Hey Everyone!!!
This is a budget upgrade guide for the Witherbloom Witchcraft Pre-Construction Deck.
5/14/2021 $19.77 TCGPLAYER Near Mint Only Price Including Shipping Prices May Change
You Can Find The List Of Upgrade Cards Here: https://decks.tcgplayer.com/magic/commander/imjohnwelschupgrades/dina--soul-steeper-budget-upgrade-guide-by-imjohnwelsch/1384836
The objective of this guide is to be a more affordable and well tuned upgrade guide for players. Focusing more towards a newer or younger player. I personally have seen many upgrade guides for the new 2021 commander decks. Although good cards are suggested. I feel most guides are not appealing to new or younger players. They tend to have a small amount of cards to swap in at around the same price as the pre-constructed deck the player has just obtained. With that said, I focus on cards that are affordable and able to be replaced or transferred to future decks. With the intro out of the way lets get into the upgrades.
The Commanders: I went with
Dina, Soul Steeper
. I love her abilities. She offers fast damage to all your opponents, a sacrifice outlet in the command zone and has a decent body.
The Other Options: Although the deck face card was
Willowdusk, Essence Seer
. I personally wasn't impressed with it's ability. Seemed like too many eggs in one basket. I wish
Willowdusk, Essence Seer
ability wasn't at sorcery speed. Then there was
Gyome, Master Chef
. I just didn't feel there is enough food token supports. I had a few ideas but felt it wouldn't be budget friendly.
Okay! Now the R.D.R (Ramp, Draw, & Removal). The deck had pretty good averages already but they really needed to be tuned up. Kinda all over the place, but that's due to Wizards wanting to give you a little bit of everything.
So for Ramp I kept in:
Sol Ring
- fast mana
Talisman of Resilience
- cheap ramp
Arcane Signet
- cheap ramp
Rampant Growth
- cheap ramp
Pristine Talisman
- ramp with life gain!
Cultivate
- Ramp that helps trigger landfall
Paradise Plume
- More life gain on ramp
I added:
Golgari Signet
- More cheap ramp
Sakura-Tribe Elder
- More Cheap Land Ramp
Emergent Sequence
- More Cheap Land Ramp
Belbe, Corrupted Observer
- Synergies really well with
Dina, Soul Steeper
Khalni Heart Expedition
- Land Ramp
Harrow
- Land Ramp
Roiling Regrowth
- Land Ramp
Making the ramp cheaper will help get the deck roiling on the fast track.
Now let's draw.
I kept:
Ancient Craving
- Draw
Greed
- More Draw
Moldervine Reclamation
- Life gain and Draw
Well of Lost Dreams
- Draw when gaining life
Ob Nixilis Reignited
- Draw plus creature removal
I added:
Vampiric Rites
- Sacrifice outlet, life gain, and draw
Arguel's Blood Fast
- draw
Ambition's Cost
- more draw
Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
- sacrifice outlet, life gain, draw , and token creation
Grim Haruspex
- draw
Midnight Reaper
- draw
Harmonize
. - draw
Removal time.
Board wipes we kept:
Deadly Tempest
- Creature Wipe
Essence Pulse
- Creature Wipe that can get around indestructibility
Gaze of Granite
- Everything Wipe
Added in:
Nevinyrral's Disk
- Everything Wipe
Targeted Removal I kept:
Mortality Spear
- Any Permanent
Pest Infestation
- All the artifacts and enchantments
Feed the Swarm
- Creature/Enchantment
Added:
Casualties of War
- PEW PEW
Status / Statue
- Creature/Artifact/Enchantment
Putrefy
- Creature/Artifact
I wanted to make sure there is graveyard interactions. Two graveyard hate and recursion.
Hate:
Suffer the Past
- Graveyard PEW PEW
I added:
Scavenging Ooze
- More PEW PEW
Recursion:
Veinwitch Coven
- Creatures
Healing Technique
- Any Card
I took out 3 lands from the deck, seemed to be too much before and the curve is a bit smaller now so we need to compensate for the change.
What was removed:
Witch's Clinic
- Lifelink on
Dina, Soul Steeper
doesn't seem worth it for a colorless land
Rogue's Passage
- Don't think we will have big creatures
Gingerbread Cabin
- Just dont't like this card
Lastly, the meat and potatoes:
Added in:
Jaddi Offshoot
- Landfall life gain
Kazandu Nectarpot
- Landfall life gain
Zulaport Cutthroat
- Aristocrat lifegain/loss
Grazing Gladehart
- Landfall life gain
Marauding Blight-Priest
- life loss
Slimefoot, the Stowaway
- tokens, life gain and loss
Falkenrath Noble
- Aristocrat lifegain/loss
Poison-Tip Archer
- Life loss
Sling-Gang Lieutenant
- Life gain/loss
Vindictive Vampire
- Life gain/loss
Wolverine Riders
- token producerer
Retreat to Hagra
- landfall life/loss
Retreat to Kazandu
- landfall life gain
Revenge of Ravens
- attack "protection"
Tablet of the Guilds
- cast and gain life
Valentin, Dean of the Vein
- Die trigger stopper
Viscera Seer
- free sacrifice outlet
Pontiff of Blight
- extort life gain
Sporemound
- landfall token maker (combo piece)
Life and Limb
- (combo piece)
I left in
Alhammarret's Archive
and
Sanguine Bond
because they're just great haha
So I put in one infinite combo which is
Sporemound
and
Life and Limb
. This makes infinite landfall triggers and creature tokens. BUT WARNING if you don't have interaction with these two cards you can make the game become a draw. So make sure you have a way to either stop the combo or something like
Retreat to Hagra
.
Well that's it. The deck should move smoothly with the new upgrades. Hopefully the guide is useful for someone out there haha. Thanks for reading this rough rough beginning to me getting use to the platform.
Remember to upvote and comment down below for other ideas for the deck for others to see .
Flip
