TL;DR; Budget B/G cryptocrats with no CoCo. Instead of simply replacing with 4x Under the Floorboards, it goes wide with white and tokens and tries to sustain it with blue splash and control cards.
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Halp!! I am continually trying to refine my decks. Your input is greatly appreciated; feel free to comment. If you go so far as to playtest the deck, please let me know how it went (I'm flattered that you would try). Also, a +1 is always appreciated.
Intro
Hi all, so this is third in a SOI series. I like to brew standard decks that are on a budget. By brewing budget, I can't just use good stuff, and need to look for synergies in the cheap cards, and that is what's fun. Also, for no specific reason, I like Orzhov, and always start with that base, but will add other colors. So far the third color in SOI has typically been green, go figure. Also, I do include some pricey land cards in my budget decks, simply because they can be reused in many different decks, making them a value in the long run. There are cheaper or combo lands that are less efficient, such as Forsaken Sanctuary or Foul Orchard. For my other recent decks, see:
Main Deck Theme
After playing a while, I wasn't using the Displacer Combo and the deck felt clunky. So I removed the
Brood Monitor
, and then removed the
Eldrazi Displacer. With that, the relevance of white became smaller and smaller. I added
Evolutionary Leap which was helpful.
I tested and edited more and the deck started drifting into a B/G cryptocrats deck, which was not the goal. So I looked back at white and decided to keep pushing the simpler themes I had from that color. Adding in
Unified Front
worked really well (Secure the Wastes is still better). The Cliffhaven Vampire continues to work well in this deck, and I focused more on the
Pious Evangel
and less on the Hanweir Militia Captain
, who is still fun to play and wins games.
Both G/B aristocrats and G/W token decks exist in the meta for good reason. I wanted to see if I could combine the two, and came up with this list. Well, almost all of it. After a lot of brewing and testing, I started looking around for similar deck builds, and found this excellent review by Aezuriel: deck:GBW - Cryptolithic Sacrifice. The deck is also on Salvation, where it has an interesting comments section. He covers a lot of the basic synergies of the deck, so I advise you to read his review and give it a +1 while you are there.
This deck is very fun to play. When things get rolling, the deck can quickly go crazy. There are many ways to manipulate the advantage and finish the game.
Both of our decks try to go wide, then use that to win though different methods including Zulaport Cutthroat. The key difference between our decks is that Aezuriel focuses on scion tokens, and gives a good argument why (they can autosac and the can provide mana when needed). I have taken a different path, which has allowed for a few changes.
Human or Zombie Tokens:
Including other token types opens the door for using From Under the Floorboards (or Secure the Wastes). Secure the Wastes is a direct upgrade, superior in every meaningful way. This deck does not drive madness, and it is VERY rare that we will pull off a madness cast. However, for budget, this starts with Floorboards. If you have the Secures, use them instead.
I include Hanweir Militia Captain
. This deck naturally goes wide, and it is not at all uncommon for these guys to flip. When they do, they are generating a human token every turn AND become massive fast. The end result is that the opponents need to focus removal on them. All of that is not bad for .
Going wide makes Cryptolith Rite even better. That said, I do only include 3 in the main deck. The second or third in hand is almost always a dead card until they sideboard in removal.
Protection and Blue
Our wide deck is vulnerable, and I added cards to try to protect that. The main addition is 3x Duress. I also have 3x Negate in the sideboard. This is not illogical. The counterspell is something we want to use AFTER our board is in place; when we already have Cryptolith Rite and a lot of creatures, we have blue mana.
Anguished Unmaking is a very effective all-around removal tool, and can other fix that one BIG problem on the other side.
Other blue and red cards could be included as well, if they were valuable enough. I included Ruthless Deathfang for fun instead of a 4th Hanweir Militia Captain. If he is allowed to resolve into a busy board, then immediate sacrifices can't be stopped by removal.
Other Changes
Mine is a budget deck, so I won't include Archangel Avacyn
. We could use a flier and the Cliffhaven Vampire is good in this deck. He will double the life loss from Zulaport Cutthroat, and add damage to the Pious Evangel
effect.
Also, I cut the Collected Company and limited the card draw to Duskwatch Recruiter
(who happens to be wonderful in this deck). However, this loss makes draw the possible biggest weakness of the deck.
I still include the Westvale Abbey
. This deck should probably have 2, but then the budget gets broken. On the other hand, the Rogue's Passage allows for a Nantuko Husk or Westvale Cult Leader
attack for late game reach. The Blighted Steppe can provide a huge lifegain swing.
Also, I initially hadn't included the Brood Monitor - Eldrazi Displacer combo. However, Aezuriel's deck inspired me to try to add it (Eldrazi Displacer becomes the most expensive creature in the deck). I find it is VERY rare that the combo actually goes off, but the cards aren't BAD in the deck on their own, and it is always fun to have multiple win conditions, so I have put the combo in my deck. I should say jammed into it, as the deck is bursting at the seams with the different cards I am trying to use. These could be removed and replaced with 4x Painful Truths.
A final small difference is whether to use Carrier Thrall or Blisterpod. They serve the exact same purpose. Blisterpod has the advantage of being cheaper, but the Carrier Thrall has the advantage of being able to trade into 2 toughness creatures, which is nothing to sneeze at. In all, it comes down to what works better in your meta.
Sideboard, revision 2:
For an aggro matchup, Carrier Thrall chumps would be good, but BR Vamps are a common aggro theme, and they have many fliers that bypass this strategy. Instead I use Duress to hamsting their madness spells, and
Ruinous Path
for removal without the 3 life cost of Anguished Unmaking. Ultimate Price is better for this specific matchup, but worse for other decks.
I choose Felidar Cub over Caustic Caterpillar, Natural State, or Enlightened Ascetic. A body with a free autosac option fits well in our deck and is worth the one extra mana.
For Planeswalker rich decks, the
Ruinous Path
is helpful.
For decks with Collected Company, Hallowed Moonlight helps.
Ulvenwald Mysteries is for decks with lots of wrath removal.
Duress and
Silumgar Sorcerer
are for control matchups.
Clip Wings
is for the matchup where your opponent has Archangel Avacyn
, Westvale Abbey
, or Dragonlord Ojutai. It can help with the vampire Aggro deck as well.
