Ureni, the Song Unending

Legendary Creature — Spirit Dragon

Flying, protection from white and from black ((Remember the acronym debt.) This can't be damaged, enchanted, equipped, blocked or targeted by anything white or black. Anything white or black attached to this immediately falls off.)

When this enters, this deals X damage as you choose among any number of target creatures and/or planeswalkers your opponents control, where X is the number of lands you control.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	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
Pre-release	Legal
Standard	Legal
Standard Brawl	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (2)

Icbrgr on Uren8

2 weeks ago

when I very first read Ureni, the Song Unending I could have sworn that this burned opponents but i still think this is pretty cool!

kamarupa on Uren8

3 weeks ago

Oh boy. I have... uh... a lot of thoughts.

I'm going to start with ramp and mana base. I've been commenting something along these lines on a lot of decks lately. Ramp isn't much of a ramp if you're missing land drops regularly. Getting to, say 3 available mana on t2 is nice, but if you don't hit a land drop or dork on the next 3 turns, the ramp didn't really help. I'm generally not a fan of spells like Arboreal Grazer and even less a fan when there aren't a substantial number of lands in a deck to start with. At a mere 20 lands, you're going to be have to be very lucky to get both Arboreal Grazer AND 2+ lands in an opening hand. And even if you do, the likelihood of you continuing to draw lands just isn't very high. Basically, any effect that lets you "play an additional land" is just way too conditional to be consistent in my view, and therefore, I prefer to run with dorks and enchantments and rarely, rocks. You do have an enchantment that tutors you 2 lands, but at a pretty steep 4MV, I think it's going to function as much as a 'thinner' as it will a ramp spell. I do see some redundancy there with Prime Time, so I could see it be a useful spell. I should state that Prime Time isn't a creature I have much experience with, so I don't know much about what other spells synergize with it best, but I have a gut feeling that what you've brewed could have better synergy with it. It seems like it might be getting included because it's a well known and feared threat more than being a perfect fit. You also have Flare of Cultivation, which seems like your 3rd best ramp spell after your two dorks. While I like that you can cheat it into play, I don't like the required sac cost to do so as the only really good target is the Arboreal Grazer and that's just too conditional to be consistent. It's not a spell I have lot of experience with, and while I'm not a big deck thinner, I can't deny it has a lot of powerful potential. But I want more good targets for it, preferably ones that actually WANT to be sacrificed. The best part of your ramp is that you have 8 1MV dorks. Given your EXTREMELY high average MV of 4.35, I think 8-10 is probably the right number. To sum up, I would cut Arboreal Grazer and possibly reconsider both Prime Time and Encroaching Dragonstorm, either leaning into Prime Times most classically defined deck elements or cutting it. I'd try to find another 1MV creature for your Flare of Cultivation to target (6-8x 1MV non-dorks that want to be sacced) or I'd look for some other ramp choices. I'd also consider adding in something like Fertile Ground, or maybe Utopia Sprawl, as you do already have a good number of lands with the basic Forest type. If you do go for the Sprawl, then perhaps Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth might be a smart add. Finally, I'd like to see this deck reach for at least 22 lands if not 24. You've just got a hell of a lot of very high MV spells and these days I strive for 22 lands as my minimum. It's just more consistent.

Next, I want to follow up on some of what Balaam__ brought up - disruption. Disruption doesn't do much good in a sidebaord. It needs to be mainboarded or else your deck will not only end up unbalanced when sideboarding, but you'll also be tempted not to sideboard as much as you struggle to choose what spells to swap out of the mainboard. I believe almost all decks need at least 4x disruption spells in the mainboard, with 8 being best. Disruption comes in a lot of forms - counterspell is great, but I don't like tieing up mana playing the waiting game. Removal is classic for reason. Usually half of 8 disruption spells are a form a removal. Sideboards offer us different methods of removal so you can get past all the defenses opponents might use to prevent that removal. That makes sideboarding a lot easier to pull off, swapping removal for removal. I really like protection spells Heroic Intervention - while defensively, it can function like a counterspell, offensively it can do things counterspell can't. It largely comes down to preference, but disruption beyond removal is almost always essential. Of course, there's also discard, which is a solid choice, too, though I don't prefer it because it misses cards drawn after it's cast and so isn't as foolproof as a pre-emptive defensive play. I also like squeezing in 1x Fog spell when I can. I love the comedic flavor of it, but again, that's just my preference/sense of humor. Assuming you cut Arboreal Grazer, Flare of Cultivation, and at least a few copies of Encroaching Dragon Storm, even after adding 2x land, you should have room for at least 4x disruption spells in your mainboard. Incidentally, all these changes should also help bring down your average MV, which will make the deck not only faster, but more resilient as it will be able to respond to opponents.

One thing I do think you have right here is the number of creatures. But I'd like to see tighter choices that play off each other a bit more. I get that Prime Time and Flare of Cultivation support Ureni, the Song Unending, but at 3 copies and Legendary status, I'd want to solely focus on that creature or abandon that whole strategy - it's all or nothing with spells like that - run 4x of Ureni to maximize its odds it comes up when Breaching Dragonstorm when that hits. Maybe even look for spells that let you tutor it to the top of your library - Scheming Symmetry comes to mind, though I don't think that's exactly the right spell for this brew. Brainstorm might be a good option - not really a path to card advantage, but it would be useful in setting up Breaching Dragonstorm.

To return to Balaam__'s feedback, I also agree with him that Breaching Dragonstorm, especially at 5MV is too easy a target for opponents to thwart. I do think you've got enough ramp to hardcast some of your threats at least some of the time, but adding in a secondary (or even primary?) cheat-in spell would almost certainly make the deck more consistent. Elvish Piper, for example might be just as fast or even more consistent, though it wouldn't help with your big sorcery spells. Although I think this would be a significant departure from your current brew, Maelstrom Archangel would be a nearly identical backup to Breaching Dragonstorm. I'd probably go for 6-8 total "cheat-in" spells.

Overall, I feel like this deck isn't quite focused enough. It's not clear what it really wants to accomplish and doesn't seem completely committed to any one goal. At the same time, it also seems a little over-gunned - I sometimes say, "you don't need to bring a tank to a water-pistol fight to get a win" - when it comes to successful brewing, it's not the biggest threat that wins, it's the fastest fully effective one. So my broadstroke advice is to try to narrow the deck down to the core you really want to win with and try to support that core as much as you can.

I do love me some card advantage and I can see how Up the Beanstalk could have been useful here. As alternatives, you might consider Garruk's Uprising, Tribute to the World Tree, or even just plain old Harmonize

Sometimes I find I'll start a brew like this and realize I might have tried to squeeze 2 or more decks into one. It might be useful to fork this once or twice and explore different aspects in each fork. Make one with a lot more disruption mainboard, one with different ramp spells, one that really focuses on Prime Time, etc etc.

I hope some of this is helpful. I'm just spitballing off the top of my head. Don't take it as me being too critical. I'm really just throwing out the first thoughts that came to mind and I'm very likely to have missed nuances, etc.