Gitrog County Municipal Lake Dredge Appraisal
Commander / EDH*
SCORE: 18 | 19 COMMENTS | 3771 VIEWS | IN 4 FOLDERS
Version 4.1: Eldritch Moon Update —July 26, 2016
-Graveblade Marauder: This deck isn't built for aggression.
-Nissa, Vastwood Seer: I'm only running two basic forests, and her planeswalker form is mediocre for the investment.
-Mutavault: I never found myself taking advantage of this, so it was practically a Wastes. Colored mana is more important than corner case man-land stuff.
-Emeria Shepherd: Slower than my other creature recursion tools, and this deck isn't really built to take advantage of this card's landfall ability.
-Buried Alive: A fine card and an old favorite of mine. Using this to set up a combo is telegraphing my gameplan, which isn't a dealbreaker by itself, but is concerning. More importantly, the mana cost was often making this my only play for the turn, and if it's dredged away, this is the least promising card for recursion in the deck.
-Putrid Imp: Discard outlets are key for The Gitrog Monster, but the printing of Noose Constrictor takes room and Putrid is moving over in exchange.
-Splinterfright: A very reluctant cut, which might eventually be reversed. Splinterfright is good, and certainly better in this deck than Boneyard Wurm or Lhurgoyf. But as an ordinary three-drop, if I need one, it's bad. And once my deck gets going, Splinterfright isn't very useful.
+Noose Constrictor: Even better than Wild Mongrel. While Eldritch Moon doesn't have a lot of cards that fit this deck, Noose Constrictor is an excellent inclusion.
+Splendid Reclamation: It's a one-sided Planar Birth that works on nonbasics! I've been looking into ways to get more use out of lands in my graveyard, and this new card pushes that concept to the extreme. While this can't be cast from my graveyard, it's worth it.
+Liliana, Heretical Healer: In reality, this was intended to go into the deck for the previous update, but I didn't actually own the card at the time, so I put Nissa in instead. I fully expect Liliana to be a superstar here. Transforming her is easy, both of her main abilities are useful, and she can be cast from my graveyard.
+Canopy Vista: Another card I'd planned to add, but didn't own when I wrote the previous update.
+Crucible of Worlds: It's back in! While my focus on trimming non-creature, non-land cards that don't have built-in self recursion was sensible, some exceptions can be made, and this one is worthwhile.
+Caller of the Claw: This is another attempt at the token-making shenanigans I tried with Kessig Cage Breakers. Wolves weren't working out, but maybe bears can do the trick?
+Blood Pet: Testing has shown many situations in which loops can't reach a threatening state until I have more mana. This is cheap mana, and in loops, could be infinite mana.
TheStephenation says... #2
Regarding Jarad's Orders, it's a good card for a graveyard based deck, especially one with combo interactions using creatures. My deck is a bit of an exception, though, because it goes so aggressively into dredging. Some players do put dredgers into their Commander decks, but this is a true dredge-based Commander deck, the only one I know of. Since I first built this deck, I've been testing and aggressively cutting non-creature, non-land cards that don't have built-in graveyard usage. A lot of otherwise excellent cards just don't excel in this deck because they get dredged away and are dead weight in the graveyard. I'm still making a few exceptions, but it's down to just seven cards, and all but one of those cost less than three mana. I want to start dredging instead of drawing in the first few turns of the game.
Regarding Sakura-Tribe Elder, I did have it in my testing at some point. I had mixed results. This deck is pretty light on basic lands, but it has enough to make Sakura-Tribe Elder functional.
Advisorofdark says... #1
Jarad's Orders is a nice card that can search for two creatures. Sakura-Tribe Elder is good for reanimate decks like this.
June 15, 2016 2:41 a.m.