Considerations
IQuarent, 5 days ago
Icetill Explorer from the new set needs to go in here. I don't know what I'll cut yet. I've been missing Victimize. It was nice to have a guaranteed way to get my win condition, i.e. Lord of Extinction and Jarad at the same time. Living Death is often too risky, so either the deck needs more reliable gravehate, or Victimize should go back in. The deck already has too much recursion, so I don't know what I'll cut if I want to put it back in. Dance of the Dead Maybe.
Removed Ichor Wellsprings, added Norin the Wary
Tryptic, 5 days ago
The Ichor Wellspring + Gleeful Demolition + Umbilicus synergy was pretty rare and not too effective. Meanwhile, Genesis Chamber was often a net negative because this deck doesn't actually play that many creature spells, and opponents having a bunch of Myr made it harder to attack. However, Norin the Wary is a blazing fast way to get Myr with Genesis Chamber. The deck is faster, more consistent and more fun with this change.
Update #1: Commiting to a Sideboard
NeoMordiki, 6 days ago
Change Log: Main Board Swaps: Temple of Epiphany is replaced with Thundering Falls for more impactful play. Take Inventory has replaced Accumulated knowledge which is now in the sideboard. Sideboard Swaps: Chart a Course is replaced with Flow of Knowledge Distant Memories is replaced with Gifts Ungiven Temple of Epiphany is replaced with Gush Maybeboard is removed for more impactful choices to be made for the sideboard. Sideboard has potential to grow for swaps but is limited by the sleeves.
Some Fine Tuning
IQuarent, 6 days ago
IN: Culling Ritual, Demonic Collusion
OUT: Vandalblast, Diabolic Tutor
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I've been cutting Vandalblast from most of my decks lately. It just hasn't been useful. Maybe this because a prominent player in my playgroup almost never runs artifacts (even Sol Ring) but for the games I play with people other than him I want to just cut it and see if I miss it. Culling Ritual usually tends to hit a lot of artifacts anyway, and the deck also has Decimate and Fade from History for good measure. It should be fine.
Demonic Collusion over Diabolic Tutor seems pretty straightforward. Giving me more ways to discard at basically no opportunity cost seems good.
Car and Ship
Idoneity, 6 days ago
I cut Surgehacker Mech and Prismatic Lens for Cargo Ship and The Regalia.
Card changes (Not Complete)
sloneketters, 6 days ago
Changeling Outcast for Silas Renn, Seeker Adept Tormented Soul for Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor Inkfathom infiltrator for Unstoppable Slasher Ukkima, Stalking Shadow for Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel Triton Shorestalker for Shadowmage Infiltrator Nezahal, Primal Tide for Brotherhood Regalia Slither Blade for Silver Shroud Costume Swamp for Access Tunnel Talion, the Kindly Lord for Hollow Specter Deep-Sea Kraken for Vorpal Sword Ferropede for Necropolis Regent The Mindskinner for Needle Specter Vedalken Infiltrator for Drana, Liberator of Malakir
Some draw, some shah, and some gah
Idoneity, 1 week ago
I have removed Daring Archaeologist, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, and Drifting Meadow. In their lieu, I have added World Map, Elena, Turk Recruit, and Venat, Heart of Hydaelyn Flip.
None
Spacegrandpa, 1 week ago
Oops
PrincessOfFriendship, 1 week ago
Rakdos Ickspitter was in the original design and build, but before I ever played the deck I swapped it out with Vampire Nighthawk. I had forgotten the fact and felt I needed to make the switch.
None
kilburnking, 1 week ago
Testing
NonetheWeisser, 1 week ago
We added 1 more island due to our need to reliably hit our 4th land drop We also swapped out Vapor Snag for Unable to scream. In the current meta, the latter neutralizes threats much more consistently. Lastly, we are testing 1 Flare of Denial. Im hesitant to test more than one, as well rarely want to lose bodies on the board. However, one copy in a pinch might be worth it.
Which Tidus? Dis Tidus.
Idoneity, 1 week ago
I have removed Wojek Investigator, which may be a card that returns to the list. In its lieu, I have added Tidus, Blitzball Star.
Recently
atingtdm, 1 week ago
Update— July 16
In Ilysian Caryatid, Growth Spiral. Out Burgeoning, Exploration. Burgeoning and Exploration almost do nothing in the late game.
In Juvenile Mist Dragon, Transplant Theorist, Adventure Awaits, Incubation / Incongruity. Out Stunt Double, Phyrexian Metamorph, Ice-Fang Coatl, Treasure Cruise. Reduce the number of clones and add some valuable creatures for them to clone. Also, I'm trying the filter-cantrip so that I can get the card I require.
In Scute Swarm, Thrashing Brontodon, Nature's Claim. Out Haywire Mite, Force of Vigor, Resculpt. Doesn't need to answer every minor threat in the early game. I think it's better to be late and a good body, or many bodies.
In Skyshroud Claim, Tempt with Discovery. Out Nature's Lore, Three Visits. For the Scute Swarm.
In Storm of Saruman, Out Wolfwillow Haven. As Volo's backup.
In Snow-Covered Island, Out Otawara, Soaring City. Not worth putting in an almost legend-less deck.
None
YesterdaysGhost, 1 week ago
I didn't realise how efficient this deck was at punishing life gain and life loss. My synergy game was spot on with all the tweaks along the way as this came together. Frustrated going 0-2 against my son with my Group Hug deck, unsurprising losses really as they were 1v1 games, I decided to give this deck it's first run. Not only did it run, it won a gold medal! Although I couldn't engine an infinite loop I was getting major benefits from "When you gain life, target opponent loses life" effecta, which were fun when paired with cards that offered myself life and took my opponents life at the same time. This would be par for the course of how I won the game on turn 6 or 7, with a solid boardstate and a reasonable handful of enchantments and artifacts in play. Hail to the blood!
Group not 1v1
YesterdaysGhost, 1 week ago
Well my son educated me in how this deck should strictly be used for group encounters when my early game was too passive two games in a row as his Yargle & Mutani steamrolled me. I had some fun interactions and good card advantage engines going but just couldn't get many Hydras or Sphinxes out before I was overwhelmed. Definitely want to see how this runs in a larger setting however!
Changelog
SteelHeadPaladin, 1 week ago
-1 Burnished Hart // -1 Obelisk of Grixis // -1 The Elderspell // -1 Commence the Endgame // -1 God-Eternal Bontu // -1 Notion Thief // -1 The Scarab God // -1 Gate to the Afterlife // -1 God-Pharaoh's Gift // +1 Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar *f-etch* // +1 Kess, Dissident Mage // +1 Notion Thief // +1 Arcane Signet // +1 Soul Manipulation // +1 Imp's Mischief // +1 Lightning Greaves //+1 Swiftfoot Boots
Mainboard Updates v.1
Andramalech, 1 week ago
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Replacing some cards in the sideboard, Basilisk Collar, Haywire Mite, and Vexing Bauble for 3 copies of March of Wretched Sorrow.
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Opted for this because it easily pays for itself once over and takes care of it's extra copies as well (when exiling). It's a true win that was recommended to me by SaskiaKnight711.
Obligatory Recap Episode
Vulnoth, 1 week ago
This is a retrospective log of Mort and his development from the past couple months. I've actually been pretty active with him in particular since he's my current main for my secondary EDH group. The long and short of that is, thanks to the FF set, my Yugioh playgroup has picked MTG back up and we'll be switching between the two games going forward. Right now we're exclusively playing MTG while I tinker with the house rules I've written for that playgroup, a collection of bans/restrictions, rules, comprehensive charting of concepts such as turn progression and priority, and catalogs of other various things for Yugioh - it has since been dubbed "Codex Ascardes" by my best friend (henceforth "Swarmlard Guy") because I'm the game master and rules lawyer. Yennyhew, my primary EDH group only plays once every 2 or 3 weeks but my secondary one plays every week. Mort will be taking leave of the primary group, but we'll get to that...
June 20
Game went going with group hug involved, and because 2 present people were playing solitaire combo decks, almost 2 hours passed and very little had actually happened due to the Izzet guy and Ashaya, Soul of the Wild landfall decks going at each other. While I had incredible mana access, my deck's core function is simply too slow to keep up and relies heavily on setup and time as opposed to raw resource acquisition. My good friend, playing Shadrix Silverquill, was in the same boat as me: tons of mana but had to choose between throwing haymakers or setting up. The time problem was on account of the Izzet player resolving big spells that chained into other shenanigans, for which he had to do a fair amount of thinking, but that's to be expected when you resolve Epic Experiment for 12 into Mana Geyser for about 30 with 15+ cards in hand. I, seeing that Mort's core function is too slow despite group hug's acceleration, threw Torment of Hailfire for 29. Shadrix player sighed in relief. Group hug guy chuckled and nodded. Ashaya player shrugged. Izzet player countered it, prompting profanity from the Shadrix player while I contemplated downloading Fate Grand Order. This was when I checked out. I didn't scoop but I was more preoccupied with my phone for the rest of the game. Only consolation is the group hug guy won via Labatory Maniac and 8 copies of Heartwood Storyteller right before Izzet guy popped off again.
This brings me to my decision to remove Mort from the group. While peeps are pretty open about the power levels they'd like, Mort even at his best is simply too slow, and I was too ambitious to accept just how inadequate Mort is for a Bracket 4 group. He costs too much, is less stable than other decks in that group, and frankly is the single most boring style I've ever tried. Winning via Blood Artist and its bazillion copycat cards is tiresome, unimaginative, and incentivizes not interacting with my friends. Right now Mort was my only deck capable enough to stand in that group, so for now I'll bum decks off friends until Alela, Artful Provocateur is back up and running. It's going to be a lot of work having decks for different groups, but it is what it is. Better I restore Alela and buff her up so I can resume my pillow fort trolling than try to make Mort punch above his weight class.
Since then, I've been further trying to refine Mort's flavor and stability. My 2nd group is far slower, capping at low Brack 3 with Mort as the current kingpin as everyone else is on precons with fewer than 10 changed cards. This was really when I started to notice how much I loathe braindead death procs because legit threats were removed from my presence. This group intends to stay low power because, as we learnt from Yugioh over the years, high degrees of power are answered with similarly high degrees of interference. Scale down the power and you can safely scale down inteference. Yennyhew, Mort bled my friends at what felt like breakneck speed. He was ending games in about 45 minutes despite the ambient smalltalk and rabbitholes we tend to go down that stop games long enough to forget whose turn it is. This all said, optimization is no longer an issue. Mort will be built to fight with flavor and good old fashioned fisticuffs. My physical deck is a weird in-between of his former direction and new but it's been fun just straight-up trading punches with The Swarmlord, Davros, Dalek Creator
, and Garnet, Princess of Alexandria. Commander damage deaths happen almost as much as regular ones, if you can believe it! Died to Garnett commander damage just this past week.
I'm not going to recount the events at my 2nd group because, honestly, too many cards are still in the deck that have long since left the blueprint like Dictate of Erebos and Damnation. What I can do, however, is log my thoughts on facets of the deck and how I intend to refine them.
Flavor: Mort churning out ugly boys for going under busses and regular assaults is fine and well, but what I'm really looking for are elements of plague, decay, and undeath to offset goodstuff cards like Kain, Traitorous Dragoon. Whether it's rad (counters for my opponent's exclusively), -1/-1 enablers, or revival engines, I have high hopes for this front. Lowering the power level opens up a lot of doors. Heck, we don't even really kill commanders. This means I can more safely splash in on-theme equipment such as Wand of Orcus.
Strategy: As aforementioned, the mercy shown to commanders (unless you swing in, then you're liable to get your commander dogpiled), so introduction of on-theme equipment can better emphasize that Mort is, in fact, the star of the show. Not the Plague Marines. Not insert death proc here. The commander. I will retain the production line of ugly boys, but am looking to scale back the life loss from its former bursty nature and focus on a slow self-bleed so my assembly line is more limited but more stable. The ugly boys will get their kills here and there, but they're more to keep the armies busy so Mort can swoop in for decapitating strikes. I don't think I want to go down the route of gigantic buffs like Nightmare Lash but I'll consider them all the same.
Power: By virtue of producing so many tokens with half-evasion, even the slightest buff can make them threatening. I'm currently on a somewhat anthem-heavy build that I anticipate straying from in time. Anthems tied to other abilities such as Caged Sun and Ascendant Evincar will stay. Why I'm taking such a cautionary stance on anthems is knowing how much they make the ugly boys snowball. It's common for me to have more than 5 ugly boys at a time, and when they're all 5/5...that's far above the group's ability to effectively defend against. Tacking on wither only exacerbates the issue and I'd really rather keep the wither than the anthems for flavor reasons. Mort himself will be compensated through equipment, and then further he will be supported by an adjusted lineup of creatures.
I'll report back on the more specific facets in my next entry soon (I hope). Had to make some hard decisions, and though I feel the sting of having purchased cards I will no longer be using, this will be for the best in the long term.
Commander Swap
Cyntax, 1 week ago
Swapped out Massacre Girl, Known Killer for Tergrid, God of Fright Flip
None
PlaneswalkerTed, 1 week ago
Several play tests have helped round out the spell package. The deck is fun, definitely not top tier meta, but changes it up quite a bit.
I need but one map to know my way
Idoneity, 1 week ago
World Map sucks. Only play it if you need a specific land. I have cut it for Faerie Mastermind.
