Based on Jezzer123's fantastic deck!!!! Thank you!!!! I saw it, playtested it, and absolutely fell in love. But. I wanted to add a little more card draw, a little more to use all the crazy amounts of mana this deck generates between the two big gun sorceries, ya know?
In order to accommodate this experimentation, I have set aside for now the full playset of Kiora's Follower, and two each of Wolfwillow Haven, because I'd rather draw the other two land enchantments, and Zaxara, the Exemplary, because I just feel like she doesn't get drawn consistently enough to make a big impact on the board even with all 4 in, and she's legendary so I can't have more than one on the board anyway.
So far, my only 100% sure addition is 4 copies of The Goose Mother. She's a great body, provides card draw or even life gain in an emergency. She's staying for the memes if nothing else. I have 4 pet geese now.
Otherwise, I am debating between two pairs of spells, mainly.
I'm weighing between adding Animist's Awakening or Awaken the Woods. Awaken is the more powerful imo, plus provides me with tokens I can block with to stay alive if necessary. I mean it essentially doubles your amount of mana. But Animist's has the potential to thin your deck. If you contribute enough mana and you get lucky, you could drastically improve your chances of drawing the big spells. Also each copy is less than a dollar lolz.
Secondly, I am conflicted about Torment of Hailfire. In the original version of the deck, you have your mana, and then whichever of the big X spells you draw first, you basically have to play, because otherwise you wait too long and you're dead. In playtesting, I hit a stretch of drawing Torment first, before Villainous Wealth, over and over again. If it doesn't get counterspelled, Torment wins the game. My playgroup is casual, I kind of would feel bad if this ended up happening game after game - and it is a distinct mathematical possibility. It's not fun for anyone at the table.
I stumbled across the original deck looking to find a good thief deck, so I'm now considering playing 2 Mass Manipulation and only 2 Torments. I'm a competitive person, it's not leaving my deck entirely! We will see after further testing - this is the newest change I've made.
Let me know what you think! I really want to assemble this deck in paper!
Update #1 (3/27/24):
I have chosen Animist's Awakening! When the cards arrive in the mail we shall see how the deck plays! I'll try the deck with all four Torments first. If my playgroup complains, I'll sub in the two MMs lolz >;D
Stay tuned!
Update #2 (4/14/24):
Today was the day, and I had so much fun with this deck!!! I played all 4 Zaxaras and all 4 Torments, not sure what I did to the paper version to get it to be 60 cards but it is last I counted, not 62 like the deck tracker says. Whatever. I severely underrated how great Zaxara is in this deck, I am keeping all those copies in! Not only does she make those big bodies, but people were so scared of her, it was hilarious.
Maybe I just had bad luck, but after playtesting the deck so much, I was surprised by how badly I drew opening hands and Mulliganed throughout all our games. Just an observation, can't really do much about that. I'm sure as I play this deck more, my luck will balance out.
As for the power level, I did OTK or near-OTK my playgroup a couple times with Torment, after which I was basically piled on and killed first every game for the rest of the session. Which I expected. I bought the bones of this deck, the original deck:X, very soon after discovering it, and I genuinely had no idea it was quite so powerful. It was only after I put in the order and began looking at ways to make it better did I start looking up lists and rankings of X spells and seeing it was at or near #1 in virtually all of them. It was truly oppressive and did great work for me - but it wasn't fun. I felt bad every time I played it and my friends handled it well, but it couldn't have been fun for them either.
If I had given myself more time to think about the deck before I ordered the cards online, I would definitely have substituted Torment for Outrageous Robbery, Geth, Lord of the Vault, or both. I wonder if I shouldn't perform the substitution now anyway. The cards are considerably cheaper, and I don't doubt I could sell at least a couple of the Torments for like $50. I'd be ok keeping two for sideboarding. Getting rid of all of them would be a kind of weight off my shoulders, though...
If anyone has any suggestions or advice what to do in this situation, I'd really appreciate it. Never been in this kind of predicament before.
Update #3 (4/19/24):
I've been trying to think of ways to make the deck better and thought to try to optimize my land enchantments. The more enchantments the better my X spells, right? I thought to add Utopia Sprawl since it's less mana than Fertile Ground and Wolfwillow Haven and does the same thing. With so relatively few forests in the deck, though, looks like the use requirements are too restrictive even at only two copies. Maybe I'll playtest for a while with only one copy vs 3 Wolfwillows instead of 2 and 2. It could be a little bit of mana optimization.
Geth, Lord of the Vault is a fantastic card and would be a great way to have a passive use of my mana between the big X spells. It doesn't trigger Zaxara but the mill could really help me. Right now I'm playtesting it at 3 copies, but it will definitely be a removal magnet. I am considering taking out one Goose in favor of a fourth. With the preparation that needs to go into using Outrageous Robbery, 3 copies feels on the money.
That is, if I keep Robbery at all. If I'm leaning more into Geth, maybe I should scrap Robbery and lean into some activated ability cost reduction. I'm adding some possible cards to my maybeboard. I'm probably missing several though. Any suggestions on this would be great!!!
Then I thought maybe I should add another untap cycler into the deck. Vizier is fantastic. The only one the one I've seen is Esper Sojourners. I don't natively have white in the deck to cast it automatically, but I can get it through my enchantments, and I doubt I'll ever actually cast it anyway. The cycle ability is a little more expensive than Vizier, but it might be worth it?
Oh also, based on the little circle graphic, looks like maybe I should be taking out an island or two in favor of a forest or a swamp....idk I'm so bad with mana bases....
Update #4 (4/23/24):
Nixed Robbery and not even bothering with Utopia Sprawl anymore. Just putting in one extra Forest and taking out one Island has made all the difference in the mana pool I think! I might even try to reduce the amount of blue further, but with the cycling I'm not sure that'll work well.
Putting in the extra cycling of Esper Sojourners, even though the higher cost is annoying, feels really good. I feel like I'm getting through my deck much faster in playtesting. It's leaving me with more "empty" turns, it feels like, where I don't have a card to play, but usually I already have Geth on the board by then so in a real game those turns won't be empty at all.
Still going to tinker with this for a little longer before ordering any new cards - would love some feedback!
Update #5 (4/26/24):
Very simple update today folks: swapped out yet another Island for a Swamp. I noticed playtesting that there were times I was lacking in the black mana to cast or do Geth shenanigans. I was a little worried that my cycling would suffer but it really really isn't, to my eye. At least, not yet. This latest bout of playtesting I have been drawing a lot of really, really good opening hands. If I get unlucky I might not like this change as much lolz.
Update #6 (6/23/24):
Hey guys, it's been a while!!! I was a little indecisive as to the improvements I wanted to make to this deck - until today!!! One of the guys in my playgroup has been making improvements to his blue/black/white control deck, so naturally I stole from him extensively. I just so happened to steal two copies of The Cruelty of Gix from him and they just absolutely turbocharged the deck!!! I got off TWO Villainous Wealths in a ROW, and was all set for a THIRD cast, but then he destroyed my board and exiled the other two copies ;( ;P I have therefore decided that I absolutely must add them into the deck! With the amount of ramp I have, the cost really hasn't been much of a problem.
In order to make room for them, I have removed Esper Sojourners completely. In playtesting the adds I found that I was often avoiding casting Animist's Awakening because I actually don't want to bottom these powerful cards. Therefore, I reduced the amount of copies and returned to full playsets of Goose Mother and Zaxara. They are such good cards for me. Zaxara was such an MVP during our game today!
Maybe I should just get rid of Animist's Awakening outright. It's a bit of an expensive card but just, four Cruelty's?? Might be a bit much. Hm.
As for the single Kiora's Follower? It's a useful, cheap creature, and if at some point in the future, I'd like to add back in a Torment... >:D
Edit #7 (7/24/24):
New cards arrived and were implemented! Then I turned right around and gave a friend first crack at playing it lolzz. But ho leeeeee guys - shit was bonkers. Geth is so great?! An activated ability completely circumvents most counterspell cards which I wildly underestimated the importance of. Excited to play it myself and give you a real verdict, but I think this deck has evolved to a nearly if not definite finished state!
