Vishgraz, the Doomhive: Toxic Tokens Primer
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 19 | 4 COMMENTS | 4340 VIEWS | IN 5 FOLDERS
Playtest 02-25-2023 —Feb. 25, 2023
TL;DR Mites can't block. A lot of the times your opponents have creatures that can block. You HAVE to use your mites by sacing them inbetween turns or on your turn to draw cards or play other spells otherwise you sit at the table looking like a chump with useless mites. All the other cards are fucking great if this deck was a Jetmir, Nexus of Revels deck it would STOMP
I play tested the deck without Ohran Frostfang or Species Specialist because my LGS did not have those cards. However, there are some major drawback I am noticing in the deck. Mites cannot block and our primary way of generating tokens is through mites. Our commander is great, but it's usually our only blocker on the board. If we can get Helm of the Host that's great. However, it seems since we're generating a shit ton of tokens really what I need is consistent card draw from killing our mites and consistent sac outlets. If those things are on the board then we're golden. But there are obviously much better commanders for this. I believe I'll end up scraping this deck for a different more aristocratic style token deck like Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim because this deck has ended up being the same concept with some infect spice but our creatures can't block. So it's a race to see if you can get vishgraz plus blade or helm of the host and then hopefully a tutor for craterhoof. Really this deck would be better as jetmir nexus of revels.
However, that being said, the swaps I made are Ria Ivor, Bane of Bladehold, Kinzu of the Bleak Coven, and Unnatural Restoration because we don't need more token generators aside from our commander additional proliferate / reanimation isn't very necessary. Really, we just need more sac outlets / card draw and even pingers for our sac payoffs. Which is why elas would be better. If I wanted to really overwhelm opponents Jetmir is just so much better for this. It feels like the deck is split between half way as good compared to each of the other two commanders. I added Viscera Seer, Ashnod's Altar, and Species Specialist for more consistency / sac outlets.
Also swapped out Mirari's Wake for Poison-Tip Archer. Swapped out Sword of Fire and Ice and Doubling Season for Woe Strider and Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim. The reason why I made this swap is because doubling season has consistently felt like too much mana to play throughout the game without enough benefit as a doubler. It's great if you can get it out but the other doublers are 1 mana cheaper and we do not benefit from the 1/1 trigger at all. Therefore, it's getting cut. The sword is also a mana investment only to make vishgraz a little bigger and to proliferate sometimes. We don't care too much about proliferating. Instead the etb from Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim will give us life to float when we generate tokens while also pinging down our opponents when we sac them.
Swapped Contaminant Grafter for Luminous Broodmoth. The idea is the tokens will be sac'd and then come back with flying which is amazing and we'll be able to get double value out of our tokens. However, this deck is quickly becoming a pinger deck rather than anything else.
I want to get rid of Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider, Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa, and Ichor Rats. These are great cards for an infect themed deck however, this deck isn't focused on winning through straight up infect. This deck is focused on generating mites and swinging with them when you have a shit ton, pinging people down slowly, I've made a bunch of changes to make it so we're not focusing solely on mite tokens cause they can't block. Also more support to make them unblockable and some more pingers to make sure we gain life while also hurting our opponents. We need value from making the mites at the very least.