The Retired: Revenge of the Slith

OK, I just need to admit that I did this one for the name. Can you blame me though? 

4 Kami of False Hope

4 Slith Firewalker

4 Slith Ascendant

3 Kor Sanctifiers

3 Firemane Avenger

2 Guardian Seraph

1 Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs

2 Precinct Captain

2 Odric, Master Tactician

2 Bedlam

4 Intimidation Bolt

3 Brimstone Volley

2 Order // Chaos

8 Mountain

8 Plains

3 Wind-Scarred Crag

4 Furycalm Snarl

Obviously, the big problem here is that the central concept-Make your creatures unblockable and huge-is simply worse than: play good creatures and stomp over theirs. Bedlam is a really neat card that costs too much. 

And there's so much that can be done with these other cards-from the lands to Guardian Seraph, that I'll let this one pass. 

Do What You Gotta Do

I played one of the least fun games of Magic I've played in a while last night, then played one of the dullest right after that.

The first was a Commander game; I was mono-blue, I have no idea what Matt was playing; something green, and then Mark had a Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind deck.

Things got stupid Pt 1: With Niv-Mizzet equipped with Basilisk Collar, (so now a creature dies whenever he draws a card)

Pt 2: Mark casts Sunder. 

Sunder is an unfun card. I know: I play it in a deck of 60. I don't object to unfun strategies but if you're going to do it, cut the throat of the other players, don't fuck about. To his credit Mark did have ways to speed up his win condition but casting Sunder just drug everything out in the must tedious manner.

Matt was able to recover and speed my recovery from Sunder using Exploration and New Frontiers. Mark is still well in control of this game but I have a chance to get us out from under his thumb. So I Call to Mind a Cyclonic Rift and cast it, overloaded. I'm tapped out but I am hoping that Matt and I could establish a board presence and maybe turn the game around.

It's unsurprising when Mark recasts Niv-Mizzet and the Basilisk Collar. It's a huge risk for Mark when he casts Windfall, causing all of us to draw twenty two cards. Sure, Mark does a lot of damage there but he doesn't kill us and there's an opportunity for Matt and I to make Mark pay for that decision.

What's surprising is that Matt decides to cast (Things Get Stupid pt 3) Storm Cauldron.

Now, given what Matt's deck wants to do (play lands often and repeatedly) Storm Cauldron makes sense! It's a bad card for me and for Mark, should we all be at or near parity.

But we aren't at parity. Mark has established control of the board. All I have is a Tormod's Crypt. Matt doesn't have a single creature out there. We've just drawn 22 cards; somewhere in those cards should be great ways to cut Mark's strategy off at the legs.

Instead, Matt cuts himself and me off at the legs. There isn't a card in my hand worth playing now, because all the land has to come back to my hand when I use it. Matt himself doesn't do anything else to put pressure on the board or disrupt Mark. If Matt had followed up with an answers to the problem-namely Basilisk Collar- I would have understood.

I looked at the board state and was so discouraged, out of my 22 cards I kept seven Islands and discarded the rest. Why? Because my options were: Prolong a terrible game while stabbing myself in the neck or wait for death so I can move on to the next thing. When those are the options, waiting for death is the better one. That game was one of the least fun I had played in quite some time: not only did I not do anything, there weren't any cool interactions, or better plays I could have made. It was just a waste of time.

The second game (the dumb one) I got to test out changes to Revenge.

I was stuck on three lands with three Kor Sanctifiers in hand, while Mark's zombie deck cast Door of Destinies and ran us over. That was dumb because I have been running a deck with only twenty two land and not adapting to the higher casting cost of the cards I've been putting in there; Kor Sanctifiers costs four if I want to use it. Order costs four. When Bedlam was the only four casting cost card, twenty two lands was feasible. Now it isn't.

I went home feeling annoyed. I still feel annoyed. But I made these changes to Revenge.

I didn't want to take the Arcbound Sliths out. But the game I played against Fuz's Zombie deck said that the Arcbounds weren't helping me.

I'd suspected as much in other games; the ability, while cool, exists to help other artifacts. I'm wasting space and, as I've noted before, I don't build the kind of decks that can afford to waste space. This is a weird, deck and weird decks can't muck about with cool things: the weird idea is the cool thing.

So to that end, after getting stomped on by another aggro deck, I cut the last Double Cleaves and the Arcbounds to add in another Boros Charm and three Brimstone Volley.

I'd thought about Bonfire of the Damned but quickly realized two things: first, I'd want four copies of that card if I was going to play it and second, I don't have enough mana in the deck to play that card properly, should I have to play it without it's Miracle shortcut.

But Brimstone Volley, in addition to being cheap, provides me with an additional interaction with Kami of False Hope. This could be a very cool thing, because, if in addition to creature damage, I can do 15 points of damage with Brimstone and 12 points off Boros Charms, Revenge of the Slith starts to get a little reach!

Revenge Tweaks

I took Noah's advice and cut two Bedlam in order to add in four Order/Chaos. I also removed the Exiles and one Double Cut to add in three Firemane Avenger and two Boros Charms.

The Firemane Avenger is in because the Frontline Medics were useful and the Avenger might be able to serve as additional removal or gain me an extra turn of life. We'll see if it works; the Avenger demands removal but so do the Sliths if they are allowed to grow. I also tweaked the mana base just a little to help me see two Mountains by turn two so I can more reliably cast Slith on turn 2.

The Boros Charm didn't quite do anything last time but the redundancy of Frontline Medic made it pointless. However, now I can get double strike, damage or invulnerablility so it has more utility. Of course, it's possible that I just need to get rid of the Firemane Avenger for less conditional removal but this is where I'm going to take the deck next.

Allen Wrenches for Nails

I wish Exile did what I wanted it to do. I wish it destroyed a creature and didn't have limitations like 'nonwhite' or 'attacking' on it.

But it does. And stonethorn was going to remind me why it's terrible. By 'remind' I mean; punch me in the face with the abilities of Trostani, Selesnya's Voice until I lost.

This is almost enough to get me to quit on the card.

Frontline Medic on the other hand, was practically a void in this deck. I found myself attacking with enough creatures to make mine indestructible but it didn't matter. I am not generating large enough creatures for this to make a difference and without Bedlam, the Medic's ability was cute but not helpful.

So I replaced it with Kor Sanctifiers because I've lost multiple games due to not having removal for enchantments or artifacts. There's no sense in ignoring that problem, especially when I can attach a solution for it to a body that can attack.

It was Noah who finally convinced me that Exile wasn't worth running. Against his burn and white weenie decks, the card just had no meaning in either matchup.

"If you were running a sideboard," he told me, "cards like Anger of the Gods or any kind of lifegain would ruin me."

Such are the hazards of casual deckbuilding.

"The premise of the deck," I told him, "is to swing and stall and then drop Bedlam and win because they can't block."

"If that's the case, why not run Falter?" Which lead us down the Gatherer wormhole, looking for cards that were appropriate to what I might need.

Order/Chaos. This is the card that should replace Bedlam, or perhaps run in compliment. Exile, Disintegrate and Fireball should all come out: that's six cards to remove. Order/Chaos doubles as win condition and removal. That gives me anywhere from 2-4 cards to add in to help shore up Revenge's weaknesses and get a hammer for these nails.

Utility Needed

Revenge of the Slith has been having a lot of trouble right out of the gate. The glaring weakness of Falkenrath Marauders was apparent quickly: the casting cost was just too high, the utility not high enough. There were other cards that underperformed and I spend my matches getting locked out. The games I won? They were more about my opponent losing and my capitalizing on that.

With Fuz, he engaged his Elephant Grass/Darkest Hour lock quickly and I didn't have any out for this. Disintegrate and Fireball are meant to be outs to problems like this, along with their function as removal. Those cards never appeared-they were so absent I actually double-checked my deck to make sure I was running them!-but it wouldn't have mattered if I had been able to handle either of those enchantments. Alas, I just didn't have the speed to overwhelm nor the tools to get me out of that lock.

When I was playing stonethorn, he was working a U/R tokens deck (which is a concept I haven't seen in action before but I have read some things on) with Dragon Tempest and Descent of the Dragons to make a bunch of flying murderers. 

That was the secondary plan though; tokens and Goblin Rabblemaster were often enough to make my life miserable. 

Again; a timely Disenchant would solve my problems against those decks.

And this is when I realized; these decks are Jason decks, using weird cards and off the trail interactions in order to broadside the opponent with a victory they are unprepared for. This is why I tweaked so many decks with more expensive utility like Cloudchaser Eagle or just pure utility cards like Naturalize in order to stay in the game.

However, Fuz suggested that use of the Battalion mechanic might be in my interest. I get where he's coming from; attacking with multiple dudes IS my thing for Revenge. 

Plus, there was one huge underplayer in the deck: Curse of Stalked Prey. That card is absolutely Win More in this deck and needs to be something else. So; I'm giving Frontline Medic and Exile a run to see if they help. Exile feels like a neat option in a deck that is essentially daring opponents to attack and it appeals to me because it's old school.