I made a lot of changes to the deck today. Please see the latest update for specifics. I'd still love more advice from the community on how I can keep improving my deck.

No card:Green Sun's Zenith?i think it would work nicely here seeing as quite a few of your key cards are green maybe even Mwonvuli Beast Tracker to fetch your engines or glissa

During playtesting this weekend, I tried using one of GSZ before I posted the updates last evening. It's a dead card most of the time because I've already got a Glissa and/or Melira on the board, or I want to play something from my hand instead, or I'm going to do Trading Post shenanigans. I also thought about the beast tracker and honestly, if I'm going to go the tutor route, I'd rather use GSZ. If you suggest a card(s) to replace with GSZ, I'll playtest it on Cockatrice like that and see if it's better than my first impression.

Just to note: I'm planning on playing this deck at SCG Open Minneapolis, so I've been playtesting this deck all weekend against decks that I feel are popular in the current meta. These include mono-green infect, rg aggro, naya pod/aggro, talrand delver, hero delver, angel delver, wolf run ramp, rug ramp, br zombies, mono-green dungrove aggro, and solar flare/esper midrange. I need to test against the mono-black trading post and bant pod, and if there are any other currently popular decks in the meta I haven't listed then please list them for me to test against.

card:Green Sun's Zenith > Mwonvuli Beast Tracker in just about every way. GSZ puts the creature onto the board. Beast Tracker puts it on top of your library, you have to draw it (barring no Thought Scour s) and then cast it. It's slow, unreliable, and simply inferior to GSZ.

Y'know what I like as sideboard tech against the current Standard meta? Corrosive Gale . It kills the shit out of Spirits, Angels, and can even be a removal spell for Birds of Paradise on your first turn.

Just out of curiosity... when you play Cavern of Souls, what creature type is the most useful? I don't see the advantage to using this card with the creatures you have. They're all different.

I am digging the deck overall!

Just out of curiosity... when you play Cavern of Souls, what creature type is the most useful? I don't see the advantage to using this card with the creatures you have. They're all different.

I am digging the deck overall!

zandl: What would you suggest I take out of the sideboard to make room for one or more Corrosive Gale ? And what card would I side out in it's place against flyer heavy decks?

boy_icon: Thank you for the compliment. Cavern is a tricky card to play, which is why it's only a two-of. I use it according to the time in the game, the opponent's deck, the available mana I have currently on the board and in hand, and what creatures I have in hand. It's essentially there so that I can resolve my most important creature spells against U/X control decks and Delver.

Almost always it turns out as "elf" and/or "wurm" in that order. I know that Wurmcoil Engine is colorless, but being uncounterable is what's important and the reason why I'd name that creature type. I might also name "human" to get Melira onto the battlefield safely if I have the correct mana to safely cast Glissa later when I draw her. As I said above, it's a situational call, but I feel that it's worth using to ensure I can resolve my best creatures when needed against the control and tempo decks running around.

It also forces control players to decide if they should side out Mana Leak in games 2 and 3, which usually happens so that they can play Negate s against all my artifacts, which means my creatures are more likely to resolve in games 2 and 3 anyway.

Those are the reasons why I use Caverns. I might be better off with another swamp and forest, but for now I feel like it's the right call.

I'd take out a Nihil Spellbomb . You don't need 4x Nihil Spellbomb , ever.

I'd probably take out Karn against a Flying-heavy deck like Spirits, since they usually just have a multitude of smaller threats than just huge bombs that Karn can handle.

I'll give that a shot and see how it goes. Speaking of the sideboard, what do you think about taking out 1x Doom Blade and the 1x Perilous Myr and replacing those with 2x Mental Misstep ? I also thought about switching Beast Within with Naturalize since Corrosive Gale would get rid of flyers.

I would hold onto Beast Within . Against a Planeswalker deck, few things give you more value. Also, it's a kill-spell for anything that might get in your way.

Cool, I have been looking at glissa, phyrexias core, Fangren Marauder , Lifesmith for a while now and I keep saying to myself "there has to be something here".

Hence I would love to see you squeeze either one or both of them in there. Perhaps the life gain could replace the need for board wipes.

Perilous Myr to the above combo?

Yes. You could also go Heartless Summoning if you wanted to go down that path.

Let's slow down here a little bit. Heartless Summoning and taking away my board wipes in favor of more life gain is changing the deck a little too much to still feel like it's the same deck as it is now, and I really like the current list.

But if you look at Fangren Marauder as a singleton in the deck...

Think about this people. Fangren Marauder either instead of Thragtusk because it gains more life if it sticks on the board (not a huge fan of this idea); or in conjunction with Thragtusk because they are both beasts so my Cavern of Souls gets a little more efficient and that's still buckets of life gain without giving up my board wipes (I like this idea more)? But what creature or spell would I cut to make room for it (and again, not the sweepers; after playtesting the deck all weekend, trust me, those are key to ensuring I survive long enough to take over the game)? Now the marauder fails the "vapor snag test", but so does all of my creatures except for the solo Thragtusk (another reason why I should keep it and play both of them instead of one or the other).

Everybody's thoughts? Swap Marauder and Tusk, switch something else for a marauder, or just don't run marauder at all?

Also, what about -1 Nihil Spellbomb from the main deck for a Phyrexian Metamorph ?

I like the idea of them both. I do feel like Nihil Spellbomb is more of a sideboard thing but again its very meta dependant. TBH does karn actually do you many favors?

could you work in a slot for Duress or something similar? it feels like it lacks a bit of early game action,

@cooknathan: The spellbomb is in the mainboard for my match ups with undying creatures and snapcaster mages. And Karn does a lot of work as targeted removal and hand disruption in the late game when most decks are top-decking and I'm pulling card advantage with Trading Post s and the staff.

@gheridarigaaz: I originally was using Duress out of the sideboard, and then changed it for other utility spells (like the surgicals). I understand what you're saying about it not doing much in the beginning, but later when I have one or more trading post on the field, it has a lot of action.

Update: After playtesting the deck with 61 cards, I've found that Fangren Marauder as a 1-of is kind of weak. Every time I tried to trigger his ability off of a trading post or card:Phyrexia's Core it either was killed or snagged with its trigger on the stack. Slightly disappointing that he never really made much use. I'd have to choose between it and the wurmcoil's as my six-drops, and the wurmcoils are too good.

On a positive note, dropping 1 spellbomb to use a Phyrexian Metamorph has been excellent in playtesting. It copies titans, legends, swords, trading posts, wurmcoils, birthing pods (I do have a creature curve from 2-6 cmc), etc., and remains an artifact. Definitely worth it.

Yeah metamorph is awesome.

Sideboarded out the single Doom Blade for a Spellskite for creature protection against tempo decks and decks running heavy targeted removal, and for my match-ups against people running Kessig Wolf Run . If I want targeted removal, I'll have to use Beast Within .

I also decided to swap out the 4th trading post for a second metamorph. I'll see how it goes.

Metamorph can become a second trading post .+1

I've been doing some more playtesting online and I made a couple changes. Hopefully this will be the last time I'll want to Tinker with the deck before the SCG Open this weekend.