Feed the Swarm
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Alchemy 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
Freeform Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Historic Brawl Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Pre-release Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Standard Legal
Standard Brawl Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Feed the Swarm

Sorcery

Destroy target creature or enchantment an opponent controls. You lose life equal to that permanent's mana value.

clayperce on Ayara, Aristocrat of Locthwain

1 week ago

RedRocket_ -
Big fan of Mono-B Aristocrats here, so thought I'd drop in and take a look.

A couple general thoughts:

  • I love Salubrious Snail’s manabase tool for analyzing my lands, mana rocks, and other mana sources as I tweak a deck. If we plug your decklist in, it reports "your manabase is inconsistent, playing your spells 0.77 turns late on average" (ranging up to over 3.6 turns late for your 7-drops).
  • As you tweak the deck, I recommend aiming for something like "your manabase is strong, playing your spells [~0.2] turns late on average". You might take an especially hard look at your 4-drops (because there are so many of them) and your 7-drops (because the game will likely be over before you can cast them).

And two specific ones:

  • Feed the Swarm and Withering Torment, maybe? They're IMO our best way to deal with Enchantments in Mono-B.
  • If you haven't already don't so, you might check out Vessiliana's deck. They've been running Ayara for a long while and can probably give some very specific answers to any questions you might have.

Cheers!

TheoryCrafter on Pioneer MoonBounce Version 2.0

2 weeks ago

Sounds like a plan. While testing have you considered, if only temporarily for the sake of Cathartic Pyre, replacing Fatal Push with Soul-Scar Mage? While you don't have a whole lot of noncreature spells, it can allow you the ability to wear down indestructible creatures like Darksteel Colossus.

Also, while I'm thinking about it, even if Leyline of the Void doesn't destroy your game plan, it could prove an inconvenient pain in the tail. If you concur, I'd suggest adding to your sideboard any combination of Debt to the Kami, Extract the Truth, Feed the Swarm, Pharika's Libation and Withering Torment.

I hope this helps. Happy Hunting!

clayperce on The Black Deck

2 weeks ago

ALostWanderer -
Saw your help tag so thought I'd reach out. As a disclaimer though: I've never played Tergrid (vs or myself) and I'm still working on my first Bracket 4 deck myself. So please take all this as "brainstorming", not as "recommendations" ! :-D

FIRST THOUGHTS: MANA BASE AND MANA CURVE

  • I love Salubrious Snail's manabase tool for analysing my lands, mana rocks, and rituals as I tweak a deck. If we plug your decklist in, it reports "your manabase is struggling, playing your spells 0.99 turns late on average" (with Tergid over 1.3 turns late). For Bracket 4, you'll probably want to aim for something like "... strong playing your spells [~0.2] turns late on average."
  • As you tweak the deck, I rec' taking an especially hard look at your 5-drops (which compete directly with Tergrid) and your 7-drops (which compete directly with her re-cast).

MORE B4 STAPLES? Some options to help find the cards we need and play them quickly …

MORE DISCARD EFFECTS, MAYBE?

MORE PROTECTION, MAYBE? If you find yourself needing just a touch more protection for your Bracket 4 meta: Cavern of Souls, Imp's Mischief, and oc Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots.

MORE COMBO PIECES, MAYBE?

  • As far as I can tell, you only have 2x combos in the deck (any lifegain effect + Exquisite Blood + either Sanguine Bond or Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose) ... increasing the combo potential (and Tutor effects, to find the pieces) is definitely solid approach to make the deck more competitive in Bracket 4.
  • The Find my Combos page over at Commander Spellbook is a great tool, if you want to lean into combos more.

MORE STAX EFFECTS, MAYBE?

  • It’s hard to go wrong with the namesake card (Smokestack) in a Stax deck :-)
  • If you wanted to lean into Mass Land Denial a little more, I like both Contamination and Desolation.

A FEW FINAL THOUGHTS:

  • You might consider adding Feed the Swarm and/or Withering Torment ... they're IMO the best tools we have to deal with enchantments in Mono-B.
  • Braids, Arisen Nightmare maybe? I play Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER and she's amazing there ... I don’t get that many sacs from her (so she may not be as good in your deck), but her card draw is always superb.
  • I'm a fan of Malakir Rebirth, as protection when I need it and a Land when I don't.
  • I don't see anything that benefits from Reliquary Tower ... it would honestly be my first drop.
  • It's a totally small thing, but if you don't already have very distinct deck sleeves, you might consider getting some ... the last time I played vs a steal-your-things Commander everyone at the table had blue matte sleeves, and sorting out the cards afterwards was a bit of a pain :-D

Anyways, I really hope something in there ^^ proves useful, and I’m very sorry for the spam if it doesn't!

Good luck (and good skill) with the deck!
Cheers!

clayperce on Sephiroth, Fabled Soldier

3 weeks ago

Ryski3 -
Ok, I'll throw some thoughts at ya. PLEASE take all this as "brainstorming" though, not as "recommendations", as I'm still very new to Sephiroth, my deck is definitely not "there" yet, and we're almost certainly building for different playstyles and metas.

Looking at my deck (sorry I haven't transferred it over to TappedOut yet) and comparing it to yours, a few general things stand out:

MANA CURVE: My mana curve is quite a bit lower (total mana value 152 and average mana value 2.38, with the peak of the curve at 27x 2-drops) than yours (total mana value 180 and average mana value 2.77, with the peak of the curve at 21x 3-drops). I built it this way partly to make the deck faster, but mostly because I generally want to cast Sephiroth as soon as I have three mana … and every other 3-drop kind of “competes” with him. Depending on how fast you want to go and when you want to play Sephiroth, shifting your mana curve lower might be worthwhile.

MANA BASES: Our manabases are VERY different (I have more lands despite my lower curve, and you have a bunch more mana rocks and utility lands), but the end result is very similar. If we plug our deck lists into Salubrius Snail’s manabase tool, we can see they’re both “Very strong” and we both have a ~60% chance of casting our 6-drops on curve. That may be something you want to keep an eye on though, as you make adjustments to the deck.

“PILLARS” OF AN ARISTOCRATS DECK (SAC FODDER, SAC OUTLETS, DRAIN EFFECTS):

  • I have my sac fodder spread across a few areas: 3x like Fleshbag Marauder in “mass disruption”, 2x like Greedy Freebooter in “ramp”, 5x like Gravecrawler in “recursion”, and of course 12x like Bitterblossom in “tokens”, for 22 total. As for the other pillars, I have 5x free sac outlets and 7x drain effects (3x like Marionette Apprentice in “direct damage” and 4x like Blood Artist in “drain”).
  • In your deck, I think it’s 15 total pieces of fodder (3x in “mass disruption”, 1x in “ramp”, 1x in “recursion”, and 10x in “tokens”), 3x free sac outlets, and 6x drain effects (1x in “direct damage” and 5x in “drain”). You mentioned your deck feels like it could use some more token generation, but we’re actually pretty close there (12 vs 10). But raising your sac fodder in some of the other areas could perhaps make a big difference … maybe start with the “recursion” area (both in my main deck and in the “considering” tab)?

STAPLES (CARD ADVANTAGE, CARD SELECTION, MASS DISRUPTION, PROTECTION, TARGETED DISRUPTION, ETC): We’ve got different priorities here (I think mostly because of our different metas), and that’s cool.

THOUGHTS ON BRACKET 3 VS BRACKET 4:

  • My deck is honestly in a REALLY awkward position … it’s too fast for Bracket 3 but it's generally way too grindy/not consistent enough to compete at Bracket 4. So I need to either tune it down (by removing some infinite combos) or tune it up (by adding either more combos or more tutors to make the current ones more consistent, plus maybe adding some more fast mana sources).
  • As for your deck, adding some infinite combos would definitely be a way to increase the power level. The challenge is it’s very easy to build an Aristocrats deck that can go infinite on Turn 3 (or even earlier with fast mana or a Dark Ritual), and even if it doesn’t happen often, once it does, folks will think we’re playing a Bracket 4 deck at a Bracket 3 table.
  • You may already be using it, but if not: The Find my Combo page, over at Commander Spellbook is a GREAT tool, whether we want to add combos to a deck or keep them out.

A FEW ACTUAL RECOMMENDATIONS:

Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk. Hopefully something in there ^^ was useful, and if not I’m very sorry for the spam. Good luck (and good skill!) with Sephiroth!

Cheers!

DarkKiridon on *Dumpster Diving Racoon [Primer]

2 months ago

Oof, what a deck. Not my wheelhouse (besides my Dragon's Approach deck) but I'll give it a whirl.

Here's some more removal and other card ideas.

Feed the Swarm

Withering Torment

Untimely Malfunction

Return the Favor I love this one!

Imp's Mischief

Red Elemental Blast and/or Pyroblast. You never know? Or they could be dead draws?

Blasphemous Act

Blasphemous Edict

I love Seize the Spotlight.

Kaya's Ghostform

Toxic Deluge incase you fall behind?

I wonder how Bloodchief Ascension would do in here?

Delayed Blast Fireball

TheVectornaut on Fast Demons

2 months ago

I'm not sure what format this is intended for so I'm sorry if any of my suggestions aren't legal. Most decks aiming for big demons opt for reanimation over other turbo out options, but I think you can make it work for a casual deck. I like Quicksilver Amulet for instance and I think you could also consider Heartless Summoning, Ancient Cellarspawn, or Crypt Ghastfoil. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx makes Coffers slightly worse but I can't imagine it being a bad inclusion with so many black pips. Another option would be to include more demons in the low mana range so that you have some board presence early. Some that came to mind are Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire for tutoring, Master of the Feast if you want to lean into a Underworld Dreams/Orcish Bowmasters plan, Desecration Demon for stats and potential board denial, and Nightmare Shepherd for removal insulation. Really though, if you want more consistency, the best thing you can do is add more copies of your best cards. This does incentivize picking a clear direction and you don't want to consolidate too much here lest you get too low on unique names for Contract. If I was building this, I think I'd go to 4 copies of Spawn of Mayhem and 2-4 The Speed Demon with a focus on dealing damage or life loss to get their relevant triggers. Changeling Outcast is perfect for this so I'd up them too. Removal like Smallpox or the safer Geth's Verdict can incur life loss, and I do recommend upgrading from Sorin's Thirst and Cremate anyway. Fatal Push, Dismember, and Feed the Swarm are all options with varying strengths and weaknesses. That's just one direction too. You could just as easily build around foretell with Dream Devourer and some symmetry-breaking Damnations, Rite of Consumption effects with overstatted guys like Abyssal Persecutor, or pure devotion with Gray Merchant and Bloodletter alongside tools like The Meathook Massacre or Leyline of the Void. If you pick the handful of demons you enjoy playing the most and run more copies, you'll have more games actually playing with them and can save your tutors for emergencies more often.

DarkKiridon on Ratatouille, the Movie - Let's Cook

2 months ago

Two cards for removal in mono-black that should be played are Feed the Swarm and Withering Torment since they can hit enchantments also.

Last_Laugh on Black Rose Affairs: Love, Theft, and Sacrifice

2 months ago

Good start but I do have a few suggestions.

Gisa, Glorious Resurrector is EASILY your best theft option for Marchesa as it does both theft and sacrifice repeatedly with no further mana invested. Get it outta the maybeboard.

Feed the Swarm, Chaos Warp, and Canoptek Tomb Sentinel are your only realistic ways to deal with problematic enchantments in these colors. Don't get caught with your pants down vs. Rest in Peace, Solemnity, etc.

Satoru, the Infiltrator is one of the best draw options available to Marchesa bar none. Marchesa's recursion are all separate triggers, so like Thran Vigil, this triggers separately for each creature. Danny Pink is also amazing here. Keep in mind a creature returning from the grave is a new creature so alt +1+1 counter sources like Uncivil Unrest will draw again on resurrection.

Kardur, Doomscourge can feel dirty but goading all your opponents' creatures (and even fresh Haste creatures) repeatedly is highly effective to say the least.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel and the lifegain seem counterproductive here, but with any alternate source of +1+1 counters, he ends games fast. You get that etb 5 times (or more with clones) in one trip around the table. Easily my #1 finisher here.

I also can't recommend it enough... but get your remaining Signets and Talismans in here asap. The difference between a t3 and t4 Marchesa is huge.

Let me know if you're picking up what I'm putting down and I can help suggest a few cuts. Been piloting Marchesa for a literal decade now, so happy to help if you want.

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