Haha, thanks. The deck relies pretty heavily on artifact/enchantment removal to get past the graveyard hate, and it's also important to not overextend and risk too much getting exiled. But even if Boonweaver Giant is exiled, you can still combo off with Altar of Dementia + any infinite pair.

Wait why did you drop Sol Ring? It didn't get the ban-hammer did it?

No, it's just that this deck really doesn't value colorless mana that highly. It's worse than Carpet of Flowers and Mana Crypt in general, and worse than the moxen/lotus petal for setting up t1 taxes/hatebears. It could return to my decklist one day but for now I think it doesn't quite earn a slot.

Oh ok thank god. I was really spookied for a second.

if anybody hadn't mentioned it yet you can use the various "you have hexproof" to prevent people from exiling your graveyard

I usually just try to not overload my graveyard with too many combo pieces, since the deck can still assemble infinite pairs without Boonweaver. Besides, I see Grafdigger's Cage more often than anything else.

How much value/work have you gotten out of Mentor of the Meek? Mid to late game he seems good as a mana sink.

Unfortunately I haven't had much time for EDH the past month, and I haven't drawn him in any of the games I've played.

After looking at Cobblepot's list on MTGS, yours has more of the hatebears I was hoping that Cobble would run (new Thalia, Linvala + LP, etc.). I really enjoyed perusing the list and gave you an upvote for your time.

What would you say is the primary difference between your and Cobblepot's lists? What are the strengths and weaknesses between the two of them?

Also, your alters look great. Are they foils? Where do you get them done and what is the pricing? I lost my guy that used to do mine for me.

Why such a small amount of removal? I feel like an abzan deck should be able to shoot any permanent on a whim.

Also, I don't think Eldritch Evolution will do what you hope it will. It's a bit worse than birthing pod in my opinion because it's not as repeatable and will not serve you as well in the long run.

Grave Pact is a great way to machine-gun someone's board. I curious as to why you aren't you running it.

+1

eeriekiller, I am a newcomer to this list as well, but from my understanding this list is designed to win the game on turn 3-5 consistently(when not disrupted). The truth is that a card like Grave Pact is just too slow against most of the decks and doesn't do a whole lot to actually stop them from winning. Many combos are creatureless and don't care about it at all and the ones that do can be locked out of their combo easily (Hushwing Gryff, et al.).

Eldritch Evolution is also an excellent card, in my opinion. It is a more limited in terms of the mana cost of the creature it gets, but CHEAPER (mana cost wise, and price too, I guess) Natural Order that lets you get nongreen creatures. It lets you get about 90% of the cards in the deck onto the field by sacrificing a mana dork. This lets you toolbox in the hatebear of your choice to help stop your opponents from winning or grabs some of your combo pieces as well and it can do this on turn 2 reliably. The deck also runs Birthing Pod, which is a fine engine, but this one is faster and accomplishes a similar toolbox purpose.

The deck doesn't need to wipe the field, that is why there aren't boardwipes or Grave Pact (Which is really expensive to cast and triple black is rough). This deck takes the board from a creature perspective better than most other competitive lists and the hate bears that stick are designed to form an insurmountable wall of taxes, staxes, and prison effects so that other players get locked out to the point that you can resolve your combo.

Regarding the lack of "removal," it's just that most of it is stapled to creatures like Harmonic Sliver, Reclamation Sage, Caustic Caterpillar, and Shriekmaw. These creature based removal strategies let you recur them and tutor for them with ease. The idea is to toolbox for your hatebears or removal, if necessary, if you are unable to win the game in the first 3-5 turns. If it comes up, there is a Swords to Plowshares as well. Without access to blue, this deck is largely unable to compete with the stack other than flashing in cards like Gryff, Containment Priest, or Mindcensor, so it opts for taxation effects to disrupt rather than targeted removal.

eeriekiller, this deck is designed to lock opponents out of the game, rather than deal with problem permanents. Grave Pact is great in a midrange build but this deck is much more optimized for early disruption and the combo. Also, I haven't tested Eldritch Evolution much, but I think it's going to be pretty good, since it's just another easy way to fetch Viscera Seer or Academy Rector.

RivenVII, the only major differences between my list and Cobblepott's list stem from the fact that we play in different metas. For instance, I rarely see a Blood Moon, so I'm skimping on basics. Outside of lands, our decks only differ by five slots at the moment, so I don't really have any general comments, only comments about the particular cards.

I'm playing Stony Silence over Aura Shards because Stony has a more immediate impact, although you do sometimes get rekt when you draw Altar and/or Pod.

I just switched Caustic Caterpillar back to Qasali Pridemage. I switched to the 1-drop when I was testing Cryptolith Rite, but Eldritch Evolution nudged me back to the Pridemage.

All the other differences are just experimentation, not necessarily permanent.

I made all of my my alters (in Photoshop), but I made NONE of the art, I just pieced things together. Most of the art is just Magic art, although I did have to get a little creative for the Living Plane and Imperial Seal.

Oh okay, thanks for the response. Do you also own originals of the cards or is your playgroup okay with you running the proxies with the alt-art? I only asked because I've seen a lot of the artwork you used on Pinterest while searching for my own to use for proxies/alters.

Was Cryptolith Rite too slow? Or just not impactful enough given all the actual mana dorks the list runs?

What are some other things that aren't permanent that you have in the TO list at present?

How is the test with Mentor of the Meek going? I don't see it or Arena in the list. Did you just go down one source on card draw?

RivenVII, my playgroup is completely okay with proxies. Some people play with 100% fake decks.

Cryptolith Rite just didn't quite fit. Most of the 1-drops already tap for mana, and you don't usually turn a profit until the turn after you play Cryptolith Rite, at which point you probably don't have enough things to do with that much mana.

If I were to cut a card right now it'd probably be Shred Memory. Past that, there are arguments against Stony Silence. It's difficult to evaluate because you can't always see how many games it's winning you. Also there are obviously the two EMN cards I haven't tested much yet.

I cut Phyrexian Arena a while ago since it was too slow and not a creature. I never actually had Mentor of the Meek in play during the several months it was in my deck, which I think might've just been bad RNG, but also indicates that the game ended before it was relevant enough to cast and I never tutored for it... so probably too slow. In any case, the deck can only have so many 3-drops, and EMN gave us two more of those.

Super cool deck :)

As someone new to Karador builds I have to ask; is omitting Boonweaver Giant really okay? Does the Hulk work better?

Oh, and +1 :)

I haven't really played this deck much recently to be honest, but Hulk is pretty much better in every way. There's no opportunity to get blown out by instant speed removal, and it also grabs Viscera Seer if you only used a one time sac outlet.

How would one beat this deck? I'm assuming exiling kinda hurts you and grave hate is also a nuisance right?