Blightbeetle

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Historic Brawl Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Blightbeetle

Creature — Insect

Protection from green (This creature can't be dealt damage, enchanted, equipped, blocked or targeted by anything green. Anything green attached to this creature immediately falls off.)

Creatures your opponents control can't have +1/+1 counters put on them.

GameofFame on Carrion, My Wayward Swarm (Grist Insects + Song)

7 months ago

Hey man I love the deck. I wanna build something like this to be a fun way to get around my friends decks, which are mostly big creature/control decks. What do you think about Virus Beetle/Blightbeetle for some control, or maybe even Giant Ankheg/Crash of Rhino Beetles/Vorapede for some damage? I know Grist Ult is the main win con, but I was thinking it would be a nice challenge to get 100% insect tribal deck with some win cons of their own. Circuit Mender and Triumph of the Hordes might also be fun. Awesome build tho, you've definitely given me some ideas!

Apollo_Paladin on lifelink 1-1 chains

1 year ago

Personally I would add in at least some creature removal here. (Ossification is a great start)

Why? Because I know a LOT of builds that run Knight of Dusk's Shadow and/or Blightbeetle in their decks just because Lifegain/Countergain is so common and can be such an easy strat to shut down. If either of those cards hit the board Turn 2 you're dead in your tracks. You also might look out for some enchantment hate since Solemnity has a few uses in a couple of different builds, and it similarly would shut you down. There's also Tainted Remedy floating around in some decks, just because so many effects include some kind of lifegain bonus that it's easy to flipping it all to damage instead works against a wide variety of builds to varying degrees.

Light of Hope is good for enchantment hate in your case since (in the event you don't need Enchantment hate) the other 2 options are very useful for your build & keep with its synergy.

Further, I think Lunarch Veteran  Flip would serve you better in the slots in place of your Impassioned Orators. Not only are they cheaper to get out, they can come back into play if they're killed giving them a lot more versatility than the 1 extra pwr/tgh that the Orator gets you for that 1 extra mana.

Also I 100% agree with the above comment that Blue splash in here is doing you NO good at all (it's even increasing the number of 'enters tapped' lands you're running since you're using the guildgate; go straight Black/White with this puppy, either a Plains or a Swamp basic even would be better to draw in those slots.

Hope some of this helps give you some direction, and either way it's nice to see another fellow Arena player here using the site! +1 just for that!

Apollo_Paladin on The Stuff Legends Are Made Of

2 years ago

It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on things for only being a "casual" player (as you put it).

I actually have a whole writeup on some of my MTG Arena deck posts here on the glory of Blightbeetle. As a matter of fact I use him in two different builds in which I play ranked matches and do quite well (I, like you, don't do any kind of tournament play; ranked MTGA matches is as close as I get to anything resembling a Tournament).

There are a number of popularly-used creatures on Arena which Blightbeetle completely shuts down (as in - kills as they enter play) like Hydroid Krasis, Stonecoil Serpent, and Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig for example. It is incredibly satisfying to watch an opponent play something like that having not read the text on Blightbeetle and scan around in utter confusion as the big creature they just cast evaporates the second it hits the board. This happens somewhat frequently still too, so it is Recurring Joy (haha).

I'm really glad to see you've found this guy as well. Between Blightbeetle and "Big Teysa", you've hit 2 of easily my top 20 favorite magic cards of all time for general play.

And I really do hope you get to make use of all 3 of those Teysas in a build. The synergy there is just off-the-charts good in my opinion. Having Medium Teysa out and getting a double trigger off sacrificing 3 creatures to Little Teysa is just silly good.

MTG Arena is 100% free to try should you ever wish to give it a try (there is, of course, options to spend money, but one needn't do so and in fact in over 2 years of playing there I've spent a grand total of twenty dollars ever). The only downside to not spending ANY money initially is that it takes longer to build up your card selection. Also, there isn't a Commander Format option on Arena (yet) but should you ever feel the desire to give a different format a try you can add me there to play or discuss strategy or whatever: Apollo_Paladin#83413

I'm on most days at least for a little while, if only to earn some daily rewards for my free gold as it's how I accumulate wildcards w/o spending cash.

As for actual physical paper-card games, I myself never had enough people around who played Commander format so I grew up mostly around Legacy-style play.

I'll dig around at what you've posted here none the less. I'd say take a peek at some of my decks as well, but if you prefer Commander then I'm certainly not trying to talk you out of it either.

Cheers!

multimedia on Latty the baddie

3 years ago

Hey, one drop green mana Elves are really good, a big reason to play Elves. They aren't just ramp with Lathril they're also fuel for her activated ability when you don't need them for ramp and lets you get more Elves onto the battlefield quicker.


Staff of Domination does everything as a mana sink for Elves and can be an enabler for Lathril to be a win condition. With Staff you first make infinite green mana by tapping and untapping one of Archdruid, Marwyn(with 5 or more power), Priest of Titania, Circle or Wirewood Channeler. When you have infinite green mana then Staff is the mana sink to draw and cast enough Elves to control 10 or more. When you have 10 or more Elves then Staff can be the mana sink to repeatedly untap Lathril and each one the 10 Elves as the win condition.

Quest for Renewal is another enabler for Lathril and 10 Elves to be win condition. When Quest has four counters which is not difficult especially with more mana Elves, you can untap all creatures you control during each opponents turn. With Lathril each opponent loses 10 life on each player's turn, resulting in all opponents losing 40 life in one cycle of all player's turns if you have three opponents.

Chord of Calling is a helpful instant creature tutor since can tap Elves to help to pay for it's convoke, with enough Elves it's a free spell to cast and it puts the creature you search for onto the battlefield. It has nice interaction with Elf tokens since can tap them to convoke the turn they're created. With Chord get Ezuri or Miara, Thorn of the Glade in response to removal, get Archdruid so you can tap him on your turn, get Magistrate so you can tap her on your next turn, get Varragoth so you can attack with him on your next turn, etc.

Patriarch's Bidding is among the most powerful tribal spells for quick recovery. For five mana it reanimates all Elves in your graveyard. Play a Regrowth just to have another potential Chord or Bidding or recur any other card.


An area to consider improving to help with competitiveness is the manabase by upgrading to Golgari dual lands that ETB untapped.

Cabal Stronghold only works with basic Swamps and there's only 9 here which is not enough to really get much if any ramp making it consistently only a colorless source of mana.


Some cards to consider cutting: Blightbeetle, Mana Bloom, Terramorph, Serpent's Soul-Jar, Return Upon the Tide, Masked Admirers, Wild Pair, Golgari Guildmage, Korozda Guildmage, Rhys the Exiled, Blanchwood Armor, Dowsing Dagger  Flip, Harvest Season

If Blightbeetle is tech in your playgroup than nice, but if it's not then it looks out of place. Most if not all mana ramp sources can come from actual Elves instead of other sources like Mana Bloom or land ramp like Terramorph. I would even play one drop mana Elf or Farhaven Elf over Cultivate or Harvest Season.

Serpent's Soul-Jar is not a good card, exiling an Elf when it dies is not a may you have to do it and hoping to be able to cast many Elves later, one at a time with Jar is not going to consistently happen. Instead most if not all your exiled Elves will be stuck in exile for the rest of the game because Jar will be destroyed or removed another way.

Good luck with your deck.

Hedron-titan on Touch me, IF YOU DARE!

3 years ago

libraryjoy, here's the new setup. I took a lot of your advice, but I'm not sure if I should take out a few cards that I felt I should keep to add more mana. Maybe either Retreat to Hagra , Blightbeetle , or the two Epic Downfall because I was thinking of adding maybe one or two Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx . Please, let me know what you think about that. I think the reason I can see Erebos working is cuz I can use that to draw more cards if I'm not getting the right stuff, so then I can just speed up the process. I'm definitely going to have to get Phyrexian Arena , especially if I'm using Gary.

libraryjoy on Touch me, IF YOU DARE!

3 years ago

If you want it to be Modern Legal, able to play at a Modern event, then yes, replace the Bubbling Muck with 3x Dark Ritual . But if it's just to play in your play group, then it shouldn't matter. I would go with 2-3x Garys, because he is going to do WORK for you lol. I went ahead and made an adjusted list that I would recommend, but feel free to adjust as you see fit. I ended up leaving off Fog of Gnats because it's a buck each and I don't see it doing a ton for you. I actually put in Brain Maggot - don't underestimate the benefits of knowing your opponent's hand! Blightbeetle could also fit in that slot. I could see Erebos if you play against a lifegain deck regularly (might be a sideboard card, too). I added Retreat to Hagra instead of Torment of Scarabs , but your mileage may vary. It's definitely a smoother mana curve. I ended up dropping Stab Wound after I realized how many permanents you were making the opponent sacrifice. In the maybe board, I added 2 cards for card draw. If you want to put $$ down toward something, I'd recommend Phyrexian Arena . It's going to be useful in pretty much every deck running black. So at long last, here's my list: Boi! Keep Your Hands to Yourself!

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