Well that was quick >.>

What did you put in for the last slot? Talrand, runescarred, suffer and monomania all seem like they could work

I like the idea of countermagic, the deck needs some work for sure.

Mind Rot is such a horrible topdeck 80% of the time. I don't mind seeing one in my opening hand, but I hate seeing them after that. With Maggots, Spectres and Horrors.. I don't think you need it.

In this meta against a fair few decks, pretender does actually work because people build awful decks here without instant speed removal, or they build aggressive land-light decks that curve out at 2-3 then throw in random 6-7 drops, traveller's amulet and fireballs because they want to have a plan for the late game with their deck of two drops. Take the card to a tournament or even just pick it in a draft and you will have a bad time, because you won't always have the time to play a card worth cloning, then another five mana to clone it. If you're at the point where you can be spending 9 mana a turn to remove things without getting punished with any kind of removal, the game is pretty far gone for your opponent already, and there's probably faster ways to win than a 9 mana discard combo. There are plenty of good targets for it in every format it's available in, including duels, but you're being given the luxury of an awful lot of time if you can manage to actually get it to clone something worth more than 5 mana.

Oh, I don't disagree.

This format allows it to have a little more potential than it may otherwise would though, as you pointed out. When people are having to rely on stuff like Reprisal, Angelic Edict, Assassinate and Flesh to Dust to take out those big bombs then it becomes a bit more feasible to be able to do something like Clone a Wurm or other expensive card.

Also I didn't really mention the Pretender+Horror thing because I thought it was some sort of huge advantage or anything. The amount of times it comes up will be minute and in some situations it will just be win-more or slowing the inevitable. I simply mentioned it because there can be times where it does come up, and there are situations where it can certainly be relevant.

Cheers!

Going back to the Mind Rot build (for sake of the card layout), have you considered just some low end filler like Tidehollow Strix? I know I had mentioned my old build and having a knee jerk reaction tossing in filler to handle the meta but I didn't have access to these and now looking at them, they could be worth while. If you're willing to dump the Mind Rots now, these could fill a much needed gap on the low end and easily be beaters as well as trade for larger threats. These paired with your Liliana's Specter could have some nice pressure.

elk

I don't think Strix is filler at all, it's a solid card all-around. Pharika's Chosen is filler!

After some more extensive testing, though, the deck certainly has potential but I can't help but feel there's something missing to push it over the top. Right now we have Undying Evil to reuse the EtBs on creatures like Liliana's Specter or Brain Maggot, but that's a one-and-done deal. As it stands, I don't think the discard element of the deck is strong enough so that's why I tried the Mind Rots, but they just don't hold up after a big enough sample size. It's too bad, I wanted them to be playable. Also, the aggro matchup is poor, as we all know.

So I think I may add green to the deck. Species Gorger is the card I'm looking at specifically because it would let us bounce Maggots to get a fresh look at the opponent's hand each turn on the cheap or we could just bounce Specters and Horrors and wreck their hand/board that way. Going into green also lets us replace Phyrexian Rager with Elvish Visionary, and we could play Saruli Gatekeepers alongside our Species Gorgers in order to just brick aggro with repeated lifegain.

That mana could be rough..

I hate to say I told you so about mind rot but..

I still think Talrand deserves at least a 1of slot here. There are many times where he wins/stalls to wins. I think I personally would rather the Talrands over the 5/3 Demons with all the bouncing and undying this deck loves doing.

I've put a decent amount of time into this one.

It's pretty simple, draw a bunch of cards and make them discard as soon as they miss a land drop.. but not beforehand. I don't want them discarding land... I want my discard to claim spells and creatures.

I didn't want to go the bounce route because this deck is not the early game beatdown.. it wants to stall and go late game. So my removal options had to be actual removal.. hence why it's heavy on the 5 drop removal. After playtesting.. I'm fine with those spells. Also.. running 6-8 bounce spells in a deck that isn't trying to be the beatdown takes up a lot of room.

Underperformers:

Graveborn Muse. I'm not entirely sure she's needed here. This deck draws a TON before she even comes online.. I thinking of replacing her with some kind of early blocker to improve the matchup vs aggro. The self plinking damage is pretty bad here bc of early beatdowns and very little lifegain to offset it.

Shadowborn Demon: I kinda wanna replace him with the 4th Flesh to Dust because him not being able to hit other demons has been a problem. Since the deck goes late.. seeing opposing Rune-Scarred Demons has happened quite a bit. The reason he's still here is bc of synergy with Sheoldred.

Overperformers:

Guard Gomazoa: This thing saves my ass. I want to drop one on turn 3 in 80%= of my matchups.. then drop a Rager on turn 4. Putting two of them on the field shuts down most offenses.

Suffer the Past: This card is a great late game finisher.. and exiling specific nasty creatures has been very valuable.

Mind Rot: You really just have to cast this at the right time to get value out of it. Casting it on turn 3 is dumb. Casting it when the opponent has 5+ cards in hand is dumb. You wait.. and hold it until they have 2-3 cards in hand, then brutally disrupt their plans. It's fine as a two-of.. I'd like the effect more often, but its a bad late game draw.. so it stays at two.

Griselbrand: It's kind of hard to call this guy an overperformer but he's been just great for me. If I trigger his draw ability.. I win the game 9/10 times.

Sheoldred: I will sit on this chick until I'm sure I've exhausted my opponents removal or I get them top decking.. then she comes out and takes over the game bringing back all my ETB nastiness. She is the queen on my chessboard.. and I love her.

Notable Omissions:

Brain Maggot: It's just not good enough. Looking into their hand is great, taking something is great.. but not having the threat actually be dealt with is not great. I would still play it if it could block, but the fact that it just sits there and does nothing after the fact does not endear me to this card.

Bounce Spells: If I was playing a full compliment of Mind Rots.. then this would be the way to go.. but I'm not so I went with the removal route. I'm also not a fan of 'not solving the problem.' Am I supposed to bounce Pelakka Wurms and Rune-Scarred Demons? There's just not enough discard to warrant a bunch of bounce spells which cost me a ton of valuable spots in the deck.

The second Rune-Scarred Demon: Yeah.. this was the very last cut. I'd love to fit it in.. but the top of the curve is already pretty loaded. It pained me greatly.

Dead Weight: This is what the two Graveborn Muses might become. I could really use something to help kill 2/2 utility creatures.


Anyway.. give it a shot if you want. I'm always open to feedback.. I love hearing opinions.

I don't think you dress very well either.

My wife tells me that all the time.

That's funny....my wife tells me you dress funny too. HOW DO YOU KNOW MY WIFE?!?!?!?!


elk

Play Brain Maggot a little more, it is very disruptive. Yeah we'd rather have Thoughtseize but we gotta play with what they give us.

i still don't know how to play against Brain Maggot properly. I have a removal spell and the Brain Maggot took one of my most powerful creatures. Except he has played a far more threatening card than Brain Maggot since. I usually use the removal spell on Brain Maggot to get my creature back in hand but it's probably a better play to get rid of the bigger threat and worry about getting my creature back later.

The thing I don't like about it the most is if I look in their hand and they have 2 removal spells, it just dictates that they spend one on your maggot.

Well then you guys just trade one-for-one but you come out ahead with information and it's possible they have to spend more than the two mana you did. It's still a good deal.

and he's using removal on a 2 cost creature instead of something good. People are obsessed with getting their card back and makes tons of sub-optimal moves as a consequence (see my last post).

The maggots are indeed extremely powerful in this archetype... I updated my old Dimir deck with them and now I barely even lose with this deck anymore. Before the archetype was decent but now I feel Dimir ETB got a lot better with these new cards.

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=4683&p=218947#p218947

It goes without saying but Sheodred with her reanimator and board controlling capabilities also does wonders in this deck. With all the draw and the demons I get her pretty much everytime, and she can take care of clearing out creatures which allows Dinrova Horros to focus a bit more on other permanents.