For the future:
Need help with the manabase - it feels good but I'm not experienced at making them, so I would like a second opinion. 1 mana cyclers are amazing in this deck, but none of them are very good maindeck unfortunately. I'm concerned that the deck might be too painful as well, maybe I should use a split of Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek? The biggest concern is that the cycling count might just be too low (26). Life from the Loam makes the "count" much higher in practice, but I'm still not sure. Let me know your suggestions in the comments below! Thanks.
Creatures to look at: Tombstalker, Gurmag Angler, Vorapede, Thrun, the Last Troll, Carnage Tyrant, Gigapede, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Spiritmonger
Other cards to consider: Faith of the Devoted, Vile Manifestation, Hollow One, Death Pulse, Murderous Cut, Darkblast, Grave-Shell Scarab, Blighted Fen, Blasted Landscape, Explore, Shred Memory
General notes/things to watch:
The strongest cards in the deck are Edge of Autumn, Life from the Loam + cycling lands/fetches, Archfiend of Ifnir, and The Gitrog Monster. Edge of Autumn is great at all stages of the game. If you ever get to untap with the latter 3 cards, you will probably win the game because of how much value they provide.
Centaur Vinecrasher and Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar are great creatures in this deck (they get huge!), and they're resilient. I'm afraid that they come online a couple turns too late (occasionally you can get 5/5 vinecrasher on turn 4 though, but on the flip side, you can also get 1/1 Centaur on turn 4 as well - I think it averages at a 3/3 on turn 4). I'm wondering if I should just go for a more consistent creature that doesn't open me up to as much graveyard hate, like Spiritmonger (a personal nostalgic favorite), Vorapede, or powerful delve creatures that make use of all the random cards in the graveyard like Tombstalker.
Decree of Pain is cool but I'm not sure if it's useful over something like Darkblast, a one mana cycler, or another The Gitrog Monster.
Temporary changes:
-1 Decree of Pain
+1 Explore
Maelstrom Pulse also might be good here. or cheap early removal
Deck Change log:
4/26/18:
-2 Tombstalker
+2 The Gitrog Monster
Explanation: The Gitrog Monster is actually insane in this deck. Can't believe I didn't see this sooner. Probably because I thought the text was "land from the battlefield", but it's land from ANYWHERE, so cycling lands become insane value. Works really well with the deck. Provides more fuel for the Centaur Vinecrashers as well.
4/23/18:
-1 Scarab Feast
-2 Krosan Tusker
+1 Decree of Pain
+2 Tombstalker
Explanation: Scarab Feast just never feels like a good draw. Krosan Tusker is an interesting situation. It's a good card, but most of the time I have almost all (or all) basics out of my deck so it does nothing. I think that I'm thinking about Tombstalker wrong - it's a big bomb on turn 5, not a creature where I need to delve everything to get it on turn 3/4 (but I can if I need to). So this makes it flexible. We'll see!
4/21/18:
-1 Decree of Pain
-1 Blasted Landscape
-1 Overgrown Tomb
+1 Scarab Feast
+2 Ash Barrens
Explanation: Decree of Pain only really hits weenies - Pernicious Deed and Archfiend are already both very good at dealing with those. I would rather have the extra utility in the form of a one mana cycler. Ash Barrens turned out to be insane. I think 2 copies is the right number for now, we'll see. I have a ton of things that fetch basics now, so it's possible that the number of basics will need to be adjusted. So, the manabase needs to be watched.
4/20/18:
-1 Dissenter's Deliverance
-2 Scarab Feast
+1 Razaketh's Rite
+1 Decree of Pain
+1 Centaur Vinecrasher
Explanation: Razaketh's Rite has been extremely good, there's never a point where I don't like drawing it. If I draw it early, I cycle it. If I need it, I use it, and if I don't, it cycles for 1. Scarab Feast is coming out for now - It's more of a "nice to have" card, whereas I can see having Decree of Pain and Vincecrasher as cards that will actively help me much more.
4/18/18:
-2 Tombstalker
+2 Centaur Vinecrasher
I think this creature fits the deck really well. I need resilient creatures since I don't run very many. I still think I want to run some sort of delve thing in the future (or something that makes use of all the random cards in the graveyard), but not sure for now.
4/14/18:
-1 Treetop Village
-1 Swamp
+1 Barren Moor
+1 Tranquil Thicket
Explanation: 3 Treetop was too many - it was clogging the manabase w/ tap lands. I think I'm getting a little flooded, and I wanted to go up to 4x each of cycling lands, so I'm going to go with this for now. There might not be enough black mana in the deck - something to watch.
4/5/18:
-4 Ghost Quarter
-1 Unburden
+1 Volrath's Stronghold
+1 Dust Bowl
+1 Blooming Marsh
+1 Forest
+1 Raven's Crime
Explanation: Threatening non-basics aren't as prevalent in my group, so I'll rely on cycling + Razaketh's Rite to tutor for Dust Bowl if I need it. Expunge and Pernicious Deed can hit troublesome creature lands. Stronghold helps against the control matchup, and this land configuration gives me more colored mana early, which is what I need to help cycle things. I wasn't sure to what to take out for Raven's Crime, so I took out an Unburden for now. We'll see what happens.
4/4/18:
-2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
+2 Tombstalker
Explanation: There's nothing I really want to return with Tasigur (most likely), so I think I should just run a better threat here. Trying out Tombstalker for now, but Gurmag Angler might just be better because it's cheaper.
4/3/18:
-3 Hollow One
+1 Unburden
+1 Krosan Tusker
+1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Explanation: At first, I was concerned about having too many things that fetch basics, but if I've fetched all the basics, I'm just casting Tusker or cycling Edge of Autumn, so we're good there. Hollow One still needs 5 mana (sometimes 4) to cast in most situations, so it's not a cheap early threat. I think the delve creatures might be a better, trying out Tombstalker/Tasigur/Gurmag in those spots. Adding Unburden back in, the whole point of the cycling cards is to be redundant, and if you don't need it - cycle it.
4/2/18:
-1 Unburden
-1 Tombstalker
+1 Hollow One
+1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Explanation: Trying out more threat density. And with Raven's Crime in the sideboard I feel like Unburden is less useful than it was before.
4/1/18:
-3 Hollow One
-1 Krosan Tusker
+1 Edge of Autumn
+1 Swamp
+1 Blooming Marsh
+1 Tombstalker
Explanation: I needed more lands in the deck. Trying out delve creatures instead of Hollow Ones.
