unwucht - I've definitely cast multiple Finale's for 10+ before. Scute Swarm+Cradle does wonders lol

Sorry for the absence. I’ve been very busy lately.

Metachemist and rkjunior, thank you, that is exactly what I needed to hear. I’ll stick with Expansion / Explosion due to the flexibility it provides.

AR25V, thanks for the suggestion. I never look at those two together. I’ll keep that in mind. I have to see if it outweighs my distaste for giving my opponents value as well.

unwucht, I still like Prime Speaker Zegana a lot. She was a devastating drop in my old Omnath, Locus of the Roil deck. With that being said, I’d still very much so like to add her, I just need to find a different cut. Which is now getting harder since I want to make room for Sakashima of a Thousand Faces, but it most likely will swap with Spark Double. As for 6CMC cards, I do tend to cast them often enough in a single match, most specifically Ancient Greenwarden.

rkjunior, agreed, Gaea's Cradle and Scute Swarm is ridiculous together. We can get out so many of our big guns that way.

Have you ever thought about Terror of the Peaks for direct damage with things like scute swarm? I’ve been able to literally creat like a billion of them on several occasions, but they get nuked before I can ever do anything with them and this seems like a good way to deal with that. Thoughts?

Spartansean765 hence he runs Purphoros, God of the Forge in this list.

Good point

Let’s talk Commander Legends. How do we feel about the new inclusions? Do we need Hullbreacher and/or Court of Bounty or anything else?

Commander Legends has some sweet cards in it, for sure. Nevertheless, the only card I updated so far is Three Visits for Farseek. I considered switching Tatyova, Benthic Druid for Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait but as discussed before I consider the 1CMC less an significant aspect to keep sticking to good ol' Tatty. Besides that I hardly have any cards I feel necessary to switch out. My version still includes Dualcaster Mage and Ghostly Flicker. So, despite only casting this combo a very few times, those two could be cards I might be willing to switch. If I'd do so, I'd try to go for equal or less CMC. Nevertheless, Ghostly Flicker provides decent synergy with other cards in my deck as well, so no real need to replace it. Besides that, Hullbreacher helps with mana. If you are not totally screwed and abandoned by luck, this decklist usually does not have an issue with mana, at all. I might maybe consider to go for more card draw / card advantage, but Notion Thief is Dimir and therefore outside our color-identity. From my point of view, now it is no longer about changes to acquire higher competitiveness. Just switch out the cards you get bored off and try out hot new stuff :)

addon:

Interesting to see that you cut Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. Additional playtesting gave me the impression that it's impact on the battlefield is significantly less severe than expected. I am currently considering to switch it for something sneaky. Maybe Sakashima of a Thousand Faces.

btw. If you guys are on spelltable, we could arrange a few games maybe?

So I got a nice success story to share: first round on spelltable, I played a gouphug/groupslug deck and an Esper enchantment control deck. The Esper guy manages to get a Crumbling Sanctuary on the field early game. All opponents have like 88 cards in their library left. I managed to get Purphoros on the field and exiled their complete libraries. That was such a tremendouns performance, I do not regret putting Purphy in the deck any more.

Awesome stuff, unwucht! I’ve never looked back after adding Purphoros, God of the Forge.

On another not, I’m probably going to add Tatyova, Benthic Druid back into the deck. I’m just not onboard with Kodama of the East Tree.

Taty is awesome. Kodama can combo off, extremely, as you can put additional land cards on the battlefield as well, but I do not miss her in my list.

What are your thoughts on Reshape the Earth ?

unwucht I actually really like that card, use in my omnath deck, it is sooo useful when you have scute swarm and other cards that trigger from landfall each time land comes onto the battlefield

unwucht, I like it. What should we drop?

We are honestly at a point where we no longer care about efficiency but cycle cards in we want to try and cycle others out that we tried and also like ;) I'd probably cut Nahiri's Lithoforming, just to see which of the two cards performs more reliably.

unwucht, I agree with swapping Nahiri's Lithoforming out for Reshape the Earth.

What do you think about the new Kaldheim blue God / Vehicle that got spoiled? Seems tricky and busted at the same time! I'd give it a chance, but i'm not sure on what to cut

esperdeathblade, I haven’t kept up with the spoilers for Kaldheim, but I looked up Cosima, God of the Voyage  ^Flip and I am sold. For me, the cut would be my Kodama of the East Tree. unwucht, what are your thoughts?

I am fine with cutting Kodama. I don't have it in my list either. Cosima looks interesting. @ esperdeathblade which card were you thinking about, can you give a card-link?

I was referring exactly to Cosima, God of the Voyage  ^Flip. Really great card. I'm not sure on cutting Kodama of the East Tree off, it is something to evaluate for not going into infinite combos. Another one I'm considering to add is Mystic Reflection, quite narrow in this deck but with Avenger of Zendikar is incredible, and with Purphoros, God of the Forge out you can potentially finish all your opponents in a turn. What do you think about it?

esperdeathblade, that Mystic Reflection is juicy. I’ll have to find a cut for that too. It can pump us up or it can help prevent opponents from dropping nasty creatures or planeswalkers on us. I love it!

oof! Mystic Reflection cast in response to a landfall trigger for Scute Swarm with Avenger of Zendikar and Purphoros, God of the Forge out?! You can easily get like 12 1/1 tokens for Scute Swarm's triggered ability. Having like 12 Avengers enter sounds awesome!

yikes, not enough lands and too much time on your hands to foil the thing. Also the cost of the deck will bankrupt your mom lol.

joking on the second part

JakeSmith94 tbf, it is not a cheap decklist. But if you want to do a more bugetish approach, you can substitute the original duals with fetchable tapped duals like Prairie Stream and Cradle with Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip like I initially did before upgrading a few of the more affordable origianl duals.