who doesn't love Darkstar?! The guy is awesome and has a sexy first name

First thing I thought of when I saw his name was the default domain for classic Slackware Linux: user@darkstar. Awesome and sexy indeed!

**Raises hand**

You love nothing but your guns and Waffle House

I don't see what's wrong with that...

I'm sorry I don't share your hatred for 'Murica. Maybe if I did I could be cool with you two.

Hey! I love my wife, kids and dog too!

Watch out, WOTC will see this thread and decide to introduce guns and/or a steampunk theme for their next release!

Abzan Cowboys vs Mardu Indians.. book it.

I think Magic would fit Steampunk better than some lame Cowboy and Indians meme'.

Isn't Kaladesh steampunk already...

So this is 100% my style (I love aggro-control, and EvoLeap makes my heart sing). I tested it out for a bit tonight after I played a few games with your new Bant control deck, CGB. 8 games with this one, and I went 7-1. I faced a couple janky U/W tempo-style decks, a G/R ramp deck, a G/R landfall deck (why? why, when you can just play ramp?), some aggro, and a B/W control deck. The one loss was to aggro (RDW aura-style, he had a great draw and I just couldn't stabilize in time).

I'm in love with the deck so far, but I haven't faced the endless Moss ramp decks that everyone else is running into, at least not yet. I did make one change to shore up the aggro matchup: -1 Visionary, -1 Husk, -1 Priest, +3 Jaddi Offshoot. The Visionary cut I'm fine with, it feels right. Same with the fourth Husk; I only really ever want one on the board, and I'd rather draw it late, after I either have plenty of food for him on the table or have an Abomination in play. The Priest is probably a mistake, it's a beastly card in this deck. In any case, the control matchup in particular feels like a dream. I plowed right through two Planar Outbursts, an Ob Nixilis, a Tragic Arrogance, and a Hixus because Greenwarden got me back the EvoLeap he'd killed with his Felidar Cub. The game never once felt in doubt; my only real worry was that I might deck myself before I could kill him with my little army of Visionaries and Blisterpods, but then Liliana showed up and all was well.

The deck right now feels like classic aggro-control: maybe weak to aggro, but it seems to beat down on control pretty well. I'd be interested to run it against a wider range of control decks, especially now that control can run counterspells, but even there, it just feels like you need to aggressively mull for EvoLeap and you're probably fine. Leap gets in before most counters come online.

Did the deck really feel weak to aggro?
Judging from the list it should be pretty good against aggro having Perilous Myr and lots of 1/2 drops. Allthough it doens't have Languish anymore.

I wanna take this deck for a spin too as I too like that sac/grindy/value style.
I'm just a little worried about the ramp matchup. I feel like going blue for Whirler Rogue combo or adding a Rogue's Passage to push Husk through could improve the matchup.

@Babs
Yeah magic seriously needs a Kaladesh set, that place is awesome.

Well, they are going into Chandra's Keral Keep story in a blog post on wizard's site, so I suspect this may not be such a far fecthed idea. Maybe have someone from that plane discover a Phyrexian artifact (or another planeswalker goes someplace, finds one, and then brings it back)?
I think it'd be a real good story, especially considering that she previously abandoned the plane, for her to come back and become it's defender would be amazing for a strong personality like Nalaar.

I honestly don't know what it's weak to and strong against yet, I don't have enough games against good opponents to know. That was my initial impression, though. It felt pretty good against decks going small and wide, but any evasion was problematic without Bone Splinters or Ob Nixilis. There were times I missed Languish, but the deck does seem to want to play on curve and get out early threats, so there's real dis-synergy with sweepers.

Rogue's Passage would be nice for a big Husk alpha strike, but I'm deathly afraid of instant speed removal (or bounce). Still, the manabase is so solid that we could easily fit in a couple and test it without fear.

Adding blue also appealed to me, but getting UU reliably is going to really mess with the manabase and slow you down. I really do feel like the deck wants to make all its drops for a few turns starting no later than turn two, so I could see all the CIPT lands being a problem. Especially against Ramp (and Moss), where my extremely limited experience was that I wanted to be the beatdown in the matchup and get in enough damage that a flier going over the top/Bone Splinters clearing the way could sneak in the last few points. I actually started thinking about red, but I'll need a lot more experience with the deck before I start making architectural changes like that.

Keep us updated, I'd love to hear your experiences with the deck. I really love it so far.

Here's something I made. It's a pseudo Golgari aristocrats deck (i.e. you put lots of little creatures on the board and then sacrifice them for fun and profit). It's super fun (if your idea of fun is doing 16 damage in one turn with a husk on steroids), and it doesn't perform too poorly. I've seen UB and BR aristocrats builds, but I find that Blisterpod and From Beyond are really pulling their weight here.

4 x Blisterpod
4 x Bone Splinters

4 x Perilous Myr
3 x Carrier Thrall
2 x Rot Shambler
2 x Shadows of the Past
2 x Evolutionary Leap
3 x Altar's Reap

1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
2 x Graveblade Marauder
3 x Fleshbag Marauder
4 x Nantuko Husk

2 x From Beyond

8 x Swamp
5 x Forest
2 x Woodland Cemetery
3 x Rogue's Passage
2 x Mortuary Mire
4 x Golgari Guildgate



Any thoughts?

Yup, I took this deck from 15 to 40. Lost the odd game to mill so I traded in a Shaman or two. It struggles a bit against aggro. If I had any Jaddi Offshoots, I'd trade them in. Solid deck. Haven't had too much trouble against R/G ramp.

It's kind of slow and a bit of a spoonkiller, but it gets the job done eventually.

Okay, so I've been torn since BFZ dropped on what direction to take my Golgari control deck in: because of the amount of cards that are now viable in the deck, and with previous cards losing value it seems that being more aggressive is the best option. However I want to retain my board control as that was what drew me to the deck in the first place. My current list is:

3 x Blisterpod
4 x Bone Splinters
4 x Perilous Myr
3 x Gatecreeper Vine
4 x Elvish Visionary
2 x Evolutionary Leap
3 x Altar's Reap
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 x Fleshbag Marauder
1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 x Smothering Abomination
1 x Gravedigger
2 x Cruel Revival
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 x Greenwarden of Murasa
2 x Gaea's Revenge

7 x Swamp
7 x Forest
2 x Shambling Vent
2 x Canopy Vista
2 x Woodland Cemetery
4 x Evolving Wilds

Languish is out: it hurts me just as much as my opponent and I have plenty of chump blockers. Reave Soul is also gone as its value decreased dramatically with BFZ, meaning we now run the full set of Bone Splinters and Ob Nixilis gives us another removal option.

Smothering Abomination and Altar's Reap replace Bitter Revelation for our draw options plus Ob Nixilis will help in this department too. When you add the Visionary's the draw power of this deck is through the roof.

I really wanted to fit From Beyond in, but ultimately I was never short of things to sacrifice and without something to use the activated ability on apart from a single copy of Abomination it just seemed a little out of place.

Greenwarden was an obvious auto include: more recursion and a nice body.

The addition of Shambling Vent and Canopy Vista is a precursor of where I think I'm ultimately heading with the deck: splitting it two - Abzan control and Golgari aggro. Shambling Vent has been one of my favourite cards in BFZ (more so IRL where I play standard) and with white having so many great control cards, moving into Abzan or possibly just Orzhov seems like the logical choice for a control deck now.

-1 gravedigger +1 smothering abomination
-1 swamp +1 mortuary mire

So here's something I've been playing with for a little while now - a golgari self-sacrifice deck! Mostly built just to see if I could and I like to think it works well enough for what it is. Probably could use a little more removal or an actual win-con outside of turn junk sideways every now and again but hey what ya gonna do?

x3 Jaddi Offshoot
x4 Blisterpod
x1 Vampiric Rites
x3 Carrier Thrall
x3 Rot Shambler
x2 Evolutionary Leap
x3 Altar's Reap
x1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
x3 Fleshbag Marauder
x1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
x3 Retreat to Kazandu
x2 Smothering Abomination
x2 From Beyond
x2 Languish
x2 Brood Butcher
x1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
x6 Swamp
x8 Forest
x2 Woodland Cemetery
x4 Mortuary Mire
x4 Golgari Guildgate

This is interesting Garren. I'll try it tonight.