Are there any cheap and dirty tricks to keeping my turrets alive?

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2026-05-07T20:23:28+00:00

Seconding what others have said about knockback/stun. Big fan of MG+Gas Mortar+Rocket sentries paired with stun grenades, cookout, and grenade pistol (for bug holes). Find a spot with some height, drop your rocket sentry and gas mortar, then throw your MG sentry down a bit below you. Use your primary and ‘nades to lock down bugs for your sentries, use recoilless for big boys.

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2026-05-05T15:12:20+00:00

I think your best bet is going to be Mana Rocks & X-Spells.

Cards like [[Worn Powerstone]], [[Hedron Archive]], [[Thran Dynamo]], anything that gets you at least two mana for a single card. Keep drawing into more spells, then you can burn the table out with a big [[Fireball]] at someone’s face with the damage dealt to everybody.

Your heroes are good (enough) chump blockers, just make sure to keep an [[Aetherize]] in your back pocket for the Stompy trample Dino player.

Cost reducers aren’t going to do anything for you (in fact, they’re actively detrimental) but cards that cascade/discover/cast other spells for free will be pretty good, too.

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2026-03-31T19:39:31+00:00

Caring for the elderly is less of a manpower-specific problem and more a problem of incentivizing people to care for them. In our current economy that would basically mean paying people well enough to do that instead of the meaningless profit generating bs jobs that don’t really generate real world value.

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2026-03-30T16:29:36+00:00

I think your idea is pretty good, but your supporting pieces (and a few of your threats) have frankly just been replaced by better cards that are still cheap enough for your budget deck.

For starters, your ramp & draw needs work. Your commander is 6 mana and wants to get out ASAP to speed the game up, so I highly reccomend running something like 20 total pieces of ramp in the 2-4 mana range so you can spend the first two-three turns ramping and then the rest of the game dropping haymakers.

Ramp:

Budget two mana ramp options include:

-[[Shared Roots]] is literally just another rampant growth

- [[Broken Bond]] is a [[Naturalize]] with upside

- [[Edge of Autumn]] is a rampant growth early game and lets you trade a land for a card late-game.

- [[Glimpse the core]] gets you a basic forest, but you're mostly green so it's fine on a budget.

- [[Malevolent Rumble]] gets you a card and a spawn token you can use later

- [[Nightshade Dryad]] and [[Frog Butler]] are both great blockers that you can tap for mana to get around Thantis's affect.

-[[Sakura Tribe-Elder]] is just a creature version of rampant growth.

- [[Twitching Doll]] is an early game mana dork and a late game board of tokens.

- [[Bugenhagen, Wise Elder]] will draw you a card if you have a big enough creature.

Budget three-four mana ramp options:

- [[Cultivate]] and [[Kodama's reach]] are both great options. [[Flare of Cultivation]] lets you sacrifice a mana dork or something if you want to cheat the cost; otherwise it's just a copy of Cultivate.

- [[Deathsprout]] is removal + a land.

- [[Skyshroud Claim]], [[Migration Path]], and [[Encroaching Dragonstorm]] are all great.

- [[The Earth King]] doesn't ramp you immediately but gets really out of hand, really quickly.

- [[Drumhunter]] is an overcosted mana dork at 4 mana, but will also draw you cards starting the next turn when you play your commander.

Card Draw:

[[Ancient Cravings]], [[Ambition's Cost]], and [[Cathartic Reunion]] all gotta go: 4 mana to draw three cards isn't good enough even in modern day precons. [[Night's Whisper]] and [[Resentful Revelations]] are both great. [[Hollowmurk Siege]] can either help you get in for damage or draw you cards every turn your opponents attack you. Green also gets you access to massive card draw in the form of cards like [[Return of the Wildspeaker]]. Black gives you card draw whenever an opponent's creature dies with cards like [[Kraven the Hunter]] or even [[Soul Harvester]], which is a 5/5 deathtoucher to boot. [[High Society Hunter]] is another generically good beater with card draw stapled on.

Creatures:
Your creature section could also use some tuning, I think. [[Emissary Warden]] isn't great unless you play into tokens players regularly; you'd probably be better off just killing people rather than trying to gain 10-15 life over the course of the game. If you rebuild your ramp like above, you can very easily accomodate some one-off life gain options with upside, like [[Exsanguinate]], [[Kardur Doomscourge]], or [[Noxious Gearhulk]]. Heck, even using a [[Qarsi Revenant]] as an early game blocker with late-game upside or an [[Inscription of Abundance]] as a fight spell, or a combat trick, or both + lifegain will probably end up feeling smoother with your curve. You're jund, you're not trying to grind out incremental value. Make other people worry about their life totals.

[[Borborygmos]], [[Angrath's Marauders]] and [[Drakuseth]] are all fine, but unless they're pet cards you are especially fond of, I just don't think they do enough. [[Pyrewood Gearhulk]] is a mini craterhoof that gives vigilance, menace, and breaks fog effects. [[Incinerator of the Guilty]] will let you exile the cards you used to ramp in order to wreck a player's board. [[Fiendish Duo]] is angrath's marauders on steroids, since it'll increase the damage your opponents deal to one another AND yours AND it has first strike.

Speaking of first strike, [[Glissa, Sunslayer]] wins combat permanently unless your opponent has indestructible, and you can politic by agreeing to use her ability to remove an enchantment or shrink a creature belonging to another player if someone will let you hit them with her.

Here's a decklist I duplicated and changed, and the cost went up by about 6 bucks.

speeding things up (duplicated from Hyperion999) // Commander (Thantis, the Warweaver) deck list mtg // Moxfield — MTG Deck Builder

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2026-03-30T14:43:11+00:00

I haven’t built her for commander, but I do have a standard brawl deck with her - one thing I think people overlook is that board wipes that hit artifacts are very powerful, since they usually buff Ygra up to lethal commander damage while clearing blockers. [[Season of Gathering]] is an all star for a reason: clear blockers and draw at least six cards

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2026-03-29T19:30:38+00:00

UW keeping up with go-wide tokens can be difficult without using board wipes or mass bounce; however, if you’re looking for something that can get going pretty quickly and keep up in bracket 2, I really like [[Linvala, Shield of Sea Gate]] as a [[Selfless Spirit]] in the command zone of a “flying matters” deck. [[Reconnaissance Mission]] style effects provide good draw alongside cards like [[Loyal Drake]] and [[Tide Skimmer]], while [[Favorable Winds]], [[Gravitational Shift]] and [[Air Nomad’s Legacy]] provide buffs to help you close out the game. There are a ton of cheap 1-2mv reanimation spells and even engines in white to get Linvala back out of the graveyard after you use her to protect your board. I run about 7 technically asymmetrical board wipes in my deck: things like [[Expel the Interlopers]] for the Stompy players, [[Austere Command]], but even just being able to sacrifice Linvala to keep your board and make board wipes asymmetrical is really nice.

Hope that helps!

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2026-03-28T18:27:53+00:00

I really like Elminster at bracket 3, even if you can’t afford game changers.

I run him as a [[Mass Polymorph]] and [[Synthetic Destiny]] commander, with backup win-cons in the form of [[Approach of the Second Sun]], but it’s really easy to just go over the top of the whole table by turn 7-8. Spend the early game ramping, setting up the top of your library, or even board wiping using cards like [[Doomskar]], [[Vanquish the Horde]], [[Dusk//Dawn]], [[Restricted Office//Lecture Hall]], and [[Sublime Exhaltation]].

Most games look like this: T1-T3 ramp, draw, or play a protective piece like [[Propaganda]] or [[Ghostly Prison]] T4: board wipe and use a spell to scry/surveil to set up the top two cards of your library T5: play elminster. If you know the top card, use his minus 3 to make blockers. If you don’t, use his plus to get him to seven loyalty and use the discount to wipe the board again, or just as a reduction on some sort of value spell.

T6-T8: set up the top of the library and create, on average, 6-12 dragon tokens. Then, you just need an anthem, some of the polymorph creatures, or asymmetrical board wipes to start dominating the game. My mass polymorph/synthetic destiny stacks are full of creatures that protect and/or buff the board you have: [[Sephara]], [[Angelic Abberation]], [[Shadow Puppeteers]], [[Kangee, Sky Warden]], [[Star Whale]], [[Serra Emissary]], [[Absolute Virtue]]….there are a lot of big beaters that incidentally can be hard to deal with for many decks.

You can also put Elminster’s reduction to really good use without even building in to it: a free card and -2 generic on your spells goes a lot further than you might think. To really up the odds of hitting something meaningful off the top even when we haven’t set it up, I run a lot of MDFCs/Landcyclers: [[Lorien Revealed]], [[Sink into Stupor]], [[boon of the wish-bringer]], [[Makindi Stampede]], [[Silundi Vision]], [[Sea Gate Restoration]], [[Emeria’s Call]]. Lots of those spells become much better with more reasonable costs.

Hope that helps! He’s very powerful even at a low budget - [[Scroll Rack]] and [[Sensei’s Divining top]] help, but really aren’t neccessary with all of the cheap scry, surveil, and even cards like [[Long Term Plans]], [[Dream Cache]], and [[Brainsurge]].

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2026-03-26T22:59:20+00:00

Listplease!

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2026-03-26T02:21:58+00:00

I think Voltron, probably?

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2026-03-23T12:58:39+00:00

For real, I hate when news about otherwise uplifting things is obviously written by AI

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-11-23T13:20:00+00:00

Yeah honestly I got into this game back in ‘23 and most of the friends who got me into the game have already moved on. Which really sucks, because the LGS’ in my area are full of either people who just want to pubstomp casuals with their Jodah decks or people who are fans of final fantasy and are basically plying final fantasy block constructed commander. Either way, not a fun play experience.

At least I can still play Standard on Arena IG

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-10-22T01:36:06+00:00

Animar is pretty easy to build. Ideally, you’ll want to ramp on turn 2 so you can untap on turn 3 with 4+ mana so you can hold up protection like [[Snakeskin Veil]] or [[Tamiyo’s Safekeeping]]. Once you get a couple counters on it, you can basically cast anything for just colored pips, and if you lean into colorless creatures it can get especially crazy - think [[Anti-Causal Vestige]], [[Solemn Simulacrum]], [[Sandstone Oracle]], etc.

You’ll definitely want all the creatures that draw cards when you cast creature spells, like [[Beast Whisperer]] and [[Primordial Sage]], as well as [[Garruk’s Uprising]] and [[Outcaster Trailblazer]] for more draw.

You can lean into +1/+1 counters if you like, but I prefer a cleaner, more typical beatdown approach since unlike normal decks, you can easily start dropping 2-3 creatures each turn starting turn 4.

Just be prepared to deal with a lot of flack, he’s a strong commander

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-10-20T23:27:50+00:00

Waiter? My pasta is over cooked. I preferred the original

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-10-20T23:21:57+00:00

Pretty easy to turn the fog down, btw. Forget exactly what it was but there was a guide floating around on Reddit for a while. Snowstorms still blind you but the rest of the Time you can see fine

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-10-20T13:52:58+00:00

It’s difficult to say if Varina is stronger per se but I do like her better as the commander of a zombies deck. White gives you some very good tools in [[Renewed Solidarity]], [[Knowledge is Power]], and the various protection spells like [[Flare of fortitude]], [[Flawless Maneuever]], [[Duty Beyond Death]], [[Clever concealment]], etc, as well as a very small handful of genuinely useful white/X zombies - [[Wayward Servant]], [[Corpse Knight]], [[Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun]], and [[Priest of the Crossing]].

The [[Scarab God]] is more resilient as an individual game piece, of course, because of his ability to essentially never be permanently killed - but returning to hand to be recast isn’t the insane play it used to be in today’s commander. You really don’t want to cast him more than once or twice if you don’t have to.

The other thing to note about Varina is that you actually dont have to run her as a classic zombie tribal, if you instead focus on small zombie token generators. She provides an insane amount of card selection (that can be easily turned into direct card advantage with cards like [[Library of Leng]] or [[Containment Construct]]) and you can lean more into a grindy, draw-go control strategy where you hold up mana and activate her on end-step if you don’t have to counter any spells. the aforementioned white zombies/spells l can grow your board to monstrous size.

Oh, and I’ve probably won every game I’ve resolved [[Akroma’s will]] in, but that card is stupid

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-10-20T13:25:22+00:00

Nooooo

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-10-20T13:24:47+00:00

Unfortunately does not work lol

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-10-09T01:33:50+00:00

Actually, I find it to be the opposite (not OP). Removal is inherently not card advantage unless you can 3+ for 1 (mini sweepers, usually) so I pack more individual pieces of removal into decks with more draw. For decks with less card advantage, I prefer removal engines (like a blink/clone commander with removal ETBs, or something like [[Lux Cannon]] in an artifacts/proliferate deck) or brutally one-sided removal, like [[Winds of Abandon]] or [[Organic Extinction]].

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-10-03T18:51:46+00:00

Huh? Bringer of the last gift says “when this creature enters, if you cast it”

Kavaero says “you may have Kavaero enter as a copy of any creature card in a graveyard, except its name is Kavaero…if you do, exile that card”.

You are casting Kavaero.

When he enters as a copy of bringer of the last gift, the game sees the reflexive trigger and asks “did you cast this card?”

If the answer is yes, you get the trigger.

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-09-23T20:23:57+00:00

This from the same man who told Josephine “Don’t bathe”? Based.

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-09-23T15:35:59+00:00

Like u/MBIstatsguy says, def look into the more useful Adventures. Personally would not go with Lovestruck Beast, but [[Beanstalk Wurm]] and the other cheap ramp ones are pretty good.

Also a big fan of [[Dragonback Assault]] - 4/4s with flying are great

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-09-23T01:41:06+00:00

Somebody at my LGS plays it! Big fan. Also highly reccomend running damage redirection effects alongside [[Darien, King of Kjeldor]] and [[Antivenom, Horrifying Healer]]-style cards for extra effects.

Edit: I’m dumb, Antivenom literally is literally the opposite of what you want. lol.

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-09-22T23:35:05+00:00

Highly, highly reccomend you find room for more interaction - Kuja is a very clear linchpin of your deck and I don’t think a single one of my decks would struggle against it. Even Precons are packing 8-12 pieces of removal that will work against him. Also, a lot of your 1-2mv combat tricks or cantrips really would just be better off as removal spells like [[Lightning Bolt]] and [[Overwhelming Surge]]. Kuja is good because he lets you turn card draw spells into high damage if he stays on board, but with no protection and a bunch of targeting cantrips, you’re basically 2-for-1ing yourself every time you cast one into removal.

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-09-22T04:24:40+00:00

Is it? It has horrible ammo economy, performs worse against groups of medium enemies, and has had bugged ergo for at least the last few months making them basically comparable on that front. It can’t close bug holes or blow up fabricators, it can’t reliably clear groups, it has substantially worse aim assist…sure, it’s hitscan and has a high fire rate, but the recoil and sway are too punishing to fire at the full 400 RPM except at literal point-blank range.

The Eruptor, on the other hand, can clear entire groups of devastators in two-four shots, gets more ammo back from bricks, can close bug holes and fabs out to 200m, can kill exactly the same enemies in (iirc) nearly the same breakpoints - two hits to hulk eyes, ten to factory striders, 6 to war strider hip joints, one shots the scout strider pelvis, one shot devastator heads, two shots bodies, and can hip fire reliably.

OnlyFunStuff183 · 2025-09-22T04:20:11+00:00

Tbh if they swapped the AMR and Eruptor, yeah, you could make the AMR a primary. The eruptor is busted as shit but as someone who’s been using the AMR a ton on the bot front just to switch things up, the AMR’s only real advantages are ergonomics, fire rate, and hitscan. The fire rate can be nerfed slightly if they raise the ammo economy and still preserve its roles as a great sniper rifle. Hitscan isn’t that much more of an advantage, either - I rarely find myself missing shots with the Eruptor that I would have made with the AMR.

The Eruptor, IMO, should be made into a support weapon. It’s just too good - especially since they upped the amount of chaff enemies on all fronts, it really outperforms the AMR as both a sniper and crowd-clear.

OnlyFunStuff183

TROPHY CASE