TDM - FIN
MasterofTacos, 5 days ago
Added The Wind Crystal, The Water Crystal, The Darkness Crystal, The Fire Crystal, The Earth Crystal, Serah Farron Flip, Crystallized Serah Flip, Cid, Freeflier Pilot, Professor Hojo, Lyse Hext, Alisaie Leveilleur, and The Sibsig Ceremony from Final Fantasy.
Added Temur Battlecrier and Highspire Bell-Ringer from Tarkir: Dragonstorm
Made a new catagory: Vehicle
FIRST WIN!!!
CardTyrant, 5 days ago
Finally got my first win, but took three group hug decks to do it, 85 squirrel tokens, and a Craterhoof.
Price Adjustment
Raconar, 5 days ago
Removed the dual-lands like Scrubland and Badlands, since i found out they're like hundreds of dollars lol. Replaced em with regular basic lands
None
SilvValens, 5 days ago
Swapped out 1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and 1x Heat Shimmer for 1x Glorybringer and 1x Opportunistic Dragon.
Eivor Face-lift
Optimator, 6 days ago
Not a true update, but I got a Secret Lair Najeela, the Blade-Blossom
. I took apart my Eivor, Battle-Ready deck The Art of Combat Looting, so the spirit of Eivor the Commander lives on.
First major Changes - Because I lack Patience
MortisAngelus, 1 week ago
Because I have not patience, I ordered most of the cards according to the plan made below. However, I also changed and deviated from the original plan due to cost and change of mind.
OUT:
- Forest
- Mountain
- Naya Panorama
- Evolution Witness
- Odric, Lunarch Marshal
- Rhys the Redeemed
- Turntimber Ranger
- Wolf-Skull Shaman
- Inspiring Call
- Rootborn Defenses
- Lavaspur Boots
- Swiftfoot Boots
- Sol Ring (yes, with so low cmc, curve and all the mana dorks, I decided to remove it)
IN:
- Brushland
- Overgrown Farmland
- Rogue's Passage
- Elvish Harbinger
- Ezuri, Renegade Leader
- Joraga Warcaller
- Galadhrim Brigade
- Cathars' Crusade
- Wrap in Vigor
- Heroic Intervention
- Rhythm of the Wild
- Guardian Project
- Beastmaster Ascension
I'm still questioning if the haste enablers (Rhythm of the Wild, Rising of the Day and Fires of Yavimaya) are actually of any use?
Removing those three could enable me to add in some more trickeries, graveyard recursion and/or board wipes.
Gyre Sage is still also grinding my gears... Sometimes it's just a useless filler, but when it works, it works amazingly. Still thinking it could be better not having it.
POTENTIAL CHANGES if removing the four above mentioned cards
This in order to have some sort of boardwipes, which this deck sorely needs, and to make the elves even nore self-sustainable.
Genesis Wave would also be nice to have, but I have no idea how often that would be useful. It feels more like a win more card, because at the point when I can cast it (with the help of a lot of elves), I can already win through other means.
Herald's Horn is also a contender, for pseudo card draw.
Actually Playable
purelycryptic, 1 week ago
Nowhere near finished making Indo, but at least I can attempt to use him now!
So Happy, Love Watching It Play
purelycryptic, 1 week ago
Between the Kraken's hardcore power, and the Horror silly exile play - this deck is a dream. Only issues I ever really have are getting fucked on lands. lol
Starting to Pick Up for Edits
purelycryptic, 1 week ago
I think I may change this deck to Red / Black at some point, at my boyfriend's reccomendation. Finally added and changed out some cards. We'll see where things go. :)
Done!!
purelycryptic, 1 week ago
He's pretty set, love this deck. Only have won VERY few times with it. But he's so fun regardless.
Swaps I Made
MarshCasualty, 1 week ago
OUT: Pelt Collector. IN: Stonecoil Serpent.
OUT: River Boa. IN: Skylasher.
OUT: Dungrove Elder. IN: Eldritch Evolution.
OUT: Blanchwood Armor. IN: Regal Imperiosaur.
OUT: Arbor Elf. IN: Utopia Sprawl
Some Swaps I'm Thinking of Making
MarshCasualty, 1 week ago
Pelt Collector for Stonecoil Serpent, Scythe Tiger, or Rogue Elephant: I know Pelt Collector's supposed to be good, but in goldfishing, it's stayed as a 1/1 much longer than I'd like, and is usually a dead draw after turn 2. Not 'evolving' from toughness is significant, especially since it means you basically can't put Rancor, Bonesplitter, Grafted Wargear, etc. on it. I think it'd be better in a deck that cares about +1/+1 counters, but here, I think I'd even prefer Evolving Adaptive.
River Boa for Skylasher, Wildborn Preserver, or Ambush Viper: I've seen River Boa played in Canlander lists for this archetype, but I'm not convinced it's actually that good here. Playtesting may prove me wrong, but Skylasher came to mind as a potentially better replacement. Flash seems better than regenerate in non-blue matchups, especially since you usually want to use all your mana. The flash made me think of Wildborn Preserver and Ambush Viper, the latter of which is more of a removal spell than a creature, which is something I'm a bit low on. I've been trying to find a place to slot it in, and this might be it.
Dungrove Elder for Eldritch Evolution: Ironically, Dungrove Elder is the card that made me want to build the deck, but in goldfishing, the number of forests in play is rarely enough to make it feel better than other 3-drops. Eldritch Evolution is probably the 'best' swap here, since it lets you toolbox or just grab your best 3-drop.
Blanchwood Armor for Regal Imperiosaur (or Witchstalker): As above. This could also become a combat trick, or a flash creature like Wolfir Avenger.
Treetop Village for Desert or Grasping Dunes: Just a thought, since I'm low on removal.
Mistcutter Hydra for Thrun, Breaker of Silence: More efficient, and you'll rarely want to cast the hydra for less than 5, though 4 does happen. Still thinking about this one.
ALSO, this might be a bit crazy, but without the forest reliance, I might be able to justify splashing white for Loxodon Smiter?
Initial Impressions and Tuning — 1st Revision
August_Cross, 1 week ago
I've gotten to play with the deck now! Here are my immediate thoughts and a few changes listed below. I've also updated the deck description to reflect that the Final Fantasy set released and that I've actually played with this list now.
Lifetotal did prove to be a concern for one of my games, but I think those circumstances came about due to a Voltron player on a fast start and some user "error" on my end. (Even with hindsight, I wouldn't truly call my decisions in that game "mistakes," but rather that they just had a steeper cost than I expected.) Point being, I don't yet believe that the deck needs lifegain, because I think I can adjust my play patterns to compensate. Tutoring up and casting Essence Harvest earlier in the game, for instance, would provide me a nice infusion of life, with the only risk being leaving it exposed to graveyard hate if I don't get it back out of there quickly. It's also been very easy to tutor up Desynchronization and use the threat of casting it to politically deter attacks.
With that in mind, I'm not yet making any changes to add lifegain. I'm choosing to switch out a few cards pre-emptively in order to make sure the deck isn't overly reliant on Noctis to function. This intent mostly turned into adding more cards that actually draw cards instead of the "Digging" category being exclusively mill—that way I have extra things to play if Noctis isn't around to cast cards out of my graveyard. At the same time, I ended up cutting multiple sacrifice outlets and anything that relied on death effects for value (e.g. Wreck Hunter and Slagstone Refinery), mostly in exchange for more consistency hitting landrops.
I also realized that the win-con was even more jank than I feared (lol). I'm not giving up on the idea yet though, so I've created a more refined plan to pull it off.
===accordion ===panel:Drawin' Cards and Doin' Less Sacrifice
Both are 2-drop creatures, so keeping the curve similar is nice. While most things aren't going to have Finality counters on them unless Noctis has been doing his thing, Soul Diviner still has a more useful payout of "Draw a card" in contrast to milling two cards. The Mill requires Noctis to stay out to be usable, whereas even if Noctis gets hit by spot removal, the cards drawn by Soul Diviner stay castable. This isn't even mentioning that removing Finality counters is a powerful utility for this deck, completely cheating one of its main limiting restrictions.
Scrap Trawler relies on me to draw one of my sacrifice outlets to intentionally control it, and further, it hasn't looked that appealing in my hand when so many cards in the deck are 3-drops. Anything cheaper might have already been cast into play as well, and finality counters mean they won't be going back to the graveyard for Scrap Trawler to pull out later. They won't even trigger Scrap Trawler themselves, at that point. Tome of Legends can still be cast out of the graveyard (since it's still an artifact), and it outright draws cards, even if the graveyard plan isn't going that well at that moment. While there is some lost synergy, given this deck's heavy graveyard theme, the recursion and card draw are still analogous as card advantage.
Seer was probably the worst of the "digging" effects I'm cutting, since it relied on me to have a sac outlet. Mystic Forge offers actual card advantage every single time I can cast a card off the top of the library, in which case it has 32 artifact cards to hit. The deck's Mill Rocks also offer great synergy, since they lets me manipulate the top of library more than once per turn in order to get rid of dead hits.
I wanted Transmogrant Altar to be a budget, less-combo-prone version of Krark-Clan Ironworks, but such a thing simply does not exist. I found it harder to work with the restriction of only sacrificing creatures (in contrast to sacrificing any artifact), and the specific use-case of resetting Archaeomancer/Tenacious Tomeseeker can be covered by plenty other things. Invasion of Amonkhet mills, cantrips, and then waits until the backside is needed as, effectively, creature recursion. With the exception of the deck's key creatures Sewer Nemesis and Metalwork Colossus, the latter of which doesn't need the help, the battle's backside can be cracked later to provide a copy of any useful creature in my graveyard, or even someone else's.
Scavenger's Talent feels like it could be an all-in-one gameplan, since it provides its own sac outlet to trigger the mill effect. And that mill effect gives me things to play. But three permanents is a lot to sacrifice for only one creature, especially in a deck that isn't benefitting as much from its creatures. Further, the timing restriction doesn't help me at all. So, I'll take a different "digging" card by just adding an option that draws more cards.
===endpanel ===panel:Please God, Let Me Play Lands and Cast Things This section might have controversial cuts, but the common theme is getting rid of an inconsistent subtheme and embracing some consistency.
You'd think that Grinding Station would be easy to use. Mill to find artifacts, cast those artifacts to untap the station, then sacrifice the new artifacts to keep going. But recall that Noctis puts finality counters on artifacts; you're never getting them back. Spending more than even 1 mana just to mill doesn't feel good, not when a more dedicated Grinding Station deck could be developing their board at the same time and coincidentally making artifact tokens or whatnot to sacrifice to the station. This landcycler can find any of my colors and still be cast for cheap later in the game for whatever reason, making it the exact kind of role-filler I'm looking for instead.
Why should I rely on a sac outlet to get some extra mana? Especially when the upfront investment is 4-mana. In contrast, Mycosynth Wellspring finds a land for much cheaper, can do its thing even if being cast from the graveyard (unlike the cyclers), and still has some of that sacrifice synergy if I get my outlets out. But the point of this change is that Mycosynth Wellspring doesn't need the outlets to at least find me one land and color-fix me like the cyclers do.
I still believe in Sivriss' usefulness, but removing it matches the theory of this revision: get rid of this unnecessary sacrifice subtheme and get some consistency and resiliency into this list. So, Sivriss is becoming a cheap bit of cost reduction that I forgot existed during my initial deckbuilding.
Adding two bridges to expand the options for Sojourner's Companion's cycling ability. I want to increase the land count, so why not get rid of this card that only gets more mana if I meet variable conditions? This also helps keep the landbase varied for hitting all my colors.
===endpanel ===panel:Interaction Revamp
Honestly, Johann's Stopgap has felt quite fine every single time I've cast it, whether on my own creature or someone else's. However, I thought about White Auracite further and realized that an artifact is likely just more powerful in a deck like this. Being able to cast my interaction out of the graveyard and potentially at Flash-speed with Shimmer Myr or Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage are huge advantages. Beyond that, they still feel like much the same card, since in a fringe case, I could exile my own cards and then sacrifice the Auracite in order to reset whatever it was holding. Yet even when I actually use it on my opponents, it more permanently removes that problem. And none of this mentions that it sits around to be a mana rock as well!
The more I think about Obscura Charm, the more I worry that its usecases are too limited. It only destroying low-cost creatures and planeswalkers is the particular dealbreaker. This deck could use with slightly more direct, targeted removal, so Void Rend should be an easy change.
Adding Angel of the Ruins is technically part of my goal to help the deck hit land drops easier, but it counts as a interaction piece and thus found its place over an existing interaction piece. Curtains' Call gets cut due to the double-whammy of being an instant (which is harder to get out of my graveyard and reuse, in contrast to Angel fo the Ruins) and due to me frequently playing three-player games. If I'm paying extra mana on the spell anyway, then let me go big and do some evil things by sacrificing and recasting this Angel over and over.
I thought that Universal Solvent being so cheap to cast would make it useful as sacrifice fodder for an outlet, but the deck's play patterns simply didn't work out that way. I may not have that many outlets in the first place, I might need to sacrifice something specific (to get it in my graveyard and then recast it), and this deck's current trend of stacking some cost reduction by the late game means the ability costs way to much mana actually use, in contrast to just having a bigger spell to cast. Meteor Golem is both a bigger spell to cast and can work in some fringe cases by being a creature too, such as being hit by creature recursion or being sacrificed to my Trading Post. ===endpanel ===panel:Miscellaneous Tech
- Cruel Witness --> Wonder
Cruel Witness is another of those cards reliant on Noctis to do anything, in a way that I'm not sure is that helpful to the deck. Another addition that draws cards would likely do fine in this slot, but in this case, I'm eager to first see if Wonder adds any power or utility. Wonder can easily get milled into the graveyard or discarded to Trading Post. Once there, it provides endless flying blockers or can give Noctis himself easier attacks, allowing him to gain life more regularly off his lifelink. Who knows if the evasion might also make it easier for Metalwork Colossus or Sewer Nemesis to sneak in some big damage attacks and speed up my Fling clock?
Now that Soul Diviner can remove finality counters, Esperzoa feels much weaker, especially since its ability is timing-restrictive due to being an Upkeep trigger. Its other main use as a flying blocker is also being covered by the addition of Wonder. I hesitate somewhat to add Clock of Omens, but I believe it can prove its worth in late-game turns. It can make those turns much more mana efficient by granting an extra use of a mill rock, mana rock, or even some other weird utilites like tapping Scaretiller. Even in the early game, I don't imagine it will be a dead card all that often and for that long, seeing as how the deck has lots of mill sources for a reason. Even if it can't work with some of these mill sources, those sources go digging for the pieces what the Clock wants.
- Archaeomancer --> Tenacious Tomeseeker
- Blood Fountain --> Carrion Cruiser
- Ingenuity Engine --> Ancestral Statue
The above cards are all changes meant to refine my core win-con. I'll explain in the deck description rather than here. Carrion Cruiser's an easy explanation though, since I NEED an artifact that gets creatures out of the graveyard, and the Cruiser is more mana efficient than Blood Fountain. That isn't even accounting for potential cost-reduction either.
If I'm being honest, the journal with no additional clue support is probably too ambitious for the kind of timeframe this deck's gameplan already demands. I'm interested in trying out the backside of Altar as a backup win-con. If my Essence Harvest in particular gets exiled, then maybe I can benefit from my mill by dropping a lot of cards into the Craft ability and getting an annoying beat-stick.
===endpanel ===endaccordion
That's all! This is pretty dense, but it's because I am not one to skimp out on discussing the "why." These thoughts are how I justify making such changes in the first place, especially when it comes to cutting cards I would otherwise be excited to play. Hope these updates help anyone who was maybe feeling lost as to the thinking and theory behind deckbuilding choices.
Final Fantasy Update
Sunzet, 1 week ago
Due to the recent price drops over the past five years, Aether Vial is now within this deck. Added Cecil, Dark Knight and Dion, Bahamut's Dominant, and creature-based lands. Removed main deck instants.
