Everyday It's The Same

"I like what you're doing here," Jason told me.

So I got that going for me! I was able to stall out two of his combo decks in unexpected ways for him and Faith of the Devoted fit its role as a win condition accelerant. My favorite moment was when I cycled a Nimble Obstructionist to counter the trigger on Barren Glory. He then drew a card and I was able to mop up after that.

After some games against Noah last weekend that stopped his Stifle/Dreadnought deck, he was also impressed by how Everything Ends has come along. All signs I'm headed in the right direction.

On the other hand, it's slow. I don't know that I can fix that. But it's fun and the Diabolic Intents have had a positive effect, both in accelerating and making the deck more consistent. In two different games with Noah, I sacrificed my Stinkweed Imp for the Intent's cost and was then able to dredge to help forward my game plan, while fortifying my defenses on the next turn.

This interaction is almost better than I could ask for, but it isn't consistent enough for me to rely on.

Jason asked me to send him the decklist so I did; maybe something will come from that, maybe not. If it does, then I'll probably shuffle this up for a little longer. If not, then I'm ready to move on. Everything Ends is a fun deck and tilts towards some decent multiplayer action but it's slow and suffers tremendously from graveyard hate splash damage.

Even with mana upgrades, I'm not certain this could improve, so it might be time to set it down.

Where The Hell Am I Going

Matt emailed me: 'Faith of the Devoted would go well in your deck.'

Huh.

Unlike Drake Haven, FotD represents a win condition separate from creatures attacking. This could be huge in regards to helping push Everything Ends forward. However, even when FotD isn't a win condition by itself, it does offer me the opportunity to gain something this deck has needed: time. Two life every turn or so can be huge, allowing me extra draws I wouldn't get, while pressuring opponents, allowing me to eventually assemble my pieces. Plus, the ability affects opponents, plural, like Archfind of Ifnir, so this gives Everything Ends reach in multiplayer games.

And it's possible that Everything Ends is stronger as a multiplayer deck, not a 1v1 deck. But before I pull the trigger on that, I'm going to go all in with one final change: cutting the 4 Spiketail Hatchlings.

I don't particularly want to, because they're a cheap threat with the OK upside of potentially stalling the game just a little, but this isn't a Mortal Combat deck anymore. And Nimble Obstructionist is doing a fine job of mucking up plans at unexpected moments.

Time to start digging into the archives and seeing what I get.

Cadaver Imp catches my eye first, and not just because it's and alphabetical list. I'd been thinking about a flying Gravedigger and this is definitely that, although the mana requirements make it a little tricky. Ravos, Soultender though...that could be very cool. The drawback: It's five mana. The impact on the board isn't insignificant, but Everything Ends already has a slower start. It's probably not viable but it's damned interesting.

I did (re)discover another tutor though, one that fits very, very well in this deck: Diabolic Intent. Likely better than Gravedigger, the Intent can really help me bring the deck together while also having synergy with my Oversold Cemetery. Plus, at two mana, it's cheap enough that I can continue to make plays in the early game, or do more in a single turn during the midgame than I would with more expensive tutors. And with over twenty five creatures, I shouldn't have too much trouble finding targets...I hope.

Diabolic Intent is where I'm going to start: of the other options, this one is the most straightforward answer.

Wrong And Overrated

Nothing is working.

Razaketh's Rite is too slow to really get me where I need to go. Turn five is a bit late to be digging for something.

Nimble Obstructionist though, has been great. Better than I thought it would be. There are plenty of targets in Magic for the Obstructionist but when there aren't, it can just swing for three in the air.

Both Matt and Caitlin pushed me towards something I'd been resisting: Adding in cycling lands. They recognized that my mana seemed fine-and it was, even occasionally finding myself flooded. I was always surprised at this, since I had so much card draw.

"So why not Polluted Mire. Why not cut a land?" Matt said.

This made me really nervous: 23 lands is low for a controlling deck, 22 lands seems like an invitation to mana screw. But sitting there with three lands in hand and no responses feels worse.

OK. Let's do this. Cut a land. Add in a Gravedigger, because it helps reinforce the themes of the deck. Polluted Mire, Drifting Meadow, Remote Isle swap for a Swamp, Plains, Island, respectively. Matt pointed out that if I don't cycle these lands initially, the opportunity to do so later with a Dromar's Cavern is available and that's some wise gameplay to remember.

Get rid of the Rites: Turn five is too late for me. I'm already running four copies of the cards I want to show up so the card draw should give me what I want. Or, I have to find a cheaper tutor effect. Something has to give.

Because it's not the losing that is getting to me. It's the lack of data about where to go next. "I'm drawing a lot of cards but still losing. MORE CARD DRAW."

Doesn't that sound crazy?

The other problem I've been having with Everything Ends is one of splash damage.

Since the soft lock for Everything Ends exists as a function of graveyard recursion, cards that squash such an interaction make things difficult. Fortunately, there aren't many of those that people use!

Oh. Right.

Now, that doesn't mean I need to give up on this deck; just because Humility or Moat or Terminus exist that doesn't mean creature strategies are completely invalid now. It just means playing smarter. It's not easy-one of the grindier games I played was against Matt playing a control mono-W deck and Rest In Peace shut me out of the first game.

I won the second on the back of Nimble Obstructionist and lost the third. Graveyard hate is a thing and in the sideboard I'd have to look for a way to address it.

How radical will I have to get to get this deck to work consistently?

Fix My Problems

"It's good, it just isn't coming together," Caitlin tells me after an evening of games.

So I have come to one of the most frustrating parts of the tweaking process: I have a solid idea, it works...sometimes. People agree that I'm on to something but nobody knows what to do next.

It's frustrating because I keep losing right on the edge of doing something good. I'm almost there, I just can't quite stitch it up.

I played an untuned Planeswalker deck last week and lost, despite being able to draw cards and make the game go long. Both of these things should work in my favor but I never had the combo.

So perhaps I need to look at that. Cast Out was the obvious card to set aside. While I like what it does, it's probably better as a sideboard card here, because what I need are ways to get the card that the board state is demanding, sometimes Oversold Cemetery, sometimes Oriss, or Linessa.

It's daunting because as a general rule, I'm drawing more cards than my opponent(s). I just can't seem to turn that into an advantage. Which is just insane, right? Drawing more cards is precisely the kind of thing that should lead to advantages that overwhelm my opponent. But I seem to have too many moving parts to just rely on card draw, so that leaves outright search.

Well, Hour of Devastation has me covered: Razaketh's Rite. Let's see what we got.

Eyes Turn From Blue To Gray

I got to put Everything Ends through a few games against Matt and Caitlin.

The downside; there are a lot of moving pieces that need to come together for this deck to work.

The upside: when those parts click, this deck can get mean. Oriss can stall out whomever seems to be the biggest threat, Linessa can make the other player slow down and the Archfiend hits everyone. Even if I'm busy locking one person down, I can have an impact on the entire board with Archfiend of Ifnir.

These were multiplayer games though so I had a little time-and, looking back at the games, a little luck getting some of the cards I needed.

I may have also been too interested in cycling my cards rather than using them for what was needed. By this I mean: Sometimes I need to cycle but sometimes I need to offer the speed bump. That might be part of the learning curve of this deck. Occasionally it's going to be better to make my opponents kill off my creatures rather than cycle them and learning when that's the case is something I'll need to look for.

Their recommendation was that I get rid of Felidar Cub and try to find something else. With the sheer number of cycling cards available there must be something that can remove problems for me.

There is: Cast Out. So I'm going to start with that as a replacement. I doubt I'll be cycling it often but when the game has hit that late state and I need a card, that second ability is pretty useful.

I Can Paint With Pain

I started this one out right by plugging Everything Ends into the analyzer at Deckstats and here's what I came away with: The amount of mana is probably solid at 38%, but the distribution is currently skewed heavily towards black. This is because I wanted to make sure I could cast Oversold Cemetery whenever I needed to. This could change but given the direction I want to take the deck in, I'm not sure how much.

What I definitely need to consider is that Oriss has WW in her casting cost and that matters. Everything else in the deck needs only one mana of the necessary color.

That might change but let me get back to that in a moment.

The other notable quality is the 16 cards in the deck that cost only two mana. This number actually goes up to 19 because Sanctum Plowbeasts are creatures that are never meant to be cast: They are there to get me a Plains or Island and the cycling cost is only two.

That's nearly one third of the deck!

Logically, I should be able to draw into my combo pieces in the early game, setting me up for the mid to long game. Let's hope, anyway.

The card that caught my eye during my search, though, was Archfiend of Ifnir. This seems like an easy card to replace Plague Dogs or Revenant with, especially since it triggers on discard, not just cycling effects. That means the grandeur triggers can do more, too.

So the additions have been: Scoured Barrens to fix the mana, Archfiend of Ifnir because it's awesome and Nimble Obstructionist to replace the Mourning Thrull, which really doesn't work anymore.



So now the mana requirements are a little more challenging: two critical cards with WW or BB in them means that Scoured Barrens and Sanctum Plowbeast are really going to have to work overtime to keep the deck functioning. Nevertheless, I believe the power level and consistency has gone up, with more cycling cards and tweaked mana. Which means it's time to see how Everything Ends does.

Everything Ends

With a graveyard theme, naming this deck Everything Ends after the Slipknot song seemed really appropriate.

3 Plague Dogs
3 Revenant
4 Spiketail Hatchling
3 Sanctum Plowbeast
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Mourning Thrull
2 Capashen Unicorn
2 Disciple of Malice
4 Linessa, Zephyr Mage
4 Oriss, Samite Guardian
2 Disciple of Law

4 Oversold Cemetery

3 Dromar's Cavern
9 Swamp
4 Island
4 Plains
3 Esper Panorama

Here's the premise: Play cheap critters that can either be sacrificed/redshirted or cycled until Linessa, Zephyr Mage and Oriss, Samite Guardian can come online. Use Oversold Cemetery to recur those creatures and lock the opponent out of the game. It's a little tricky, because it is still a three card combo: One Oversold Cemetery and two copies of either Linessa or Oriss. When it works, though, it's pretty effective.

This deck hasn't really undergone a microscope since I re-built it back in the Future Sight days (it started off as a Mortal Combat deck) and shortly after added Esper Panorama. Creatures have changed dramatically since then so that's where I'm going to start. For example, Capashen Unicorn could be upgraded to Felidar Cub, Ronom Unicorn, or Kami of Ancient Law and there's even a case to be made for Wispmare.

Fortunately, new cycling cards in Everything Ends' colors have been printed in Amonkhet block which means this is a prime opportunity to revisit the deck. A card like Vile Manifestation could even represent another win condition. I at least need some reason to include black in this deck now: cycling cards are not a good enough reason. There's clearly room to explore so I am looking forward to digging in!