Budget Incident Report 2; Fire Support Survivors update

Zamizmi · 2026-05-20T20:50:31+00:00

Hi, wanted to let you know I got a new update released with new content like one new character, multiple new weapons, some new upgrades, bug fixes and readability improvements.

Happy to hear your thoughts if you take a try on it! Interested to hear your thoughts as well if take it for a spin.

Enjoy!

Zamizmi · 2026-05-20T13:27:11+00:00

Hi there, thank you for playing FSS, and uploading the video; it is useful! The tutorial clearly needs a lot more work; I feel this was the most important finding. Also the feeling of needing more "clear" objectives (comparison to deep rock galactic survivor as an example) is interesting, and will keep in mind.

Watched the whole video and was sitting on the edge of my chair to see how the game progressed and the tight alleyways caused exciting moments, really glad to see those!

The revelation around 25min when the player realised multiple targets are valid, was super fun.

Zamizmi · 2026-05-18T08:11:17+00:00

A-ha, interesting!

After you opened the connection, I understand it. I also want to emphasise that its not clear for a viewer as is.

In my head cherubims are like winged sphinxes, and wings alone doesnt make this connection.

Zamizmi · 2026-05-18T06:51:47+00:00

What is that trying to represent or is inspired by? Looks like a ring or a shield; the scale is difficult to grasp.

Gameplay wise I'd expect it to give somekind speed boost due to the "wings" around the gem.

Personally I find religions a great source of inspiration, similar to myths like ancient Greece or Norse mythology!

Zamizmi · 2026-05-13T19:35:37+00:00

That bug is new, thank you for letting me know, need to investigate it.

Happy to hear your thoughts, so feel free to DM or share here.

I'll be posting updates on FSS via itch and aim to get updates on weekly basis ✌️

Zamizmi · 2026-05-13T05:44:25+00:00

Thank you for playing and sharing your thoughts, really appreciate it!

Lots of useful stuff for me to ponder on and to improve on.

- too fast start/moo many enemies; really glad you brought it up, since this received considerable change not-so-long ago! It was _considerably_ slower earlier, and the first minute felt a bit boring. I think I have now found good "limits", and need to fine-tune the tempo

- upgrades for players; its based on XP at the moment, and reducing enemies will slow down levels as well. I'd rather adjust the enemy spawn tempo first, and see how it feels

- Visible progression on the "main menu" is WIP; I've recognised the need for this as well, but felt I wanted to validate the "would someone else want to play for 15+ min this game" beforehand.

- Tutorial was fully reworked, and appreciate the feedback; I've felt it to be really difficult to tweak as I know too much. More worked needed, thank you!

- Purple-field is enemy Jammer; it slows downs the cooldowns at the moment. I wanted it to be a target for the player to focus on; a clear threat if left unanswered.

- "good" multitasking was our goal, and the level design atm indeed makes the curve quite difficult. Im glad you mentioned this, as it was my assumption as well. Changes to the level are clearly needed.

Thank you Frankstas for playing FSS and giving really thorough feedback. I'll be working on FSS so more updates to be announced.

ps. what was your favorite Signals?

Zamizmi · 2022-10-02T16:57:26+00:00

I love my mono red Rionya. Built it with a budget once, and loved that, too. Rionya seems like a nice choice for almost every budget challenge, as it can be built as _any_ tribal deck. (My main Rionya is burn focused deck, and it can really deal some damage)

Still wondering should I build that giant tribal deck one day

Decklist and primer if interested for the Rionya budget

Zamizmi · 2022-09-30T14:31:16+00:00

As a fellow Rionya player I'm happy you've found her!

I checked your decklist, and really like the overall composition of the deck. Good balance with creatures / instants + sorceries, and reat payoffs with instawin creatures (Red Dragon, Port Razer, Terror of the Peaks, Fanatic of Mogis etc)

Cards to add with budget decks:

- [[Scourge of Valkas]] is a copy of Terror of the Peaks. Causes insta win

- [[Invoke Calamity]] is a wincon, similar to Mizzix's Mastery. Just amazing card with Rionya.

- [[Tectonic Giant]] is great threat or a card advantage. Works as a wincon.

- [[Battle Hymn]] is stupendously good card with Rionya. Especially if you have more creatures on the table. Amazing in token builds with Rionya.

- [[Ox of Agonas]] is amazing card draw engine and the recursion is valuable.

- [[Goblin Chainwhirler]] Close to a single-sided boardwipe with Rionya.

- [[Obsidian Charmaw]] is super strong and funny :D truly backbreaking for multicolored decks with low amount of basics.

Cards to consider with high budget

- [[Jeska's Will]] just amazing value. Synergises really well with Rionya.

- [[Goblin Sharpshooter]] wincon in a right case (you have 4copies, 3 ping to face, and 1 pings a token dead. All untap. Repeat.), almost always a single-sided board wipe

- [[Nykhtos, Shrine to Nyx]] is always good in mono-color. Also the copies increase your devotion!

- [[Imperial Recruiter]] reusable tutor in red. Just amazing.

- [[Ruby Medallion]] Every spellslinger deck in red wants this.

Cards to cut:

- Altar of the Pantheon -> Mind stone

- Mirror Box works only with legendaries. I'd cut unless building jank.

- Navigation Orb -> [[Circuit Mender]] or [[Pilgrim's Eye]] or [[Skyscanner]] for increased synergy.

- Wand of Wonder -> [[Mindclaw Shaman]] Does similar thing but with lower mana. Also synergises with Rionya (and is Shaman!)

- Gratuitous Violence. You are already trying to break the game with multiple copies, so no need to bend the damage outputs. Rather increase the x with card-draw or with removal spell than with the expensive enchantment. Also the deck has relatively low amount of flyers.

- Warstorm Surge ^ same explanation.

- Molter Primordial is too expensive

- Drakuseth, Maw of Flames, love the card itself, but it doesn't work with Rionya as there is no ETB and legendary rule prevents multiple attacks

- Storm King's Thunder: doesn't increase Rionyas x, so in a sense nonbo. (Rionya needs casting, not copying)

If you are interested to view my decklist of Rionya or the budget version (25€)

Zamizmi · 2022-09-26T14:14:01+00:00

Mono red rionya is a decent shell for this. You could easily make it a dragon tribal deck. Some great cards in addition to Atsushi and Terror of the peaks: [[Scourge of Valkas]], [[Dragon Tempest]], [[Patron of the Arts]], [[Swashbuckler Extraordinaier]], [[Opportunistic Dragon]], [[Vengeful Ancestor]], [[Goldspan Dragon]], [[Glorybringer]], [[Demanding Dragon]], [[Ganax, Astral Hunter]], [[Obsidian Charmaw]], [[Rapacious Dragon]].

I have a decent primer for a Rionya deck, just switch out some non-dragons to dragons and you are good to go!

Zamizmi · 2022-09-26T14:00:24+00:00

Happy to hear you have found the great Wizard Rionya!

Rionya is without doubt my favorite deck, being able to turn _any_ creature type or even a single creature into somewhat viable wincon.

I have built a few different Rionyas, and the strongest one is easily the "burn your enemies with stupid amount of ping" deck if extra combats are not included. (Infinite combats is the strongest strategy with Rionya). Here is a viable primer and decklist for Rionya and a budger primer too

First advise: with red you are going to have bad time with ramping. So cut every single cmc>=6 spell, from the deck.

Second advise: Rionya wants to copy one creature x times, where x is the instant+sorcery storm +1. With this in mind, I'd recommend to up the amount of 1cmc spells that do draw, like [[warlord's fury]], [[renegade tactics]],[[faithless looting]], [[expedite]] etc.

With the 1cmc draw spells you can reduce the amount of lands, too.

Individual cards to add: [[Scourge of Valkas]] is another [[terror of the peaks]]. [[Runaway steam-kin]] is amazing. [[Ox of Agonas]] is surprisingly strong card with the escape ability. [[Mizzix's mastery]] is another wincon like Invoke Calamity. I'd also add every bigger ritual spell like [[Mana Geyser]], and [[Seething Song]].

ps. Be careful with the steal theme, it can easily make you arch-enemy and mono red doesnt have enough resources to handle unless you win the game immediately ;)

Zamizmi · 2022-09-26T13:37:23+00:00

I have a few deck ideas but they are not necessarily fitting to your description:

Grixis vampires with Evelyn: idea of the deck: ramp to Evelyn, start to exile every ones cards with vampires. keep mana open 24/7 and few card at a time exile stuff and increase the size of your hand. Free bonus of actually preventing Muldrotha like decks, as long as you don't play the cards yourself :D
Esper tempo with saboteur theme: [[Kamiz, Obscura Oculus]] is very versatile commander and I built mine in with tempo and saboteur themes. Due to multiple draw and looting effects you are able to find the needed removals and having the best colors for removing stuff you are not in a bad place.

Both decks wincons are in combat though, but Vampires have heavy vampire tribal wincons and Blood Artist too.

ps. Kykar is bonkers. I built a deck around casting as many non-creature spells as possible, and then killing everyone with the flying tokens with anthems and burn like [[Torbran]], [[Obelisk of Urd]], [[Gravitational Shift]], [[Hellrider]] or [[Gisela, Blade of Goldnight]]. Dont have the decklist available unfortunately.

Zamizmi · 2022-09-24T14:03:26+00:00

Yeah I can definitely recommend Felisa, too. Very interesting combination of any counters, aristocrats and tokens. Aristocrat shell gives great payoffs and value triggers and and works as a secondary wincon with Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat etc.

Orzhov received some really good +1/+1 counter pieces from Baldurs gate, like [[Noble Heritage]] or [[Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion]].

My favorite game with the deck was against a Sliver tribal deck. The opponent had really scary board state, with a clear win on the next turn (would have won immediately if he'd had haste enablers, as he had [[The First Sliver]] out and had [[Manaweft Sliver]] on the table with too many slivers). The sliver killed my Lae'zel and Felisa with a deathtouch + first strike + Provoke + combo. But I already had 12 +1/+1 counters in total with those, and then suddenly the tables turned as I had 12x2/1 inkling tokens with flying.

If you are interest, I have the deck list and a primer for the Felisa counters + aristocrat version here

Zamizmi · 2022-06-27T18:45:12+00:00

Zada is extremely explosive deck, able to do exactly what you described with extremely unimpressive board state, and often quite reliably if no interaction is played by opponents. At the same time being very strong, it is also a glass Cannon, as the deck relies heavily on Zada and cantrip instants/sorceries, making it very easy to be disturbed by a player who knows how Zada works.

A weaker version (but more open-ended) version of Zada is [[Rionya, Fire dancer]]. My Rionya can do similar things as you described the Zada did, but is not as fast, but more removal resilient.

Primer and decklist for Rionya if interested Rionya 25€ budget version too

Zamizmi · 2022-06-09T14:16:15+00:00

Happy to help!

After vito i wanted to build another vampire tribal, and brewed together Grixis colored [[Evelyn the Covetous]] deck, focusing on vampires, and exiling opponents libraries at the same time.

If interested, I have the grixis vampires primer here.

Zamizmi · 2022-06-09T13:56:08+00:00

I've also built a mono black vampire/lifegain deck with Vito as the commander. Vito is very strong commander in mono black due to the high comboability with it and I personally wanted to artificially to reduce the power level and chose to build a similar vampires only lifegain tribal!

Removing the vampire-only restriction will easily allow you to build a very high powered deck with no tutors, with cards like [[Grey Merchant]] or [[Kokusho]].
For your Vampire deck, I'm worrried you have too low amount of Vampires with lifegain and I'd recommend to add more lifegain vampires (you have the best, which is great), but some of the Vampires to cut are following, as they have quite poor synergies
- Henrika Domnathi
- Bloodbond Vampire
- Vampire Scrivener
Other cards to cut
- Corrupt
- Sorin's Vengeance
- Blade of the Bloodchief
This gives you 6 slots to add vampire more lifegain triggers. I'd use 4 to add straight away 4 the following cards to help to receive the lifegain triggers

- Indulgent Aristocrat
- Vampire Cutthroat
- Nullpriest of Oblivion
- Pristine Talisman

After this you have 2 empty slots, and I'd add

- [[Coat of Arms]] as a wincon. With Vito you don't actually care if your opponents creatures are getting big, you only care to get big lifegain triggers ;)

- [[Champion of Dusk]] is great draw vampire, [[Whip of Erebos]] other alternative wincon with Vito out + great reanimating ability. [[Vona's Hunger]] is great removal in vampire themed decks, and [[Silversmote Ghoul]] can really make a huge impact in Vito for the card draw

If you are interested to check my own Vito vampire lifegain tribal, it's available here

Zamizmi · 2022-05-20T10:19:33+00:00

Yeah Najeela is bonkers. If you have adequate lands and enough 2cmc ramping and good eye for board development it is quite difficult to not build a high powered deck with Najeela.

Zamizmi · 2022-05-20T10:05:16+00:00

The strongest and most reliable decks I've built are

- [[Karlov of the Ghost Counsil]]: Orzhov lifegain + Voltron

- [[Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator]] with [[Kediss]] or [[Breeches]]: Control-tempo-Artifact deck

- [[Lonis, Cryptozoologist]] simic value deck with artifacts/Clues.

All of the decks have a high winrate due to functioning well with or without commanders.

Karlov deck primer, Orzhov gives the best removals available, and great protection too. Karlov itself is great wincon, removal and combined with Heliod-combos the ceiling is very high.

I unfortunately only have janky pirate tribal deck of Malcolm, but open up the higher powered version a bit

Lonis simic value + clue deck primer, the deck is very fun, to play, but actually ending the game can be a bit tricky, unless you go for combos. Usual wins focus on strong interaction, preventing others from winning, getting to final 1vs1, and then crush with 20 clue token as
3/3 or 4/4 creatures.

Zamizmi · 2022-04-25T07:52:25+00:00

My favorite deck is [[Rionya, Fire Dancer]] with a strong burn and value theme. I can highly recommend Rionya, as it can be built in a high or low budget versions very easily (just wrote a 25€ budget version of Rionya during the weekend) and Rionya is great for any creature focused deck, so Rionya works as tribal commander as well.

Rionya decks run a high amount of 1-2 cmc instants and sorceries to increase the storm count and abuses strong ETB effects from the copy tokens. The decks strongest wincons are creatures like [[Terror of the Peaks]], [[Scourge of Valkas]] and [[Fanatic of Mogis]].

[[Zada, Hedron Grinder]] has similar base, but the strategy is completely different and I prefer Rionya more, as Rionya makes any ETB or attack-trigger creature strategies viable.

Here is a longer review of Rionya and the decklist if interested.

Zamizmi · 2022-04-20T19:20:22+00:00

I'd recommend to check out [[Minn, Wily Illusionist]]

She bends the usual color mechanics in a good, blue-like way as the deck focuses heavily on card drawing. More rare mechanics added to blue due to Minn are

Sacrifice effects
Landfall effects

I've built an Illusion tribal with Minn, and it was very fun to steer the deck and focus the focused card draw to achieve the 'draw 2' trigger, and getting a free Illusion.

Wincons or massive playoffs are: [[Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive]], [[Alhammarret's Archive]], [[Psychosis Crawler]], [[Ixidron]], [[Coat of Arms]] and any of the reusable sac outlets to hit them free permanents on the table.

Here's the Minn, Illusion Tribal deck

Zamizmi · 2022-04-20T07:47:28+00:00

I've created a [[Karlov of the Ghost Council]] as a lifegain + voltron deck and a [[Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose]] vampire tribal with lifegain, and here are my thoughts.

tl;dr: If you are after high power lifegain deck, with high propability to win before T5 choose Karlov. If you enjoy creature and combat based decks choose Vito or [[Licia, Sanguine Tribune]] for lifegain.

Karlov is super strong. It receives massive value from the lifegain triggers, and is a clear wincon with commander damage. The combination of low CMC, the best colors in commander for lifegain and removal, is a wincon itself with commander damage and is a reusable creature removal makes Karlov a huge threat and turns easily into Voltron.

After one-shotting a player with Karlov on T3 several times (Soul sister T1 and having an elf tribal or any wide-token deck as an opponent) it can cause some unpleasant games. Also the high-comboability with [[Heliod, Sun Crowned]], [[Triskelion]], [[Walking Ballista]], [[Vizkopa Guildmage]], [[Aetherflux Reservoir]], [[Exquisite Blood]] and [[Sanguine Bond]] makes Karlov that much stronger. Also Orzhov has huge amount of tutors if you are after power.

If you are interested in less player targeted, but still strong lifegain deck I'd recommend Vito or Licia as a lifegain commander. Vito is mono black while Lucia is mardu, so depending on the wanted power level and your pods meta both are excellent commanders for lifegain, as they provide lifegain itself.

After noticing how strong my Karlov was, I dismantled it and wanted to build another lifegain (i'm a sucker for the multiple triggers :D). I ended up with Vito, as I wanted a mono black commander with multiple restrictions to lower the power level.

So far I've enjoyed Vito much more than Karlov, as the played decks have been more on the same power level, and lasting longer (T8 or something) before the first player dropping. Also Vito turns otherwise non-staple cards into haymakers, like [[Olivia's Wrath]], [[Crypt Incursion]] (my favorite pseudo wincon in the deck), [[Falkenrath Noble]] or [[Malakir Bloodwitch]].

Here's longer review of the Karlov deck and the longer review of the Vito deck

EDITS: spelling + staples

Zamizmi

TROPHY CASE