"Bite of Delirium"

Legacy BG (Golgari) Casual Theme/Gimmick Tokens Tribal Vorthos

HalbrechtHalbrecht

Filling the Yard (16)

• 4x Crop Sigil
• 4x Grisly Salvage
• 4x Nyx Weaver
• 4x Renowned Weaver

Ramp (6)

• 3x Far Wanderings
• 3x Primal Growth

Land (22)

• 4x Dryad Arbor
• 10x Forest
• 4x Overgrown Tomb
• 4x Woodland Cemetery

Win Con (6)

• 3x Assault Formation
• 3x Ishkanah, Grafwidow

Staying Alive (10)

• 4x Arachnogenesis
• 4x Deadly Allure
• 2x Gnaw to the Bone

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Sideboard

Other (14)

• 2x Crippling Fatigue
• 3x Darkblast
• 2x Hidden Spider
• 2x Moment's Peace
• 2x Raven's Crime
• 1x Sever the Bloodline
• 2x Syphon Life

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Maybeboard

Ruled Out (5)

• 1x Deep Reconnaissance
• 1x Nostalgic Dreams
• 1x Spider Spawning
• 1x Sylvan Might
• 1x Traitor's Clutch

Still Testing (4)

• 1x Dakmor Salvage
• 1x Driven / Despair
• 1x Drown in Filth
• 1x Life from the Loam

Haven't Tested (3)

• 1x Leyline of Vitality
• 1x Seedling Charm
• 1x Traverse the Ulvenwald

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Deck Concept

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My wife wanted a spider deck, so I set out to build her one... only to discover that the tribe doesn't have a lot of support! I have a couple other brews I'm working on, but I'm focusing on this one for now.

• Built around: Ishkanah, Grafwidow and Delirium
• Win Condition: Ishkanah's life-drain ability and/or swarming with Assault Formation -fueled spiders
• Restrictions: All creatures must be spiders, and no other spell should be too jarringly off-theme
• Deck needs:
  • Delirium enablers (aka self-mill)
  • and therefore some graveyard recursion
  • and also a balanced amount of card types to ensure swift Delirium — see below
• Meta: Other casual creature tribal decks. (I'm working on a fox deck for my son, a cat deck for my daughter, and a squirrel and a bird deck for myself!)

Delirium considerations

Although there are 38 spell slots, Nyx Weaver counts for two card types, so it's effectively 42 slots. (Also, Dryad Arbor counts for two card types, but I can't afford to reduce the other creatures.) This means that the ideal split is 10 or 11 of creatures, instants, and sorceries, and 6 or 7 enchantments other than the Weaver.

Current breakdown:

Creature (15)	Enchantment (11)
4x Dryad Arbor 3x Ishkanah, Grafwidow 4x Nyx Weaver 4x Renowned Weaver	3x Assault Formation 4x Crop Sigil 4x Nyx Weaver
Instant (10)	Sorcery (10)
4x Arachnogenesis 2x Gnaw to the Bone 4x Grisly Salvage	4x Deadly Allure 3x Far Wanderings 3x Primal Growth

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Current Cards

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The core of this deck is the following:

Renowned Weaver is amazing in this deck. Perfect turn 1 drop, then turning it into a 1/3 spider is a great play on turn 2 if you have nothing else, and it helps fill the graveyard with the "creature" card type. I want 3x-4x.

Nyx Weaver self-mills and can get a single key card back. Sadly, it gets exiled, which goes a little bit against the desires of the deck, but despite that, the utility of having both self-mill and the ability to grab ANY card type from the yard, all on one spider, is just too good and on-theme. It also counts as TWO card types for Delirium. Definitely a 4-of!

Crop Sigil also cares about Delirium, and it has both self-mill (which you can opt out of once you've achieved Delirium) and recursion of TWO cards. Want 3x-4x.

I tried the deck without Assault Formation , and it just couldn't hold up nearly as well. This card is a must-have. I don't like that redundant copies can get stuck in your hand, but it's too important to run less than 3 copies, I think. I'm unsure if it needs to be a 4-of.

Even though Ishkanah, Grafwidow is legendary, it's actually not always a bad play to cast a second one (and sac one to the legend rule) when Assault Formation is out — 5 mana for 6 power / 6 toughness in 3 tokens isn't terrible. So I want to run 3x-4x of him to ensure I draw him.

I originally had Jungle Hollow (a little lifegain and (slow) color fixing) and then Dakmor Salvage (because Dredge makes it a great card to self-mill into the yard), but now I'm trying out Dryad Arbor due to having two card types for Delirium, as well as providing an additional early blocker.

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Help Needed

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Please help me tweak the deck with cards from the Maybeboard! Suggestions for cards that aren't on the Maybeboard are also fine.

What NOT to suggest

Even though at first blush the other spiders / cards that care about the graveyard (like Graverobber Spider ) seem good, those cards care about Undergrowth (creatures in the yard), not Delirium, and this deck won't run enough creatures to support that.

UPDATE: This has been confirmed. In particular, Spawning's 7 CMC flashback cost competes directly with Ishkanah's 7 CMC life-drain ability.

Main questions

1. Does this deck need ramp, and if so, how much? Which is better — Far Wanderings or Primal Growth ?

2. UPDATE: I have ruled out this card, as it takes too much space in the deck, and I am usually able to recur most things I want with Nyx Weaver and Crop Sigil .

3. What to run for removal and other "answers"? I'm willing to consider creating a sideboard, because I want to teach my kids how to sideboard.

Suggestions needed on:

Evasion

The cards that seem best for this deck are Deadly Allure , Driven / Despair , Sylvan Might , and Traitor's Clutch , all because of their ability to be cast from the graveyard. However, due to Clutch's high CMC / low flashback, I'll only run it with a discard outlet like Nostalgic Dreams (see Graveyard Recursion).

UPDATE: I have playtested Sylvan Might , and it never proved that useful. On the other hand, Deadly Allure has worked well enough at some points.

Ramp

This deck would really like some ramp in order to easily activate Ishkanah's ability. I looked through all of green's ramp spells, and the two that stood out to me were Far Wanderings (because threshold is so easy to achieve, and then this is awesome!) and Primal Growth (because it's more efficient than Wanderings and this deck generates sac-able tokens) .

I have playtested both at this point, and I'm still not sure which I prefer. They both have their pros and cons.

Self Mill

Dredge, Drown in Filth , and Grisly Salvage are the best self-mill in Golgari that I'm aware of. I also discovered Vessel of Nascency , but it's 3 mana for 4 cards as opposed to Salvage's 2 mana for 5 cards, and it's an enchantment instead of an instant (already have too many other enchantments contending for that spot).

I wish there were a Salvage for ANY green card, because I can easily retrieve creatures and lands with Crop Sigil . I'd rather put an important enchantment / instant / sorcery into my hand, and the rest into the yard. (I know, I know... color pie blah blah blah. Still wishing!) But anyways, yes or no to Salvage ? One thing in its favor is that it's an instant to get to Delirium — I have less instants I'm considering.

Drown in Filth doesn't play nicely with Life from the Loam , so it's one or the other. Also after playing a bit with only 22 lands and ramp spells, I tend to get less lands in the graveyard than you'd think.

Answers

Removal

There should be some form of removal, but I'm not sure what to add. Drown in Filth occurred to me, but it doesn't flashback which is a downside.

Deadly Allure can act like removal, although I have less control over what is removed (only the guarantee that something will be).

There's Crippling Fatigue , which has a decent -2/-2 and a cheap flashback. There's Darkblast , which has low CMC and dredge to guarantee repeatability each turn if need be. Sever the Bloodline also has flashback, but its expensive. UPDATE: All of these have been added to the sideboard, as they're too situational.

Any suggestions on good removal for a self-mill deck?

Other

Moment's Peace is nice protection. It can be a replacement for Arachnogenesis if I want to ensure I can always cast it. Perhaps I should put it in the sideboard.

Raven's Crime provides repeatable disruption (and with Life from the Loam it's easy to discard a land card).

Syphon Life does a little direct life drain when the board isn't allowing movement. Also easy to pay Retrace with Loam .

Thoughts?

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Exclude colors	WUR
Legality	This deck is Legacy legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 15 - 1 Rares 16 - 5 Uncommons 16 - 8 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.34
Tokens	Enchantment Spider 1/3 G Token, Spider 1/2 G
Folders	Family Tribal Decks