General Show me your discard and graveyard synergies

Riptide Lab is all about lackluster graveyard themes, or so says, Waddell. Yet we don't have a lot of information on the topic beyond squadronning Gravecrawlers threads made several years ago.

As I'm reworking my cube, I would love to see what you guys are up to. Show me neat things you do and tell me what issues you've found with the topic.
 
BGu Dredge




BRw Sacrifice




URb Spells Matter is also somewhat graveyard focused




RGu Madness of course




Those are my big players in the graveyard game. I'd say half my decks do interact with that zone in some way, but giving you a list of every interaction would like to some giant post here. Is this already helpful/enough for you?
 
How does Dralnu play for oyur group? It's a card I'm very curious about. Looks like a funny control finisher that you need to do some work for and with a potentially game-losing drawback.

Honestly, he didn't see much play so far. I think people are often scared by the drawback. I personally put him into every deck possible and only consider bording him out against red decks. Long story short, I think he's super cool but I can't tell you much now.
 
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In a bid to widen the possibilities of GY decks in my cube (and get white in on the action), I went ahead and made a GY aggro theme. These are supported by more traditional aggro cards and therefore they should be playable in a regular aggro deck, but get enough of them and the theme really takes off (at least, that's the idea). The white and green cards might be more suited to an agressive midrange theme than pure aggro though.

My question is, do you think this has wheels at higher power level or am I trying too hard.



I omitted some black recursive guys like Bloodsoaked Champion because I play multiplayer and they can't block which makes having lots of them pretty narrow. They might still be worth it, but I decided to try without for now.

The white cards tie well into aristocrats since they trigger on death and make multiple bodies which is sweet since it bleeds naturally into RB aristocrats.

Here are a few decks I drafted (list isn't 100% up to date, but whatever) just to give an idea:

Mardu aggro
https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/5ec34e387868862b1f16b092

Rb aggro
https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/5eab9cb273088158396cf977

RG GY midrange (less aggressive, but still works I think)
https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/5e928419a0c28578ee3891e9

RG midrange (more to show that I think the cards can fit elsewhere than just GY decks)
https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/5e9dd1df7db2a31073dd5f22

Do these decks seem too parasitic? Have any of you tried to make this work at higher power level?
 
I generally play 3 player games which are a weird hybrid of duels and true multiplayer games. This means that fast decks (probably a better name than aggro) can win. However, those decks aren't using 1 mana 2/1's, but rather cards like Impact Tremors that hit the whole table or Goblin Rabblemaster that snowballs. So I guess I was posting about whether or not the GY cards I posted are high enough power level to enable "fast" decks to perform.
 
My graveyard theme is kind of simple, i run a bunch of Evolving Wilds and a bunch of Cartographer type cards, plus stuff like Delve, so that decks can either return all those lands or exile them for goodies.
(Don’t look at my cube link though, i just emptied the list out to start over from scratch for the third time this month...)
 
I couldn't find an obvious Madness thread, so I'm going to post here.

I'm toying with the following colorless discard package for high-powered.




I'm excited about Containment Construct as a card that could really get us to critical mass here while being at home in many different shells. One of the biggest benefits of colorless is that we can play these cards in any deck that wants them. And they also don't create an on rails archetype. Plenty of decks will just want Construct + LED. Some might not be able to break LED at all. Some decks might only play Bazaar. But it creates a nice overlapping space that can mesh together with an enormous variety of graveyard decks across colors.

As a sanity check, here are a range of other packages / game plans that would want ~2 or more of these 4 cards at my target power level:

Artifact Grind



Stormy Artifacts



Graveyard Aggro



Breach Combo



Reanimator



Graveyard Elves



Lands



White Artifact Combo



LED Wheels



Anyway, this is what I've been thinking about post NEO.
 
And if you want this in a lower powered cube without breaking singleton you could be looking at something like this:
...

Honestly, a lot of the cards you mention are super playable at a very high power level OR lower power level. The big difference is with singleton, you need to stretch farther afield for consistency (to make GR madness a thing for example), and so the final product ends up being most natural at a slightly lower power. The colorless duplicate breaking is more important for making a non-on-rails high power version. I think that might explain some @Erik Twice 's difficulties when asking "how can I make LED playable" or things like that.

At least that's my current state of thinking. @inscho is probably facing a lot of these tensions as he explores different options for higher power while maintaining strict singleton. But Klavier, I think most of your examples are in inscho's list.
 
Honestly, a lot of the cards you mention are super playable at a very high power level OR lower power level. The big difference is with singleton, you need to stretch farther afield for consistency (to make GR madness a thing for example), and so the final product ends up being most natural at a slightly lower power. The colorless duplicate breaking is more important for making a non-on-rails high power version. I think that might explain some @Erik Twice 's difficulties when asking "how can I make LED playable" or things like that.

Yeah, most of those are pretty high octane in the right context. My dredge and discard/madness oriented aggro decks can be stupid fast.

At least that's my current state of thinking. @inscho is probably facing a lot of these tensions as he explores different options for higher power while maintaining strict singleton. But Klavier, I think most of your examples are in inscho's list.

It's easy enough to dial up the power of discard and graveyard strategies in black and red based guilds by omitting efficient exiling effects (graveyard and permanents). The tension for me has always been keeping selesnya and azorius (and to a lesser extent simic) thematically interesting and competitive in a graveyard environment. Fortunately, NEO has allowed the artifact subtheme to expand which has solved a handful of my problems. Selesnya is still the problem child.

In my experience, there has historically been three types of cards that allow white and green to scale up in power in a graveyard environment:

The efficient exiling effects that hinder graveyard strategies from thriving:



Single card engines/bombs that require more premium removal, graveyard hate (see above), or format speed [1] to keep in check:



Fast mana:


[1] I've recently focused on pushing my format's speed while still avoiding single card bombs to see if it solves some of my problems. I've brought in more fast mana and lowered the general curve....prioritized cards that return from the graveyard (phoenix of ash) rather than ones that have fussy sequencing (anje's ravager). The increased speed has started to make some of the above cards feel more reasonable for my environment: Scavenging Ooze is only oppressive if the player has the time to activate it multiple times, Titania's casting cost is beginning to feel a little cumbersome, better removal is needed to deal with faster recursive threats, etc.

Red is almost getting to the point where Burning Inquiry feels like my format's Ancestral Recall. I've been similarly eyeing Lion's Eye Diamond, because it's starting to feel less like a niche combo card and more like a build-your-own Black Lotus....which sounds delicious. If I can support LED in a holistic way then I'm one step closer to a holistic Storm deck (Underworld Breach was a big piece to solving that puzzle). My ultimate goal is to create a high-powered synergy-driven combo cube that avoids the compartmentalized groups of cards of a traditional combo cube (palinchron + high tide, voltaic key + time vault, etc)

Things are in a great place for discard and graveyard themes, and they are only getting better.
 
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I'm excited about Containment Construct as a card that could really get us to critical mass here while being at home in many different shells.
What are your thoughts on



as another piece to the deck? I like the intersection between spells and discard, but maybe it's too narrow as a multicolored card?
 
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What are your thoughts on



as another piece to the deck? I like the intersection between spells and discard, but maybe it's too narrow as a multicolored card?

I've run Rielle since Ikoria was released, and it has historically been an overperformer for me. Before Containment Construct was printed it was the primary weaponizer of the izzet discard deck in my cube. The lack of evasion and 3 toughness usually keeps it out of combat in my experience. It's typically sits around doing silly things with wheels and looting effects. It loses some lustre as your removal improves and your format's pace increases. Which is why I've become a little less sold on it as my format has evolved, but boy was it an all-star for me up until my latest update. I don't have any play data to back up Rielle in my current list yet...it's mostly theoretical and judging on my past experiences.

I'm still keeping it around as it does offer something pretty unique, and can be explosive in a very fair way. For now, I don't prefer any of the other Izzet options.
 
What are your thoughts on
..
I've run Rielle since Ikoria was released, and it has historically been an overperformer for me. Before Containment Construct was printed it was the primary weaponizer of the izzet discard deck in my cube. The lack of evasion and 3 toughness usually keeps it out of combat in my experience. It's typically sits around doing silly things with wheels and looting effects. It loses some lustre as your removal improves and your format's pace increases. Which is why I've become a little less sold on it as my format has evolved, but boy was it an all-star for me up until my latest update. I don't have any play data to back up Rielle in my current list yet...it's mostly theoretical and judging on my past experiences.

I'm still keeping it around as it does offer something pretty unique, and can be explosive in a very fair way. For now, I don't prefer any of the other Izzet options.

I ran it for a draft or two but never really gave it a chance because it didn't get picked. I think part of the issue is that UR spells decks are usually all 0/1/2 mana and you don't really want to play a 3 drop that draws you cards. This includes the UR decks that want to do something like Faithless Looting --> Delve Hooting Mandrills (or whatever). And UR combo decks that use the graveyard like ritual storm or breach really don't want superfluous pieces unless its a robust alternate win con like Mentor.

But on the flip side, it's incredibly sweet and it's a very cool payoff for jamming Flooting and Careful Study. And the upside is still very powerful, so I can see playing it as a matter of preference even in my list. I don't know, maybe I should be playing this card??

EDIT: Part of my issue is that recently I've been intensely ratcheting down the list. And that has involved cutting a lot of cards exactly like this (e.g. Tireless Tracker).
 
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I ran it for a draft or two but never really gave it a chance because it didn't get picked. I think part of the issue is that UR spells decks are usually all 0/1/2 mana and you don't really want to play a 3 drop that draws you cards. This includes the UR decks that want to do something like Faithless Looting --> Delve Hooting Mandrills (or whatever). And UR combo decks that use the graveyard like ritual storm or breach really don't want superfluous pieces unless its a robust a win alternate con like Mentor.

But on the flip side, it's incredibly sweet and it's a very cool payoff for jamming Flooting and Careful Study. And the upside is still very powerful, so I can see playing it as a matter of preference even in my list. I don't know, maybe I should be playing this card??

EDIT: Part of my issue is that recently I've been intensely ratcheting down the list. And that has involved cutting a lot of cards exactly like this (e.g. Tireless Tracker).

Yeah, my blue and red spell suite is centered around looting rather than spell volume. I cut most of the spell volume support cards like Young Pyromancer, Magmatic Channeler, Saheeli Sublime Artificer and Monastery Mentor. I don't support Magecraft. I run Careful Study instead of Ponder, Cathartic Reunion instead of Reckless Impulse, Flameblade Adept rather than Dragon's Rage Channeler, etc...So Rielle is much more conducive to my environment
 
Did someone say WHITE REANIMATOR?



I'd kill to see another Loyal Retainers style card -- it's a good kind of restriction that fits well with white, and a good CMC that makes it reasonably fair but also ensures black stays #1 at reanimation.

I'm not at the point where I'm running a Late to Dinner in the color yet (but I'm not that far!!)

Other cool white reanimation cards I used to run:



I did previously love Bruna, the Fading Light, who I think holds up on her own in terms of power level, but was less interesting to folks because of her meld ability that was too hard to come by in a 720 card list.

I think the 2 CMC restriction is multitudes better than the 1 CMC one when it comes up, but obviously a power-based one like with Reveillark is the real ideal.

Other white reanimation cards that are of note are:

Abiding Grace
Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants
Cleric Class
Bishop of Rebirth
Storm of Souls
Order of Whiteclay
Mistmoon Griffin
Rally the Ancestors

Man, Proclamation of Rebirth is such a cool card.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb


This card is awesome. It is trivial to reanimate two creatures, but you also can get back five in the late game. It's a fun interactive card that rewards synergy and can make for incredible come back stories.
This card would be cooler if your opponent had to divvy up the spice, like with Fact or Fiction. In hindsight, that "cycle" is weird in how inconstent it is in who gets to divide and who gets to pick.
 
I cube it too and I must say that fact or fiction style division would make it much more compelling. (its more like a niche pick right now) I am tempted to custom change that.
 
I cube it too and I must say that fact or fiction style division would make it much more compelling. (its more like a niche pick right now) I am tempted to custom change that.
i am also tempted to do this!
maybe chop a mana off the cost while i’m at it
 
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