Hi heinrichgraum, I absolutely love your deck and currently with my limited income, I am trying to reproduce it. I am just wondering, why you do not include Bioessence Hydra in your deck. Best regards

Thank you, Bobshel! I am extremely flattered you are building towards this deck and I sincerely hope you have as much fun playing with it as I do!

To answer your question, I tend to not run cards like Bioessence Hydra which are basically big beatsticks for two reasons:

One: It is a non-legend creature at five mana value, which means it does not turn on my legendary sorceries and is not fetchable by Captain Sisay, which admittedly is kind of a matter of personal preference for this particular deck. And for five mana you could probably find something better like Deepglow Skate or something.

Two: It does not advance the win conditions of this deck. This deck does not win games through combat damaging folks to death, and it rarely if ever has the opportunity to leave creatures tapped. Because of the nature of Superfriends decks and the reputation they have in the community, this deck is always playing defense, and creating many small blockers to save some health and loyalty where you can is the priority. That said, turning the corner and moving on the offense after something like an Ajani Steadfast emblem or resolved Kozilek, Butcher of Truth (which is in there for the shuffle clause because I face fair bit of Mill) is absolutely possible but is very rare and should not be counted on for victory.

All that being said, as you are working on a budget, cards like Bioessence Hydra can be pretty solid placeholders while you expand your collection, and I would by no means write it off as useless for your deck!

Thank you for your answer, it really helps me understand the deck more, also because I am only playing for 4 Months at all (MTG). However, after consideration of your earlier commments, I have to say, that in my opinion Vraska, Betrayal's Sting could be a great addition to the deck (at least having it in the sidebord.) ANd it could be exchanged for Sorin, Grimmige Nemesis, although not creating blockers :). Just because of her first ability of course, but also her second ability, which is an Oko ability, only stronger, considering, that at the point of 5 or 6 Mana drops you should be able to spend Loyalty Counters pretty easily. Of course, that is only my view.

Thanks again and keep up the great work.

I have been thinking about Vraska, Betrayal's Sting since its been spoiled and I am coming around to your position. It really does everything it needs to do, and it's Ult does just win the game with any source of proliferate. I am likely going to include it somewhere when I update the list, and maybe Sorin, Grim Nemesis is the right choice, but it's one my pet cards, so I will have to take that into account when I do.

Thank you for your answer. And I have another question ^^. Do you think, that building a Mana Base, out of "Gate-Lands" could be promising? Gond Gate , Baldur's Gate and Citadel Gate, as well as others seem to have a promising Mana-output in my opinion. Although I do not think, that they can reach to the level of the Mana base you build. Just for consideration.

Cheers

Frankly, tapped lands are not worth it, with the exception of the fetchable tri-lands. This deck is very very mana hungry and you need to be able to cast spell out as fast as you can to not get overwhelmed by your opponents. Personally I would run higher counts of basics over tapped lands. Checklands, Snarls, Fastlands, Slowlands, and Pathways are all absolutely great replacements for fetch's and shocks.

Yes I can agree to that! And I have another card for submission for adoption. Coming out with the new set is not only a reprint of Atraxa, but also the card Wrenn and Realmbreaker. I will not comment on that one, because it is just a "must include" in my opinion. Have fun looking at it.

You're absolutely correct, Wrenn and Realmbreaker is absolute gas and one of the strongest walkers in quite a while, but I am unsure if the role it plays is one necessary for this deck to win. Just because a card is really really good, doesn't mean that it fits in every hole. Making mana of any color can be great, but honestly the lands in this deck are so tight I almost never have trouble getting the colors I need to play the spells I want. The plus is not great here, as the blocker is temperary, exposes lands to board wipes, and doesn't untap them. The second is just straight card advantage, and does work excellently with the very high number of permanents in the deck, but with very limited recursion, I would much rather just draw a card. The Ult is insane, but never judge a walker by its ult. If the plus ability was more impactful for this deck it might find a spot, as of now, I will definitely need to play with it to get a feel for its utility before I seriously consider it for this deck. I'll likely include it in some of my other decks, like Jodah, Omnath Locus of Rage, or Atarka World Render.

I ended up replacing Ugin, the Ineffable with Vraska, Betrayal's Sting right now. She has much more limited target removal but is less evasive (and my group tends to combo on creatures anyways). Too bad she couldn't turn things into non-sacrificial tokens though for removing commanders for greater length of time. There is so much artifact hate/board wipes in my group that I have switched some of the more costly mana ramp cards for some green ramp land fetch spells, so not missing the lower artifact cost benefit of Ugin. Also with all the new proliferate gems in All Will Be One, I feel that Karn's Bastion can probably be replaced?

Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion

Isn't this another Pir, Imaginative Rascal ? Have you ever considered adding this card?

Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion has been recommended to me before, I will likely just stick with Pir though, as they're basically the same and I really don't like Universes Beyond.

Hay how do you think the new Talent enchantments would work in this deck? I'm thinking that Liliana's talent is a vary good card for this deck and would work well to keep people from swinging at your planeswalker whale you are tiring to trigger an emblem, but I think that Elspeth's talent and Teferi's Talent may be good too.

I'm pretty low on the Talent cycle. I think theyre fairly interesting designs, but gameplay wise they take removal targets and make them so much more tempting. In my opinion I think the one with the most legs in Rowan's Talent because copying loyalty abilities is so strong, but its also the red one, so I wouldn't be able to include it in this deck anyway. They get much better with the lower quality walkers, if you're flooding your board with low cost WAR walkers, then they can be very good, but as this deck is built, I don't think they are worth including.

Love this deck, it is beautiful!! Thanks for your hard work crafting. Is there a reason you wouldn't run Sylcan Library or the incoming Orcish Bowmasters?

A recent reveal for one of the upcoming precons has dropped a very interesting planeswalker, Vronos, Masked Inquisitor. This is the planeswalker from Inistrad that cursed Garruk killed. Despite his fate, he's kinda a big deal for the superfriends format.

5 loyalty to start

+1 Phase out 2 other planeswalkers at your end step and they stay that way until your next turn. Can be arranged so Atraxa proliferates them before they phase out. Use spark Spark Double on Vronos, and they can target each other with this ability as well as another planeswalker each. This feels like genuinely great protection. Especially for a plus ability. This is the big ticket reason this planeswalker matters.

-2 For each opponent, bounce a nonland permanent into that players hand. 2 loyalty for 3 threats delayed. Seems like a really good deal to me. Might be more useful then the plus ability depending on the board state.

-7 Target artifact you control becomes an unblockable 9/9 contruct artifact creature that gains Vigilance and Indestructable. Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. Probably not an Ulti you'd want to pop off most of the time, but if you really need that blocker or to preserve a mana rock, it's there for you. Pairs well with Tezzerets flying Thopter tokens.

For your consideration. Don't know if or where you might try to slot him in and neither do I, but even though I'm still puzzling over how to swap in Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus for my own version of this deck, I'm really giving serious thought toward this new walker.