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Fun with minus counters

Casual

Rez09


Maybeboard

Sorcery (1)

Creature (1)


A casual deck for play with my friends, this time built around dropping tons of minus counters and killing our opponents with either massive self-replacing scarabs from Nest of Scarabs or massive drain from Obelisk Spider . That said, let's look at what we are running and why:


- Landbase-

Nothing too special here; normal lands relative to the symbols in our other cards, and 4 Blooming Marsh es or Woodland Cemetery s for simple fixing.


- Core Cards-

Here we are looking at the core cards in our deck, what they do for us, and why they are important to us.

Nest of Scarabs x3

Nest is a great card for us, because we really like placing minus counters on things, and this card provides both a wincon in itself with the scarabs it makes, and as a key piece in winning with our next core cards by providing additional targets for minus counters from Crypt Rats . Additionally, the scarabs we create self replicate when we have a means of granting them Wither, providing additional drain with Obelisk Spider on the field on top of keeping our number of bodies steady.

Obelisk Spider x4

Speaking of, the spider here provides a means of dropping counters on its own and our only air defense, as well as a stackable drain effect -- though we only really need one out to do what we want to. Because of the sheer number of minus counters we are able to drop in a single turn, across a wide number of bodies, this card can come out of nowhere and win the game for us in a turn or two, especially against enemy token decks which give us even MORE targets to bap with minus counters.


- Secondary Cards-

Aka, things that drop minus counters for us. Our core is designed to reward us for minus counters, so now we need methods to place them, and that's what we have here.

Everlasting Torment x2 and Corrosive Mentor x2

First up we have these two cards, both of which provide our creatures with Wither and have their own up and downsides -- Torment is harder for our opponents to remove and we won't accidentally kill it, but Mentor limits Wither to our creatures and allows us to heal from our spider. I went a balance between the two, but four of either is just as good. :) As for why we want this effect, it allows all of our creatures to attack and drop minus counters, which good for all of our creatures, but is especially notable for two of our cards in particular -- Crypt Rats and Nest of Scarabs .

Festering Mummy x4

Mummy is one of our our only cards under 3 cmc, and it provides a decent blocker for us early, because, even though it will die to anything, it can also trade up or weaken an opposing creature. Additionally, it can place a minus counter or two for us if we draw it later, which is quite nice in our setup. :D

Crypt Rats x2

This card is our bomb, but only if we have all of the right pieces in place, which is why we are only running two copies of them here. The way this works is quite simple -- we grant it wither, pay at least , and hit everything on the board with minus counters. With a spider, we deal 1 damage per creature on the board to our opponents and gain that much life; a Nest nets us scarabs per creature. 19 total creatures on the board make this fatal for our opponents, assuming no previous damage, and we can both recur AND tutor this if we need it, so it is quite possible for us to rat bomb twice in a turn and just win the game due to scarabs effectively multiplying our damage.

Archfiend of Ifnir x3

Our last method of placing minus counters is a form of replacement for our Rats that only hits our opponent's creatures, which has ups and downs, but is notable for requiring other cards we really like (and will shortly cover) to do its job, rather than requiring a wither source, and that we can easily activate it multiple times in a turn.


- Tertiary Cards-

These are our support cards, and they basically exist to help our deck do what it wants to do. Up first:

Dimir Machinations x4

If you haven't noticed, nearly every single card in our deck is a three drop, and this is a dirt cheap (Price-wise. :D) tutor for ANY of those cards that triggers our Fiend when we Transmute it. Whatever we are missing, this card will dig it up for us, and with a potential upside in doing so. :)

Unearth x4

Removal is a real thing, and for a single mana this will return every creature in our deck that isn't the Archfiend to the battlefield, usually our spider, and notably can allow us to double rat-bomb in a single turn for the win. It can also be cycled to our Archfiend if needed to close out a game.

Channeler Initiate x4

Ramp that fills our two drop slot and can give us bugs and deal damage. We can also recharge her with our Festering Mummy , Scarscale Ritual , or Crypt Rats . :D

Scarscale Ritual x2

We, like nearly everyone else, appreciate card draw, and Scarscale works pretty well for us, as we can drop it on a mummy to drop two minus counters, or our Channeler for another turn of ramp, or anywhere we want, really.

Undead Gladiator x2

Similar to the above, Gladiator allows us to draw additional cards via its cycling ability, but is especially notable in conjunction with the Archfiend, where we can discard a land later to return it to our hand during our upkeep, triggering the fiend, then cycle it for a second trigger. It also costs three mana, so we can tutor it up with Dimir, or we can drop it and swing and just recur it later if we need to.


- Other Options-

Two notable other options in our colors are Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and Pharika, God of Affliction , both of which are excellent options. 'Patra allows us to create additional tokens when we place counters and operates similarly to Nest for one mana less, but she is easier to remove and can't be tutored up with Dimir Machinations ; Pharika is a phenomenal side board card for us against reanimator decks, as we actually like giving those tokens to our opponent (because we have more creatures to drop counters on) and we can axe their dangerous cards before they do anything. Additionally, since she is an indestructible enchantment most of the time , she is extremely hard to remove.

For options outside of our colors, Soul-Scar Mage and various red sweepers, like Blazing Volley and Sweltering Suns , work tremendously well. Really, anything that can hit a large number of creatures with a wither-like effect is awesome for us. :p


- Major deck weaknesses-

Early aggression is terrible for us until we have our nest online and doing things, usually around turn four~five, which gives our opponent plenty of time to eat us alive. Enchantment removal also ruins our day, but, fortunately, our deck can still operate without any one of our core pieces, just not optimally. Boardwipes can also be a problem when coming from the opposite side of the board, because we only get bugs and drain when we are dropping those counters, and we can't recur everything. :(


- Dream turn order-

The most ideal turn order for us is probably:

Swamp - mummy

Forest - channeler

Swamp - nest

Swamp - spider - tap channeler to scarscale mummy for two bugs, cards, points of drain, and recharge channeler

Swamp - Torment - tap channeler for rats

Swamp - tap channeler to ratbomb for two, five points of drain and ten scarabs - unearth rats - ratbomb for one, 13 points of drain and 13 scarabs - turn six win

2 points of drain on turn 4, 18 points of drain on turn 6, 3 direct rat damage on turn 6

Of course, that is super pipedreamy, but that's how one could dream of things playing out.


- Ending thoughts-

Our deck is fairly single minded in what it wants to do, but fairly versatile in how it gets there; look at your opening hand and decide which route to take from there. If you have an Archfiend of Ifnir and Crypt Rats , but no wither cards, try to hit an Undead Gladiator and just cycle the rats around with it instead of trying to dig up a wither card and scarab nest; ditch the archfiend if you have most of the rat setup.

Annnnnnd, that's what I've got. Hopefully someone else finds the idea interesting, and the deck is fairly low cost to build. I'm always open to alternate ideas and suggestions as well, so drop any comments you have on the deck. Laters, everyone, and thanks for reading. :)

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Date added 6 years
Last updated 5 years
Legality

This deck is Casual legal.

Rarity (main - side)

15 - 0 Rares

15 - 0 Uncommons

10 - 0 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.56
Tokens Insect 1/1 B
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