Card/Deck Sultai Synergy

[FlowerSunRain]

I think Sultai Soothsayer is cool and I'm probably going to run a pushed version of the card for giggles, but upon looking at the spoiler I'm wondering if there is something more here.

Sultai have a self-mill theme. There mechanic is delve, which gets great use out of cards you throw away, however, multiple delves are not synergistic as they all draw from the same resource pool. Indeed delve conflicts with a lot of the other graveyard mechanics, because it removes the graveyard. Be that as it may, a wise man once said that graveyard themes are awesome and I think that there is room to work here with some of these cards. I'd like to help my current graveyard themes be more fluid with the rest of my cube.

Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is a neat card, but just so fragile. . .

The basic elements we need for this kind of deck are cards that chuck things in the graveyard and cards that reward us for having things in the graveyard.

Enablers:

Sultai Ascendancy and the weaker, but easier to cast Think Tank
Sidisi Brood Tyrant and its earlier cousin Ertai's Familiar
Song of Blood, the Mirage Block Allstar
Looters: Merfolk Looter, Enclave Cryptologist, Looter il-kor, Jeskai Elder, Tibalt, Fiend-Blooded, Compulsion
Faithless Looting, Frantic Search and related cards
Attunement
Jeskai Ascension
Any of the many cards that find something while throwing stuff out: Mulch, Grisly Salvage, Strategic Planning, Commune with the Gods, Satyr Wayfinder, Sultai Soothsayer, Forbidden Alchemy
Any Dredge Card: Life from the Loam, Golgari Grave-Troll, Stinkweed Imp
Any Mill Engine: Ghoulcaller's Bell, Hedron Crab
Fact or Fiction, Sphinx of Lost Truths

Incentives:

Delve Cards: (List Relevant Ones)
Flashback Cards, sometimes
Threshold: Nimble Mongoose, Werebear, Shower of Coals
Scavenge: Deadbridge Goliath, Valroz, the Scarstriped
Necratog and Psychatog
Living Death
Twilight's Call
The Mimeoplasm
Other Miscellaneous Reanimation Effects
Things that come back: Vengevine, Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, Bloodsoaked Champion, Masked Admirers, Krovikan Horror, Squee, Goblin Nabob
Replenish
Cards that count stuff in your graveyard: Spider Spawning, Haunting Misery, Nemesis of Mortals, Ghoultree, Runechanter's Pike, Bonehoard, Splinterfright, Mortivore, Terravore, Sewer Nemesis
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
Genesis

 

[anotak]

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

This is basically what makes a good graveyard theme, right? I've been planning this out for a while before Khans came out. You need to separate out your incentives, enablers but also think about incidentally good like soul of shandalar.

Incentive cards I've been thinking about and liking:



Some of the enablers I've been liking:



Some nice incidental splash damage/overlap:



I think you're probably playing a few of these already. Because there is so much possible things you can throw in to a graveyard cube, I've been trying to carefully think about why they are being added and how they can overlap with other themes, eg increasing savagery as flashback bonus.

It's worth looking through CMLs gruesome discovery cube for ideas (the community one).

Things that look interesting from Khans (sorry, can't post pics on iPad it seems)

Treasure cruise (delve draw 3)
Bloodsoaked champion (human raid gravecrawler)
Dead drop (double edict delve)
Murderous cut (delve destroy creature)

I'm not sure I'm sold on much more for gy theme if I'm honest.

 

[Chris Taylor]

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Yeah, I'm basically asking for just a general brainstorm on mechanics that fill or utilize the graveyard. From there, its about engineering it to fit my environment. Commune with the Gods, Mimeo and Satyr wayfinder are pretty perfect. The more I think about delve, the more I like it, I just need the critical mass of incidental enablers and other cards that benefit from those incidental enablers. Then a few theme specific freebies.

 

[Diakonov]

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

From my own cube, themes and sub themes I run in the BUG colors:

U/B zombies self-mill: (armored skaab, ruinator/gravecrawler, undead alchemist, stitched drake/grimgrin, corpse-born
U/B laboratory maniac combo-control: laboratory maniac + self mill blockers/flashback control cards,brainstorm/think twice/morgue theft

B/R zombie bombardment(sac outlets, gravecrawler ect.)

U/G self mill(splinterfright, mulch, kessig cagebreakers, armored skaab)
U/G/b spider spawning combo: above but spider spawning/memory's journey/runic repetition. Can also run laboratory maniac for an additional combo.

B/G Insects: some variant of a worm harvest, spider spawning deck with cards like mulch, and g/b flashback cards. Some variants run birthing pod to upgrade the board while also feeding the graveyard. Kessig cagebreakers is great in these decks. Slower midrangy decks that grind you out with value plays.

Generally, these are all self-mill decks, so they are defined by extracting card advantage via the graveyard, and using self-mill to dig through the deck. Flashback is a really good support for this. Unearth would also be great, but that is something you might have to expand the available pool with via custom cards. Some cards i've most want to see have been a lab. maniac with unearth, a lower CC corpse connoisseur, and a runic repetition with flashback. I've not really explored delve (prob. more custom card territory), but threshold was not well received over here.

One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the big G/B graveyard cards don't have trample, so you'll want to provide ways to grant them trample. Also, having sac. outlets can be important to those decks. Cards that exile creatures are also very powerful against them.

B/U/G is the self-mill shard, so the sultai cards fit very well into the existing innistrad and odyssey framework.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Is this card, like, the best for this deck? If you mill it, you can bring it back. It gets huge and has a sac outlet (granted, not a particularly great one).

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Jarad is a powerful card, and he embodies the sort of gradual advantage of those types of value B/G decks, but also doesen't actually address the principle flaws with the strategy, and even augments them somewhat (lack of evasion/lack of trample/recurs at a tempo loss). It makes him an enticing card, but also something of a win-more i.m.o.

If you run him, I would also suggest:

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

I imagine this would suit the themes of your cube too.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

It seems nice, you know multicolor cards. It might go well with my multicolor overhaul (Coming soon!).

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Nyx Weaver has been pretty good over here. Not amazing, but solid, and something those decks want.

G/B tends to be a slower value deck; weaver feeds the yard, provides a way to get important milled cards back, and holds the ground while the deck sets itself up. It also interacts with flyers, which is something G/B is often lacking in.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I don't know how much this helps, but I would also focus on "what works well with the graveyard" but "what creates fun decisions with the graveyard". I really like the way Tarmogoyf / Deathrite / Snapcaster / Scavenging Ooze / Liliana interact in ways that are interactive and force you to think about sequencing etc.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Unfortunately, I'm still kinda at level one here with this theme trying to figure out what is available and how it intersects with the other stuff I do. Once I wrap my head around that and bludgeon some concepts in, I can start sorting which ones are fun and which ones are filler. My gut tells me that filtering and raw graveyard count are going to be the best received, but my players constantly surprise me and do stuff I never thought about. Usually I just completely overdo it and see what sticks and what doesn't.

Outsource it to my playgroup, so to speak.

 

[Goldenpineapple]

Does the world hate boneyard wurm? Dumb and wrong goyf comparison statement here. Also Nighthowler is neat.

This is one of the few decks my players pick up on easily. They're all "nah" at the idea of picking up lands for zoo decks, but graveyard stuff? Heck yeah! Looters and self-mill cards are a premium during my drafts.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I can see these cards working in a pushed environment. I think everybody cut Bonehoard from their vanilla cubes.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I cut boneyard wurm from my pushed environment. Bonehoard has been really fun over here. Its bad in matchups where there is lots of early pressure, but in games where you get punished less on tempo, its strong.

I'm not sure that means boneyard wurm is objectively a bad card to run or not, but when you are running cards like nighthowler, bonehoard, or ghoultree, it starts to look less enticing.

Although everytime ghoultree resolves its ended up killing its caster so...

 

[Chris Taylor]

Although everytime ghoultree resolves its ended up killing its caster so...

Surely you mean splinterfright

Edit: I did not notice the card link. Ray of Command is no reason to not play big creatures

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Sadly, splinterfright continues to elude most of our drafts, so I have no really cool stories involving him.

We have, however, had a 15/15 bonehoard cruising around the table. Good times.

 

[Chris Taylor]

The ones that only count your yard are always a little more annoying to make worth it I feel, especially since a lot of the self mill synergy cards aren't creatures (Grisly Salvage, Thought Scour, Mulch etc)

 

[MCMcEmcee]

 

[Lucre]

I really think there could be some room for a powered down build around me limited format that focuses on these mechanics, that is like fun and interactive and tempo oriented. I'm sure grillo will chime in at any point, but I think I have something a little more velocity and cheap trades oriented than that, but he has some great experience and learning material in his cube.

Things like drown in filth are pretty ripe for being built around. Like threshold and cartography abilities sound great too and you could probably even make madness work.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I like it in concept, but it has this problem where it really wants every card in your deck to be a creature (which it isn't)

It'd make a sweet squadron pick I think