Spoils of Victory #8: Archangel Avacyn

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!

Most of you have probably already seen her: The new Avacyn, freshly spoiled on the interwebs...

Definitely looks quite fancy! And I already have some ideas in mind on how to build a deck around her so let's have a look.

The Angel herself

Even without her additional abilities she's already pretty decent at 5 mana for 4/4 Flying, Vigilance, Flash. Nothing amazing or game breaking but playable nonetheless.
Add that one-shot indestructible effect to her and you've got yourself a very nice card in any creature based strategy, much like Boros Charm.
But that's still not everything, because we can also flip her! And in my humble opinion, that's where things get spicy. The most important thing about her second side is that it adds a second color to the deck, but it also points the deck in a direction more clearly.

"When a non-Angel creature you control dies, transform Archangel Avacyn at the beginning of the next upkeep."

Well, I guess the trigger condition is quite easy to understand. Of course I'd love her to transform instantly upon something dying but hey, can't have everything.

"When this creature transforms into Avacyn, the Purifier, it deals 3 damage to each other creature and each opponent."

Avacyn gets mighty mad when the peace-loving town's people somehow die, turning her into a fireslinging Angel of Death. The "each other creature" part is definitely nice in some cases but 50% of the time you'd probably be better off without it when building the deck straight out aggressive/Midrange. But the "each opponent" part is where it's at, at least for me and the way I'd build her! Simply put: there's a lot of potential in the trigger.

A creature-core aka Avacyn's townsfolk

Thinking about it, the way I envision for the deck is particularly cruel considering Avacyn's mental health...

... because I'd actively want to trigger Avacyn - literally. Sounds a bit weird at first, but think about it! While damaging all your opponents for a decent amount, you're also getting rid of all those pesky utility creatures/chump blockers like Prophet of Kruphix (yes I wanted to put salt in that wound), Mulldrifter, Acidic Slime, etc. to make attacking "post-flip" easier.
And since you need something to die on your side for that to work, why not get some value out of it first? The fun thing is, that your Avacyn will also kill all these creatures when flipping, so you'd basically sacrifice one to get her to flip which will in return kill the rest, netting you a neat amount of triggers which hopefully get you ahead for the next few turns.

Increasing trigger impact

Three damage for all that work? I have to admit it doesn't seem much... BUT! First of all it is way more than you would think, considering you dealt it to EVERY opponent (just imagine the work/time/boardstate you'd have to invest to deal three damage to each opponent through combat). And secondly there are ways to increase the impact and value you'll get out of it...

Just imagine the sequence of sacrificing Academy Rector searching up True Conviction flipping Avacyn. I'd say you'll get around ~21 life (3 per opponent + 3 for each creature on the battlefield) and attack for another 12 damage in the air => 12 more life. So when you pass the turn you'll probably have dealt 21 damage to opponents, 12 of which are commander damage, and gained around 33 life... Acceptable I'd say.

And since we're really trying to burn people out, we might aswell go for one of these! In magical cristmasland you'll even have one or even two doublers on the field along with lifelink on Avacyn... I'll give you a moment to cool down again....
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No seriously though, Gisela and Gratuitous Violence don't even have downsides. Gisela even decreases the damage to your creatures down to one. And since Dictate of the Twin Gods has Flash we can play it with the damage trigger on the stack so we can take advantage of it first ...

The start-button

Creatures that like to die aka we don't care if they do: Check! Trigger efficiency maximized: Check! System is ready; awaiting start-up command...

The theme of the deck is rather aggressive and so are the sacrifice outlets I'd play. Especially the dragons can go veeeery big, and with the help of a mad Avacyn clearing the way, have the potential to deal huge chunks of damage. Good ol' Brion on the other hand is more focused on surviving and waiting for Redvacyn to make her big appearance, much like Spitebellows and Reveillark. Lastly some carddraw can't be wrong - especially in a white-red deck - and Demonmail Hauberk can either go on Avacyn to increase the amount of commander damage she deals or buff a two-toughness creature you control for it to survive the flip.

To be honest, the sacrifice outlets would probably be one part of the deck one would have to change and optimize as he plays the deck. But I think with those 8 above you'll have a good starting point.

Avacyn's last trick

As you can see, the whole deck is focused around Avacyn flipping, maximizing the damage she'll deal and the rest of your creatures can deal while defenses are down due to the flip. But what to do once that is over?! Sacrificing Avacyn is one option, the deck even has the outlets to do that... but I'd rather not do that since commander tax can become... taxing really quick.

EDIT: Thanks for pointing out that I suck at reading... Restoration Angel sadly does NOT flicker Avacyn!

Why not simply flicker her? Since the "original" side is the white one, upon re-entering the battlefield, she'll calm down - so to speak - returning to the Archangel Avacyn state. This gives you two neat possibilities: a) You can reset her to get another trigger out of her and b) Restoration Angel and Cloudshift allow you to reuse her "enter the battlefield" ability, granting additional protection against Wraths.
Flickerform even let's her take Felidar Umbra with her on vacation in addition to also sticking around, letting you reset her as often as you want.

Some goodstuff to top it off

Aaaaaaand that's basically how I'd build the deck. A big creature base with "dies"-triggers, some ways to make the flip-trigger better, some sacrifice outlets to make her flip and then some ways to bounce/flicker her so you can get more triggers out of her without having to pay commander tax all the time.

Now everthing that's left is some more generic stuff that still supports the theme of the deck...

The creatures in white-red that offer good value upon dying often put a few 1/1s into play. Having a Cathars' Crusade in play when that happens can lead to some very nasty turns. Speaking of creatures with good value upon dying: Anger should definitely be in there... Just think of the 1/1s we just talked about.
Well and Sun Titan returns a lot of the creatures that died to/for Avacyn's trigger and is just all around a solid card to have.


La fin! I hope I'm not too late with this, since spoiler season is continuing and people have newer cards to think about. Either way, have a nice day and...

See y'all 'round!

Deckspotlight #5: Stitcher Geralf

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!

Many of you know it by now: I really LOVE multiplayer-centric decks! They're just what EDH is all about for me. No wonder that I chose Stitcher Geralf as my mono-blue Commander then, is it?!

And the fact that he plays a lot more like a green or black commander adds even more enjoyment! The deck just never ceases to amaze me with its very own flavor and uniqueness.

Intro - The non-blue beneath the blue

What do I mean by "he plays a lot more like a green commander"? Well, for starters it's the fact that he puts giant tokens into play that will then go smash some face. What is blue about that?! Additionally they are Zombies! I guess Innistrad had blue Zombies and that's where Geralf comes from, but still Zombies are the incarnation of a black tribe.

So there I was, building my very first draft of this deck... and then it hit me! There's yet another level of "non-blue-ness" in the deck. Because in order to ensure a consistently big Zombie-token I'd have to play big creatures to hit in my own deck... So we're talking "Mono-Blue Battlecruiser".dec!

Chapter 1 - The Fatties

The first thing I obviously added to the deck were a bunch of ridiculously expensive, fat creatures. Because 6/6 tokens wouldn't be enough to satisfy me!

Isn't that a thing of beatuy?! Experience has shown that I'll hit at least a 3 power creature out of an opponents deck and the 28 creatures in my deck have an average of 4,75 power making the tokens consitently 7/7 or 8/8.

Chapter 2 - Plan B

Of course, Plan A is getting huge tokens with Geralf into play and let them do the work, but every deck needs a Plan B. Since I now had all these Fatties in the deck I might aswell tune the deck to actually cast them when I occasionally draw them...

Since the deck only has one color I can ramp as hard as I want using colorless mana and I won't ever get color-screwed in the process. Whenever I play with mana-artifacts I use a mix of rocks that produce more than one (Worn Powerstone, Caged Sun, ...) and rocks that have additional use when the game goes longer, e.g. I can sacrifice them to draw a card, etc. (Commander's Sphere, Seer's Lantern). The idea behind that is: I can accept the trade-off of having a burst of mana in the early game vs. a dead draw lategame, but if the rock doesn't accelerate me all that much he has to offer something else - something "useful" in later stages - to mitigate for that.

Chapter 3 - Smoothing out the draws

My Stitcher Geralf deck was probably the one deck out of all my decks, that (ab)used the old mulligan rule the most. You simply got rid of all fatties you had in your opening seven, kept lands and rocks, and hoped you'd redraw as little fatties as possible. Back in the day I even shiped back a single fatty just so I didn't have it in my hand, voluntarily decreasing my starthand size by one. I've yet to play the deck after the rule changes but I can imagine it mulligans way more awkward these days...

That said I made sure to include at least a few ways in the deck that will let me return my fatties to where they belong: My library! Between See Beyond, Brainstorm and the few other ways to manipulate the top of my library (Seer's Lantern, etc.) there's a good chance I can maneuver through the game without drawing many of my "mill-targets".

Speaking of mill...

Chapter 4 - Synergies

If you've played your fair share of EDH games you'll know that the so-called "Synergies" are the glue that hold a deck together. Without them a deck is just a pile of cards, but with them a deck becomes this well-oiled machine that is awesome to pilot.

Untapping him allows me to make multiple tokens in one turn if I can afford the activation cost. Additionally each of the cards that let me untap him also do something else for the activations. Thousand-Year Elixir gives him pseudo-haste, Tidewater Minion is a creature to also mill and exile and Retreat to Coralhelm let's me manipulate the top of my library to increase the chance of getting a good activation off.
Misthollow Griffin is a somewhat random interaction with Geralf since I simply get to cast it once I've exiled it with him... nothing insane but neat nonetheless.

While these cards don't affect Geralf's activations directly, they also have a lot of synergy with the deck:

• Timesifter: Since the decks average manacosts are a lot higher than most decks I have a good chance of getting a lot more turns than others, hopefully allowing me to lock up the game.
• Bonehoard: It's true that each activation also exiles the two biggest/best creatures but there will still land a lot of creatures in the yard... and Bonehoard is there to, well hoard them I guess.
• Counterlash: I actually found that card while doing research for another deck, immediately realized that I had to put a copy into my Geralf deck and never regreted it. It basically reads: "Counter target creature spell. Put that one fatty that is stuck in your hand into play."
• Totally Lost: Not the only card with that effect in the deck. That's my form of removal since blue doesn't offer too much there. Simply "End of Turn put your X on top. Untap. Mill with Geralf."... even sweeter if you get to exile a big creature that way. But also works as non-creature permanent removal.

Chapter 5 - Gameplay

That's what's in the deck. But how do I pilot it? Nothing too hard on that department...

Starting Hands: 3-4 Lands, some ramp, as little fatties as possible... 'nough said!

Early-game: Play lands, play some ramp, basically setting up for when I'm able to play Stitcher Geralf. I usually try to evaluate wether or not the match is (mass)removal-heavy, because if it is I won't cast Geralf as early as possible. But if there isn't much going on, noone will bother "wasting" anything on a Geralf.

Mid-game: I consider this the time when I get my first token or could have gotten it. Now it is very important to keep my ressources in mind. When I have a drawspell like Treasure Cruise in hand I can commit more to the board in form of actual cards, be it more ramp or a creature. If I don't, I try to rely on Geralf to create a board presence for me in order to preserve cards.
Also it is important that I choose my "beatdown targets" carefully since I'm now starting to actively reduce the lifetotals of my opponents - the game has to end sometime doesn't it?! Decks that are lacking (mass)removal are a good choice, as are decks that are slower out of the gates but have a crazy lategame. Choosing the first is to "prevent" the decks that DO have (mass)removal from casting it against me and weakening the later is to be able to stop them once lategame comes around.

Late-game: Even though I'm now able to cast all my fatties, mid-game probably is the best phase of the game for the deck. Once you're going into late-game other decks probably do more unfair stuff with their mana. That said, I try to keep a low profile and play more like a "killer to hire", helping in finishing people off - collectively - that get too strong while maintaining a rather defensive position. If I feel like I'll be one of the last ones to stand, I try to get one or two more activations with Geralf in so that once the player count decreases I still have some nice Zombies to work with... Because having a 8/8 token in play can win you the game very fast once ressources start to dwindle.

Outro

So if you're looking for a mono-blue deck that plays unlike any other while still having a solid plan, Stitcher Geralf should be way up there in your list of choices. He's awesome to play, has a somewhat funny flavor (just imagine the two creatures you're exiling getting stitched together... Hilarious sometimes!) and can definitely hold his own in competual (competitive+casual = play to win with fun but rather well-built decks) matches.

Aaaand ... Here's the decklist I usually provide in the outro!


As always I hope you enjoyed the read, and even if you didn't - especially then - please leave some feedback. I want to learn and improve and make this blog readworthy for everyone. Until next time...

See y'all 'round!

Stream-Announcement! - Pokemon Anniversary

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!


Just a quick heads up:
I'll be streaming my Speedrun of Pokemon Ruby over on http://www.twitch.tv/sibirianpns!
The stream will start around 18:30-19:00 and will run until around 1:00 in the morning (CET)

Alternatively you can watch it here (if the embed works):
SibirianPns

I hope you enjoy the stream and if you don't find the time to watch, I'll still...

See y'all 'round!

Deckspotlight #4: Gisela, Blade of Goldnight

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!

So far all my deckspotlights have dealt with very exceptional Gentlemen. Momir Vig, Norin, Borborygmos,... well maybe the last one isn't every girl's dreamprince.
How about a strong and emancipated lady this time around? Sounds good? Because that's what you'll get wether you like it or not...

BUT: This isn't your standard Gisela-"I'll beat you down with Angels and Equipment" kind of deck. It's something really special...

Intro - What is he doin'?!

If we would sit down at a 4-player table, me being a complete stranger, this is how your thought process will probably look like...

I put Gisela in the command zone: "Ah ok, Gisela, gotta watch out for his beaters."
After I play the first few lands: "Alright, the beaters will start coming, I should prepare."
I continue to play lands and play the occasional utility permanent: "... I guess he had a bad draw or is flooded or something..."
Everyone else is doing crazy thing but I sit there playing draw-go: "What the hell is he doin'?!"

And just when it seems that I'll just die to a random attack the next turn without having done anything the whole game this happens:

I play "End of Turn" Gisela using Scout's Warning, untap draw, cast Overmaster, Price of Progress and Reverberate it, dealing enough damage to kill everyone but me thanks to Gisela. And all you're thinking is: "Ahem, what?"

Chapter 1 - The Political Core

A while ago I actually wrote a primer about the archetype that is called "politics/groupslug/grouphug", whatever you may call it, and basically this deck is how I got introduced into the kind of strategy described in there.

Some of these cards I've already mentioned in said primer since they're just the prime examples of what a political card should do: 1) make opponents attack each other and not you and 2) strengthen weaker players so they can attack again (which hopefully makes them even more inclined to not attack you).

Rite of the Raging Storm getting printed in Commander2015 got us yet another really strong card for decks like these. There's just no reason not to attack with your free elemental and - let's be honest - there will always be at least one player who can't block the Elemental profitably.

Chapter 2 - The actual gameplan

With all these cards to provide me a weird form of safety from random attacks, I can focus on the real gameplan: Punishing people for doing broken things. And with punishing I mean hopefully killing them with whatever they wanted to pull off.

Each of these cards will kill - coupled with Gisela - if anyone goes "extrem" in any shape or form. Ramping hard with Boundless Realms? Acidic Soil it up. Getting one-shot by a commander? Reflect damage does only redirect so the opponent kills himself with commander damage. Avenger of Zendikar? Incite Rebellion... You get the idea.

This is exactly why this deck tries to be political about the early stages of the game: The more damage from Solemn Simulacrums etc. they take, the more likely I am able to kill them when they try to win the game with something busted.

Sadly, since I've dropped black from the deck, I'm missing out on some sweet punisher cards, but all in all I still believe playing Gisela is worth missing some of them in exchange for the damage boost.

Chapter 3 - Preparing for later

The hardest part of the deck is probably knowing when I'm supposed to start keeping up "kill spells" (referring to spells that will hopefully kill my opponents). This gets easier the more mana I've got available when the time comes around so I always focus on hitting as many landdrops as possible the first turns. If the first landdrop I'm missing is on turn 10, I almost always have a good shot at winning the game. So: Preparation is key!
(Also interesting to note is that ramping makes you seem more dangerous than just having a landdrop each turn... Even if you'll end up with the same amount of mana in the long run.)

Boy oh boy, do I love every single card here. They provide fixing and/or card advantage (with the exception of Tormenting Voice that is just there to filter your draw) while looking so incredibly innocent that noone will even look twice and simply shrug them off. But trust me when I say: Without these cards this deck would suck, but since they exist this deck is awesome!
The thing is that red and white both don't offer great choice when it comes to card draw but even if they did, in an actual game I would use them to find landdrops 90% of the time. So why not simply find lands instead, because that IS something artifacts and white cards can provide.

Chapter 4 - Some Removal won't hurt

I have explained all the tools I'm using to win the game now, from staying out of harms way, to game-winning cards and the cards to set me up for them, so let's focus on controlling the pace of the game now...

If you've read my "Politics"-Primer you might remember why I love Inferno or Molten Disaster... While I play them to clear the board most of the time, the fact that it reduces the collective lifetotal makes it easier for me to finish them off later while not making me a target because the cards "happen to have this weird 'each player'-clause..." so if someone is to blame it's WotC for adding that. Of course I don't tell anyone that I wouldn't play them if they didn't have it.

Sadly "If you don't like it, torch it!" can't be applied to every card.  For those cases I made sure to also pack some general-purpose removal... you know, just in case.

Chapter 5 - Enabling your win

Of course an EDH game is no "magical Christmasland" and sometimes opponents are just too healthy to kill them with burnspells on their own. On step in counteracting that was switching to Gisela as a commander rather than any random Mardu-General (in my case Zurgo).
Also people usually try not to die to my burnspells so they might try to disrupt me occasinally...

Who would've thought that Red can counter spells? Yes they're somewhat situational but so far I've never regreted running them. Especially Mages' Contest might look a bit wonky at first, but since usually people can't afford to pay huge amounts of life due to the nature of my deck it more often than not counters the spells like I want it to.
Scout's Warning also acts as a form of protection since playing Gisela "end of turn" right before you untap again makes her less vulnerable to (mass)removal and also adds a nice little element of surprise to the deck.

These cards are basically the icing on the cake for the deck. They turn each burnspell into a huge fireball of doom. End of Turn Dictate of the Twin Gods, untap, play Hostility and cast Inferno... the amounts of damage you can produce with only one of these is just monstrous, but if you draw two of them... no words man, no words.
They are also the reason why sometimes the deck is so mana hungry: I often need the mana to cast a doubler/tripler PLUS my burnspell to get there.

Outro

And that's it! That's my Gisela deck. If I had to choose a single deck out of my 30 that will fit into any powerlevel I would definitely choose this one since the more broken the decks get, the more damage this deck can dish out. This also makes it always fun to play since you'll neither stomp nor get stomped.

Of course I have just listed the cornerstones of the deck here. The full decklist is provided here!

Well, I hope you enjoyed this deckspotlight, because there are quite a lot more to come. Or not. Either way I'd love to get some feedback! Until then I'll...

See y'all 'round

Infinity Evolved #11 - Boy oh boy

Deckspotlight #3: Borborygmos Enraged

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!

As promised I'll be writing a lot of these Deckspotlights in the next weeks, so here goes the first one. Some of my decks are a lot more refined than others and many of them are still changing a lot so it only makes sense for me to start with one of my older and more tuned decks: Borborygmos Enraged aka 51-Lands Combo.

Back in the day when I had just recently quit Legacy - where I exclusively played combo - I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to build a combo deck that DIDN'T play blue and/or black. And that is exactly what I did with this deck.

Intro - That one "Pre-Ban" Game

My first draft of the deck featured a copy of Burgeoning. And even though some people in my playgroup will deny it, the first version of this deck was responsible for Burgeoning getting banned ("houseruled out") in our playgroup... after the first game I played my shiny new Borb-Deck.

Let me illustrate how this game went with some advanced Paint-Graphics:
 

At this point I was hellbent but had a ton of lands in play, more than my opponents combined, so I untapped turn 3, drawing a land and cast Borborygmos. Somehow he lived for me to untap with him and my draw for the turn was what won me the game... again let me illustrate this:
  

... aaaaaand at this point it was gg. I had 10 mana left after casting Keen Sense on Borborygmos and I kept hitting people in the face via discarding lands, drawing some additional lands from the trigger and occasionally dredging Life from the Loam to get back more fuel. I'm not entirely sure what happened exactly but at the end of my turn I'd drawn 90% of my deck, my graveyard was filled with lands and my opponents were dead.
Now I'll be honest, this draw was basically picture perfect and you're not going to get many of these games. But what it illustrates is how fast and "out of nowhere" you can win with this deck even at later stages of the game. If you don't hit that Turn 3 Borborygmos, no harm done! The deck can go slow and steady, where you really set up your combo and win, win through "traditional means" aka beatdown or like described above go for a fast and ruthless "kill everyone without playing magic".

Chapter 1 - The big Players

Let me start with the key cards of the deck, the cards that you want to look for while ramping the first few turns as they'll let you do the insanely unfair things this deck is capable of:

Whenever you're looking to combo-off you need two cards + your commander: Either Keen Sense or Snake Umbra plus whatever card you can find out of category #2.
Obviously the best card to get is Abundance. It let's you filter each draw you get from your enchantments basically letting me choose to get more lands to throw at my opponents - which is sometimes enough to win the game since they might've already taken some amount of damage - or to get non-land cards that could let me net more lands in the long run - which I will need in order to actually win the game since lifetotals are still too high.

But other cards can work aswell depending on your mana. Creeping Renaissance will let me return all the lands I've thrown once I've eventually hit too many non-lands, same goes for Knollspine Dragon. Scouting Trek let's me stack my deck, working as a substitute for Abundance in some games. Storm Cauldron is somewhat of a backup strategy, essentially making me go all-in, bouncing my lands to throw out which hopefully draws me into some sort of way to win the game.

Life from the Loam is a completely different monster: not only will it help immensely in  comboing-off with a sufficient amount of mana available, but it will also help me find important pieces of my combo when combined with other recursion cards while also supplying me with a never ending stream of landdrops.

Chapter 2 - Protection and Reloading 

Of course people will try and stop you from winning... because that prevents them from winning. And of course I try to stop people from stopping me...




The first row is the "protection"-part. When I first built the deck I threw in Autumn's Veil just to test it and I've never looked back: That card is one of the MVPs of the deck for me. A nice set of boots is pretty standard in EDH so I won't talk about those two and Savage Summoning let's me play around counterspells and sorcery speed removal with my Borborygmos. It basically gives haste, buffs him so that Soul's Majesty and Hunter's Insight draw even more cards and protects from counterspells... pretty good card for one green mana.

The second row is the "reload" category. Skullwinder and Eternal Witness let me return destroyed combo-pieces from previous, failed attempts OR - combined with Life from the Loam - let me find them in the first place. Soul's Majesty and Hunter's Insight are, as I already mentioned, the big drawspells a deck such as this needs. As long as you have a fatty in play those two are good to go.

Chapter 3 - Ramping

Now this wouldn't be a RG Deck sporting 51 lands without a proper amount of ramp. Especially since the commander costs 4RRGG. Simply hitting landdrops just won't do it.

While I usually play cards like Explosive Vegetation when looking for ramp in green, this deck is a little different. The problem I have with cards like these is that later in the game, drawing them won't do anything. That's why I only play Boundless Realms in the "put onto the battlefield" section and favor Cultivate and Nissa's Pilgrimage: They at least put a land into your hand aswell, and lands in hand can provide more than just mana.
So cards that will cards into my hand will be more favorable once I'm done ramping... and to turn them into ramp"ish" cards early game, I'm playing cards like Azusa and Oracle of Mul Daya.
Letting you put additional lands into play is already very good since the average starting hand will feature at least 4 lands and the first three draws will also yield one to two lands on average. Throw in a Seek the Horizon and Ill be going very fast while not having as many dead draws when comboing - it's even quite the opposite since Seek the Horizon, for example, represents 6 damage + 3 draws... not bad for 4 mana.

Chapter 4 - Plan B

Ever played a game of magic? Then you've probably experienced the "this didn't go as planned" scenario. The deck can cast big ol' Borborygmos two to three times, no problem, but sometimes you just won't be able to combo. You know what that means: Plan B!

  
Well, I ramp hard, so the obvious answer to what Plan B might be is: Fatties! Upon closer look they even feature Landfall a lot of the time, synergizing with all those ramp spells and additonal landdrops even after they're in play. 
Wildfire and Destrucive Force are kind of a plan on their own aswell: I can choose to try and take over the game early since for my opponents those cards will be an Armageddon while I'm able to recover very easy and win the game from there - additionally they'll clear the board so that noone can pull ahead with their Brago or any other creature that provides too much value. Same goes for later in the game where they will still hurt your opponents while clearing the board... just not as gamebreaking as when you cast them early.

Sadly I only own a single copy of Kozilek which I currently play in my colorless Eldrazi EDH but if I ever get my hands on a second one I'll put it into this deck for sure because 12/12s with Annihilator 4 that draw four cards upon cast usually make for a nice Plan B if you ask me... 

Chapter 5 - Gameplay

Last but not least let me explain how I try to shape my games.

Starting hands: One of the easiest decks to mulligan I own. 

1. At least 2 Lands + at least one Rampspell? Keep, since you'll draw 1-2 lands in your first drawsteps for sure. 
2. At least 3 Lands + a combo piece? A keep aswell, since ramp and lands are way easier to draw than those.
3. At least 4 Lands + a drawspell? Keep it! Drawing lands and ramp is easy and if you ever get that drawspell to resolve you'll be in a very, very good position.
4. At least 4 Lands + a fatty? A bit wonky but if you're confident that the game will be slow and grindy you can probably get away with it.

Early-game: Ramp, ramp, ramp! Try to keep one or two lands in your hand for when Borborygmos comes down, but other than that just slam those landdrops and ramp spells and try hitting 8 mana as fast as possible. There might be an opportunity for a game-winning Wildfire/Destructive Force though, so watch out for that... 
  Mid- to Late-game: This is when things get spicy. Depending on the types of decks my opponents play I'll be playing very ballsy with my combo or very cautious. While it's true that most of the games re-casting Borborygmos isn't too hard to achieve it isn't something that you will want to do, so try and protect him. Timing is very important in order to get the combo through so I try to keep track of my opponents ressources as best as possible: How many removal spells has Player X played this game, how much mana does he have available right now, etc etc.
In many games, a window will open up for me to cast Borborygmos, protect him and ride him to victory provided I didn't waste my ressources earlier. 

Outro

As always I hope you enjoyed the read on my Anrgy-Borb deck and maybe one or two out there are even considering building a deck similar to mine because of this spotlight. If you've got any questions on other cards in the deck (the full list is linked above) or the deck in general feel free to message me. 

See y'all 'round!

Infinity Evolved #10 - Thaumcraft