you made into account already, and this is exactly why I stopped here, there's need to test the deck out more.

Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive is already a 3 of for exactly that reason, but too important to reduce down to 2. This deck absolutely needs to keep up its speed, hence the exclusion of Foulmire Knight. Fading Hope is a great point for using it, but casting a draw spell for 3, even though the value is higher, I thought would be too slow.

Hope mainly protects Priest or Fynn in case of you not having a Tyvar's Stand in hand.

You're completely right about it, as I will swap the knight in for possibly Wasteland Viper if it turns out this deck needs just that little bit more of draw and can afford it speed-wise.

Fynn, the Fangbearer in my testing was too vital and powerful to cut even one, it would drop this deck's consistency.

Dazard on Who wants some keyword soup?

1 year ago

@ bushido_man96 : Thanks for your response. Currently i am running 36 lands: the custom categories are a bit confusing as i added some other lands to "ramp" and "reanimate". Still not sure if that's enough.

Majestic Myriarch has performed really well so far. It just takes two other creatures to make it a 6/6 already. Considering all the keywords it usually should have (esp. hexproof, indestructible and double strike) this becomes a thread rather easily and it has the potential to grow even bigger during the game.

Another story is Cairn Wanderer. A 4/4 for 5 mana feels a bit unsatisfying from the start and i never really need him. Either i have no keywords in my graveyard so there is no real reason to bring him. But if i have the desired creatures in my graveyard i rather play my commander for that 5 Mana and start all the flickering shenanigans afterwards instead of dropping another 4/4 body. Cairn Wanderer will be cut for Hydra Omnivore, when it finally arrives at my mailbox ;)

Odric, Lunarch Marshal is a must have, i'd say. Once you have indestructible and vigilance out you can attack with all your creatures with basically no downside for you. It even gets better, if one of your creatures has lifelink and/or deathtouch. he just gives an enormous buff to all your creatures and even tho he has no keywords on his own, i'd never cut him from the deck ;)

Wasteland Viper is another interesting one as you described and can give me some more "political influence" on the game. I think i might try it out as well.

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