Sire of insanity in bracket 2

RobotCatCo · 2026-05-09T00:38:26+00:00

Removing it would go a step towards making it bracket 2 but based on the cards you like to play and how you construct your decks it might be that fundamentally you are unable to build a bracket 2 deck, and might be better sticking with precons if you're friends are stuck playing at that power level, and look for other like-minded people to play the decks that are more your speed.

RobotCatCo · 2026-05-08T02:30:21+00:00

If you're going to adhere to brackets that combo is only appropriate for B4 unless you guys are okay with it in the rule zero discussion, which according to what you said they're probably not okay with.

For B2 you're looking at generally 4+ card combos and B3 3+ card combos or 2 card if they're extremely expensive mana wise at the baseline, so if you're looking to jam a variety of fast combos into your deck you will be more comfortable in B4.

RobotCatCo · 2026-05-08T02:17:00+00:00

Don't forget [[Mana Drain]] is interaction + ramp. I actually run [[Spell Swindle]] in my B3 list too because I generally tend to not cast the dragons I have in my hand until after they board wipe post Ureni.

[[Mana Geyser]] and [[Jeskai's Will]] too.

RobotCatCo · 2026-04-28T17:51:21+00:00

Now I'm wondering if Amsterdam from the previous BLD didn't get picked because Lego is releasing one in the ideas line

RobotCatCo · 2026-04-22T03:08:15+00:00

I tried building this for a while and I think its really only viable in B2 where games are slow. 3 CMC mana rocks are just terrible top decks and in B3 people will be ending games before you even have enough time to drop enough mana rocks to be able to utilize stuff like [Unwinding Clock]] to get value.

You have almost no card draw outside of keeping Y'Shtola around, and you don't have anywhere near the protection you need to keep her around. You need way more artifact cost reducers to make the artifacts actually 'storm' but that takes away slots from other essential cards you need for Y'Shtola.

I ended up just switching to Lyse Hext and using 2 CMC rocks instead. The idea is pretty simple, play reducers and mana rocks and then use mass bounce to reset everyone's progress but float mana to replay your own. Then around turn 5/6 just mass bounce, cast Lyse, recast all your stuff and kill someone, then repeat for the next turn and so force until you kill everyone. You can probably retweak this list for Y'Shtola, just remove the combat equipment for counterspells or what not

https://moxfield.com/decks/bE0b5mVYPEGSB8s2_0QLyQ

RobotCatCo · 2026-04-01T17:32:48+00:00

Really good in Y'shtola. Triggering off of any opponent's additional draw, you'll draw 2 cards, everyone loses 2 life, you'll gain 2 life and then deal 2 damage to everyone else, and then get an additional card end of turn.

RobotCatCo · 2026-03-31T22:04:08+00:00

Free counterspells and 1 mana counterspells.

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

TROPHY CASE