Papa Nurgle's Chief of Medicine

Commander / EDH Vulnoth

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Field Test Results —Oct. 1, 2023

Last night was Mortarion, Daemon Primarch's debut, minus some of the bigger price cards. Here's how it went:

Game 1: A ridiculous start, opening extremely aggressively with rocks and searches. Mort landed and started churning out ugly boys with respectable speed. Got hit with a boardwipe almost immediately after, which forced me to move to general entrenching instead of amassing a field. That is, until the guy who played said boardwipe, started nuking my rocks because, and I quote him directly here - "Because I fear what I do not understand"; an extreme outlier of an experience in my group. That fundamentally ended my run and kept me out of the game. This all while Zurzoth, Chaos Rider went completely unchecked and wiped everyone off the map about a turn after, as his setup was ignored, so at least the game was over shortly after. I do not feel this game adequately reflected anything because 1. I opened with an extremely improbable combo of Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Expedition Map, and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, 2. I was targeted with suppressive removal after a boardwipe which stifled any recovery attempt, and 3. I had almost nothing when Zurzoth went wide, when I wanted to test my mettle my buddy playing Zurzoth. A frustrating experience, but this is what happens when you play with a halfwit; I considered he might have been trying to be funny, which would track with his generally well-intended but horrendously tonedeaf humor, but I digress.

Game 2. A much more common start, seeing a rock and minor setup cards. I struggled to see a balance of life loss engines, but the more general support kept me moving well enough to put out a couple ugly boys each turn. Ayara, First of Locthwain came down early and put in work while Mort bonked a few people on his own. Things got weird when the Tinybones, Trinket Thief got his Waste Not hit by Fractured Identity. Then, mostly because he thought it would be funny, he cast Awaken the Erstwhile and sat back while we figured everything out. Between the Megrim and Ayara, I was the only survivor of this encounter. It was a slow game, but what little I did do was solid. I feel the deck needs a bit more acceleration so it can more effectively play its more mid-costing cards and not cut too deep into Mort's ability. Not bad news though. If I increase the general acceleration with rocks or something, then this will also in general increase my stability. It also reminded me that most of the mid-tier decks in my group can't handle more physical threats. Weird but informative.

Game 3. Another average start, but with Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis at the table, things descend into chaos rapidly. Plus side, it basically just showed my what my deck does but through an accelerated perspective. Pretty much everything worked as intended. I saw life loss engines early, I landed a couple of my death triggers like Bastion of Remembrance. Boarwipes happened, which whittled everyone down, but then the game did hit a slow few turns. This highlighted again again that some more acceleration may be wise, ideally in the form of ramp such as Sword of the Animist so I'm not so reliant on rocks, plus ramp thins the deck and boosts engine consistency. Things started to speed back up, and Ayara made another appearance, much to my good fortunes as she took out 3 people over a couple turns. All that was left was the Kynaios and Tiro deck and Mort, but after a long game of slow bleeding, they were within kill range of Mort alone. So Mortarion closed the night personally with a win.

A recap of observations and thoughts:

1. General acceleration would be most wise for consistency purposes. Increased basic ramp also would boost the output of Cabal Coffers, which came in clutch game 2 and 3.

2. Re-evaluate life loss engines. Cards such as Unspeakable Symbol found their way into my hand, but between trying to not alarm the table and already having a couple smaller engines live like Bitterblossom, they seemed superflous. I may not do very much on this front now, as Mort only saw 3 games this week, but it is something I plan to evaluate down the road. Ideally I find myself a lineup of "bread and butter" effects I get via life loss such as Staff of Compleation so I refine my deck's focus.

3. Slow bleeding via Ayara, First of Locthwain and such are more deadly than expected. On top of people just slapping each other every turn, people came under 20 life pretty fast. I will definitely monitor how the lesser drain cards perform.

4. Too many searchers for too slow a deck. Grim Tutor is neat, but choosing between casting what I search or activating Mort is never good. Plus it means I have to spend mana now to do something later when I may just be able to play something else now and also get to do what I need with Mort. This will lower the deck's consistency in a manner, but I expect it will smooth performance out. This also is not a high power deck.

5. Mort proves more immediately threatening than expected. Without any lord effect in play, Mort plus 6-ish ugly boys in a 5-player game was enough to scare people away from me, which lessened pressure on me and enabled me to set up free pokes with Bitterblossom and other such things.

6. Revival cards would be very nice. I do have a few already such as Virtue of Persistence and Reanimate (which is included physically to fill out the gaps left by pricey cards I don't yet have), but I found myself wanting more to recover things like Ghoulcaller Gisa. Grave Betrayal is already on my radar, but I'll consider older favorites like Coffin Queen that can hit anything - maybe my super old favorite in Beacon of Unrest can make a return. Even if they ultimately do not make the cut, this is an avenue I want to explore, if for no other reason than to see what happens.

The third experiment is a success. Mortarion, Daemon Primarch is the one. Next is the refining process.