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Cleston

Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 5:46 pm

Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Posts: 110 Location: Brasil

--- description ---
Step-by-step construction of a Golgari deck on a budget.
--- end description ---

Hi All!

This article will let you through the deckbuilding process of getting a pre-con onto a playable deck. Just like you can see Jay Salazar doing in wizards.com (well, perhaps i’m not that good, but i’ll do my best here).

As Golgari seems to eb one of the most popular guild, and as I love it by heart (that guild has made me come back to magic after 2 or 3 years of LOTR), I’ll pick that one to do my article. Let’s see our basic steps here:

1 - Analisys on the Pre-Con Golgari Deathcreep
2 - Pick a Strategy and go for it!
3 - Ins and Outs
4 - Final Checking
5 - Possible Improvements

So, on we go:

1 - Analisys on the Pre-Con Golgari Deathcreep

This is the Golgari Deathcreep deck, straight from the box:

11 Swamp
11 Forest
1 Golgari Rot Farm C
1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb U
Lands: 24

1 Thoughtpicker Witch C
2 Infectious Host C
2 Stinkweed Imp C
2 Elves of Deep Shadow C
1 Elvish Skysweeper C
2 Golgari Brownscale C
3 Greater Mossdog C
1 Golgari Grave-Troll R
1 Savra, Queen of the Golgari R
2 Shambling Shell C
2 Woodwraith Strangler C
2 Golgari Rotwurm C
2 Drooling Groodion U
1 Golgari Guildmage U
Creatures: 24

2 Darkblast U
2 Last Gasp C
1 Necromantic Thirst C
1 Vigor Mortis U
1 Moldervine Cloak U
2 Recollect U
1 Rolling Spoil U
2 Putrefy U
Others: 12
I suggest you to open the Ravnica txt spoiler, or the Gatherer, so we can go discussing cards swiftly.

So, this is our start deck. Nice one, dredge strategies, a bit of reanimation, and all. But, as this is a Budget deck, the first thing a budget player looks at are the rares… Savra and the Troll. Nice… but how in the world am I supposed to play both in a deck?

Savra kind of goes for the control theme... each time you sacrifice your black creature, you get your opponent to do the same. Each time you sacrifice your green one, replenish the life you just paid for the black’s sacrifice. Geez, isn’t that convenient?

Golgari Grave-Troll wants a graveyard full of creatures for full use. Great card for black and green, as it takes the black aspect of the grave, and the green one of regeneration. It also enforces the dredge stuff, with an amazing (and painful, surely) Dredge 6.

Okay, so if one thing we know is that we want both these cards to make into the deck. These are not so valuable for trade, so if a budget player gets their hands on this, they’ll want to use all the cards they can. Right?

2 - Pick a Strategy and go for it!

Now we start making our difficult choices… from this part on, I expect you guys to disagree with me and post your opinions right down the post. I’ll be glad to discuss anything with you, but remember: we’re talking about dudes who come to Cobra Cards and buy their limited supply of cards within their limited budget of the month, so please keep that in mind in your reviews. Also, some decisionms are made based on my meta and my experience and tastes when it comes to magic, so disagreements are healthy and really accepted for my part. I hope it goes the same way for you.

We have some nice control wih Savra, Queen of Golgari. Making an opponent sacrifice his own creature is nice since Cruel Edict. In Ravnica block, there are some great removal, so we can make a situation where an opponent has no creature in play except that huge bomb with protection from everything and indestructible and all. If he’s forced to sacrifice it, yay for out budget deck!!!

If we go for the control deck, we should have some aggro to make the mid-late game a blast, but we also have got to have some removal for early threats like those we will find in Boros’ decks. Our deck comes with nice removal in the form of Darkblast, Last Grasp and Putrefy. Putrefy is a staple card, one of the best uncommons in the set, but may prove itself a bit expensive. If we can, we’ll stick with two copies for money saving… Last Grasp is also so awesome it even hurts! Being able to remove a regenerating threat is very very nice (he gets no lethal damage, and his toughness is zero, so he will die without being able to regenerate). Let’s not forget about Stinkweed Imp, which is an awesome creature in this deck. Keep an eye on it.

So we have removal for being able to build the table, and we have a reason to sacrifice creatures. We also have some dredge to go along the deck, and we have a bit of graveyard manipulation. Our deck’s main goal is to control the board with Savra although we don’t know yet HOW to do that. We should be expecting to get some advantage over those sacrifices, so we need good reasons to sacrifice creatures and nice benefits from sacrificing them (not only for having them in the grave, like Troll and the Thomb land, but benefits from having them put in the grave). We know what we want, we know what we have, let’s go take a look at what wizards has made to make our lifes better, and how our budget can fit within Cobra’s prices…

3 - Ins and Outs
Searching for cards to go with Golgari, I’ve found this little powerhouse:

1BG - Golgari Germination
Enchantment
Whenever a nontoken creature you control is put into a graveyard from play, put a 1/1 green Saproling creature token into play.
Ravnica Uncommon

I mean, WOW… an uncommon… too bad our deck comes with zero of this precious enchantment, but hey, we can buy 4, can’t we?

It goes along the theme of our deck, in a way that it replaces our sacrificed creature with some 1/1 Saprolings. The more Germinations in table, the more Saprolings we get. Don’t forget that we can even sacrifice the saprolings for that much-needed extra life for Savra late game, or we can just use them as chump blockers, or we could even do both!

Ins:
4 Golgari Germination

So, we’ve got a backup for the fact that we’re sacrificing our own creatures. Our opponent, on the other hand, will often find their own creatures being sacrificed for nothing. Good start for our budget deck! Now let’s find something interesting for sacrificing creatures…

Our card pool right now features 3 interesting ways of sacrificing creatures: Thoughtpicker Witch, Shambling Shell and Drooling Groodion. Both the witch and the Groodion let you choose which creature to sacrifice, which may come in handy for Savra and for the Saprolings we produce with the Golgari Germination. Shambling Shell can only sacrifice itself.

The Witch gets control of what our opponent draws. That is such a good way of control that it inspires the Dimir guild a bit (as well as milling, they can also let you drawing lands for turns in a whole before you can actually do something). The Strangler gets combat advantage, for an expensive price though. The first is easy to use, and shall lock the game until we can build the ground the way we want it. The second is a late game tool of getting combat advantage. It seems to me that this Groodion, although a nice card on its own, deserves no place in our deck. We want something faster and more reliable, and if everything goes right we won’t need combat tricks, as Savra and our removal shall be able to control the table. That comes along with our little witch picking their thoughts, so we can control both board and draws. I won’t even mention the Rotwurm, as its real benefit in this deck isn’t the pinging 1 point of life he takes away, but it’s 5 strenght, which is something our deck don’t really have for now. Too bad it wants only black mana on it. Anyway, let’s just not touch this one for a while, or we might geta bite or something.

Ins:
3 Thoughtpicker Witch
Outs:
2 Drooling Groodion

Our budget gets some benefits here, as we’re removing 2 uncommons and adding 3 commons. Nice… now let’s take a look at the other self-sacrificing creature in here.

Shambling Shell can sacrifice itself to place a +1/+1 counter on target creature. Not too shabby for a 3/1 who costs only 3. It even hs some aggressive thinking, which can come in handy for trading with early creatures or attacking once the board is set. He’s both green and black, which means he’ll trigger Savra twice. His ability is free, which makes him such a bomb here in this deck, where we want people to get sacrificed for our own benefits. Did I mention he’s dredge, therefore recurring itself? No? that’s because I like to leave the best stuff for the end.

Ins:
2 Shambling Shell

Wasn’t this one too obvious? Anyway, now that we supplied our strategy with a bit more power and tricks, let’s get to where black will really shine in this deck: removal…

Darkblast is great, but Last Grasp is better. Who knows if we’ll have room for both? Darkblast is cheaper and has dredge, though Last Grasp is much more reliable and solid for a 2-drop. I guess we don’t have much to discuss here.

Ins:
2 Last Gasp

Let’s just pretend that putrefy costs as much as a rare, keep our 2 copies, and move on. We now have 10 reliable direct removal spells, and I’m not counting the stinkweed imp and the rolling spoil. Let’s keep it this way for now and get a look at our card retrieval engines…

Recollect is such a nice card… it’s a 3-drop, which is a shame, but it can recollect any card in our grave, and believe me, there’ll be nice cards in our grave. So much dredging for the Shambling Shell shall make the grave a nice place to go grab an answer from. 2 copies are fine. The other card to have a look at the Retrieval stuff is Vigor Mortis. Great version of Zombify, too bad we have only one copy. Anyway, there’s no Entomb+Monster strategy here, so we won’t rely on it too much. Perhaps another copy should be enough to bring back that last piece of our lock that was countered or burned away (or even sacrificed in a though and desperate situation).

Ins:
1 Vigor Mortis

Let’s have a look at our deck right now, so we can see how many cards are on it and which strategy we are leaving behind:

11 Swamp
11 Forest
1 Golgari Rot Farm C
1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb U
Lands: 24

4 Thoughtpicker Witch C
2 Infectious Host C
2 Stinkweed Imp C
2 Elves of Deep Shadow C
1 Elvish Skysweeper C
2 Golgari Brownscale C
3 Greater Mossdog C
1 Golgari Grave-Troll R
1 Savra, Queen of the Golgari R
4 Shambling Shell C
2 Woodwraith Strangler C
2 Golgari Rotwurm C
1 Golgari Guildmage U
Creatures: 27

2 Darkblast U
4 Last Gasp C
1 Necromantic Thirst C
2 Vigor Mortis U
1 Moldervine Cloak U
2 Recollect U
1 Rolling Spoil U
2 Putrefy U
4 Golgari Germination
Others: 19

So, we’ll have some clean up stuff to do now… first of all, let’s cut what is clearly not in-theme here… we’re searching for creatures that can be sacrificed, recurred, that can trade in our favor or even get a benefit from dying. Dredge is also fine here, as we can go recollect stuff we like.

Outs:
2 Infectious Host
2 Golgari Brownscale
2 Woodwraith Strangler
1 Necromantic Thirst
1 Moldervine Cloak
1 Rolling Spoil
2 Darkblast

Some here are though, some are not that much… Infectious Host is easy to go, since it’s just a 1/1 for 3 mana. Bad mana curve, bad blocker, back attacker, just a nice trigger when he dies. Well, I’m okay we want our creatures to die, but we want to stablish the table to start doing our nasty stuff, so sorry ugly dude, you must leave.

Golgari Brownscale is a nice creature, and it can really help setting our life totals back, but its double green casting cost shall get us some troubles. Not to mention that we’re a bit clogged for the 3-drop. It’s a though decision between this one or the Greater Mossdog, but life regeneration is something we will be able to make, while a 3 recurring creature that can trade nicely for another is something we miss. Greater Mossdog stays for now.

Woodwraith Strangler is a beast in this deck, in a way that it can stay regenerating itself for the cost of our graveyard, and should be enough for locking the table a few turns. The point is, it empties our graveyard, which is kind of counter-sinergy, and it also makes no sense in dying, which is somehow out of theme here. This guy is great stuff, but we can get more from our 4-drop. We can get a Savra, or we can get a Mossdog.

Necromantic Thirst and Moldervine Cloak are both Auras. We don’t really want auras, as we don’t really see our creatures as standing trees, they are supposed to keep dying and being casted all the way through the 20 magic points of life, so the +1/+1 we get from Shambling Shell should be fine to add aggressiveness to our creatures. Moldervine Cloak is dredge 3, which I like very much, but I think it will just clog our hand of 3 drops instead of really helping in such way. Necromantic Thirst is a great card for having fun with sacrificing and re-playing a creature on the same turn, but it’s expensive, and we want our mana to be ready for removal, casting and the witch, so I guess one will be passed as well. I won’t even bother getting to how we’ll be able to get through some decks and deal damage to the player, so let’s keep it going.

Rolling Spoil and Darkblast were difficult choices to make. Perhaps one copy of either of those should stay, but we’re pretty much full of other spells, and we won’t be able to pull our deck out if we have no creatures in table. These were the less effective in our deck, anyway, since we want 4 copies of Golgari Germination to produce creature advantage.

With all those drops, we have one room for another card so we can go to 60. Let me tell you that for this Ins and Outs section it’s pretty much good to stay with one slot free. Next section we’ll have to take a look at the whole deck, so let’s keep it the way it is before adding or removing more stuff. It’s a nice deck right now, with some dredge abuse, some sacrificing benefits, some removal, and a bit of aggro-power. A bit of everything, while still a focused budget deck from a precon. And you din’t have to spend a dollar on a rare yet! Go budget!!!

4 - Final Checking

This is a though part… we’ll have to check our strategy, get ways to improve it, add stuff to make the deck more reliable and cut stuff that we don’t really want to cut.

Our whole strategy goes around Savra. We have only one copy, and as budget players we don’t want to go spend lots of precious bucks on more copies of it. The thing is, one copy isn’t realiable enough for the center-piece of our deck. What do we do now?

We choose. We have the option to buy two more copies of it, which makes the deck more reliable, allowing us to drop it on turn 3 (never forget the Elves of Deep Shadow and accelerating stuff like the Golgari Signet). We can go find some tutors for it, if we want to save on money, but we must also consider the lack of speed and reliability we will face if we run only one copy and some ways of getting it into hand.

This is the number one (and only) choice when it comes to fetching Savra from deck:

3B - Dimir House Guard
Creature — Skeleton 2/3
Fear
Sacrifice a creature: Regenerate Dimir House Guard.
Transmute 1BB
Ravnica Common

So, let’s take a look at it. Fear is nice, and we don’t have it yet. The question is, do we need it? No. following, it’s a regenerating creature. Moreover, it requires a creature to be sacrificed to be regenerated. Remember the Woodwraith? It also regenerated, but its cost o do so was much less synergetic then this one. This seems like a fine addition to the 4-drop slot, and it also can go on turn 2 to fetch Savra, who can be played one turn later. Seems like a good option, since it’s a common. Besides this guy, there’s only the chance of letting her go to graveyard by dredge and the vigor mortis right away to grab t back to life. The latter isn’t so reliable as a transmuter, so let’s keep this guy as our tutor dude for now. 2 copies will be fine, as it was like we had 2 more Savras. Too abd we don’t have money… (Conor, please don’t blame the budget players, LOL, it’s just that I’m a LTR player yet, so not that much money for magic yet).

Ins:
2 Dimir House Guard

So, we’ve got a faster way to grab Savra. Remember I told you about the Elves of Deep Shadow? Yeah, that guy is important. Although it is a worse version than Birds of Paradise, we’re budget builders here, and a Birds would cost us the whole deck the way it is right now. Better not think about it, right? Anyway, we need mana accelerators, and we have two ways to go from here: one is the little painful elf. The other is the signet. The question is, what will our deck like the most?

The signet is a mana fixer. In pre-release, I found myself with lots of swamps, no forest, and still some green (and even white) creatures in table. Such thing won’t be really possible with the elf, as it only grants black mana, and it even costs one point of life. But for the elf to drop, we’ll need green mana anyway, and we do have some nice 1-drop for black (Witch). The double green manas were removed as far as I can see, so no problem with playing the little elf.

I then repeat the question, what will our deck like the most? Well, our deck revolves around creatures. The elf is a creature. The signet is not. The elf can be sacrificed to the witch or to any other thing, and still it will get us some Saprolings. This is the only reason we’ll rather have our elves than having the artifact. We’ll probably get our life back anyway, so no big deal here.

Ins:
2 Elves of Deep Shadow

With these two inclusions we tried to fix our mana and our centerpiece. The problem is that we just clogged both the 1 and the 4 drops. The 1 drop is not that big deal here, as we want cheap creatures that can die with no trouble mid to late game. The 4 slot, on the other hand, won’t be that easy to move the way it is right now. We’ll need it to eb reduced.

There’s a creature in the 1 drop that I have been very doubtful to talk about even now. Elvish Skysweeper covers one of our decks main weaknedd, fliers, gets synergy with the sacrifice thing, can even sacrifice a saproling, but is too expensive. I believe one copy won’t even make a difference, so let’s drop it.

Outs:
1 Elvish Skysweeper
3 Greater Mossdog

Now, let’s take a look at our breakdown by color on our creatures, as Savra will enjoy having as much balance as it can get:

Green – 5
Black – 8
Both – 8

Perhaps we would want to increase the amount of creatures that share the colors, so Savra can be more effective on its triggers. The black spot seems heavy, and the deck is now pending to it, and we don’t really want to make the deck go more to one color than the other, as we’ll need both colors to run most part of the cards.

How can we do it without going through mana screw? Well, Ravnica gets us the answer in the form of those Guildmages!

Ins:
3 Golgari Guildmage

This little dude is both green and black, but has the most flexible mana casting possible. Double swamp? No problem. Double forest? Who cares? He also fits very well on our 2-drop, which was almost empty. It has tricksy abilities that can come in handy late game, such as sacrificing those very useful saprolings to grab a monster back, or pumping key creatures to be out of the range of burn (like, say, Savra?). When it becomes sacrificed it counts as both colors, which is the best of the worlds for us.

Now we need to drop 2 cards from the deck, which is a shame, as there’s nothing we really want to drop. I’m sorry, dudes, you may disagree, but we’ll have to cut…

Outs:
2 Stinkweed Imp

Yeah, the true blocker of the deck, and also its only flier. This little dude is able to destroy almost everything, but it is in a clogged slot (the third, which we would rather seeing Golgari Germination or the Putrefy to go, not to mention Shambling Shell), and it has no real synergy with the sacrifice theme. I’m sad on this one too…

So, let’s have a look at our deck right now:

11 Swamp
11 Forest
1 Golgari Rot Farm C
1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb U
Lands: 24

4 Thoughtpicker Witch C
2 Dimir House Guard
4 Elves of Deep Shadow C
1 Golgari Grave-Troll R
1 Savra, Queen of the Golgari R
4 Shambling Shell C
2 Golgari Rotwurm C
4 Golgari Guildmage U
Creatures: 22

4 Last Gasp C
2 Vigor Mortis U
2 Recollect U
2 Putrefy U
4 Golgari Germination
Others: 14

The creature split is nice now:

Green – 5
Black – 6
Both – 11

I believe that is enough for changes on creatures and other spells, why don’t we have a look at the lands?

Our deck pends to black, but our only mana acceleration is black. No big deal. And we need both colors to play half the cards, so no problem here. I’d like to point to you how big can be the Sogthos, the Restless Tomb in this deck. Perhaps we should give it a try, adding another one and dropping the Golgari Rot Farm, as our curve is very low and we won’t want to drop a tapped land for now.

Ins:
1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
Outs:
1 Golgari Rot Farm

That pretty much sums up the deck for now, and our budget is very controlled. Yeah, go budget!!!

5 - Possible Improvements

If you have some money, go grab more Savras, that’s the first thing you should do in this deck. Drop the Hosue Guards, most probably, and let him stay in your sideboard.

Then, if you have lots of money, go buy yourself some of the rare lands fo Ravnica. You won’t regret doing so, as your deck is very vulnerable to mana screw (obiously, as it needs both colors to play).

Another interesting addition is Life From the Loan. It fixes your mana from nowhere, since you are probably dredging a lot with Shambling Shells to care about your dying lands.

A great card to include should be Grave Shell Scarab. A recurring 4/4 that draws a card is awesome, and it’s such in theme not to play. It’s a shame it’s a bit expensive right now, but if I were you I’d buy two copies of it (I currently use 2 copies of it in this deck, because my brother was lucky enough to open 2 out of his packs from pre-release!!!).

Well, I hope you enjoyed our little article here, and I hope it can grant you a lot of fun with a few resources. That’s the spirit of a budget player.

Until my next article, may a sacrifice be not that sacrifice at all.

Cheers!

11 Swamp
11 Forest
2 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb U
Lands: 24

4 Thoughtpicker Witch C
2 Dimir House Guard
4 Elves of Deep Shadow C
1 Golgari Grave-Troll R
1 Savra, Queen of the Golgari R
4 Shambling Shell C
2 Golgari Rotwurm C
4 Golgari Guildmage U
Creatures: 22

4 Last Gasp C
2 Vigor Mortis U
2 Recollect U
2 Putrefy U
4 Golgari Germination
Others: 14

- "If I die, your deck will crumble!"
Gandalf (any of them)

The First

Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 6:05 am

Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 195 Location: Anderlecht, Belgium

Hi,

nice article. I love Golgari and I'm probably going to write an article about a combo I created. I want to do some more testing before I write an article though.

Savra is only expensive at Cobracards actually. The card value is between $1-$2 tops. So getting 3 shouldn't be a problem. However, I would keep the Dimir Houseguard as it can transmute for almost everything important in your deck; putrify, Germination, Savra, Recollect, Shambling Shell,... That's more than worth it IMO.

I'm not sure that dropping the Greater Mossdog is such a good idea. It is a solid 3/3 for only 4 mana. The Moldervine cloack is a dredge card with a very, very useful ability. Stick 4 into a Golgari deck and you will be able to transform any creature into a beatstick.

I really miss some beating power like the Grave-shell scarab, Greater mossdog but I think that the cloak would be even better for your deck. Dimir Houseguard anyone?

Cleston

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:40 am

Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Posts: 110 Location: Brasil

The First wrote:

dimir house guard costs 4, so he cannot transmute into putrefy, golgari germination, recollect and shambling shell.

this deck isn't meant to do beating power. the main reason for savra is control, they play a creature, you sac yours to make them sac the very same creature. you keep gaining +1/+1 tokens onto your guys, and your 1/1 saprolings can make a nice job too. in the long game, you'll be gaining life from sacrificing them.

i don't use moldervine cloak as i don't want my creatures to live much time, i want them to be sacrificed. why would i spend a card on a creature that is about to die anyway? i believe i have mentioned it in the article:

"Necromantic Thirst and Moldervine Cloak are both Auras. We don’t really want auras, as we don’t really see our creatures as standing trees, they are supposed to keep dying and being casted all the way through the 20 magic points of life, so the +1/+1 we get from Shambling Shell should be fine to add aggressiveness to our creatures. Moldervine Cloak is dredge 3, which I like very much, but I think it will just clog our hand of 3 drops instead of really helping in such way. Necromantic Thirst is a great card for having fun with sacrificing and re-playing a creature on the same turn, but it’s expensive, and we want our mana to be ready for removal, casting and the witch, so I guess one will be passed as well. I won’t even bother getting to how we’ll be able to get through some decks and deal damage to the player, so let’s keep it going."

- "If I die, your deck will crumble!"
Gandalf (any of them)

inresponse

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:23 pm

Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 162 Location:

I like the idea of changing a precon into a playable deck for standard, but I don't believe that even with your changes that this deck could be competitive. The idea is good though. I think if you add enough copies of some of the cards to make the deck more consistent (for example 4 ofs of the better, cheaper cards), then perhaps the deck could be stronger.

For example, I don't think golgari grave troll is strong enough to see any play in constructed or limited. Neither are many of the other cards in the deck. Instead of keeping this deck legal for ravnica block, it may be more beneficial to allow cards from champions block or ninth to be included.

The First

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 5:13 am

Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 195 Location: Anderlecht, Belgium

Oops, thought that the House Guard was 3, my bad.

The Cloaks are versatile and they always come back. Maybe you don't like them but I think that they are worth testing in your deck. When you establish board control with Savra - IMO that won't be easy - the Cloaks can really help to end the game a lot faster. The best thing about the cloaks is that they go on any creature and you won't mind if you have to sac that creature as you can get the cloaks back whenever you need them.

Also, I really think that this deck can use a few biggies. You can't rely on Savra and your other creatures aren't much of a threath on their own.

Cleston

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 9:38 am

Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Posts: 110 Location: Brasil

inresponse wrote:

hi, tks for comments!

well, this is a budget deck, about ravnica block. i guess those were the better i could get without changing the deck's main strategy (board control with savra, i know it's not that easy), and without forcing the budget. if there are any other commons/uncommons you could suggest to make thios tdeck better, i'll be glad to hear! Smile

Golgari Grave-Troll may not be strong, but it is fun. late game, when there are 40 or more cards lying in your graveyard, there's a high chance you might dredge this dude back as a 10/10 regenerating creature. i don't think it's competitive, but it's quite fun, and that's what magic is about to me: FUN... I'm no pro (yet) Wink

- "If I die, your deck will crumble!"
Gandalf (any of them)

Cleston

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 9:43 am

Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Posts: 110 Location: Brasil

The First wrote:

The First,

What i really don't like about the cloak si that i'd rather dredge abck a creature than an aura. creatures are easily removed, and my deck can sacrifice those that are the target. that's fine, but when i spend one extra card on a very same target that was a loss of tempo. my deck can make better use os a Shambling Shell than of a Cloak (but then again, that's a matter of what strategy you want. mine is based on sacrificing to do fun stuff, not biggie beatdown.

I agree, there are not enough fatties in here. the troll can come quite huge late game, but besides from that, Svogthos and Scarab (as well as a full-of-tokens Savra) do the job fine, as there'll be a swarm of saprolings attacking thei resilient army (remember that they are sacrificing creatures everytime i sac a black one, and sometimes i can filter their draw with the Witch).

but you know my most dangerous match-ups have been the big ones... my brother plays selesnya with lots of wurms and tokens, and he keeps sacrificing the tokens while the wurm do the job... it has been hurting, at least i can have life replenishment... but here i must agree with you, perhaps this deck would love to see te Vulturous Zombie.

- "If I die, your deck will crumble!"
Gandalf (any of them)

Guest

Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 1:31 pm

Joined: Posts: Location:

I think those adding money to the deck would benefit from Woebringer Demon. You can sacrifice your saprolings to keep it in play, it gets rid of opponent's creatures completely for free, and it fills the lack of any fliers in the deck.
Another thing I thought of for my deck was Fists of Ironwood instead of your Golgari Germination. This is one thing I want your opinion on, I'm trying to decide between the two myself. In situations where your oponent is massing Saprolings and the Golgari can't get all of them destroyed or sacrificed simply because of the number, trample will win you the game. The Fists give trample and also recognize the need of some Saprolings in this deck to sacrifice or block with. Admitedly it would mean removing the benefit from sacrificing and could possibly mean a few less Saprolings. With this in mind, do you suggest using the Fists instead, or perhaps the Fists in the sideboard for killing Selesnya Saproling decks?

T2_Fr33K

Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 9:14 pm

Joined: 28 Nov 2005 Posts: 32 Location:

one simple question, why would anybody want to start with a precon?

inresponse

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 12:24 am

Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 162 Location:

it's a common article ploy used by many writers. On mtg.com and starcity there are often articles like this.

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