Budget Azban Life Drain Cute Win
Standard Deck Help forum
Posted on April 1, 2016, 3:05 a.m. by hardgrapes
Greetings,
I have been tuning this deck and taking it to standard tournaments once or twice a month for several months now.grnes Braun
I enjoy playing it, but to improve it further I feel I need to buy some very expensive cards (Collected Company), some planeswalkers, etc.) Also, I've long wanted to add a third color, and now that the search lands of Khans are cycling out and I don't have to worry (as much) about spending $100s on lands, I feel that is an easier prospect somewhat. So, I took the opportunity to make the change to Abzan* while updating cycling cards, etc.
My biggest concern with a three color deck in general is the land base, do I want to use pain lands and sabotage my life gain strategy slightly? Is evolving wilds even worth it? How many basic lands do I want? How many "comes into play tapped" lands can I afford?
My concerns with the deck in general is... I am not sure of any of the other cards! Haha. Does Jaddi Offshoot buy me enough time in the game/is it just total crap to get later? Is Pious Evangel Flip too slow? Will I be able to get Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim exhiling quick enough that Blight Herder's secondary ability will go off? Are Hangarback Walker and Sylvan Advocate suited to the deck (they are two of the more expensive cards of which I own playsets so I want to keep using them if possible...)? How about Catacomb Sifter? Is running Defiant Bloodlord just a fantasy and I should seek a more aggressive win condition? Could I modify the orignal in some other way entirely without breaking the bank?
*I know Abzan is typically more white than Green or Black but I am adjusting to the cards I have, and I don't have much white... I ideally don't want to spend much more than $100 on singles up until October when more sets rotate out. I am willing to buy collected company or the like if it would really help the deck though.
I humbly beseech your opinions, my goal is not to win tournaments, but simply to make nerds sweat and occasionally win in an awesome way (a Johnny deck, if you must). Feel free to answer any or some of my questions or just give me your general impressions of the deck. I'm all ears/eyes.
Agreed with MangaVentFreak13 in that Sylvan Advocate is beautiful with manlands. Just the same. I was using Jaddi Offshoot with landsearch and cards like Nissa's Renewal to gain super life at times. And had Felidar Sovereign as a win con and it was pretty consistent with black and white removal spells.
April 1, 2016 1:56 p.m.
Hello, I just found this forum and was really interested because I have been working on an Abzan deck as well, but mine is more combo oriented. It isn't terribly expensive, and it has some overlap with your deck. The deck does include a combo for infinite life as one of its combos, so it fits the lifegain theme a little. Let me know what you think and maybe this list can help you out too. :)
Abzan Aristo-combo
Standard
SCORE: 2 | 6 COMMENTS | 177 VIEWS
April 2, 2016 9:41 p.m.
Also, Pulse of Murasa could gain a handy amount of life for you while also getting back an important creature.
MangaVentFreak13 says... #2
Company will help the deck if you have 22 things it can bring out in the deck. Other than that I wish you luck except for saying that Sylvan Advocate is such a fun card. I typically can justify playing one or two copies of Shambling Vent or Hissing Quagmire for color fixing if I'm playing a playset of Advocate. But that's me.
April 1, 2016 3:51 a.m.