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PostPosted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 4:51 pm 
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I just recently started working on an abzan seance deck as well, and holy crap that card is powerful. There are so many possibilities on how to build this that I feel like I just barely started scratching the surface.

Here's what I figured out so far:

- 4 x satyr wayfinder seems obvious, while the number of necromancer's assistants I'm unsure about. Exiling an assistant with seance increases the number of creatures in the graveyard if the deck is more than 1/3 creatures, allowing seance to fuel itself, while at the same time digging for spider spawning and vengevine. Playing him from hand also helps find the first seance, with treasured find. Maybe it's correct to play the max amount of assistants and treasured finds just to maximize the chance of finding seance.

- spider spawning is great if you fail to find seance; with a seance in play you can either abandon the spider plan entirely (exiling your creatures to get immediate value) or use seance to fill the graveyard by evoking wayfinders and assistants. Against white decks that might have planar cleansing, this second plan seems much safer, as you can make a lot of spiders after the board has been wiped.

- the most powerful enter-the-field abilities are on rune-scarred demon and shadowborn demon, which should be auto-inclusions. The others are mostly lifegain (lone missionary and saruli gatekeepers) so I decided to play a single angelic accord, with the idea of tutoring it up with the demon or the treasured find when I get my engine going. So far it's been very good, although it's not a good thing to do against planar cleansing decks

- Liliana's specter is interesting but the double-black cost has deterred me from it so far. I have a couple blister beetles, another nice seance target that helps survive against loyal pegasus. Reclamation sage doesn't seem necessary as artifacts and enchantments don't seem to give any significant trouble to this deck. Attended knight and elvish pioneer seem pretty irrelevant.

- I tried Bloodflow connoisseur which turned out to be surprisingly awesome, putting creatures in the graveyard when you need to reanimate them, circumventing exile effects and arrests, sacrificing the seance tokens, vengevine, any spiders sent on a suicide attack, and in general being a gigantic creature that must be chump-blocked every turn.

- I also have three gravediggers, which seemed superfluous at first. However I found that they really help in all stages of the game, with or without a seance in play; they can be used to get a second use from satyrs when you don't have seance yet, they give you a connoisseur when you need her, they allow you to re-cast shadowborn demon basically as many times as you want, an d they easily trigger vengevine. Something similar goes for rescue from the underworld, of which I have 2 copies.


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 1:59 pm 
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boh wrote:
I just recently started working on an abzan seance deck as well, and holy crap that card is powerful. There are so many possibilities on how to build this that I feel like I just barely started scratching the surface.

Here's what I figured out so far:

- 4 x satyr wayfinder seems obvious, while the number of necromancer's assistants I'm unsure about. Exiling an assistant with seance increases the number of creatures in the graveyard if the deck is more than 1/3 creatures, allowing seance to fuel itself, while at the same time digging for spider spawning and vengevine. Playing him from hand also helps find the first seance, with treasured find. Maybe it's correct to play the max amount of assistants and treasured finds just to maximize the chance of finding seance.

- spider spawning is great if you fail to find seance; with a seance in play you can either abandon the spider plan entirely (exiling your creatures to get immediate value) or use seance to fill the graveyard by evoking wayfinders and assistants. Against white decks that might have planar cleansing, this second plan seems much safer, as you can make a lot of spiders after the board has been wiped.

- the most powerful enter-the-field abilities are on rune-scarred demon and shadowborn demon, which should be auto-inclusions. The others are mostly lifegain (lone missionary and saruli gatekeepers) so I decided to play a single angelic accord, with the idea of tutoring it up with the demon or the treasured find when I get my engine going. So far it's been very good, although it's not a good thing to do against planar cleansing decks

- Liliana's specter is interesting but the double-black cost has deterred me from it so far. I have a couple blister beetles, another nice seance target that helps survive against loyal pegasus. Reclamation sage doesn't seem necessary as artifacts and enchantments don't seem to give any significant trouble to this deck. Attended knight and elvish pioneer seem pretty irrelevant.

- I tried Bloodflow connoisseur which turned out to be surprisingly awesome, putting creatures in the graveyard when you need to reanimate them, circumventing exile effects and arrests, sacrificing the seance tokens, vengevine, any spiders sent on a suicide attack, and in general being a gigantic creature that must be chump-blocked every turn.

- I also have three gravediggers, which seemed superfluous at first. However I found that they really help in all stages of the game, with or without a seance in play; they can be used to get a second use from satyrs when you don't have seance yet, they give you a connoisseur when you need her, they allow you to re-cast shadowborn demon basically as many times as you want, an d they easily trigger vengevine. Something similar goes for rescue from the underworld, of which I have 2 copies.



My Seance deck actually gets by on just 4x Satyr. It usually fills the GY well enough on its own, supplemented by early trades/chumps and Seance itself. Some people aren't comfortable cutting Necromancer's Assistants, but I don't run any and generally don't have problems keeping my yard stocked.

I ran Specter for awhile, as it is a good card, and works well with Seance. Sadly, the colors mean there will be times where you occasionally can't play it. I also noticed that in a lot of cases, by the time you get your Seance engine up and running to be able to bring them back, the discard aspect is dead (since opponent has no cards, or are hanging onto cards they can play in response to get rid of). Of course there are times where it is relevant in the late game, but it didn't seem worth it to me. Results may vary.

I actually run a single copy of Attended Knight as mise as it can often help stall in the early game against fast decks. Putting two creatures on the board (one of which has First Strike) can be a pretty big roadblock for certain decks, and just like everything else, comes back with Seance and gives you virtual CA by producing another 1/1 token that sticks around.

I run two copies of Elvish Pioneer in the deck as well. The ETB is usually pretty irrelevant late game, even with Seance. That said, the deck runs a decent number of bombs and they do often help to ramp into things a little earlier than usual, leaving behind a 1/1 to chump with and fill the yard. It allows to deck to sort of play the pseudo ramp game in situations when you don't draw or can't play Seance. Kor Cartographer can work in this capacity as well, but it a little slower (albeit more consistent).

Bloodflow Connoisseur is a card that I have wrestle with quite a bit. Me and Hakeem have discussed it over on the WotC boards when I first posted the old version of my deck there. They do in fact work great with Seance, with each activation giving your a +1/+1 counter. They also help to fill the yard early, and convert stuff like Elvish Visionary into tangible threats. I originally ran 3 copies of Connoisseur, but the more and more games I played with the deck, the more and more of them got cut, until I wasn't running them at all anymore. For all their advantages, they are terrible being cast onto an empty board (uncommon in this deck, but it happens), they are often worse when drawn in multiples, they are extremely weak to bounce and hard removal (which can often put you down on CA if you aren't careful). On top of that not having an ETB makes them terrible with Seance, and every one of them you see go to the yard (via mill/trades/removal) will make you sad when you get that Seance down and realize bringing it back does nothing for you at all.

As such, if I were to run Bloodflow Connoisseur in the deck (which I DO think is perfectly valid/viable) I would probably try and limit it to a 1-2 of. Just to try and reduce how often they end up in the GY where they do nothing for you.

Seance decks are pretty fun overall, and I personally think Abzan is the place to be to make the most of it.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 5:38 pm 
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Reposting this, since the last time I posted it I used the cruddier looking auto-card option (and this looks much smoother) and because I made a few slight changes to the deck.

[manapie 90 w -u b -r g][/manapie]

Abzan Seance

A deck for Magic 2015.

60 Cards (28 :creature: , 8 :instant: , 24 :land:)

Multicolored2 cards
■■
Treasured Find
Color 9 cards
■■■■
Lone Missionary2/1
■■
Wall of Omens0/4
■■
Séance
Baneslayer Angel5/5
Color 10 cards
■■■
Dead Reckoning
■■■
Necromancer's Assistant3/1
■■■■
Phyrexian Rager2/2
■■■
Gravedigger2/2
Shadowborn Demon5/6
■■
Rune-Scarred Demon6/6
Color 15 cards
■■■
Elvish Visionary1/1
■■■■
Satyr Wayfinder1/1
■■
Reclamation Sage2/1
■■■■
Saruli Gatekeepers2/4
Vengevine4/3
Arbor Colossus6/6
■■
Spider Spawning
■■
Pelakka Wurm7/7
Colorless24 cards
■■■■
Golgari Guildgate
■■■■
Orzhov Guildgate
■■■■
Selesnya Guildgate
5
Forest
3
Plains
4
Swamp



Dropped the 2x Elvish Pioneer, the ramp was nice early on to get myself moving towards the high cost bombs, but I have gotten to the point where I really HATE seeing it in the yard since it rarely does anything when brought back with Seance, and even when it does it is basically never relevant. Replaced them with the other 2x copies of Lone Missionary. Stretches the mana a bit more, but helps to shore up the early game and I almost never feel bad seeing it in the yard with Seance.

Dropped the 2x Blister Beetle. Again, the -1-/1 effect was nice for stalling early on against certain decks. In certain matchups though they are basically completely dead draws and usually by the time you can bring them back with Seance there isn't much -1/-1 is going to do to really impact the board. These got replaced with the 3rd copy of Elvish Visionary for a little more draw power, and the second copy of Saruli Gatekeepers to give us some more lifegain and another big body to combat the fast decks in the format.

Dropped the 1x Attended Knight for 1xNecromancer's Assistant. The Knight was nice to help combat early aggro rushes, and worked well with Seance, but with the added lifegain from the extra 2x Missionary and 1x Gatekeeper I figure this is less needed. Assistant helps to continue to feed the yard (and then again with Seance), and also happens to be a better target for clutch Reckoning casts (since a lot of our stuff that isn't HUGE doesn't have a lot of power to make Reckoning Work). Having to kill something with Reckoning when all you have in the yard are Satyrs and Visionaries and stuff is a huge bummer.

Edit: Thinking about it, I may regret removing the Blister Beetles because the deck does tend to fold easily to early rushes with lots of fliers (looking at you basically all of the :u::w: fliers deck!). Will have to do more testing to see if this is a valid concern of if I am just being overly cautious.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 7:29 pm 
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I would strongly encourage you to focus on the lifegain side of things here. Then filter into dealing massive damage via lifegain and guildmage OR lifegain for angels from accord. I feel you're really cheating yourself by not focusing in here.

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 12:16 am 
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2bestest wrote:
I would strongly encourage you to focus on the lifegain side of things here. Then filter into dealing massive damage via lifegain and guildmage OR lifegain for angels from accord. I feel you're really cheating yourself by not focusing in here.


Not sure how I feel about Sanguine Bond and/or Accord.

They both have more potential now that I have moved to running more of the lifegain cards. That said, non-creature permanent makes me sad. They do nothing for me at all when I self-mill them (outside of maybe getting them back with Treasured Find, but that isn't a place I want to be).

Vizkopa Guildmage now that I think about it could be pretty awesome though. It is another creature I can play out early and turns the lifegain stuff into burn when he is on the table which can get stupid with Seance. The lifelink could help survive certain matchups. It is a creature so it still counts for Spawning/Reckoning/Seance. It also doesn't need to tap to activate it's "life to damage" ability, so I can potentially bring it back with Seance and still be able to use it to burn people.

I was honestly trying to stay away from the whole "lifegain as a win-con" route since I already have a deck that does that. On the other hand, I think your idea about the Guildmage may just be too good to pass up. Will definitely be testing this out.

Cheers! :D

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 12:46 am 
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Yeah, notice how I put that first before accord. And I didn't bother to mention sanguine. ;)

I kept in mind a strong creature focus. ;)

If you bring him in I say you wanna load up on saruli also.

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 5:57 pm 
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[manapie 90 w -u b -r g][/manapie]

T16: Abzan Lifegain

A one vs. one deck for Magic 2015.

60 Cards (23 :creature: , 15 :instant: , 22 :land:)

Creature23 cards
■■■■
Lone Missionary2/1
■■■
Vizkopa Guildmage2/2
■■
Graveborn Muse3/3
■■
Rhox Faithmender1/5
■■■■
Saruli Gatekeepers2/4
Baneslayer Angel5/5
■■
Battlegrace Angel4/4
■■■
Pelakka Wurm7/7
■■
Rune-Scarred Demon6/6
Spell15 cards
■■■■
Cultivate
■■■
Angelic Accord
■■■
Angelic Edict
■■
Sanguine Bond
Obelisk of Alara
■■■■
Sylvan Bounty
Land22 cards
■■■■
Golgari Guildgate
■■■■
Orzhov Guildgate
■■■■
Selesnya Guildgate
4
Forest
4
Plains
2
Swamp

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 6:06 pm 
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[manapie 90 w -u b -r g][/manapie]

T16: Abzan Reanimator

A one vs. one deck for Magic 2015.

60 Cards (27 :creature: , 8 :instant: , 25 :land:)

Creature27 cards
■■■■
Elvish Visionary1/1
■■■■
Satyr Wayfinder1/1
■■■■
Necromancer's Assistant3/1
■■■
Phyrexian Rager2/2
■■
Reclamation Sage2/1
■■■■
Saruli Gatekeepers2/4
Baneslayer Angel5/5
Shadowborn Demon5/6
■■■
Nemesis of Mortals5/5
■■■
Pelakka Wurm7/7
■■
Rune-Scarred Demon6/6
Griselbrand7/7
Spell8 cards
■■
Séance
■■■
Rescue from the Underworld
■■■
Spider Spawning
Land25 cards
■■■■
Golgari Guildgate
■■■■
Orzhov Guildgate
■■■■
Selesnya Guildgate
6
Forest
4
Plains
3
Swamp

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 04, 2015 5:52 pm 
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Why have two Abzan decks? Why not just take out the white in the reanimator, and make it a Golgari Spider Spawning deck?


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 5:38 pm 
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Because Séance is awesome :)

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 7:01 pm 
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Hakeem928 wrote:
Hakeem928 wrote:
All right, based on all the feedback and the limited amount of testing that I've done, I've decided to only slightly modify the original deck. I was so impressed by Obelisk of Alara and I liked the synergy with Angelic Accord so I warped the deck around it and added trilands which meant that Saruli Gatekeepers had to be cut. This was a mistake. Here is the list with just a minor tweak:

[manapie 90 w -u b -r g][/manapie]

Abzan Lifegain

A one vs. one deck for Magic 2015.

60 Cards (21 :creature: , 15 :instant: , 24 :land:)

Cost 12 cards
■■■■
Elvish Visionary1/1
■■■■
Lone Missionary2/1
■■■■
Satyr Wayfinder1/1
■■
Treasured Find
Cost 4 cards
■■■■
Cultivate
Cost 7 cards
■■■
Saruli Gatekeepers2/4
■■■
Angelic Accord
Séance
Cost 3 cards
Baneslayer Angel5/5
■■■■
Angelic Edict
Cost 3 cards
Obelisk of Alara
■■
Planar Cleansing
Cost 5 cards
■■■
Pelakka Wurm7/7
■■
Rune-Scarred Demon6/6
Cost 1 card
Griselbrand7/7
Cost 1 card
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth12/12
Land24 cards
■■■■
Golgari Guildgate
■■■■
Orzhov Guildgate
■■■■
Selesnya Guildgate
4
Forest
5
Plains
3
Swamp


I've taken everyone's advice to cut one copy of Saruli Gatekeepers for a copy of Séance, and I've cut three Wall of Omens for two Elvish Visionaries and a singleton Obelisk. The Obelisk is still a strong card but instead of warping my deck around it, I've just included a singleton for value. The blue and red modes aren't supported, but all the other modes are excellent in this deck. The green mode can turn even the lowliest critter into a threat or a huge blocker, the black mode is insane, and the white mode is very good on its own and bonkers with Angelic Accord in play.

Thoughts on this adaptation?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7TS3KDqexc&list=UUGhs9S33RAeT5DEuKTO4Oew

Watch the games then check the decklist at the end. I'm famous. :)

Also, a big shoutout to an XBLA player who watched this video, recognized the decklist from NGA, and sent me a message letting me know about it. Pretty cool stuff.


Hi all!
This is my first post! Yey! :)
Just came here to leave a huge thanks to Hakeem for this deck.
I started playing online with it, and with a few tweaks along the way (adding more removal, mainly) I got my 100th victory achievement (android) in only 129 games. I think the most losses I had were to some really fast decks, like RDW or Izzet (and good opponents' starting hands) and blue\\azzorius control decks.
The key is trusting the deck and it's synergies, I won at least 6 games after being on the verge of losing with under 3 life points.
So, thank you very much again!


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PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 7:04 pm 
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No problem, glad you enjoy the deck!

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 5:46 pm 
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Greetings, Keemizle. Quick query, since the arrival of our triland overlords, would it prove prudent in your humble opine to cut all of the basic lands, sub them with trilands and run the deck that way instead???

Inquisitive minds wish to know.

And by "Inquisitive minds" I mean me.

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 5:48 pm 
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You mean cut basic lands from a deck with Cultivate? Or cut the gates? Because I wouldn't cut basics and I tried cutting gates but then I had to cut Saruli Gatekeepers and that was a mistake.

So no. :)

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 6:43 pm 
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This is why they pay you the big bucks. (-=

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 7:28 pm 
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and by big bucks he means salted cod


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 7:30 pm 
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That's racist.

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 7:32 pm 
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lol, but I lived there!

I'm like Tim Whatley converting to Judaism just for the jokes.


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 7:33 pm 
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That was an awesome episode.

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 8:31 pm 
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Only somewhat relevant, but amusing...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqYGGqTC_Us

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