Yeah solemn offering is quickenable... So yeah alot of multi-card options to deal with it. Still no single card way to get rid of it at instant speed hehe. 1-of tutorable is a good place for it, and you shouldn't need the card to win, it's just nice to have as an option to close out a matchup where they might have a sweeper quickly.

I agree on treasure find being a 0-1 of in a deck relying on nemesis of mortals and spider spawning like Hakeem said. However if you are not relying on those cards you have more options and treasure find is an amazing 3 of.

After some thought, I'm going to start here as a base and tweak based on experience:

4 x Golgari Guildgate
11 x Forest
9 x Swamp

4 x Pharika's Chosen

4 x Satyr Wayfinder
4 x Elvish Visionary

4 x Necromancer's Assistant
4 x Phyrexian Rager
1 x Elder of Laurels

1 x Gravedigger

3 x Spider Spawning
3 x Rescue from the Underworld
1 x Shadowborn Demon

3 x Nemesis of Mortals

2 x Rune-Scarred Demon
2 x Pelakka Wurm


I'm just going to do the 30 creature thing from the get-go. Pharika's Chosen is a nod to the deck's lack of removal, while the two- and three-drops are there to build the 'yard and keep your hand full. The singleton Elder is a great way to push through damage on a board flooded with Spiders, with a flying fatty, or with a trampling Wurm. The Gravedigger is my bullet Treasured Find because it's a dude and a great sacrifice outlet for Rescue. Actually, most of my creatures have beneficial EtBs which gives my Rescues a lot of value.

Pretty straightforward concept, hopefully the Visionaries and Ragers can make the graveyard-building a bit more consistent by plowing through the deck.

Visionaries and ragers are a must for consistency. 4 visionary definitely, I think you can get away with 2 rager if anyone is struggling for space.

Hate to just jump into the conversation, but there's also Naturalize x 4 and a kicked Mold Shambler for enchant removal. However, I prefer the reclamation Mage.

So nobody even going to comment on my deck? Ok. It's been pretty successful but it's more fun than anything. However, when it loses, it beats itself and you don't "Just lose", you get clobbered.

Since so many are using speedy red enchants, it might be wise to switch to the Instant Naturalize. I write this more as a reminder to myself than to you guys, heh. I have resorted to writing down changes I want to make to decks in Notepad as I play(I'm now testing a ton vs the AI with it using random.)

Just played my first game online with the above deck and started with T1 Forest, go. My opponent plays Mountain and casts Shock, bringing me to 18. Wanna guess who won?

How am I supposed to test and tune proper decks against such rabble?

The Practice Duel vs your own decks. The AI doesn't seem all that bad there and can give you some unique challenges.

I'm still reminded of a part of the movie Bull Durham by people who do that. The pitcher shakes off the catcher's sign for a curveball and keeps doing it. Catcher asks why are you shaking me off. Pitcher replies "I want to throw heat(fastball) and announce my presence with authority(he had just come into the game)" "You what?" he then repeats it and catcher goes "To announce your F'in presence with authority?" This guy is a first ball fastball hitter, he's looking for heat. Oh yeah? Well he hasn't seen my heat". Catcher tells him "serve it up" and to teach the pitcher a lesson(the game was already out of reach) he tells the batter what he's throwing. Guy whacks it over the fence, hits a bull sign that lights up announcing he won a free steak.

Guys who throw shock or lightning on first round want to "Announce their presence with authority"...sigh.

Here my Ramp Deck. It works extremly nice, Lot of draw, massive lifegain, huge monsters an really cool interacions. I made a similar red-green deck, but this one is way stronger:

Dark Forrest (non-premium, 60 cards)

Lands (total 25):
13
10
2 Golgari Guildgate

Creatures (total: 25)
4 Elvish Pioneer
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Satyr Wayfinder
2 Indulgent Tormentor
1 Shadowborn Demon
2 Arbor Colossus
2 Terra Stomper
1 Soul of Zendikar
3 Pelakka Wurm
2 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Griselbrand

Spells (total: 10)
4 Cultivate
3 Prey Upon
3 Rescue from Underworld

I've got tons of small creatures with useful effects that can stall early game against weenie-decks or be fodder for Shadowborn. Extrem Ramp, and with 5 mana you start with Indulgent Tormentor or Arbor collossus (at its best on turn 3!). After you've just tons of heavy dammage dealers. Rescue from Underworld has ultimativ interaction with my ETB-creatures: saccing a Pelakka or Shadowborn (or a Rune-Scarred Demon just befor the end of the opponents turn), but also on a simple Visionary u get a free card to your monster from the grave... almost ever you get a Monster and 2 ETB-effect for it.. powerfull staff!

Some doubts:
- I don't like Assassinate because of sorcery speed an its limitation. With all the Ramp in the Deck possibly I change to the overpriced Flesh to Dust or Prey Upon
- Phytotitan is more a deckfiller, no trample an leaks to first-strike, thinkin about changing to Genesis Hydra, but Phyto has a nice defense-effect at least.

Made just like 10 Online-games with it and lost just one when I draw down to 5 cards without any green mana! (you've to get 3 mana out asap, as soon as you have it, go for . Not really hard to cast Griselbrand with this deck...

Thoughts?

edit:
1) -2 Assassinate +2 Prey Upon (tested, it works so good in this deck that I could take also a 3 one...)
2) -2 Phytotitan / +1 Prey Upon, +1 Rescue from Underworld

You might want to run Necromancer's Assistant and/or Millstone to get stuff in the Gy to draw out. Use Nemesis of Mortals rather than Phototitan to make use of the creatures in the gy. I often end up summoning it for 2 mana, then making it monstrous for another 2.

Use Dead Reckoning maybe? It puts that card you want from gy to library(if you have the mana to cast it) and does damage to a target opponent's creature. In the case of some of your fatties, that can be a lot of damage.

Use Treasured Find to also draw from Gy as well.

See my deck from previous page for more ideas. I am using 12 guildgates to utilize some white fatties as well. With the rescue, you can grab anything from the Gy to put on the field plus use Saruli gatekeepers to heal. Combine those with your other Healers, like Pelakka and Sanguine Bond for another win condition. Already finished off an opponent with a gatekeeper entrance that way.

found out the hard way. Don't use Kozilek with this. If it hits the gy, blam, there goes your gy back into library. With my method of swapping out guildgates, you can put any other creature into the build and STILL have a chance to hard cast them out. With Rescue, you can even get a Maelstrom Archangel out of the gy and onto the field.

Taking Big daddy back from the gy is just another option (made it some minutes before on turn 4 ). But my deck isn't for self mill, I play the satyr overall to assure my mana-count. The main strategy is to hardcast my stuff and follow hardcasting every single turn possibe. What I really need is a sure strong blocker as soon as possible and an immediate danger for the enemy, even if ive nothing in the graveyard. I use rescue often as a combat trick or a cloudshift with extra benefit... And If the deck once get startet, it don't even needs tricks like sanguine bond, it just beats down almost every enemy with pure Violence. I understand your idea, but its another deck-strategy at all..

I tried treasure find as well, but with the draw-power in the deck usually it was a dead card that I almost never used. Rescue does the job way better...
Dead Reckoning would be nice, but read the deck title again

7-2 with this deck tonight; lost to a four-color deck that jammed Inferno Titan on T5 and the other to a greedy keep on my part that resulted in mana-screw. The wins were generally not close.

I did get to live the dream by hitting T2 Wayfinder (grabbing a land and dumping three critters) followed by T3 Nemesis of Mortals. On the play, no less.

Elder of Laurels was instrumental in one victory and he kept attackers at bay in another, I feel like he's a good fit here.

I never did draw Gravedigger so I'm not sure how he contributes, but I will say that I didn't need him. Once I draw and/or Rescue him a few times I'll know whether the bullet is worth the space.

Running the full playset of Visionaries and Ragers provided the necessary consistency, I wouldn't cut here.

Pharika's Chosen wasn't a factor tonight, but it fits the curve nicely so I'm going to keep it for now. If I were looking to cut, though, this is where I would start.

Hey Mobius, first of all thanks for your decklists. I have copied this one and your BW and GW into my game for learning purposes. Note that I have no Magic experience outside of Duels 13-15

I tried to modify this deck to have Beastmaster Ascension in it. So based on Hakeem's posts I decided to remove the 4 Cultivate and got 2 Beastmaster Ascension, 1 Elder of Laurels and 1 Treasured Find. Then I won some games with that, but also took some losses later. Some of them were obviously based on the lack of black mana (getting none in the first ~6 turns) , others I'm not so sure. I tried -1 Forest, + 1 Swamp, but I'm not happy with that either.

What do you think of the mana base after my modifications, where have I gone wrong? Would guild gates be a good idea given that there are no more Cultivates?
My current idea would be to remove the Elder and the Treasured Find to get 2 Cultivates back in. I found the Ascension to be vital in some matches. Can't say that they won a game (though i think so), but they sure have finished some and you never know what could have happened otherwise.

You won't see mobius around here, I think he got perma-banned after his last run in with Stevolutionary.

Anyway, I don't think you could run mobius's deck without the Cultivates; he's running the Pioneers and Cultivates with only basic lands because they don't interact well with gates, and the Cultivates let him get his black mana on time while still being able to hit . He's also playing only 23 land because his Wayfinders and Cultivates give him the consistency he needs.

In my opinion, if you're playing a Spider Spawning deck then you don't need the ramp of Pioneer and Cultivate, you need to get a graveyard going ASAP. That's why I opted for the card draw of Visionary and Rager (to draw you into your Wayfinders and Assistants) as well as a creature count of 30.

If you're playing a more top-end deck where you plan on hardcasting fatties and just using your graveyard for extra value, then I would go the ramp-heavy route like mobius has done.

If you want to win with Spiders first and foremost, play my deck and see what you think of it. If you want to play mobius's deck, I would keep the Cultivates. Either way, the deck doesn't need Beastmaster Ascension, IMO.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for your input Hakeem, very much appreciated. What I can't do, is test your deck because of the premiums. You said those Pharika's Chosen were not required, but I don't see a replacement for the Phyrexian Rager.

I suppose instead of the snake any 1-drop would do, for example the pioneer that is in the deck right now. I don't know if his ramp ability is that important, I consider him only a chump blocker to go into the graveyard. Though a turn 1 pioneer with the additional land drop is nice.

How does your Rager support your graveyard? Is it "only" the fact that you get to your self-mill cards faster?

Right now I think, guildgates might be my solution. I've just discovered that the Satyr Wayfinder doesn't say "basic", which to me seemed like the only card where that would've been really detrimental. Cultivate should always find a target and if I can't make use of the pioneer ability, so what? I don't think I need 3 mana turn 2 or 5 mana turn 4. But I want 5 mana turn 5 with 3 green and 1 black.

On a side note, I had a strange idea about the Hedron Crab earlier today. Wouldn't this be great to self-mill even faster? But how to play it? Use a single Island as a Cultivate target? Or some Simic Guildgates?

On Beastmaster Ascension: I figured that I'd need this, when I tested Mobius' original deck against his AI-piloted GW token deck. At one point I had ~25 spiders and he had like 12 creatures at 2/2 or better (mostly tokens and a Phantom General). If the AI had known its deck, it could've waited for the Ascension or that white 4 mana buff, but it didn't. I had no outs, I only won because it went all in and I could assign 2 spiders to every attacker. Beastmaster Ascension breaks these stalls like nothing else imo.

Yes, the Rager is there purely to help get as many self-mill cards into play as fast as possible. I'm sorry about the premium thing, but I really don't know which cards are/aren't because I just bought them straight away.

About Beastmaster, with 30 creatures in the deck, my early Spawnings tend to nab me 6-10 Spiders each and it's not uncommon to crack one for around 20 later on. I haven't had a problem going wide without Beastmaster.

What I'm doing, though, is being very aggressive with Rescue from the Underworld; the sacrificed creature comes back and all my creatures (except Chosens) have EtBs that I get to reuse. Sarificing a Wayfinder to recur an Assistant mills six, gets me a land (or mills seven if I whiff), and I get to fog something if I need to. Don't wait for that Pelakka Wurm or Rune-Scarred Demon, just jam Rescue ASAP to build your graveyard and max out on spider production. I'm having tremendous success with the deck.

6-10 sounds a lot. I often had that card ready and only 1-2 creatures in the gy. I'll try to re-use the self-mill creatures more often.

I just hit a T5 Spawning for nine Spiders.

T1 Chosen
T2 Wayfinder dropping four creatures
T3 Assistant dropping two creatures
T4 nothing, but on my opponent's T4 I chump with everybody because I have Spawning in hand.

Untap, boom, nine Spiders. Fun times.

Hakeem, I'm not exactly a fan of Elder of Laurels. How do you feel about Paragon of Eternal Wilds or Blasting Station as ways to give the deck reach. And yes, I realize Station might be too cute.

If Station wasn't a tap ability, then I'd run it in a heartbeat. Paragon is good with the Spiders, I looked at it, but he just does nothing on his own. Giving trample to a 2/3 isn't winning you any games.

Regarding Elder, as long as you can go wider than the opposing army then you can pump an unblocked guy to force through damage and it's usually lethal. He's not great, but a fine bullet to have in Spider.dec.

Remember that Station will untap for every spider entering the battlefield. You can turn an activation of Spawning into a one sided board wipe, or a Lava Axe. I think it has potential in theory if you're casting Spawning more than once a game. If the first wave of spiders is always enough to win, you don't need the Station. That's why I'm asking you, since you've played the deck more. So, how many times do you cast Spawning in an average game (including Flashback)?

The argument behind Paragon was the team buff, not the trample. I first thought about Hall of Triumph, but Paragon is a creature and that trumps the mana discount. I just feel Elder is a bit win-more in this deck. And in the situations that he's good, I think I rather have Chorus of Might.

Now that I'm thinking more about it, Station looks promising.

EDIT: So, I've played a little with the deck online with Blasting Stations in. I went 5-0 and it won me 4 of the 5 games. Card is good and I recommend everyone to test it with Spawning. It does a lot, from clearing blockers for Nemesis of Mortals to doing the last few points of damage (and by that I mean up to 10+ points in a average game).