Gurmag Angler

Creature — Zombie Fish

Delve (You may exile cards from your graveyard as you cast this spell. Each card you exile while casting this spell pays for {1}.)

Discussion (50)

Cheiromancer on $5 Discard Control

1 week ago

I think this deck could use a few heavies to serve as finishers, or blockers for creatures that your opponent top-decks. Besides an eternalized Dream stealer, that is. After turn 5 your opponent will likely be in top deck mode, something that will make Geth's Grimoire dead weight, and makes several of your creatures useful only as chump blockers. Gurmag Angler is an obvious choice for a heavy, or maybe Demon of Catastrophes. His flying and trample abilities are very useful.

You could take out a few copies of Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage. You don't want multiple copies of him showing up, anyway.

Henchman31 on Notorious B: Ready to Die [Remastered]

1 month ago

Gattison: Thanks again for the tips on updating the decks. To celebrate getting out of quarantine, last night I took this deck to my LGS to test it out with the other Pauper players. I made some minor changes beforehand:

Lands: +2 Mortuary Mire, +2 Barren Moor Instants: +4 Deadly Dispute

Sideboard: 2 Nihil Spellbomb, 2 Sylvok Lifestaff, 3 Tragic Slip, 4 Dash Hopes, 2 Feed the Swarm, 2 Shrivel

We're normally a small group but that night we were only 4: myself, another Pauper regular, and two others who are very active in the competitive Modern league. We settled into 3 rounds and... oof: 5 losses, 1 win, and one undecided due to overtime. Here's how it went down:

Round 1: vs. BG Dredge/ Tortured Existence 0-2-0 Not a good matchup at all, I'm afraid. Spore Frog made the combat step irrelevant, Thoughtpicker Witch kept me drawing lands and exiling my answers, and saccing his chump blockers to the deck's namesake kept me from activating any beneficial death triggers. All my card-draw got shuffled to the bottom in both rounds and there wasn't much I could do until he got a couple Gurmag Angler out to end my misery. On a side note: I hate playing against Dredge almost as much as Blink or Tron--all of which are beloved in this local meta. Maybe it's just ze Germans -_-. I'm always on the lookout for answers against these.

Round 2: vs. UB Looting/Control 0-2-0 Things were looking hopeful while I was developing my board and he was just casting different versions of Preordain for the first few turns. His main beater turned out to be Shipwreck Sifters, which got uncomfortably swole thanks to repeatable looting. Dross Golem was a star in this round and almost killed him in the first match. However after sideboarding, his removal became much more aggressive and I wasn't even left with blockers. Missing answers and sigh card draw, he took it home with some beefy spirits.

Round 3: vs. Temur Cascade or Gruul Walls + Mulldrifter -_-' 1-1-1 This was a weird one: aggressively defending and ramping with Tinder Wall, Overgrown Battlement, and Tuktuk Rubblefort until he could cascade into Boarding Party and other beaters. By turn 3 he had at least 6 walls out, each with at least 3 toughness that brushed off anything I could turn sideways. We were both surprised when my card draw engine started working in match 2 and I could slap out my own beaters with multiple rituals and disputes in a single turn. While he was missing his {R} and Winding Way, I managed a Soulcage Fiend and Mortis Dogs by turn 2. After taking the 5-life hit from Dash Hopes twice, I had him on turn 5; clinching it with Howl from Beyond. Although the last round was undecided and he was prepared to kill me with hasty Pirates again, I was still pleased to pull off the primary wincon at least once.

Overall thoughts: This was my first outing with the deck so I still need to play it more to see the clear differences between the inherent weaknesses and my own misplays. I like aggressive decks and when this got going, I was down to clown. All-stars of the night were Mortis Dogs, Dross Golem, and especially Deadly Dispute. So much value. Add a dash or two of Dark Ritual and Sign in Blood in a single turn? chef's kiss That being said, I still think some adjustments are in order: First, that Mortuary Mire got to go. It slowed down the deployment of creatures and messed with my draws. Silly me. Unearth is much better recursion hands down. Second, sadly the goblins and newts must make room for another 1 or 2 Festering Mummy and a full set of Shambling Ghast. The latter does the same thing as the others but gives the option to ramp--which is especially relevant in my meta where creature decks are scarce. Third, better quicker removal? I left out Innocent Blood this time but either that or the asymmetrical Geth's Verdict could work. Fourth, mass removal or damage-dealing ala Crypt Rats or Pestilence? Sure, it would kill our forces but isn't that the point?

After looking at some other Suicide Black lists, I've seen what makes this deck unique and I'm still interested in making it work. I like the focus on death triggers and I'd love to find more ways to exploit them. Other creature-based lists use beaters like Guul Draz Vampire, Dauthi Slayer, and Carnophage to drop that life total to the floor. Pumping beaters like these and/or giving them lifelink seems appealing, but I'd like to stay true to the spirit of this deck as much as I can.

Sorry for the wall of text, I just wanted to get this all out now while it was still fresh. I hope this proves interesting to you or any others looking to try this deck out.

Allan-Chefa- on Life Gain and Artifacts!

1 month ago

Good Morning! I tested the deck against some metas and did well, I won against the mono R Burn, Rakdos combo and the Orzhov pestilence, and lost against Mono B fairies. All the matches I lost were for lack of removals to get that annoying blocker out. So I decided to add 2 Cast Down and 1 Suffocating Fumes. I was short of creatures in some matches and the 2x Tithe Drinker let me down. That's when I remembered this guy Vault Skirge who is perfect in the deck... Artifact, lifelink, 1 mana colorless and especially Fly as an evasion and block some fairies. Vampire's Kiss ran well and I decided to close the set. as the game usually goes on and the graveyard ends up filling 1x Gurmag Angler and 1x Blood Fountain were added and for the same reason I will put 1 Bojuka Bog. Duress was successful in every game. Trespasser's Curse and Sanctify I need to test more often. Overall the deck increased 3 Creatures, I hope it doesn't hurt Prowess. I'll test it like this and later I'll give another feedback. Thanks!

Fog06 on What a Horde; Zombie Horde Magic

1 month ago

O hello there,

This was one of my older creations, but if you are looking for a more recent iteration of this Horde deck I suggest checking out my What a Horde; Longest Night. I like your suggestion of Gurmag Angler, but I feel that Mass of Ghouls would be more on theme and also the weaker toughness drives home the flavor that zombies are dangerous, but still easy to kill due to being disorganized. I really should go over there and update it with the newer zombies that have since come out.

I will be keeping an eye on your Horde Magic: Compendium work. I'm interested to see how it develops.

Balaam__ on What A Loony Ludicrous Life (And Death) {[Budget]}

2 months ago

With all the stuff finding its way to the graveyard, any room for Gurmag Angler?

Balaam__ on GTA (Grand Theft Auras)

2 months ago

Sideboard looks in great shape and the general idea behind this deck is solid, but I recommend running a playset of Gurmag Angler. Reappropriating your opponent’s creatures is fun, but if the only targets are mediocre 1/1’s or ones with inherent abilities you can’t make use of then you’re in trouble. Being able to fall back on a 5/5 that you can delve into would be a nice safety net.

xram666 on What a Horde; Zombie Horde Magic

2 months ago

Hy. Nice horde deck. +1 from me.

For the tokens you can use Walking Corpse and Gurmag Angler.

I have added your deck to my horde magic compendium Horde Magic: Compendium

xram666 on The Horde [Casual EDH Co-Op format]

2 months ago

Nice Horde deck +1 from me.

I made a Primer/Compendium deck/page for horde magic and added your deck. If you would like you can have a look at the page: Horde Magic: Compendium

It also shows how you can add these:

Gurmag Angler Walking Corpse