Hunt for Specimens

Sorcery

Create a 1/1 black and green Pest creature token with "When this creature dies (is put into the graveyard from the battlefield, tokens are put into the graveyard before they cease to exist), you gain 1 life."

Learn. (You may reveal a Lesson card you own from outside the game and put it into your hand, or discard a card to draw a card.)

Tokens

• Pest 1/1 BG

Legality

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

Discussion (9)

Jackfrost23 on The Black Sacrament

2 years ago

Cards you should consider: Bone Shards, Bontu the Glorified, Bloodthrone Vampire, Plumb the Forbidden, Inquisition of Kozilek, Priest of Forgotten Gods, Severed Strands, Rankle, Master of Pranks, Fatal Push, Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip, Callous Bloodmage, Sedgemoor Witch, Hunt for Specimens/Cram Session with Necrotic Fumes/Pest Summoning, Pestilent Cauldron  ^Flip, Shamble Back, Valentin, Dean of the Vein  ^Flip, Westvale Abbey  ^Flip, Vampire of the Dire Moon

JANKYARD_DOG on

2 years ago

Thank you all for your suggestions. I have not been ignoring anyone, just busy. Finally got a moment to sit down. After some consideration...

Testing:

Shambling Ghastx4 --> Soulmenderx4. What about Cleric Class here instead? Winmore?

Hunt for Specimens x4--> Cram Session x4

Cleric of Life's Bond x1 --> Dawnbringer Cleric x1 Classes suck, and that skeleton thing, and freeze enchantments. And Trelasarra > Life's Bond, so...

Sideboard: Academic Probation x1 --> Reduce to Memory x1. Idk, never seem to use AP, and in case I have no critter to sac... makes me consider replacing Necrotic Fumes as well. If anyone has better lesson suggestions go for it.

Keeping old list intact for a bit while testing. Kind of feeling Valkyrie is a bit winmore in this case, maybe a 2 of? I mean, we are lacking flyers save for an inkling in the sideboard. Trade 1 infuse and 1 spear? Will see how this goes I suppose. Dina makes me feel like adding all the other pain/gain goodies, thus changing the entire deck, so saving for the golgari pair. Orah is still kinda sidelined here, kind of in the same boat as Valkyrie for now.

I am exploring the dual color combinations, I just need to grind some rares. I'll post lists when I can and after a few runs first. Anyway, let me know what y'all think and I'll let ya's know how it goes.

zapyourtumor on

2 years ago

Soulmender definitely feels like a much better 1 drop here than Shambling Ghast. And I think you could cut 4x Hunt for Specimens for 4x Righteous Valkyrie since the former is kind of bad while the latter is like a better version of Kor Celebrant with a wincon stapled on.

razelfark on Witherbloom Storm (Budget)

2 years ago

Hello Minousmancer,

Thanks for the suggestions. The deck list a was a quick idea I was testing based on cards I had on Arena and was meant to try and allow people to try and use cards that would be easy to acquire.

The reason for choosing Crawling Barrens over Faceless Haven was to make it so I could have a land that could build to be a larger threat that most control decks that really on Heartless Act would not be able to remove. Faceless Haven feels strong for decks that are trying to be as aggressive as possible, while this deck really tries to sit back and build up for combo. Another nice thing about the Barrens is that you can sacrifice it to a Tend the Pests if the opponent tries to direct remove it and gain a board (speaking from experience). The deck also only uses, 2 of these lands in the deck as we do not really want to draw it early or in every game as a lot of the decks costs do not really make it the best land to have in play. All in all, the deck would be fine cutting the man land in general as it was only added to help fight against control decks.

I did forget to update the deck list from what is is currently using for a side deck. The Fractal Summoning and 1 copy of Environmental Sciences was removed for Containment Breach and Necrotic Fumes .

As for why the deck is not using Sedgemoor Witch is this was to be a budget deck. I was trying to find areas to trim around to keep the costs lower and lower the number of rare cards needing to be used on the deck as it was meant to be budget friendly (1 copy of Professor Onyx permitted for flavor). To include Sedgemoor Witch the deck idea also would probably change to not rely on Tend the Pests + Daemogoth Woe-Eater combo to be making tokens and would be using more cards like Hunt for Specimens and similar spells to generate tokens to combo.

PS: Plumb the Forbidden was in the deck already and was written into the deck description on how to make use of it. The reason the deck was called "Storm" was because of this spell.

GrixCHIM on Ayara Rat Plague EDH

2 years ago

I see your deck is budget, and I wanted to suggest some budget inclusions for cards that would create tokens that also trigger Ayara's drain ability.

Chittering Witch creates RAT tokens!!

Abhorrent Overlord Generates a LOT of harpy tokens as your devotion to black will be large with Ayara in play.

Rise of the Dread Marn is a great way to refuel your board with black creatures after a board wipe or large death effect.

Lab Rats is a great way to slowly add more rats to the field with enough mana for the buyback price.

Josu Vess, Lich Knight can be brutal with Ayara on the battlefield if the kicker cost is paid.

Necrotic Hex can be a good board clearing effect that also makes black creatures.

Your deck could also use some cards to help find your enjoyed rat cards. Some budget options in black include Diabolic Tutor , Mausoleum Secrets , and Ratcatcher !

Some cards you're using aren't especially great in a singleton format. Cards like Compound Fracture and Hunt for Specimens could be replaced with Defile and Callous Bloodmage respectively.

Have fun playing EDH! The best suggestion is to play with others and learn what cards you like and dislike using and adapt with new cards that fit your budget.

Iklanon on Witherbloom Lifegain

3 years ago

Thanks for the insight!

I've looked at most of the cards you've suggested, but I wanted to stick to the life-gain shtick, as it was the original idea behind the deck. I don't know how I missed Bastion of Remembrance , though, as it seems like a definite upgrade to the deck. I've edited the deck a few times after play testing it on the site. I don't think that I want to put too much into making it competitive, as the main idea is to just have fun at FNM.

If I had to make changes, I would take out the Witherbloom Command s and the pure life-gain cards, probably for Woe Strider , Hunt for Specimens , and Pest Summoning . Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose is a pet card of mine, so I don't think that I could cut it without losing the heart of the deck.

I've played competitively (poorly) in the past, so I know that my deck is sub-optimal. I appreciate that you took the time to look at the deck and critique it. It's my first standard deck in about four years, as I mostly play commander now. There will probably be more edits to the deck in the future as I change preferences in how I would like it to play.

razelfark on Silverquill Ink

3 years ago

I would suggest removing the white from the deck as your splash cards don't seem to relevant to what you are doing. As amerika00 mentioned, your Obosh, the Preypiercer will not provide extra damage to your drain effects as they are life loss effects and not considered damage.

If you want a token build option then I would add the new Hunt for Specimens card to the main board to give you tokens that give you extra life when the die that will help Vito drain for more. With the addition of the Hunt spell you can add Pest Summoning to you sideboard to give you another token spell. This would unfortunately mean you would need to remove Obosh, the Preypiercer from your companion slot.

You may just want to add in more copies of Bastion of Remembrance to increase your passive drain on creature death. With this in mind you may want to include Woe Strider as a self recurring threat that gives you a sac outlet to allow you to kill your own creatures for death triggers at any time and help make sure you are getting value from Lurrus of the Dream-Den letting you loop creatures easier each turn.

Hope these quick suggestions help.

razelfark on Witherbloom Lifegain

3 years ago

Kind of noticed your deck idea is lacking on pest token generation and a strong consistent closer. I have tried and witnessed a couple variants and see you are missing some of the strong combo pieces that would likely help your build.

Would suggest putting the Hunt for Specimens in your main board and putting a couple copies of Pest Summoning in your side. This will help give you some more sources of token generation access to you main board outside of Sedgemoor Witch but also give you more tokens if played after the witch is on board.

Another strong spell Plumb the Forbidden will give you explosive turns of damage as a sac outlet for your tokens and spell stacks to create tokens with your Sedgemoor Witch or great amounts of drain with Witherbloom Apprentice. The spell also doubles as a way to sacrifice your board in response to a sweeper to refill your hand (be mindful not to sacrifice Witherbloom Apprentice or you won't get spell drain triggers).

The enchantment Bastion of Remembrance is also highly recommended as this makes sure you get life drain to happen even if you don't have Vito or Dina on board. The enchantment also is not legendary meaning you can get multiple triggers unlike the creature options.

If you feel you need more draw, then I would suggest Village Rites. It is a cheap draw spell that has combat trick potential and can be used to give you a response to removal.

What I would suggest to cut or remove some copies of to make room for the suggested cards: Witherbloom Command, Cram Session, Life Goes On

Personally I am not a big fan on the Witherbloom Command and would cut from these to make room for the suggestion as most of its options are very restricting for sorcery speed.

Pending on how you want to drain your opponent I would suggest trimming some copies of Dina, Soul Steeper and Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose if you need the extra card slots, or trimming/cutting Witherbloom Apprentice. Personally I am fan of the apprentice, but the decks more focused on Sedgemoor Witch sometimes skip on it.

Hope these suggestions help. Let me know if you have any questions and I can get into more details on the cards I suggested.