Do you think adding the gatekeeper for the life gain at the 4 slot over muse could give you better staying power vs faster decks?

Updated list for the selfmill deck I posted before. The only expansion card is blister beetle, which is actually a big deal since surviving against aggro decks was the main problem, and the beetle is great both against goblins and tokens/loyal pegasus.

Actually a lot of cards in the list are dedicated to surviving the early game, since the deck has proven to be almost unbeatable in the lategame (really).

So we have the gatekeepers and a pile of defenders: gomazoa, coral barrier and doorkeeper. The mill ability on doorkeeper is more of a backup plan: very inefficient compared to crabs and satyrs, but combined with the think twices it makes it very unlikely for the deck to become completely stuck. In a "normal" game (if normality is a concept that can be applied to this deck), the think twices will often just sit in the graveyard unused, and the doorkeeper just be a blocker.

Anyways, the plan is simple: put deck in the graveyard, cast spider spawning, play beastmaster ascension, attack. Treasured find is used to fetch any piece needed to keep the mill going (more often than not, it'll be a satyr or a crab) and the ascension, archaeomancer to fetch a spawning and cast it on turn 5.

If Think Twice is sitting there being unused then replace it with Viscera Dragger. You still get to draw a card if you cycle it from your hand but it's a creature card in the graveyard for Spider Spawning.

I still think straight Golgari is better because it doesn't need Spiders to win.

The dragger doesn't let me draw a card if I mill him. Sometimes the mill engine runs out of gas and flashing back the think twices can get things in motion again.

Dragger is amazing in the Spawning archetype, he should be on your list somewhere. I only suggested Think Twice because you mentioned yourself how it usually just sits in the GY.

Graveborn Muse should also be in any black deck. If you're looking for a card to keep you gassed up, look no further.

Coral Barrier looks really underwhelming.

Gunna agree with hakeem, got a very similiar style of deck to you (more aggro focused ) but I'm running Brackwater Elemental and Viscera Dragger to name a few. Both more than pull their weight and are castable without a trasured find even it is for a turn, hell those two have won me just as many games as spiders in my self-mill deck. Get to 8 mana and bring out 4 Viscera Draggers (which really isn't hard in this deck), your gunna at least hurt em real bad or wipe their board if you don't outright win on the swing.

Also beastmaster is way overkill in spider decks, I win at least 80% of the time after a spider spawning hit the field without it, you'd even be better off with something like negate to protect said spiders.

#planner##planner#


So I am by no means a deck building expert. I am much much better at tweaking and playing decks that others have created. However, I wanted to come up with a different take then all the spider spawning decks on here.

So here's the plan...

Establish board presence with lower cost creatures like Elvish Visionary, Guard Gomazoa, and Satyr Wayfinder. Graveborn Muse is here to have a small amount of draw, and Saruli Gatekeepers and Pelakka Wurm for some life gain if needed (plus making sure you can draw with Gris). Dead Reckoning is included for removal and graveyard fetching when needed. Then use one of the 3 token creators to overwhelm your opponent.

I have been messing around a lot with the interaction between Chasm Skulker and Griselbrand and really have tried to find a good way to use that (but failed in most cases). Being able to get Gris out of the gy with Rescue From the Underworld is huge in this deck, in fact, Rescue really shines here. I love pumping Chasm with Grisel more than just about anything but in most decks it is next to impossible to get both pieces of the puzzle out at the same time.

The ability to create mass tokens with Chasm Skulker, Spider Spawning, or Mycoloth is also ridiculous in this. I have had times where I used Mycoloth on bulked up Chasm, rescued the Mycoloth and used Mycoloth the next turn on the 10+ chasm or spider tokens.

So this deck wins when you overwhelm with tokens created from one of the 3 sources. Most of the time the opponent will not have enough of a board presence to block everything. Not even close.

This deck loses when opponent gets off to a fast start with aggro. My deck does not have any board sweep or enough removal to contend with that. So with that being said, is not competitive in many cases with this meta.

Any feedback, suggestions, criticism is appreciated. Like I said before, am not a building expert, just trying to come up with some ideas that aren't just graveyard dump and then spider spawn then gg.

Enjoy

Final Edit: Went with Hakeem's suggestions for the most part. Went with less Treasured Find, replaced Elvish Visionary with Viscera Dragger

The deck looks pretty good, I played around with something similar before there was Mycoloth and it was pretty decent. He could put the deck over the edge, though.

Just from a quick look I would say you are pushing it with 23 land in a deck with a curve like that. Without Cultivate, I'd be running 25 land with all those 5CMC+ spells you have there.

I also think you have too many slots devoted to graveyard recursion; two Treasured Find, three Dead Reckoning, and three Rescue from the Underworld is a lot and you really only have the Wayfinders to get cards in there quickly. Until you start building a graveyard, you have quite a few dead draws.

I would look at Viscera Dragger as an option to combo with Dead Reckoning; you cycle it, then Reckoning it back to kill something and cycle it again. It could be better than Elvish Visionary in this list, actually, but I'd have to test it out. It would make your Dead Reckonings more consistent, though, because most of your creatures have one power and you have no reliable way to get them into your graveyard other than Wayfinder or chump blocks.

Since most of your cards are low-power creatures, I would probably add the Draggers instead of Visionaries and cut down to one Treasured Find and one Rescue from the Underworld and max out on Dead Reckoning.

I would also cut Mycoloth down to a singleton and max out on Spider Spawning because you don't have much early token production and you have the Demons to tutor him up later when you need him (or to tutor up the recursion that you need to pull him out of the graveyard).

If I were to play the list, I would start testing here:

-4 Elvish Visionary
-1 Treasured Find
-2 Rescue from the Underworld
-1 Mycoloth

+4 Viscera Dragger
+1 Dead Reckoning
+1 Spider Spawning
+2 Swamp

You could probably get away with 24 land, though, if you wanted to add another spell or keep some of your graveyard recursion. I just think this deck would get overrun quickly if it stumbled on land so I wouldn't take the chance.

Thanks for the suggestions. Am testing those right now. Keep going back and forth between 24 and 25 lands.

Let me know how the Viscera Dragger/Dead Reckoning combo works out for you. It looks pretty sweet, and I'm actually interested in building a deck that takes advantage of it. Perhaps I could play Dimir to combo Dead Reckoning with Viscera Draggers and Necromancer's Assistants that also has the Pestermite/Assassinate combo that I've been trying to find a home for. Hrm.

I am LOVING that interaction so far, especially considering most decks are running 3 and under CMC creatures.

Made final edit to Reckoning decklist. Mostly went with Hakeem's suggestions.

Wow, this deck is just so much fun!! The possible combos here are endless! Flexibility for ages. My inner Johnny is so turned on right now.

Looking for a card?
Is it in your hand? No problem, you got the mana.
Is it in the graveyard? No problem, got fetches for hours.
Is it in your library? No problem, just retrigger tutordemon in 1 of 100 different ways.

Everything can fetch anything else to trigger both everything and anything's ETB's. Love it!

I just created a better version of this in the witch-maw thread

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=4996&start=20#p242343

Cheers! Definitely gonna check that out.

After making my recent Ogre deck that utilises Spider Spawning as a combo piece, I went back to look at my original Sultai Spider Spawning deck.

Seeing as I also have a Doubling Season deck that uses Spider Spawning in a creative way, I felt this could do with a little freshening up, as essentially It's just a straightforward build that looks to Spawn as early and often as possible and boost tokens, so I wanted to look at ways of making it stand out.

To that end, I decided to combine it with an infinite turns shell I've been messing around with for quite a while in Sultai colours, but could never quite make work. I've taken out the cards designed to power up the Spiders, make additional tokens, and take advantage of them, and kept the self-mill intact in order to assemble combo pieces and use the Spiders as defence while I get there.

The changes are:
-2 Beastmaster Ascension
-2 Elder of Laurels
-3 Jade Mage
-2 Mycoloth
-1 Land

+1 Elixir of Immortality
+1 Cultivate
+4 Archaeomancer
+1 Time Warp
+3 Species Gorger

...and I've altered the manabase to fit too.

The aim is to use Archaeomancers to repeatedly Spawn, rather than wait for the Flashback condition, then when Time Warp is milled, use Rescue from the Underworld at 9 mana to get a Species Gorger and Archaeomancer on the table at the same time in your upkeep. If your opponent has no answer, or is tapped out, or topdecking, casting Rescue under those circumstances wins you the game there and then.

You then win by getting enough mana out to also repeatedly Spawn until you can kill them (while also taking extra turns), which can take a long time of course, but the win is certain. Or just get out a Hedron Crab and mill them out if you have enough lands left in the deck. You can also Archaeomancer up a Treasured Find if your Elixir ends up in the graveyard so you don't mill yourself out.

Currently testing, and will come back with results, but if anyone else would like to take it for a spin and give me feedback, that would be appreciated too. I already anticipate a possible change in some quantities, but I've put in the maximum allowed for now to see how things perform. It feels a little clunky in places, but I've already managed to go infinite quite a few times with it.

Monk has an infinite combo deck but no Spider Spawning, not sure if you've seen it. It's basically ETB.dec but it could give you some ideas.

Here it is.

I cut the Shadowborn for Angelic Edict because it's recoverable through Archaeomancer and I added Void Snare over the second Seance because the deck has problems with certain permanents and it's tutorable, recoverable, and repeatable.

Going infinite with the deck is surprisingly consistent, so hats off to Monk there.

Monk's looks good, but is quite a different deck, with a different strategy for going infinite.

The main trick with mine is using mill and Rescue from the Underworld to lock in the combo when your opponent seems least able to disrupt it as a surprise that can only be answered with instants, whereas Monk's is more about getting an engine going to gradually assemble it.

The main reason I combined it with my Spider Spawning deck is that the Time Warp shell I had shared a lot of existing cards, so it seemed to offer a good amount of synergy by having two efficient combos helping each other with a shared set of utility cards, and using an exisiting engine I knew was very consistent.

I anticipate changes though, as It's early days yet, but not to the core method.

EDIT - No changes were needed, as the core engine had been tested to destruction in the previous deck, and the new additions work perfectly. Final version is below.

A self-mill deck that intends to go infinite by casting Rescue from the Underworld to fetch an Archaeomacer or Species Gorger when the other is on the table, and there's a Time Warp in the graveyard, and 9 mana, with 4 Islands, on the table. It sounds like a very complex and unlikely set of circumstances, but the deck is incredibly consistent at getting you there. Can also win via Mill, or by Spider Spawning. Though the former is mainly for self-mill, and the latter defence, they can both be turned into offensive tools if needed.

Most infinite turns decks fall down in the fact they can't reliably pull Time Warp, relying on random draw, or 2 x Rune-Scarred Demon to tutor, then having to draw their combo pieces or tutor them up too. They then have to assemble this over a series of turns, making it both unreliable and easily interrupted. Here, the fact you have a turbo self-mill engine means you can easily get the pieces you need every game, and you can assemble the combo at instant speed, so if your opponent is tapped, topdecking, or unable to interrupt immediately, they lose as soon as you cast Rescue.

The key strategy early on is to try to have at least one, if not two, mill cards in your opening hand. Mill here enables more mill, so getting off to a good start can create exponential benefits. If you're not milling early, you're not going to win.

The main complexity is the use of Treasured Find, and Rescue from the Underworld. They self-exile, so even though you can reshuffle, these are limited resources and must be used with great care, and are key to assembling milled combo components, or advancing the mill at a greater rate. Most of the time they will be the spells you recover with early Archaeomancers if they get milled as they enable your win conditions, and TF is especially important at recovering a milled Elixir. There's no benefit to going infinite if you just mill yourself.

Therefore if you want to go infinite, you need to keep track of EVERY combo card and quantity in your graveyard, and by association , left in your deck as a result. This is a critical element, as you can easily screw yourself otherwise by rendering it impossible to go infinite by over-milling, though in such a case, your Spider equity is usually a lot stronger as a result so you can take that route instead. Understanding where this crossroads lies, and picking the better route based on the state of your graveyard and your opponent's deck (Can they kill the Gorger? How many spiders can I get?) is key. Remember, the combo can be locked in and used to repeatedly Spawn if Time Warp is unavailable for the same cost.

Play orders and priorities matter a lot, as the deck is pretty complex and not forgiving of mistakes. Getting 4 blue sources is also extremely key, which is why Islands top my basic land count, so they can be Cultivated before they all end up being milled. With careful play, you can go infinite in almost every game without a lot of difficulty. Over about 40 wins, I've gone infinite in over half of them, with the option being on the table in almost all the others, but winning via Spawn due instead due to it being the more efficient option at the time.

One funny aspect is people assume it's mainly a Spider deck, and waste their resources trying to frustrate that aspect - using removal on Spiders rather than crucial combo-piece Archaeomancers as they don't want to fuel another Spawn, which gives you the crucial advantage of the element of surprise. If people are wise to your tricks, you can always just Spawn them to death instead.