Thursday, July 25, 2013

Skalor

I've done a count: 173 decks, including Commander stuff. That's...not right. However, doing nothing but remodels to decks I already own has gotten a little dull and getting my ass handed to me at League suggests I'm not focused there, either. So if a cool idea hits then it's best to take advantage which leads me to: Gutter Grime.

Since Gutter Grime doesn't do anything if I don't have actual creatures, token generation or populate concepts don't help me as much as just flat out creature spells might. But the deck is really challenging to build and here's why: Gutter Grime costs 5 and doesn't do anything when it arrives. Five is more than the cost of most mass removal spells and spending a turn where you don't have an active impact on the board in the midgame is brutal on most decks.

Nevertheless, I like that card and the resilience it offers to creature sweeping effects, so I'm going to run with it. I'll use that as 'Plan B' when the creature stalemates come and as a great way to get mileage out of Killing Wave. I named this deck out of one of the nastier Decepticons, because I just felt that a slime producing deck ought to honor dirty things. 

Here was my initial list:
    4 Gutter Grime
    4 Gluttonous Slime
    4 Predator Ooze
    2 Tarpan
    4 Festering Goblin
    3 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
    4 Young Wolf
    3 Ghoultree
    2 Weatherseed Treefolk
    2 Viridian Emissary
    4 Vengeful Pharaoh
    4 Killing Wave
    8 Forest
    8 Swamp
    4 Golgari Guildgate
    1 Overgrown Tomb
I really like Predator Ooze. And Gluttonous Slime: I just can't stop going for creatures that I shouldn't, I suppose.

The initial issues came from the mana: Predator Ooze costs GGG to come out on turn 3 and Weatherseed Treefolk has similarly weighty green requirements. Vengeful Pharaoh has BBB, added because I just didn't feel abused enough but at least it's a late-game play.

There are some synergies; creature dies, something good happens, a creature stays dead and Varolz comes out to let them contribute again, somehow. Still, the goldfishing I was doing felt awful. I would play admittedly terrible creatures or worse, have nothing to do for 3-4 turns and I know that's a death sentence for any deck. So I cut the Predator Ooze and Ghoultree for more castable stuff in the form of Body Snatcher and Deadwood Treefolk.

It still wasn't quite right. I could tell just by goldfishing that it wasn't working out and very limited test games were usually won by default--my opponent getting mana or color screwed.

Also: Tarpan. I want to use this SO MUCH but no. This card is just terrible. It got the axe next.

Noah took a look at it and suggested: 'Varolz is anti-synergy, isn't he?' I tried to justify Varloz because it seems like a pretty awesome 3 drop but in the end, I had to admit that he just didn't fit in with the deck as well as I would like. So I'm going to try this:
4 Gutter Grime
4 Gluttonous Slime
4 Festering Goblin
3 Young Wolf
2 Weatherseed Treefolk
3 Vengeful Pharaoh
4 Killing Wave
9 Forest
9 Swamp
4 Golgari Guildgate
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Deadwood Treefolk
2 Yavimaya Elder
2 Viridian Zealot
3 Reassembling Skeleton
3 Rancor
Reassembling Skeleton is a card I've wanted to use for a long, long time and I think that this deck gives is a proper home. I even thought about this in my initial brainstorm but there wasn't room when I got done. Now I'm thinking I was right the first time. Rancor? Well, if all goes well I will always have a creature to cast it on and Rancor is so good that if you're building a green deck, you practically have to justify not putting it in. Finally, Viridian Zealot is there for the inevitable weird decks I will play that make enchantment or artifact destruction necessary but, if there aren't any then they are good food for a Gluttonous Slime.

We'll see how it does.

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