Big Beast Lifegain Thread

[train]

Figured we could start a deck from Shabbaman's idea:

I'd rather run syphon mind over syphon soul, and I wouldn't take out the hull breaches. Hull breach means card advantage! The deck seems horribly low on drawing cards anyway. I say the deck needs more sylvan libaries and abundances. And Loxodon warhammers. Trampling lifelink big bastards is a viable multiplayer strategy. I don't see why you need all that land if you run four Krosan tuskers. 24 lands should be enough.

On the subject of Krosan tuskers, why not build a trampling lifelink big beast deck? There's a lot of goodness in a beast deck. You have a Spiritmonger and you have Taurean mauler. Copperhoof Vorrac is a real beast in multiplayer (and pretty cheap to pick up), and then there's Ravenous Baloth (although not so good with the recent rule change). But the real reason to play beasts is Contested Cliffs. You you want to win through the attack phase, this card is amazing to clear blockers. And with Garruk you can use it twice. Imagine that with an elephant hammer on a Spiritmonger.

Creatures
1 Spiritmonger
4 Copperhoof vorrac
4 Krosan tusker
4 Taurean mauler
4 Wall of roots
1 Ravenous baloth
1 Chameleon collossus
4 Drumhunter

Spells
1 Pernicious deed (or similar sweeper like Disc)
2Pyroclasm
4 Putrefy
3 Loxodon warhammer

1 Garruk
1 Liliana
1 Chandra

Lands
4 Contested cliffs
20 More land

If you want more removal, there's Molder slug and Indrik stomphowler. If you replace the removal with something like Shriekmaw, go all out and just play Heartwood storyteller. Or go more with a bigger beasts theme with Spearbreaker behemoth and Paleoloth.

 

[Shabbaman]

Wow, that looks like a nice deck

The deck is a bit slow, I'm afraid. The mauler and the vorrac can get pretty big. If you get past 5 power you can utilize the other beasts like Spearbreaker behemoth (indestructable beasts!).

 

[Killer Joe]

This deck in multiplayer is just about the right speed. This deck, however, looks way more intimidating than train's suggested decklist for my jund.

 

[train]

Beasti-whoop-ur-acid-ness...

I have to go with so much utility in my decks... when limiting to something like beasts - I open it up with wishes, etc. Enough for early game holding on, and late game umph!

Creatures
4 Thornweald Archer
4 Krosan Tusker
3 Taurean Mauler
2 Copperhoof Vorrac
2 Protean Hulk
1 Eternal Witness
2 Spellbreaker Behemoth
2 Ravenous Baloth
2 Stampeding Wildebeests
2 Krosan Warchief
2 Mold Shambler
1 Crater Hellion


Planeswalker
1 Garruk Wildspeaker

Spells
3 Sudden Shock
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Fling
1 Outmaneuver
1 Starstorm
1 Krosan Grip
2 Gaea's Blessing.
1 Wheel of Fortune
2 Living Wish


Enchantment:
4 Sneak Attack

Land
6 Forest
6 Mountain
3 contested Cliffs
4 Stomping Ground (G/R)
4 Taiga
4 Shivan Oasis

 

[Shabbaman]

There's a lot of good stuff in Train's list. He's right about living wish: in my beasts deck I run four. I don't have the deck complete anymore though, it was actually more a rock deck with a beast subtheme. Contested cliffs is good enough to run even if you only have Ravenous baloth. But let's not start throwing lists at each other, first establish what deck we want.

-beasts
-lifegain
-contested cliffs
-multiplayer (I assume)
-vintage restricted list?
-budget/card availability? (are we building this for someone specific? I have 4 ravenous baloth and 2 spiritmongers, but if you don't have them I wouldn't really recommend buying them. For instance: Genesis, almost a must have but very pricey. Could be out of casual range)

It started out as a deck for KJ, so that's where the colors GRB come from. Some (imho) good choices from the other thread:

-Krosan Tusker (best reason to run beasts besides contested cliffs, lets you run different colors without )
-Taurean Mauler (big in mulitplayer, low casting cost)
-Copperhoof Vorrac (biggest beast ever)

With beasts you can go three directions:
-onslaught elves (wirewood savage)
-alara 5 power comes into play (footsteps, sacellum godspeaker, paleoloth)
-alara 5 power benefits while in play (drumhunter)

Of course you could go with all three, but I like focused decks. The onslaught elves aren't so great, so I'd go with the Alara stuff. As I don't like to have conditional cards that suck when a condition isn't met, I don't like the 5 power citp cards. Getting a creature to 5 power is easy though.

Beasts are a bit slow, you can get around this by ramping up mana or running something like elves. You don't want to make yourself a target early in the game, that's why I suggested wall of roots. The best early beasts are Taurean mauler and Woolly thoctar. That last one requires white. As white gives us Behemoth sledge, perhaps running white instead of black is a better option. I think the choice depends on how many spiritmongers and pernicious deeds you own. There are a lot of beasts in white (well, actually in the naya shard). For those unfamiliar with new cards, check this.

I think an option to consider is to run only creatures (and lands) and go Gaddock Teeg or Heartwood storyteller. Or both. A deck with only creatures is definately possible (considering cards like Shriekmaw and Indrik stomphowler). Teeg might not win you friends, but Storyteller will. And I think running no (or few: I'd run living wish anyway) other spells is a nice subtheme for a deck like this.

Oh, white also gives us Felidar sovereign. Sounds like a nice win condition in a lifelink deck

 

[train]

Yeah - the thing about my decks (all of them) is that I have to make sure I have additional utility... even in a Skeleton deck - there's about 1/3rd utility in the deck... The main reason I build them this way is to ensure that no matter what deck I sit across from, I know there are cards in my deck that can adapt to the cards that keep appearing in my opponent's hand and battlefield.

Example: build a well-rounded all beasts deck, and without stomphowlers and mold shamblers - the deck is screwed with the landing of disk, humility, ensnaring bridge, wrath of god, armageddon, exiling, etc.
- But, with enough utility, there are things I can do about each of these...

I trimmed out the white and black to go with just R/G beasts and had the lifegain in as I would normally run it... (not tons - but I can pull more with wishes, etc., the blessings cycle cards to keep the lifegain periodic at the least)
- I had white in at first for the Nishobas and brushhoppers... (a 3-mana 3/4 that you can make "disappear" temporarily is pretty smooth...


I don't really take into account budget and card restrictions unless someone specifically mentions they need that taken into consideration... My typical deck runs 61-63 cards, but I took into account the following for this one:

-beasts - I started with an all beasts deck - but even with the cheap ones, and warchief - it seemed there wasn't enough that could be done early game... thus archers, more burn, etc.

-lifegain - I limit this, but make sure there is time to get you to a building point.

-contested cliffs - additional re-usable control...

-multiplayer - this is huge because like you mentioned with vorrac before, this becomes a key part of vorrac's strength and with him and mauler - they would play best in multiplayer... it also had me increase the size of the deck.

and overall - just made a beast deck as "train" would make one... (heck - even the commons deck I posted in the other thread had a shatter thrown in to deal with artifacts... just my style I guess...)

 

[Shabbaman]

I agree with the 1/3 utility split, it makes a lot of sense. You can get there with creatures as well though, that's my point.

 

[train]

I'll see about a list that's creature based that works best for me... probably a WGB one...

posting later...

 

[Shabbaman]

WGB? For me the only reason to consider beasts is contested cliffs. I think the tribal strategy is weak otherwise. 5+ power works even without beasts btw. Black is good, if only for Shriekmaw or Fleshbag marauder together with Genesis. But with contested cliffs I don't think that's really necessary.

BTW, another route I considered is Beacon Blaster plus beasts.

 

[train]

I went mono-green...

4 Krosan Warchief
3 Mold Shambler
1 Indrik Stomphowler
1 Root Greevil
1 Molder Slug
4 Krosan Tusker
3 Eternal Witness
4 Ravenous Baloth
2 Thresher Beast
2 Stampeding Wildebeests
2 Venomspout Brackus
2 Hystrodon
3 Protean Hulk
2 Darksteel Brute
3 Wirewood Savage
2 totem Speaker

1 Treetop Village
1 Sapseep Forest
1 Diamond Valley
3 Gaea's Cradle
1 Maze of Ith
1 Oran-Rief the Vastwood
1 Arena
12 Forests

 

[Shabbaman]

Stampeding wildebeests is a good idea, especially with cards like Wall of roots/blossoms and wood elves. And, obviously, Indrik Stomphowler. Or Blastoderm. It adds a lot to the deck, it changes it from a pretty straightforward deck to a, well, nice deck Card advantage with wall of blossoms and acceleration (which the deck urgently needs) with wall of roots is what could make this deck really good. I like it. As a matter of fact, I'll actually come up with a deck list

I think I might not pick Drumhunter. At 4 mana I guess it comes a bit late. It doesn't shore up the deck's weakness (sloooooowwwwww...) and it's fragile. So I think I'll go with Paleoloth as the additional card drawing machine. I'm looking for something to do with these cards. Something like Gigapede or a nice retrace card like Savage conception. Ideas?

 

[Shabbaman]

I've come to this. I'm not happy with the mana curve. I think something like wood elves should be in there, but I don't know what to cut. With the wildebeest you can bounce the storyteller when you want to play wish or sledge. I think Sledge could be cut completely. I wouldn't cut Wish because I like versatility.

4 Living Wish
4 behemoth sledge (or warhammer, but sledge is cheaper)

4 Krosan tusker
4 Taurean mauler
4 Ravenous baloth
3 Copperhoof vorrac
3 Heartwood storyteller

1 Spearbreaker behemoth
1 Paleoloth
1 indrik stomphowler
1 Mold shambler
1 Stampeeding wildebeests
1 Stampeding serow

4 Wall of roots/blossoms

Lands
3 Contested cliffs
21 Basic land

SB
1 Contested cliffs
1 Felidar Sovereign
1 Phantom nishoba
1 Spearbreaker behemoth
1 Paleoloth
1 Mold shambler
1 indrik stomphowler
1 Anurid Swarmsnapper
1 Stampeding wildebeests
1 Copperhoof vorrac
1 Venomspout Brackus
1 Copperhoof vorrac
1 Heartwood storyteller
1 Stampeding serow
1 Gaddock teeg

 

[Killer Joe]

that last version definitely smacks of 'tool-box' ness, LOL!

The wishes seemed to make it better. I think I'll mess with the list a bit in my own way and see what i come with.

 

[Shabbaman]

My idea is that it has a toolbox, it must be good. This deck has a bit of a poor toolbox. A card like Treefolk Harbringer would be really good; as a matter of fact, it would solve different problems at once. A treefolk deck could be even better, but treefolk don't have contested cliffs. Perhaps the deck could be retooled to work with Protean hulk (although the main problem with hulk is that everyone thinks you're playing combo and WILL gang up on you). Perhaps the best plan would be to run Natural order, or perhaps Primal command. Unfortunately I don't have any. And besides that, it's not a creature.

A real pity there aren't any treefolk beasts. If you happen to have any Chameleon collossi you could easily build a hybrid deck. The Alara block beasts aren't tribal but have a power requirement. If you switch the walls for the harbringers and the ravenous baloths for chameleon collossi you're halfway there. Instead of the stomphowler and shambler use Woodfall Primus, which happens to be one of my favorite green creatures. If you have a Primus and a Storyteller (also a Treefolk...) out I doubt anyone dares to play a Wrath. I like the idea. All I want is a multiplayer deck with Contested Cliffs and Heartwood Storyteller, and this could be it. Taurean Mauler and Chameleon Collossus can be big enough to take everything out with Contested Cliffs. I like it.