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Sultai Graveyard Aggro

Frontier* Aggro BUG (Sultai) Dredge

PG7m

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Mana Base (23)

GY Fillers (14)

Recursion Creatures (8)

GY Triggers (10)

Finisher (1)

Interaction (4)

Sideboard

Other (15)

Maybeboard

GY Fillers (40)

Fliers (16)

Finishers (2)

GY Triggers (40)

Multi-mode (12)

Sweepers (8)

Removal (32)

Card Advantage (20)

Utility Lands (4)

Introduction

Since I love UBx decks, mostly SULTAI and GRIXIS and to a lesser extent ESPER, and I really like the Frontier format, I have decided to try and build a Tier 2 list that can beat Tier 1 decks sometimes and be a lot of fun to play. Of course if this could achieve a Tier 1 power level that would be Super-Fantastic!! I puposefully stayed away from Marvel for this exact reason. So, if you like Frontier and BUG decks but don't want to just play a T1 net deck I think you'll like this a lot.

This is as aggressive a list as I could make while staying true to the soul of the deck. I also want to build a combo and control version, if possible so that I can play this in all metas within the Frontier format.

Thanks in advance for checking it out and if you like it +1 are always appreciated! I would love to hear all suggestions and critiques that don't involve Frontier hate.

You would enjoy playing this deck if;
  • you prefer to play creature based decks
  • you like to play creatures that are extremely hard for you opponent to deal with
  • you enjoy getting extra value out of your cards by being able to play them multiple times
  • you smile when your control opponents run out of cards to answer your play with
  • you don't mind taking a couple turns to set up an advantagous board state

You would NOT enjoy playing this deck if:

  • you dislike creature based decks
  • you like to burn your opponents life total down to nothing
  • you enjoy exiling you graveyard for value
  • you feel uncomfortable if you're not dealing damage on Turn 1

We absolutely are a Graveyard deck and spend turns 1-3 filling our Grave using several key cards.

  • Sinister Concoction is our prefered Turn one play. I chose this over Vessel of Nascency because it costs less mana to activate, it allows us to discard one of our Grave Yard trigger cards from our hand, and it deals with many of the problem creatures in the format such as Emrakul, the Promised End
  • Satyr Wayfinder is one of the best ways in the format to stock our Graveyard. He puts 3 cards in the ground, fixes our mana and provides a body to chump with. Ideally we would like an effect that lets us choose what we return to our hand but we get a 1/1 body with him.
  • Grapple with the Past puts a few more cards in the dirt and allows us to get back any creature or land that we need and I think, for this reason, this is a better card in the late game. It can get us a Den Protector back which we can use to start our engine and retreve the correct card for the situation.

However we don't just need any cards in the yard we need specific ones.

  • Prized Amalgam is the biggest reason that I built this deck. Its not an extremely over powered creature but it's text box makes it pretty insane. It revitalized all sorts of Dredge decks when it was printed and no one agrues with the ultility of this zombie.
  • Deathmist Raptor is a critical part of the engine. It plays two roles, one as a recursive creature that we can return multiple times from out Yard and also as a Trigger that brings back any Prized Amalgams with it. The fact that it has Deathtouch is straight gravy and allows for some serious abuse. When we flip a face down card on the field our rapors are returned immediately to jump in fromt of our opponents biggest creatures and removing them from play.

And once we get them there we're cheating them back into battle.

  • Ruthless Ripper is probably my favorite on this list. Our deck's engine isn't exactly an unknown quantity and everyone who's familiar with it expects you to play a full set of Den Protectors. This makes Ripper a total suprise when you tap out to manifest it. Your opponent thinks they can safely attack into your board. And when you reveal one of our many Black cards to flip the Ripper, triggering all your Raptors to kill off their board and draining for two they instantly realize they're not as sure about your list as they thought they were.
  • Den Protector is the original Megamorph card for this engine that I was playing in the Standard version of this deck back when Shadows over Innistrad came out. Den Protector has insane value, triggering your raptors which trigger your Amalgams but also gaining a +1/+1 counter and returning a card from our yard to our hand. I'm only running two for a couple reasons. First, I wanted to make this as aggressive a list as I could and that required I find a cheaper way to trigger my Graveyard. I also wanted a six more ways to trigger it in addition to Haunted Dead and second Protector costs us 1 to activate which was too slow for how I want to play the deck. The ability to get us a key card back to our hand couldn't go unappreciated and so I ended up with two copies.
  • Haunted Dead is a really really good card. A ton of value as a dual role card here. First, it is a total of 3 power and 3 toughness across two bodies, one of which has flying for 3 and second, it triggers our Amalgams. It is not only a Graveyard trigger but it is also a target as well

When we're not winning we need a way to stay alive.

  • Painful Truths is very important for us because we constanly need cards in our hand to pitch to our Haunted Deads. Being three colors we can extract maximum value from it when we need to and can choose to only draw 2 and lose 2 when we have to conserve our life total. I think this is the best card draw spell for our deck since we need to keep our Yard full of gas. An argument can be made for Dig Through Time as a one-of but I haven't really ran into too many spots where I was holding Truths in my hand and wishing I had a Dig.
  • Sultai Charm is our Kolaghan's Command that is to say that it is our multi-mode instant speed interaction. Destroying an Artifact or Enchantment is critically relevant in order to stand a chance against the top decks in Frontier. Destroying a creature for 3 mana is ok for a black deck and there are better ways to do only that to be sure but this Charm also allows us to draw and discard something that we want in the grave and not in our hand. I could see playing Fatal Push here but I think the meta has already adjusted to it with the exception of a few decks

Against Control decks

Against generic control lists I think we want to replace our four copies of Ruthless Ripper with Dragon's Eye Savants. For basically the same activation cost we now get to peek at our opponent's hand and see if we're in the clear or what we have to play around. Unfortunately we don't get to remove a card from our opponent's hand but we do get info and on a solid blocking body for lists with creatures.

Replacing three copies of Sinister Concoction is Disallow to have the ability to counter significant spells/abilities such as Aetherworks Marvel or God-Pharaoh's Gift. Its very possible that Negate might be better but I like the range we have access to with Disallow. Running our Control opponent out of answers just to hard counter their Dig Through Time is pretty much game over.

Against 'go-wide' and big Creature decks like Hardened Scales variants

We already play a number of good cards against these decks. Deathmist Raptor is an ideal card as is Sultai Charm. Most Scales decks are mostly Green if not mono-Green. Bontu's Last Reckoning allows us to wipe the board for three mana, pass, and return all of our creatures at our opponent's next endstep catapulting us way ahead on board.

Against Gods

Against decks that play Gods we can pseudo bounce them with Deathmist Raptor but the numero uno response is to exile them with Vraska's Contempt. The Grasp of Darkness is speciffically for Red decks playing Hazoret the Fervent. The Scarab God is an extremely powerful card against our deck and he is public enemy #1. His ability to exile specific cards from our grave is tremendously bad for us. Stealing a Haunted Dead and making it a 4/4 is not a good spot.

Decimator of the Provinces

I have always wanted to build around this card and I have absolutely built some janky lists trying to force this card to be good. I certainly think this card could work here and have thought multiple times after putting a few Raptors and Amalgams on the board that it would be really good to Emerge the D.O.P. off of a Haunted Dead and end the game. My main issues are 1.) how many to run; I think only 1 is correct but that has it's own problems and 2.) what would I remove; 23 lands has proven to be more than enough and I could see going to 22 but I wouldn't feel good about that. I suppose a full set of Grapple with the Past in addition to the pair of Den Protectors should do the trick so this my very well end up being the very next iteration of the list.

Champion of Wits

I absolutely love this card and I know I'm not alone. This this is high octane! It pretty much does everything we want and is very good at it. Drawing and discarding is exactly what we want to be doing on turn 3. Eternalizing this SOB in the late game is all value. My only problem with it is where to put it. I'm already full at the 3 CMC slot and as a Grave Filler I'm not sure what it is strictly better than. It's way slower than Grapple with the Past costs more than Satyr Wayfinder and really doesn't have the interaction value of Sinister Concoction. I think it would need to be a '4 of' but, I could be wrong. It may very well be that it is best in a slower mid-rangy or a controll build of the deck which I am looking forward to building.

Grim Flayer This beast was my original 2-drop but with so many decks playing Fatal Push he proved to be more of a liability than an asset which is too bad because I love this card.

Minister of Inquiries was in the list when it was transitioning from a Sultai Energy deck into this version. Of course as all the energy cards were eliminated his value deminished to the point where I just didn't think he was the best choice.

Noose Constrictor is an interesting card that I have seen in similar deck lists but I just don't know what I would cut to put it in.

Geralf's Masterpiece was a card I was really hoping would make it but as I am trying to make this version of the deck as aggressive as possible he just didn't make it. I am looking to put him a different version, most likely a mid-range flavor.

Advanced Stitchwing & Stitchwing Skaab are both ok but not nearly as strong as Haunted Dead

Scrapheap Scrounger & Bloodsoaked Champion are both cards I'm still testing out to see if they have more added value than Haunted Dead in this aggressive list.

Dragonlord Silumgar, Voldaren Pariah   and Mindwrack Demon are cards I'm keeping my eye on for another version of the deck but I could see Voldaren Pariah   in this version as it does some serious work against creature based decks and is a huge airborne threat. Probably this is a meta-dependant card.

Any advice on improving the Sideboard cards or strategy would be greatly appreciated. This is an incredibly fun deck to play and it gives people serious headaches. I know there are other variants of the deck. I've seen the Izzet versions and they're pretty solid but I'm going stay Sultai. Thanks for checking it out and if you like it, take it for a spin and let me know how it went. I try to take lots of notes when I play and recommend that to anyone trying to improve. I'm not the best but I am always trying to get better. Good luck!

Scrapheap Scrounger was effective at keeping pressure on from mid game onward. Opp used multiple Vraska's Contempt to deal with successive copies. Opp's Fatal Pushes were not very good. I win 2-0. G1; Decimator of the Provinces in opening hand, win before able to play, Opp only plays 3 lands. G2; Opp finds 6 lands.

G2; IN; 4x dragon's eye savant & 3x Disallow OUT; 2x Sinister Concoction, 1x Grapple with the Past and 4x Ruthless Ripper

Very effective line was;

G2, T?

Hero; plays dragon's eye savant face down. Pass.

Villain; flashes in Torrential Gearhulk to flashback Fatal Push.

Hero; respond w/Grapple with the Past, return another Dragon's Eye Savants to hand. Reveal's DES to flip DES onboard returning 2x Deathmist Raptor and queuing 2x Prized Amalgams.

Opp concedes.

Replaced 2x Grasp of Darkness with 2x Virulent Plague in the SB after realizing that the deck looks weak to token strategies.

G1; Lost pretty handily but, played my hand slower that I should have. Emrakul, the Promised End on T5 was too much to deal with. Opp used my Sultai Charm to blow up my Sinister Concoction which is my main deck answer to bombs like Emrakul. In order to answer Aetherworks Marvel with the main deck I am going to have to play a Sinister Concoction with a way to activate it.

SB;

After some hindsight I think taking out 2x Grapples would be better than the Charm. Dragon's Eye Savants performed well and getting a peek at my opp's hand on turn 4 after his draw is great info. I drew a Disallow in my opening 7 and I was able to counter the first Aetherworks Marvel, which showed up late on T6 and didn't see another one until several turns later when Opp used it to cast a Harnessed Lightning on a Deathmist Raptor. My revolving door of creatures ended up being too much to deal with for Opp even with two very large Tireless Trackers. VERY happy with this win b/c I only drew 1 DES and had to rely on Scrapheap Scrounger & Prized Amalgam and hard casting Raptors. In addition to that I was flooding out pretty bad too. During this matchup I was really missing Painful Truths.

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Date added 7 years
Last updated 7 years
Legality

This deck is not Frontier legal.
Rarity (main - side)

5 - 0 Mythic Rares

27 - 7 Rares

16 - 8 Uncommons

8 - 0 Commons
Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.32
Tokens Morph 2/2 C
Folders Frontier
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