What is the most exciting card in M15? Being the deck builder I am, I am always trying to break cards in half. The card I am most excited to try and break is Generator Servant.
This little guy acts as a ritual, historically rituals break formats. Rituals are not particularly broken cards, but they tend to break decks that break formats. The floor on this card is a two power attacker for two mana in a color that likes to attack, the ceiling on this card is potentially very very high. I will...
There are a lot of ways you can go with Generator Servant, because you can use the mana for anything. If you use the mana for a creature they gain haste, this is the particular interaction that I want to break. If you play a servant on T2 and make your land drop on T3 you will have five mana available to cast a hastey creature. What are the best 5CMC creatures in standard?
These are the 5CMC creatures that see any kind of competitive play. With Generator Servant you create inherent card disadvantage by having to sacrifice your creature, that coupled with the haste clause make me want to be very aggressive. Stormbreath Dragon is very aggressive but does not take full advantage of the servant's clause by already having haste. While researching 5CMC creatures I found two that I think can just win you the game if unanswered.
Kalonian Hydra comes down T3 as an attacking 8/8 trampler, that is pretty big game. Master of Cruelties comes down T3 possibly hitting your opponent for 19 damage. I want to explore these options so I know I am looking at Jund, but do they work in the same deck? Both want you to keep up the pressure coming straight off the top of your library. With the hydra you hit them for 8 damage, they untap and Doom Blade your guy, so you want to be able to capitalize by keeping the damage coming every turn. With the master you can get them to 1 life but can never kill them out right, so you still want your aggression coming straight off the top to hit the next turn for the win. This tells me I want haste or direct damage, I know I want to be aggressive and with servant already generating haste (pun intended) I think I want to stick to the creature emphasis. What creatures in the format have haste or grant haste?
This is a very, very aggressive suite of cards, however not all of them fit in the same deck. I kind of feel like servant/ hydra and servant/master might lead towards two different builds. Stormbreath is an auto include in both builds, but what about the others? Mistcutter is a nice scalable threat that attacks the turn it comes into play but lacks any kind of evasion The mangler also lacks evasion. Xenagod can provide a lot of aggression, but not being able to attack and not granting any evasion might make him a little too slow. The next two have strong synergies with each other and with Kalonian Hydra. Exava is a hastey beater that grants haste to other creatures with +1/+1 counters, so if you do not get servant into hydra you can curve out T4 Exava into T5 hastey hydra. The fanatic has built in evasion in the form of trample, it has conditional haste and if you have Exava on the board it just has haste no matter what. On top of that with the hydras ability to double counters on all creatures you control, the hydra has double the synergy with Exava and the fanatic. Since we are seeing strong synergies in a hydra build lets focus on that and explore Master of Cruelties in another article. So we have:
4 Generator Servant
4 Fanatic of Xenagos
3 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
4 Kalonian Hydra
4 Stormbreath Dragon
All of those creatures have haste, trample or +1/+1 counter in their text box, with some having multiples. One of the things we brought up with our aggressive creatures is the lack of evasion. We want to be pushing through damage every turn, whether they have blockers or not, which leads us to trample. What good Jund creatures in the format have or grant trample?
The archetype grants all of our creatures trample which could be a big deal, however my gut is telling me that the card is not strong enough by itself. Nylea falls in the same category as Xenagod, she has two nice abilities that fall in line with what we want to do, but not coming down attacking herself might be too slow. Rampager is exactly where we want to be, he is an aggressively costed beater with evasion that can act as evasion and haste when using his Bloodrush ability on one of your attackers.
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
So far we have fifteen creatures that grant or have haste and twelve creatures that grant or have trample, where do go from here? We have seven creatures that check to see if creatures have +1/+1 counters, lets explore that a little more. What are other good Jund creatures that have +1/+1 counters?
X1 does not come down with any counters, but can scale in size as we continue to play beaters. His biggest weakness is being terrible off the top, can aggressive starts make up for bad top decks? Cackler is in a similar position, he is very good on T1 but can be a weak top deck. He might get the nod by synergizing with Exava and the hydra. The phoenix, like the fanatic, has Tribute which is an interesting mechanic, it will always allow your opponent to give you the worst option. With the fanatic having multiple synergies we can usually leverage their decision in our favor, but what about the phoenix? She does no have haste, has evasion in the form of flying, and either comes into play with two +1/+1 counters or the ability to replace itself. Ways for it to get haste are the servant or Exava, lets play out if either will be good enough. T2 servant into a T3 phoenix, do you pay tribute? If so you are being attacked by a 5/5 flyer on T3, if not you are being attacked by a 3/3 flyer on T3 that replaces itself when it dies; both seems good. The other scenario would be like T4 Exava and T5 phoenix off the top, do you pay tribute? No way. Phoenix has a very high ceiling, but with the floor being so low and having seven other 4CMC creatures and eight 5CMC creatures I am not sure if it makes the cut. Savageborn Hydra is a doozy, it is another card with a very high ceiling. Lets go deep on it.
What are the synergies with him? T2 servant into a T3 hastey 3/3 double striker or T4 Exava into a T5 hastey 3/3 double striker, I would call those the middle ground. What about the floor? T3 1/1 double striker into T4 pump it to a 2/2 then attack bloodrushing a rampager to make it a 6/6 trampling double striker. Is that really the floor? Maybe not, the floor is definitely playing it as a 1/1 on T3, but it has a scalable pump effect and it is not unreasonable to think you will not topdeck a rampager.
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Savageborn Hydra
So far we have thirty-one cards and they are all creatures, lets look at the curve.
1CMC - 4
2CMC - 4
3CMC - 4
4CMC - 7
5CMC - 8
XCMC - 4
Let me say now that numbers will change as play testing starts. My gut says to start with twenty-four lands, so that leaves us with five slots. As it stands our curve is very high, even having the servant as an accelerator. Lets look into further acceleration.
I am a long time deck builder and have become very intuitive and learned to trust my gut. M y gut is telling me that Elvish Mystic is a slam dunk. It gives us something to do T1 and helps to accelerate into our aggression. My gut is also telling me the emissary is correct too, but that I can not explain yet. What about the other two? The sliver can accelerate and fix your mana, which could end up being a big deal when playing three colors., but it just seems like an awful top deck. The druid fills an interesting space being able to accelerate and pseudo attack, but it just kind of feels wrong to be playing this T2.
4 Elvish Mystic
That is thirty-five cards. Lets look back over the list.
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Generator Servant
4 Fanatic of Xenagos
4 Savageborn Hydra
3 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Kalonian Hydra
4 Stormbreath Dragon
Looking back over the list, cackler seems very weak. If we remove the cackler that would only leave Exava as the black in the deck. Is she strong enough that we do not cut her and just move straight into Gruul? I believe she is. So what do we cut cackler for, emissary or druid? The rational side of me says druid but my guts says emissary. We will start with the druid first.
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Generator Servant
4 Zhur-Taa Druid
1 Archetype of Aggression
4 Fanatic of Xenagos
4 Savageborn Hydra
3 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Kalonian Hydra
4 Stormbreath Dragon
Now to lands, we have twenty-four slot. I know we do not want anything that has to come into play tapped and I have a feeling might be a issue, We will start with all the multicolored lands that can come into play untapped. I am not the guy who has the equation for the perfect mana base, so I am going to make a staring point and go from there.
4 Blood Crypt
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Stomping Ground
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Mana Confluence
2 Mountain
2 Forest
So we have our starting point. I plan to test this tonight and throughout the week and bring you an update next week. Cards I will have in the back of my mind?
Oh and maybe this guy.
I will also be brewing for a Generator Gruul deck as well as a Generator of Cruelties deck. Until then, play hard play often.
MTGO Username: crossbonesx11
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