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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 |
| Pauper | Legal |
| Pauper Duel Commander | Legal |
| Pauper EDH | Legal |
| Pioneer | Legal |
| Planar Constructed | Legal |
| Planechase | Legal |
| Quest Magic | Legal |
| Tiny Leaders | Legal |
| Vanguard | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
Grisly Survivor
Creature — Minotaur Warrior
Whenever you cycle or discard a card, Grisly Survivor gets +2/+0 until end of turn.
legendofa on The more I think about …
8 months ago
Dragging this back out to obsess about it some more with the release of the Planeswalker's Guide to Aetherdrift, Part 2. The city is being rebuilt with outside help, and it seems like enough living people and mummies survived to facilitate that. That answers two of my questions, but I still have no idea what the population numbers are. Either the city of Naktamun was much bigger than I assumed, the death toll of two wars was much lower than I assumed, or both.
Point 1: What counts as a survivor? Are only living people counted as survivors, or are mummies included? Grisly Survivor, Resolute Survivors, and Survivors' Encampment don’t provide many useful hints. There’s also Disposal Mummy, Dutiful Servants, Mummy Paramount, and Unraveling Mummy as the Amonkheti mummies in the Hour of Devastation set. In the 2017 online stories, there’s almost no mention of the mummies once the Hour of Devastation starts, and they don’t show up in the card art unless they’re the focus, so the number of mummies after the Hours is a complete unknown.
As a side point, there’s no real indication that the mummies of Amonkhet are independent, or even sentient, before the Aetherdrift Guide. In fact, cards like Dutiful Servants carry the implication that they are very much not self-aware, but Unconventional Tactics make that more ambiguous. In the Aetherdrift Guide, though, they suddenly demand independence and partnership, and have opinions and desires. This is the sort of detail I would have loved to see in the Amonkhet stories (and I was reading them as they came out). Even just a couple of paragraphs from a mummy’s point of view would flesh out the world that much more.
The March of the Machine story doesn’t offer anything else. The Amonkhet cards in March of the Machine are Blossoming Sands, Djeru and Hazoret, Injector Crocodile, Invasion of Amonkhet Flip, Khenra Spellspear Flip, Ruins Recluse, Sandstalker Moloch, Swamp, and Unseal the Necropolis, none of which offer too much insight.
So the number of mummies helping clear rubble and replant farms and construct a racetrack is a giant question mark. They’re simply there when they need to be and not there when they don’t. Do they count as survivors? I honestly have no idea, and that bugs me.
Point 2: How many survivors are there? The current population of Amonkhet is apparently enough to have "crowds lining the route and packing the grandstands", which to me suggests more than a few hundred, or even a few thousand. I would take this as at least tens of thousands, if not over a hundred thousand, going off typical capacities for major motor sports stadiums. This probably includes mummies as well as living people, but the total is still several orders of magnitude larger than what I would have expected.
Incidentally, I would expect the mummies—who explicitly failed the trials, usually with a major injury—to be the first ones to die. I don’t pretend to know much about invading, but cutting off supply lines seems to be pretty popular, and neither Nicol Bolas or Elesh Norn seem to have thought of that. Nicol Bolas even made sure that the people of Naktamun were entirely reliant on mummy labor, and he doesn't take advantage of that. So much for masterminds and tactical geniuses... Mummies are explicitly said to massively outnumber the living in the Aetherdrift Guide, so either Amonkhet was like 75% mummy for the Hour of Reckoning (not especially borne out by the story or cards), or they had a very low casualty rate across two invasions.
The Aetherdrift Guide includes the sentences "The Phyrexian invasion saw the deaths of tens of thousands of Amonkheti. Newly risen under the Walking Curse, these fresh undead were not eager to submit to the old order of servile mummification." I'm getting two inferences from this. First, the Phyrexians did not process, convert, or utilize tens of thousands of dead Amonkheti for whatever reason--were they immediately coated in lazotep as soon as they died?. Second, the living population of Naktamun after Hour of Devastation was at least in the tens of thousands.
So after the Accounting of Hours, there were enough living people for tens of thousands to die against Phyrexia. After Phyrexia, there were still enough survivors (probably including both living people and mummies) to form crowds of significant size to watch the Aetherdrift rally. So we’re blowing way past the 30,000 population of ancient Memphis, the most populated city in the world at its height and a major inspriastion for Naktamun. I’m not going to fault a city in a fantasy story being unrealistically big, but I would like to at least have an idea on how unrealistically big it is, besides just “big enough to support the story”.
Time to start headcanoning some numbers.
Starting with what I would consider at the upper edge of realistic, put the living and mummy population of Naktamun at 30,000 each, for a total of 60,000. Let's then assume a devastating, plane-threatening 80% mortality rate for each group, each conflict. After the Accounting of Hours, there would be 6,000 living and 6,000 mummies for a total population of 12,000. After the Phyrexian Invasion, there would be 1,200 living people and 1,200 mummies, for a total of 2,400. That could probably serve as a base to rebuild from, but it doesn't capture grandstands full of cheering crowds or Phyrexians killing tens of thousands of people.
Try some different numbers. Now, the initial total population of Naktamun is 3,000,000. Of that, let's say 2,000,000 were mummy servants and 1,000,000 were living soldiers in constant training. (This is still very high, given the apparent technology and appearance of the city.) Let's further say that there was a 50% casualty rate among the living and 25% casualty rate among the mummies for each major conflict. After the Accounting of Hours, there would be 1,500,000 mummies and 500,000 living. After the Phyrexian Invasion, there would be 1,125,000 mummies and 250,000 living. That feels too high for a city struggling to keep itself alive.
Tweaking numbers until I'm happy. 400,000 mummies; 150,000 living; 550,000 total. 60% casualty rate for both groups, each conflict. After HoD, there would be 160,000 mummies and 60,000 living survivors. After Phyrexia, there would be 64,000 mummies and 24,000 living survivors. That feels pretty okay to me. Mummies outnumber the living by about a 3:1 ratio, the Phyrexians could have killed tens of thousands of people, and there's still enough for crowds to fill grandstands and line racetracks, assuming it's mostly mummies.
On other notes from the previous discussion, there’s still no real word on where Crested Sunmare came from, which is interesting, and the “Death Race” set does go through Amonkhet.
Also... (spoilers) Show
Omniscience_is_life on The "Rain of Gore" Debacle
4 years ago
Doom146 on
Faithless Survivor
5 years ago
Really cool deck idea! Check out Reckless Charge to haste your Grisly Survivor
thescottromney on
Don't Discard the Minotaurs!!
5 years ago
Hey this is great! I have a very similar deck and really love it. Grisly Survivor is seriously underrated I think and often gets overlooked in the first game. Spinehorn Minotaur and Grisly Survivor are both really good targets for Unearth and can get out early if you loot on the first turn.
I would definitely think about adding Unearth to use that added synergy to your deck and Fists of Flame enabled very scary plays with Spinehorn Minotaur . If I were you I would go for a full playset of the spinehorn so you can have two real threats in the 3 slot. 4x Faithless Looting is also the way to go. It costs 1 and can be used from the graveyard so it just activates your big threats more regularly than Thrill of Possibility or Cathartic Reunion .
I splash green for Deadshot Minotaur as well because cycle + removal + minotaur = Love
I really like this deck and am glad to see someone else noticed the good synergies. Keep up the good work with Winotaurs!
Here is my decklist https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/minotaurs-in-pauper/
Strangelove on
Anje's Madness
5 years ago
Hey Matt, 'saw your reddit post and wanted to help!
I like the Psychosis Crawler effects with Shadow of the Grave as well as the Worldgorger combo dumping madness creatures with Anje.
I'd drop some of the vanilla madness for a few more lands and ramp (34-36 lands/ 6-8 ramp).
Squee, Goblin Nabob and Bone Miser were mvp, I'd put them back in.
Here are a few more:
Living Death / Balthor the Defiled / (etc)...
Ruthless Sniper / Flameblade Adept / Grisly Survivor ... low curve.
Hazoret's Monument ... win-more.
Bag of Holding / Dragon Mage ... win-more.
malthusthomas on
UB Madness Midrange
6 years ago
Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to my LGS to test it at the monthly pauper event.
My initially conclusions from a handful of matches online is that the deck is pretty slow and was missing a later game threat. That's why I brought in Horror of the Broken Lands for Grisly Survivor . Maybe I should think about simplifying the mana base. All the tap lands limit the usefulness of the permission package in the deck in the early going.
Also, it's a lot of clicking and so you'd better be really comfortable with the interface or you're going to burn your clock really quickly. I'm just new to mtgo and so it's a bit tough for me so far.
I'm hoping to do more play testing on both in the next month and should have more useful feedback on performance in specific matchups in the meta and evaluation of specific cards.
malthusthomas on
UB Madness Midrange
6 years ago
Thanks for the nice words and feedback! I'm honestly not sure what's up with Circular Logic . I tried changing the printing but it still shows as an illegal card despite it definitely being pauper legal.
I was just talking today with some people who suggested putting in some cycle lands, I wasn't sure if it mattered whether they are Barren Moor or Lonely Sandbar . I will definitely do that though. Makes them way more valuable in late game.
I had thought about Putrid Imp and Aquamoeba but both are pretty vulnerable to ping (amoeba opens up when I activate its ability) and I liked the relatively more hearty Dragoon with the evasion it gives. I settled on Oblivion Crown as the alternate/supplementary engine since it can allow Cunning Survivor and Grisly Survivor to become even more threatening while being a little more difficult to remove (at least that's my inexperienced thought).
I really like the idea of Gorgers for applying pressure but I'm just not sure what to take out for them. Maybe I don't need Duress and Divest in the sideboard, so I can move some removal (of which I have a lot) and put the Gorgers in.
I'm also wondering if I should have some way to draw. Something like the Careful Study I have in the maybe board. It's why I was also considering Looter il-Kor . I've also kicked around the idea of a Thorn of the Black Rose for the draw that comes with Monarch.
Sorry for the lengthy reply and thanks again!
