Any updates to how the deck performed in May and June?

I hava had a lot of fun and some serious frustrating times with this build. To the point I scrapped it for a while. I revisited it about a month ago, and made some changes to my deck. Been playing it at my LGS FNM, saturday night casual tournaments with great success. So the major changes I made are; I added 4 Walking Balistas (hugely powerfull, and multi purpose card), in place of Drana, liberator. Perfect opening hand is to sacrafice a Balista, and drop a bone picker for 1, swinging for 3 on turn 2. Next I added 2 Winding Constrictors in place of Gonti, and I added 2 Rishkar Peema Renegades as well.

With these changes, I have placed 1st 2 times, and in the top 3 the rest of the time. Majorly fun build to play

keller44, I got busy and then moved to another couple of decks. With the release of Hour of Devastation, I am looking at revisiting the deck to see how it might perform in the new meta. I'll be certain to post any results that I may have.

Wolfees, sounds like an interesting variation on the theme. Thanks for the suggestions and as I get back to again tinkering with this deck I'll certainly keep those changes in mind!

Bioprof,

Just for fun one night I added 4 verderous gearhulks to the build. Fist game I player I had 12 1/1 counters on a gifted aetherborne. I know crazy! But super strong and really fun to play.

Best part about this build, I don't have to think when playing it. Only thing I have to remember is to add to my life counter. It's a great build for a youngster that has trouble staying focused.

Fairly new to this so I got a question.

How does Death Touch work with the instant? I always thought that Death Touch only triggers if the creature itself is doing the attacking, and not from an outside source (IE from the instant).

rvnender, with Ambuscade, Clear Shot, and Nature's Way (the sorcery version of the first two) it says that the target creature deals damage equal to its power to another target creature. Deathtouch is defined as any damage that the creatures deals is fatal. Thus, using any of those three cards and targeting a deathtouch creature you control to do damage to a target creature your opponent controls will be fatal to the opponent's creature (unless it has indestructible) while your creature will walk away unscathed.

Note that this is different than, say, Prey Upon where the two creatures fight. This would mean that they both get a chance to deal damage to each other. That's why I prefer the more-costly-to-cast cards that I have. My little 1/2 or 1/1 deathtouch creature lives while my opponent's bug 4/4 or whatever dies because of the deathtouch.

Does this clarify the idea for you?

It does. Thank you man!

This looks like an awesome deck!

I wonder if you could accelerate its speed with more card drawing beyond Driven / Despair?

coltmacmtg, I have tried Dissenter's Deliverance main board and used the cycling for card draws. It works okay, but I think there are better strategies. The current version I play takes some of the removal from the sideboard and moves Clear Shot and Ambuscade to the sideboard (though this is still experimenting, so it's not the build you see above).

Your suggestion is worth noting-- any time card draw can be reasonably included, it is beneficial to a deck! Thanks for the suggestion!

Have you thought about including Pathway Arrows?

djnewellmit, I have, and it was in the deck for a while. It was just a bit klunky, and in the current meta it's just too slow (pay 2, tap). It doesn't seem like it, but creature removal is quite common at the moment, so having to equip it gets in the way as well. I had better luck without it in the deck.

I'm also playing a slightly different build than I have here-- still testing, though, so I haven't updated. Will probably do that in the next few days.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Yahenni, Undying Partisan when all of your creatures have death touch blocking gives you +1/+1 and is good against control.

hullos I have tried Yahenni, Undying Partisan in the deck and it does okay, but it's not great. Drana, Liberator of Malakir has proven to be better. Yahenni, Undying Partisan was actually one of the original cards in the deck that I had started building around (several months ago). It's a good card and with the rotation coming it's worth a new look to see whether it can help the deck survive rotation.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Thoughts on Vraska, Swarm's Eminence?

BioProfDude i like your deck idea and does the deck work

VandenPlause, honestly, I haven't thought about it. I'll take a look and try to get back to you quite soon.

SirChris39, Now that it's legal in Pioneer, I think it should work, but I also think it needs to be updated just a bit. I haven't yet had a chance to play with it in the Pioneer format, so I don't have a great answer to your question. I'll change the title of the deck, though, as the "3-1 at FNM" might be confused with having done that in Pioneer when it was actually done in Standard quite a while ago...

I like the concept that you're going for here. I got a few ideas to help improve the deck. I do love me a good list so sorry if this post seems a bit long.

To get the obvious thing out of the way I think you should improve the mana base ever so slightly. Just throw in some Overgrown Tomb and maybe a set of Woodland Cemetery and call it a day.

I would take out Gnarlwood Dryad and put in a Foulmire Knight . You don't have a consistent way of turning on delirium so Gnarlwood Dryad is just gonna be a 1/1 deathtoucher (and nothing else) for most of the game if not all of it. Foulmire Knight at least gives the versatility of giving you card draw and/or providing a deathtoucher.

I like Ambuscade and Clear Shot as cards but since Clear Shot is an inherently better card (because it gives +1/+1 rather than +1/+0) you should be running 4 of it before you start adding copies of Ambuscade .

Moving on to the sideboard, I think you should drop Dissenter's Deliverance in favor of Return to Nature . You lose the cycling ability but gain the power to answer not only artifacts but also enchantments and graveyard strategies.

Would also take out the Majestic Myriarch and throw in a copy of Blossoming Defense to round out your playset and make fighting removal based decks easier.

Between the deck currently consisting of 19 deathtouchers (23 if you count Hissing Quagmire ) and 7 one-sided fight spells the deck has no shortage of creature removal. Because you're in black you should have at least some level of hand disruption for when you end up fighting either control or combo decks. To this end, I would go down some number of the Grasp of Darkness / Dead Weight / Fatal Push in your side and replace them with Thoughtseize (Or Duress if you don't feel like paying $120+ on those).

BioProfDude thank you for the info on your deck and im putting similar deck together myself

SirChris39, the above post by GamingInTheDark has excellent suggestions for upgrades to the deck.

Thanks, GamingInTheDark-- those are excellent suggestions to help me dust off this deck and maybe get it up to Pioneer speed! Cheers!

How do you trigger revolt for the Narnam Renegade ? Seems inconsistant

FlintSR, lots of small creatures on my side that can chump block, or use a bit of removal. Any creature (opponent's or ours) can die to trigger it. Honestly, I don't worry about it too much. If I manage to get the trigger, great! That happens probably 60% of the time or more. If not, I have a 1/2 body with deathtouch for only , so that's already decent value. The +1/+1 counter is just a bonus.

Notice that most of the removal is "target creature deals damage to target creature." As a result, a 1/2 with deathtouch targeted by Clear Shot or Nature's Way will kill an opposing creature without dying itself.

In short, I don't worry too much about the Revolt keyword. I pay a lot more attention to the Deathtouch keyword!

I hope this explanation helps!

Hey There,

i have two suggestions you may want look into. Hooded Blightfang Thieves' Guild Enforcer

Hooded Blightfang is the main deathtouch payoff in pioneer. I recommend 3-4.

Turn 1 deathtouch creature into turn 2 Bite Down/Masters Rebuke/Ram Through seems pretty strong so I would run 4 Vampire of the Dire Moon.

If you need to trim cards for Blightfang, I think you can trim some Fynn. Rhonas seems a little questionable since you need to build around having 4 power creatures but also deathtouch creatures which is a little awkward. Normally I'd suggest trimming Massive Might except maybe you need it to enable rhonas.

zapyourtumor, thanks for the thoughtful comments! Wow, I completely forgot that Hooded Blightfang is a card. Great suggestion and I'll get that integrated. Oof, what a silly ommision on my part. Nice catch!

As far as 1 drop deathtouchers, there are 7 of them. I chose to put Vampire of the Dire Moon at 3x and keep Foulmire Knight at 4x because of the flexibility of Foulmire Knight to draw me a card. Yeah, I know, Vampire of the Dire Moon is a great card and the lifelink is nice, but Foulmire Knight is also a great card and has a bit more flexibility later in the game to draw me a card.

Rhonas the Indomitable is not as bad as you think-- keep in mind that I can use the activated ability to +2/+0 pump a creature. However, with Hooded Blightfang it may need to be replaced. I like that Rhonas can give my creatures trample, but you're correct that Hooded Blightfang should be included.

Massive Might is for the trample! Deathtouch + trample is a whole lot of fun, and having Fynn, the Fangbearer helps keep pressure on our opponent with poison counters. Thus, Massive Might is a great card with a lot of value for just a single .

Thanks again for the comments and I appreciate pointing out Hooded Blightfang!

I remember when this was your standard build and you helped me with a deck. It was a long time ago haha. I like the pioneer transition. I run an Izzet Phoenix build and a fun soulflayer Golgari build. I’m going to steal a few ideas from you for the soulflayer deck.

Awesome build.