I have a similar deck that I've been working on.

From my experience with that one, I'd highly recommend some early mana generation like Arbor Elf . Even with a full set of dual lands (guildgates are poor substitute as they slow you down, which is death for an aggro deck), there's just too many double and triple color costs all over the board.

These vastly increases your chances of being able to play something out Turn 2. Where as before I'd stall on having say the last forest I needed to get Predator Ooze into play. A good aggro deck needs to do works quickly lest it simply be out aggro'd or be hit by a sweeper from a midrange or control.

Pre-playtest comment

Deadly Allure doesn't work quite like how I believe you think it works. unlike Revenge of the Hunted it simply says has to be blocked this turn if able (revenge's says each creature has to block it if able).

Not a bad looking deck. I have something very similar: Scavenge Swarm. Check it out if you get a chance.

I've been struggling with mine as well, so far in a couple FNM tourneys it hasn't done very well. I'm still trying to tweak it. I JUST put in Strangleroot Geist and an extra Champion of Lambholt as well as a couple dual-lands but haven't gotten a chance to playtest it yet.

As far as your deck goes (without knowing how strangleroot geist will run yet) I might suggest you consider Hunger of the Howlpack for cheap counter production. You might be able to afford to take out the Blessings of Nature for them, and maybe take out Ultimate Price for one, or another Tragic Slip ?

If you want to speed it up Arbor Elf may help, but I'm not sure they're even necessary in my deck right now. What to remove for them I'm not sure. Maybe Predator Ooze or even some Dreg Mangler /Vampire Nighthawk .

Let me know how things turn out, I could certainly use the insight for my deck as well!

Thanks for the advice, keep it coming!

Your correct Demarge I misread Deadly Allure . But even without the insta-sweep it seems to be cost effective. Id probably still try it out.

What should I take out for Arbor Elf or Farseek ? It would be nice to play one of my 3 cost cards sooner.

Should I pull out the guildgates for them?

Honestly I think you can slot them in for Slitherhead . While the allure of free counters once he's in your yard is certainly nice, these decks throw around so many counters once they get going that it's a negligible amount.

I'll give that a try and let you know how it goes! Do you think 4 farseek or 4 Arbor Elfs are better with only 2 shocklands?

I just saw this deck... which is eerily similar. Golgari Counters

They dont use the elves but they got their hands on 3 shaman.

What about Ring of Kalonia that would work well with Corpsejack Menace

I was using Ring of Kalonia in my Golgari deck for awhile. While I really liked it's potential, it was kind of slow. I ended up eventually returning to using Rancor instead.

I agree with Dusty8807 that the Ring of Kalonia is just too slow. I really really want to love the five rings in M13, but they just don't work in a Type 2 environment. Both because of speed and because they paint a giant bullseye on your creature. The only one that really works in the blue one because it protects the creature that has it equipped with hexproof.

My deck that Gigglestomp mentioned above (Golgari Counters) was based off another deck I had build pre RtR that focused on waking up Slumbering Dragon by turn 3. Let Sleeping Dragons lie... G/R Standard. I adapted the idea to include Corpsejack Menace , but unfortunately that forced me to drop red completely. I wish I could have kept Slumbering Dragon , but I just couldn't make any room to splash red.

This biggest things you need to watch for in a FNM enviornment are people using tokens as chump blockers against your counter loaded creatures, removal (especially Selesnya Charm ), and Oblivion Ring s on your Predator Ooze s to bypass the indestructible. At least that is what I encountered during my prerelease playtesting. Once I have a chance to take a Friday night off, I hope to see what all my modifications have done to help counter these threats.

Please let us know how FNM turns out for you. I really want this deck concept to work!

Stay tuned -- In addition to the FNM update, i'm going to build a deck on here that is a duplicate of my brothers control deck, play him 5-10 times, then link his deck and my results in a separate update. I want this hexproof to work!

I too really want this deck concept to be a contender at FNM. I've been constantly reworking mine (Scavenge Swarm) trying to improve it.

Most recently I've added Knight of Infamy thinking it might help fend off some of that white control, as well as get around things like Restoration Angel , Silverblade Paladin , and Sublime Archangel . I haven't got much of a chance to playtest it yet though, unfortunately. I think I am plagued by mana problems, so I worked back in some Arbor Elf as well.

Just thought I'd share the Knight of Infamy idea here, seeing what you guys thought about it. My deck hasn't been getting as many comments.

I've got a deck that has proven to be a huge contender which always gets top 3 and has won 1st place in FNM if you care to see it White Overload. It's none of theses colors that were talking about but maybe some cards im using mught trigger some ideas.

The hand draws on this deck without those 4 shocklands/cemeterys seem very inconsistent. Is there anything I can do in the meantime to dampen the chance of starting slow or with the wrong lands?

Right now bestcase is getting

Turn 1: ForestTurn 2: Forest Farseek (Place Overgrown Tomb)Turn 3 Overgrown Tomb or Swamp Play Ooze/Lambholt/Mangler/CoprsejackTurn 4: Buff them with Counters/RancorTurn 5: Big damage

I'm trying to make last minute changes before FNM.

I'm doing the same thing, Gigglestomp. Been trying to get my version of this working better over the past few days in time for FNM.

I completely agree, my biggest problem seems to be mana. I've been playtesting it for the past couple days and that's what I've noticed. Some hands work out fantastic, I get a good mana combination and end up having an awesome board by turn 4-5. More often though it seems I am completely mana-screwed, or short a forest or swamp when I need it.

I thought running 23 lands should have been sufficient, but maybe those dual lands make that much of a difference. Trying to figure out if I should throw in another land, or Arbor Elf (I'm running 3) or what?

For previous comments click the the title of the update "FNM - Nov 9"

I had the SAME exact situation on Friday night! First match I went up against an Epic Experiment Deck (which I had never seen or faced before). Got him down to 2 life and he dropped that bomb combo on me. He ended up drawing a card:Devil's Play and Increasing Vengeance and tapped 14 lands, copied it, and dealt me 28 damage in a single turn. I was at 26 life.

Second game was pretty much the same thing, except he also got the Temporal Mastery combo going and took like 2-3 turns in a row to finish the combo.

I was speechless and so frustrated. >_<

Sorry, I didn't finish reading your update before I posted...that's how frustrated I still am over the Epic Experiment loss!

I'm not sure of a good strategy to beat it. To be honest I wasn't running my Golgari Scavenge deck (Scavenge Swarm) for a couple reasons: 1) I still can't seem to find the creature concoction that works best for me, 2) I am missing most of the dual lands and I think they are huge difference makers in the deck.

That being said I played a mono-black discard deck (Rats, Cats and Bats). The guy didn't seem to have any creatures, he just had a lot of land search and draw power. I'm confident if I had gotten more discard effects off on him I could have beat him. Alternatively I think he would have done awful against any kind of aggro or board presence. I would recommend just hitting the Epic Experiment Decks hard and fast with as many creatures as possible. In fact, I'm not sure he did well the rest of the night. He won more games, but I don't recall him placing very high with it.

P.S. I ended the night 2-3 as well. :-/

Yeah i'm hoping finishing my Overgrown Tomb s and Woodland Cemetery sets by the end of the night will make all the difference next Friday. It makes night and day difference against the control deck I listed for my brother.

What do you think about trading out 3x Dreg Mangler for 3x Tormented Soul ?

Aggro usually doesn't need blockers... and Tormented soul in the long run will probably do more unblocked damage than a mangler.. I lose the high-cost scavenge + haste but I gain more unblock-able to put tokens onto. Fits the whole lambholt/rancor/10c hydra concept.

What do you think about trading out 3x Dreg Mangler for 3x Tormented Soul ?

Aggro usually doesn't need blockers... and Tormented soul in the long run will probably do more unblocked damage than a mangler.. I lose the high-cost scavenge + haste but I gain more unblock-able to put tokens onto. Fits the whole lambholt/rancor/10c hydra concept.

I can't help but think that for 5 mana putting a Tormented Soul with an Increasing Savagery is pretty scary.

Worst case: 6/6 unblockable.

Corpsejack on field: 11/11 unblockable.

For 8 mana You could flashback and put 10-20 counters on one. (Lambholt does the same thing better, but for 1 mana aint too shabby.)

I can see where you are coming from with Tormented Soul . Unblockable is pretty hard hitting. Especially if you turn 1 Tormented Soul and turn 2 a miracle Blessings of Nature to swing with a 5/5 unblockable on turn 2. Granted that is the ideal scenario, but it could happen.

The other side of the coin is Dreg Mangler does have additional utility with his scavenge ability for even more counters for your creatures. And having Champion of Lambholt is there to give you the same unblockable to all your creatures. Also, Dreg Mangler is a more formidable creature at 3/3 if you aren't getting any of your Blessings of Nature or Increasing Savagery and you have to rely on the creatures you are playing to make the kill on their own merits... and I have games without drawing cards like that.

Just food for thought.

Both valid points. I'd probably consider testing this soon but I want to get a shot at FNM this week with my full set of lands before I make any changes.

I might just test it against my brother some over thanksgiving. If it shows promise against him id consider bringing it into FNM.

I can't help but think about my epic experiment loss. If id have done 1 more damage early instead of placing mana and ending my turn to get to 3-4 I might have done the last 1 life worth of damage to him before he drew into it. Granted, shaman could have done it too but I wasn't able to draw one.

In the exact scenario you described, you do have a counter for what killed you already in your deck. Your opponent putting an army of 1/1 tokens into play can be eaten up by Golgari Charm , just choose all creatures get -1/-1 until end of turn. Unless your opponent has something else in play that would have given them additional toughness, it would wipe the board of tokens. Granted that is only one possible scenario with Epic Experiment .

Dusty8807 ran into another problem with Epic Experiment that won't be so easily countered with green or black with the card:Devil's Play / Increasing Vengeance combo. At least I can't think of any in green or black spells that would be very effective against that much direct damage... except for a lot of early game life gain.