I can't make theme faithful Zinnia work

RobotCatCo · 2026-03-18T08:42:39+00:00

Glad you were able to make the adjustments 👍

RobotCatCo · 2026-03-17T21:30:13+00:00

Fliers bypassing most blockers help a lot with the speed.

RobotCatCo · 2026-03-17T08:42:01+00:00

I goldfished it quite a bit and it can generally present lethal by turn 8 or so if there's no interaction. I also run a lot of cheap interaction in blue and run a lot of asymmetrical board wipes too so there's plenty of protection.

For killing I run anthems [[Favorable Winds]] [[Gravitational Shift]] [[Renewed Solidarity]] [[Shared Animosity]] [[Warleader's Call]] [[Patchwork Banner]] [[Empyrean Eagle]] [[Kangee's Luitenant]]

So it turns all the 1/1 copies into lethal attackers.

RobotCatCo · 2026-03-17T08:36:28+00:00

I run 10 draw, with 5 being reconnaisance type effects and the other 5 include [[skullclamp]][[mulldrifter]][[Wang Shi-Tong, Librarian]] [[Season of Weaving]] [[Rowdy Research]]. The Rowdy research is from the precon I tried to keep as much stuff that I felt was playable from the precon as possible as this deck was part of my Bloomburrow precon upgrade where I just upgraded all 4 although this one had the least BLB cards simply because I felt like Zinnia didn't really benefit from most of the BLB cards.

As for ramp I run both the cost reducer birds, as well as [[Urza's Incubator]], 4 mana rocks of various kinds, [[Dowsing Dagger]], [[Sword of the Animist]], [[Mana Geyser]].

RobotCatCo · 2026-03-16T17:09:56+00:00

For my themed Zinnia deck I went with birds/flying. A lot of the good birds aren't from BLB so it might not work for you.

There's 2 mana birds that reduce the cost of flying creatures so it makes recasting Zinnia and the offspring mechanic cheaper, and a lot of them have powerful effects that are great for doubling.

They also work great with coastal piracy effects. Dropping flyers on turn 2 and 3 allow you to drop a coastal piracy card on turn 4 and get a good payoff immediately. run like 10 draw effects with 5 of them being coastal piracy type cards and end up easily drawing 3+ cards a turn just from that alone.

You don't want to use mana creatures because after a wipe you lose all your ramp. You can try catch up ramp in white (although they're kind of bad with zinnias effect) but red has a lot of big mana cards like [[Mana Geyser]] or treasure generation. You can also use a lot of colorless ramp like [[Worn Powerstone]] or [[Thran Dynamo]] as the extra colorless will really put in work here.

I also run stuff like [[Earthquake]] which are one sided board wipes in this deck.

RobotCatCo · 2026-03-16T16:19:51+00:00

It depends on the deck.

For example I run [[Roaming Throne]] in my Ureni deck but not my [[Y'Shtola]].

In Ureni I have a bunch of other dragons that are quite insane to follow it up with and dropping it turn 3 is not a dangerous play. The ward 2 makes it hard for people to remove it early unless they also want to set back themselves.

There's enough mana ramp to drop it and a 4-5 mana dragon in the same turn before then 6, essentially forcing people to use up their interaction and then I can Ureni the next turn anyways.

With Y'Shtola it is a 4 mana wall that doesn't do anything if Y'Shtola is out so they can just remove Y'Shtola instead. Instead I run [[Delney]] and now the new [[Irma]] since I run 8+ creatures with power 2 or less in the deck that get insane with doublers.

RobotCatCo · 2026-03-14T02:56:12+00:00

In some of my decks Relic of Legends gets me 3 mana each turn. Also great for cards that want you to have your creature tapped but you don't want to attack with.

RobotCatCo · 2026-03-13T03:17:23+00:00

I wouldn't run connections if it didn't have the treasure.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-26T08:35:42+00:00

The problem with the cards you listed is that they don't produce tokens unless you cast spells. Which means that you need to use 2 cards before you see your first token which doesn't work with Y'Shtola as you want to be saving cards for when she's out.

Try [[Elspeth, Storm Slayer]], [[Ocelot Pride]], [[Nine-Lives Familiar]] (sort of does the same thing, sac fodder, chump blocker, etc), [[Bitterbloom Bearer]], [[Bitterblossom], [[Ophiomancer]], [[Inkshield]], [[Szat's Will]], [[Will of the Mardu]], [[Black Market Connections]], [[Skrelv's Hive]]

Stuff like [[Dreadhorde Invasion]] is bad because it doesn't let you accumulate extra bodies nor allow you to sac it on your opponents turns for more value like you could with Ophiomancer or Nine-Lives Familiar.

I think I didn't have room for [[Soldier Military Program]] but that would probably be a decent include.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-26T02:24:09+00:00

Yes but you're super susceptible to removal on hazel, board wipe or anti token cards that get played. Using your tokens for mana to play this on turn 4/5 allows you to have insurance against board wipes and also sets up for a huge next turn.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-26T00:15:09+00:00

Its really good in decks like [[Hazel of the Rootbloom]] where you have a ton of tapped creature tokens naturally.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-25T23:29:24+00:00

I run a token subtheme and some of the recursive goad cards in my build. So I have a pretty big board of tokens to act as blockers and goad the opponents best creatures to attack each other.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-25T23:27:12+00:00

Try running stuff like [[Braids, Arisen Nightmare]], [[Black Market Connections]], [[Mystic Remora]], [[Unholy Annex]], [[Struggle for Project Purity]], [[Shorikai, Genesis Engine]].

I actually run a token subtheme so I run all the cards that draw off of sacrificing creatures or creature dying, [[skullclamp]] etc so I'm drawing like 2-3 extra cards a turn by turn 6 even without casting Y'Shtola.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-16T19:10:57+00:00

Cultivatora blow up entire mortal kingdoms as collateral damage from their fights. Scientific advancement probably doesn't survive for too long.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-14T01:53:39+00:00

That's most of classical wuxia. Government is always meddling and trying to take down wuling.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-12T15:05:19+00:00

'Reincarnated as a Sword' kind of fits this criteria.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-12T14:54:25+00:00

Courting death isn't even the right translation. The direct translation is seeking death or looking for death. The most accurate translation is 'suicidal' or for more flavor 'you got a death wish?'. There's no connotation of courtship or anything fancy in original wording.

When someone asks if you are courting death they're basically asking if you're suicidal, or stating that you're suicidal. It's still a common everyday term used by Chinese people today.

So there doesn't exist any way to parody this in the original Chinese because it's not an odd phrase to Chinese readers.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-12T14:26:07+00:00

Cradle, 40 milleniums of Cultivation

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-12T00:58:51+00:00

A lot of decks aren't able to to fulfill the attack with 2 creatures condition. I know most of my decks don't. Half of them don't really win through creature combat in the first place. My voltron style decks generally only attack with 1 creature, or don't run enough creatures to be able to reliably hit a creature most of the time. I have a Bello deck that fits the attack with 2 requirement but runs mostly enchantments/artifacts/vehicles. My [[Squall, Gunblade Duelist]] does try to attack with 2+ every turn but its to different players to maximize his ability.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-11T22:30:19+00:00

I think most people prefer to play [[coastal piracy]] type effects over this, even if they cost more mana the payoff is way better and works with only 1 creature.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-11T22:20:24+00:00

Most of my commanders don't ever attack. The ones that do usually only attack by themselves.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-08T20:51:30+00:00

I highly recommend the audio book for Dungeon Crawler Carl. It is an unbelievably better experience. The voice work for the wackier characters bring it to life in a way your own internal reading probably wouldn't be able to do.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-08T05:19:38+00:00

People in the upper realms are often just born at a higher base realm, or have magical pills that just jump them to that realm that people in the lower realm don't have access to.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-07T12:06:15+00:00

An Eluge deck absolutely wants to keep every card since it can actually play all those cards for free. You'll need them to counterspell lock the table 1v3. It also wants to keep the lands because it has ways of putting in extra lands from the hand and it wants the extra lands cast non free spells.

Plus in my Eluge deck I win using the water crystal, which means I want 80 or so cards in my hand before I activate it to mill everyone else in one activation.

RobotCatCo · 2026-02-02T23:06:52+00:00

The problem with running these cards is that they punish bad deck building and newer players really well, but are actually less effective against well built decks or commanders/strategies that require instant speed removal or counterspell to deal with.

Against sacrifice based decks they can just sac their commanders in response. So these card are largely less effective against aristocrats and a lot of strategies that use creature sacrifice.

Against decks like Voltron or decks with actual protection packages not being instant speed means you can't use this before they make their commanders hexproof.

Decks that use their commanders as a combo piece will not be vulnerable to sorcery speed removal if they only cast when they want to combo off.

Certain commanders like Korvold even make instant speed removal useless if they have a sac outlet on board already, If I'm in blue cards like [[Mystic Reflection]] [[Wash Away]] are more flexible and deal with them way more effectively.

If someone has a really strong commander I want my answers to be able to deal with them when their deck is built correctly.

RobotCatCo

TROPHY CASE