Dear Azami: Down Down To Goblin Town

When it comes to spelllslinger generals we usually hear the most noise about Riku, Melek, Talrand, or any number of other legends that usually lean towards blue as their main color. Just yesterday I heard someone plotting to break Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper. I don’t know if they’ll succeed or not, but turning spells into free creatures seems good.

What I’m interested in is what would happen if we tried to play a spell-based deck without blue.

Wort, the Raidmother is a card I’ve only seen a few people even talk about despite the power of the card. She’s fairly well-known in my playgroup because
the only Wort deck I’ve seen in person shows up there when my friend Craig comes back to town, but for the most part there isn’t a lot of interest in the
R/G conspire lord. I’ve always seen a lot of potential in Wort, and Chase’s deck seems like a perfect opportunity to highlight that potential.

Your deck is attacking from a lot of angles, with a token/pump/beatdown plan and a burn strategy coexisting in the deck. I’m going to shift the focus a
little more towards the giant Fireball plan, but most of the work will go towards trimming cards that were a little awkward to begin with.

The Creatures

Out:

Cost reduction is usually a strong effect, but Thunderscape Familiar is in a little bit of an awkward place. It only reduces the cost of half your spells
and comes attached to a body that dies in a stiff breeze. In a deck that isn’t tri-colored, I’d run Ruby Medallion and friends before the Familiars. Wall
of Roots is a solid choice for early ramp, and in the lategame it has the bonus of giving you mana and tapping for conspire on the same turn, but I don’t
like that it kills itself after a few uses.

I’m talking about Dryad Arbor here because you listed it in the creature section, but usually it plays much more like a land. Personally I’ve never like
Dryad Arbor, mainly because it takes all the worst aspects of both of its types. Like any other mana Elf, it takes a turn before it can give you any mana,
but because it takes your land drop to play it, Dryad Arbor never actually ramps you.

In:

When tokens is what you want, Krenko is a pretty good place to start. Most of your token producers make Goblins anyway, so Krenko will usually make between
four and eight tokens the first time you tap him, and it just gets better from there.

There are a lot of cheap ramp cards that I could have replaced Dryad Arbor with, but in the end I decided simplicity was best. Because of how much more
important a land drop is that spending a mana, Elvish Mystic will be better than the Arbor in pretty much every situation except when they’re your only
green source in opening hand.

The Artifacts

Out:

You said that you wanted to make the deck more fun for everyone playing, and this cut is part of that. I’m not the type to say that board wipes are unfun
or unfair. They’re a big part of what makes Commander work. The Disk is different, and not just because of the combo with Darksteel Forge. Nobody complains
when someone casts Wrath of God, but once someone untaps with a Disk, they’re basically holding the rest of the table hostage. In most games that leads to
the other players holding back from playing spells until after the inevitable happens. It’s a reasonable strategy, but all too often it leads to unending
turns where nothing changes.

In:

A very different kind of card from Nevinyrral’s Disk, I doubt there will be many times where you’ll have enough tokens to mill someone out, but not enough
to kill them with damage, but those cases will come up occasionally. The real reason I’m including Altar of Dementia, other than the fact that you weren’t
running any sacrifice outlets before, is to mill yourself for value. Between Recoup, Restock, and Regrowth you have a lot of ways to recycle dead cards,
and that’s a theme that I’ll be expanding on in later sections.

The Enchantments

Out:

Beastmaster Ascension is a perfectly reasonable card for your deck, and is one of the best finishers for the beatdown side of your deck’s strategy. I
decided to upgrade it to a higher-powered but higher-variance card, but there is certainly an argument for playing both if you want.

In:

My replacement for Beastmaster’s Ascension, Shared Animosity will usually trigger all of your attackers since such an overwhelming majority of them are
Goblins. Shared Animosity has a much higher end than Beastmaster’s Ascension, but when you’re on defense it does nothing, and the defending player can
still kill your creatures with blocks just as easily as before. From just looking at the objective power level of the cards I could easily justify either
one, but I decided to go with this one for similar reasons that I got rid of Nevinral’s Disk. Because Shared Animosity is so high-variance, games where you
play it will still feel like games right up until the lethal attack happens, instead of the situation where your creatures flat-out trump all but the
biggest creatures of your opponents as soon as the Ascension is turned online.

More token enablers, both of these cards will let you double up on all of your effects and make the math spiral out of control that much faster. Doubling
Season is a little pricy, but since you suggested Blood Moon as an option I’m assuming you have a decent budget for the overhaul. If you don’t want to
spring for an almost $30 card, Primal Vigor is a budget option that also helps your opponents.

You have a lot of creatures and a lot of basic lands, so Earthcraft is in a great place to shine here. On the turns before you attack with your whole team,
this can let you spiral creatures into mana into more creatures, assuming you have more token spells to cast. It will also let you turn a huge board
directly into a pair of equally huge Fireballs pointed at your opponents’ faces.

The Planeswalkers

Out:

Koth of the Hammer is actually one of the few planeswalkers that I like, but he demands a manabase made entirely of Mountains for him to really shine. He
seems to have been included mostly for his ability to generate huge amounts of mana, but there are several cards in red that do the same thing and work
better with your theme. Garruk Wildspeaker is mostly unexciting. His plus doesn’t have any targets better than Kessig Wolf Run here, and his minus is
mediocre. The Overrun effect is nice and easy to reach, but you have better ways to pump your team, and I needed another slot freed up.

The Spells

Out:

This can basically be described as your cantrip section, and while I can agree that doubling up on incidental card draw is pretty good, the cards
themselves have to justify their place in the deck. Wild Guess and Tormenting Voice are deceptive in that they’re cheap cards that do nothing but gum up
your hand until after you’ve played your six-drop commander. I’d rather have more action in the lategame, and early on these are just mediocre filtering.

Ignorant Bliss gets cut for similar reasons, as it literally does nothing other than draw cards. (I’m working under the assumption that there isn’t a lot
of discard in your metagame, but I could be wrong.) There’s a better argument for keeping Slice in Twain in than the others, but I prefer the flexibility
of Bramblecrush and Beast Within.

Explore is the best card getting cut in this section since it’s a decent effect in its own right. The problem is that it’s a ramp card that doesn’t help
you when your hand doesn’t have enough lands, and doubling up on extra land drops probably won’t do anything. This card is seldom impressive past turn 3 or
so, and that’s not really where I want things to be.

The last smattering of cuts to your list; they’re all here as spells that don’t really belong. I’ve yet to meet someone that enjoys resolving a Thieves’
Auction, let alone a whole playgroup of them. Twinflame is a truly awesome card, but other than making infinite Dualcaster Mages, you don’t have many
creatures that are exciting to copy, especially once you exclude the legendary targets. As much as I like the card, this simply isn’t the deck for it.

Decree of Savagery is the most expensive finisher you included for your token plan. Unfortunately, it’s also the most mediocre one since it doesn’t affect
creatures played after it resolves, and its bonus is smaller than that of Beastmaster Ascension.

Bonfire of the Damned once terrorized Standard, but I’m cutting it here because it lines up really awkwardly against the rest of your gameplan. If you’re
casting it for its miracle cost, you’ll rarely have mana from rituals to really power it up, and if you have the mana to hit big numbers with, it it’ll
cost you twice as much to cast. Add in the fact that you’re trying to directly kill players with your Fireballs, and paying more to also hit their
creatures doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

In:

Speaking of rituals, your deck needed a few more for consistency’s sake. You were already running Brightstone Ritual, so Battle Hymn is a no-brainer. Mana
Geyser is one of the generically best rituals in Commander and will usually net you at least fifteen mana when you fire it off. These are the cards you
want to use to kill someone with a gigantic Comet Storm.

More token-makers for the deck, all three of these are higher-end than most of the cards you’re currently running. You aren’t really set up to abuse the
storm mechanic as much as most decks do, but with Wort it should be able to get six to eight tokens out of the deal, and that’s a better rate than Dragon
Fodder and the like give you.

Parallel Evolution is a retroactive version of Parallel Lives that you can conspire, basically letting you quadruple your board in a turn. Flashback on the
next turn will multiply your board to a total factor of sixteen, which should be enough to secure a win in short order if your starting boardstate was at
all reasonable.

Mogg Infestation is easily the oddest card I’ve added, but it performs a similar function to Parallel Evolution. In a desperate situation, you can fire it
off at someone else’s board, but it’s mostly being included to turn every creature you control into four Goblin tokens, courtesy of Wort’s conspire
ability. The fact that it kills your general is a little annoying, but Mogg Infestation into Battle Hymn will usually give you enough mana to replay Wort
and cast a conspired Fireball at your opponents.

I haven’t touched on your basics-matter theme much, other than the addition of Earthcraft. Wave of Vitriol is a little bit of a nod in that direction. You
were worried that Ruination might be too mean, but Wave lets your victims replace their lost lands with basics while also clearing away problem permanents.
That five-color player that refuses to run any basics will hate you, but a manabase that greedy needs to be punished from time to time.

Speaking of Basic-matters cards, Price of Progress was too perfect for me to not include. It doesn’t actually deprive people of mana like most of the
nonbasic hate cards, but sometimes you’ll be able to pick off especially greedy players while only hurting yourself a little. Knocking someone out of a
game will usually earn you less ire than locking them out of casting anything.

The card I’m replacing Bonfire of the Damned with. Rolling Thunder doesn’t have that pesky double X in its mana cost and comes with the ability to divide
its damage as you chose. That means you can straight- up kill one player and snipe off another’s utility creatures. And that’s before Wort copies it.

This is that last card I’m adding to the deck, and I feel a little bad about holding it back for this long, because Past in Flames hugely changes how your
deck functions. Anyone who’s watched a Storm deck in Legacy can attest to how radically this card changes the course of a game. This card single-handedly
makes milling yourself with Altar of Dementia a valid backup plan, and will also allow you to reset a killing blow after countermagic ruins your plans.
Even outside of these scenarios, Past in Flames will allow you to assemble a kill out of much fewer resources than you would be able to normally, as you
can rebuy your rituals and get to fireball mana that much faster. The one thing to remember is that Past in Flames gives Flashback to the cards in your
graveyard, not to the graveyard itself. That means any spell you cast from your hand after Past in Flames resolves won’t have Flashback once it goes to the
graveyard.

With all of these changes added together, we get the following:

Wort, the Raidmother

Levi Byrne

Test deck on 10-27-2015

Commander

Creatures (9)

• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Vexing Shusher
• 1 Wort, the Raidmother
• 1 Keeper of Progenitus
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Krenko, Mob Boss
• 1 Elvish Mystic
• 1 Courser of Kruphix
• 1 Dualcaster Mage

Planeswalkers (1)

• 1 Xenagos, the Reveler

Lands (39)

• 17 Snow-Covered Mountain
• 16 Snow-Covered Forest
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Kher Keep
• 1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
• 1 Khalni Garden
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Temple of Abandon

Spells (51)

• 1 Earthcraft
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Regrowth
• 1 Rolling Thunder
• 1 Mogg Infestation
• 1 Price of Progress
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Parallel Evolution
• 1 Final Fortune
• 1 Early Harvest
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Mana Geyser
• 1 Explosive Vegetation
• 1 Brightstone Ritual
• 1 Harrow
• 1 Altar of Dementia
• 1 Skyshroud Claim
• 1 Restock
• 1 Recoup
• 1 Far Wanderings
• 1 Doubling Season
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Empty the Warrens
• 1 Reiterate
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Hunting Triad
• 1 Shared Animosity
• 1 Manamorphose
• 1 Dragon Fodder
• 1 Banefire
• 1 Comet Storm
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Reverberate
• 1 Green Sun's Zenith
• 1 Red Sun's Zenith
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Devil's Play
• 1 Past in Flames
• 1 Parallel Lives
• 1 Bramblecrush
• 1 Increasing Vengeance
• 1 Battle Hymn
• 1 Krenko's Command
• 1 Boundless Realms
• 1 Goblin Rally
• 1 Clan Defiance
• 1 Act on Impulse
• 1 Hordeling Outburst
• 1 Wave of Vitriol
• 1 Shamanic Revelation

As always, Chase will get twenty dollars in store credit for having his deck featured this week on Dear Azami, which he can put towards making some of the
changes I’ve suggested here.

The changes come in at just over $90, which isn’t bad for an overhaul that includes multiple twenty-dollar cards. There are so many ways to build a Wort
deck that I feel like this is just a small slice of what’s possible. I tried to stay faithful to Chase’s vision for the deck, but Wort could just as easily
fuel a dedicated storm deck or a truly absurd ramp deck with lots of landfall triggers. The possibilities are only as limited as your imagination.

Come back next week for more of Jess and more Commander deck advice!

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