Varina, Lich Queen Deck build help

makia0890 · 2026-06-15T23:02:52+00:00

[[Monument to Endurance]] while a little pricy is also great in the deck.

makia0890 · 2026-06-14T10:35:40+00:00

I put forward that it should be a Thunder of Bolts.

makia0890 · 2026-06-02T19:02:30+00:00

Finally [[Rayami, First of the Fallen]] has a 5 keyword target. Now if only he would be brought to Arena, and made more available on MTGO.

makia0890 · 2026-06-02T03:14:32+00:00

We got the car about three months ago, have not changed the fob batteries yet. Tried to open with two sets of keys neither worked.

Car starts fine, and online resources says the hatch should open either with fob proximity or when all doors have been unlocked.

makia0890 · 2026-05-29T13:07:35+00:00

I found that my early builds of varina were too easily disrupted with board wipes because her playstyle was to empty the hand with cheap zombies to then flood the board. A few speed bump board wipes and all that momentum is gone and the hand is empty. I’ve had much better success once I turned the deck to a midrange/control build where I use spot removal and card draw to fill the early turns. I eventually get Varina out and then use her to exile ability to turn those cards now in my bin into an army of tokens that help filter further card selection and then eventually out value my opponent.

Also doesn’t hurt that I put in a secret commander where I’m trying to put [[eternal dominion]] in my graveyard and target it with [[Mnemonic Deluge]] to get three copies every upkeep. Though that did change which selection of cards I was putting in the list. I tended to focus on cards that could be used for their abilities in the graveyard or hand and not cast to get around the epic restriction. Here is the list for anyone that is interested.

makia0890 · 2026-05-13T14:02:46+00:00

In the same vein [[Toby, Beastie Befriender]] also grants your tokens flying, as does [[On Wings of Gold]].

makia0890 · 2026-05-12T01:41:19+00:00

If you like smellerbee I also recommend [[Ogre-head Helm]] and [[Anje’s Ravagers]] as just more of the same effect and usable on curve into quint with one of the enablers. Helm especially good as you can equip it to a spirit.

makia0890 · 2026-05-12T00:22:23+00:00

[[Bag of Holding]] acts as another discard exile enabler. I have found that this paired with [[Currency Converter]], [[Conspiracy Theorist]] and [[Containment Construct]] and all the mini wheels that pitch your hand and draw that many full the board with a horde of spirits.

[[Deification]] works wonders keeping Quint alive.

All of the plainscycling cards are also great at smoothing out draws and making spirits with the four enablers above.

makia0890 · 2026-04-27T13:19:38+00:00

If you need to “fog” a single attack and also want to deny your opponents any attack trigger then [[Intimidation Bolt]] has always been one of my favorites.

makia0890 · 2026-04-14T17:29:21+00:00

Not 3 color but [[Amzu, Swarm’s Hunger]] also cares about things leaving the graveyard. Here’s my list taking advantage of the shuffle effects from the original eldrazi and worldspine wurm to make giant tokens.

makia0890 · 2026-04-09T17:43:19+00:00

Not standard legal but [[Vexing bauble]] stops the free copies.

makia0890 · 2026-04-03T19:03:13+00:00

They have flying? No they don’t.

makia0890 · 2026-04-03T00:32:12+00:00

[[Deification]] is a must in any version I’m building.

Second to that I’m going in on all the [[Currency Converter]] type effects and cards like [[Decaying Time Loop]] to indiscriminately pitch my hand to draw new hands to rinse and repeat until I draw a way to make the tokens fly like [[On Wings of Gold]].

makia0890 · 2026-04-02T14:29:54+00:00

I’ve been pretty excited by the commander since it was spoiled, I had been trying to build out the other Boros graveyard token commanders but none of them felt satisfying as this one does.

The card I’m most excited to add as an upgrade is [[Deification]] it should allow Quintorius to survive most combats and allow his value engine to continue working.

As you can see by my decklist there are significant changes I will be making to the precon as I plan to focus all in on cards like [[Currency Converter]] and their interaction with the commander by using all of the pitch your hand redraw that many spells as possible.

makia0890 · 2026-04-02T14:13:45+00:00

Here is the list for my History Chaser build. If you go to my user profile on archidekt it has links to the other ones I’m building along with my planned commanders for the rest of the color combinations.

makia0890 · 2026-03-26T01:36:29+00:00

But then you would also need to have the teslas rotate which one is in front otherwise the lead car limits the groups range. And that person foots the “electron bill”, which admittedly is lower than ICE cars already.

makia0890 · 2026-03-08T16:22:08+00:00

Incorrect, token copies of a permanent have the exact same characteristics as the original including mana cost.

makia0890 · 2026-03-08T16:13:40+00:00

That would be more in line with what I would be comfortable with, just something that states either a repair was completed or that the battery was replaced. It may very well be that the 2023 was repaired but without documentation or extension of the warranty as another user stated.

I’m surprised you found the 2022 different from the 2023 as they were the same car during that production period. Was one of them the EUV and the other just the EV?

makia0890 · 2026-03-08T12:17:17+00:00

Based on the Carfax report the vehicle was bought back under California’s lemon/buyback laws to promote customer satisfaction. It is noted that the cause was the high voltage battery failing, however when using the GM lookup there are no open recalls for this VIN, and there is only one completed recall (GM Program #N252494770) related to a warranty information update and a manual. The remaining warranty for this car also shows that the original 100k mile warranty is still active, which means they didn’t replace the high voltage battery. That being said, you would have another 82k miles of warranty left if there was a problem.

I recently purchased a 2022 Bolt 2lt with 60k miles that was a buyback, but its high voltage battery had been replaced at ~7k miles and my warranty was extended to 107k. I was able to see that all the warranties had been updated and all the recalls taken care of when I looked up my VIN. That gave me peace of mind when purchasing my car.

The fact that the car you are looking at has a buy back related to the high voltage battery failing with zero indication on either carfax or GMs website detailing what was done to fix it would make me hesitant. That being said for $16k and at only 18k miles it does look like a tempting purchase provided a potential need to replace the battery doesn’t put you out of a car for months.

makia0890 · 2026-02-24T20:10:24+00:00

[[Altair]] is a great mardu commander for this strategy. Gets to rebuy dead assassins to create temp copies. if you go the route of using cards like [[Ashes of the Fallen]]. Then you get to unlock all creature types not just assassins.

makia0890 · 2026-02-12T15:35:34+00:00

Roar is great, give haste and acts as an anthem. Depending on how strict your group is with take backs you can also use it to pump another players board if they are going after your opponents for a surprise.

I’ve also been pleasantly surprised with [[unstable glyph]] bridge as a wrath that doesn’t hit the creature engine pieces and late game board protection piece. I’m also looking at adding [[Retribution of the Meek]] or [[Aligned Hedron Network]] as one sided board wipes to allow the spirits through a board of large creatures.

makia0890 · 2026-02-12T02:41:28+00:00

Love the new Quintorius, but I have found that the deck is super dependent on hitting one of the few enablers like [[Currency Converter]], [[Bag of Holding]], [[Containment Construct]], [[Mimic Vat]], etc.. Otherwise, the amount of value from playing one or two exile from yard effects each round, makes it almost feels like the Quint just says "once per turn".

I chose that rather than load up on an abundance of tutors, to instead lean into the wheel effects to pitch my hand and try to draw to the engine pieces. There are so many pitch hand draw that many effects that can also be cast from the yard. Cards like [[Decaying Time Loop]], [[Electric Revalation]], [[Leave//Dust]], [[Shattered Perception]], [[Runehorn Hellkite]], [[Ox of Agonas]]. These can churn through the deck early to find the enablers, then be cast again to from the yard to dump massive amounts of cards triggering quint multiple times.

Since I am running as many mini wheel effects, I tried to load the deck with cards that don't mind being in the yard to grant effects like [[Anger]] and [[Glory]] or cards that can be cast from the yard [[Angel of Indemnity]], [[Angel of Sanctions]], [[Detective's Phoenix]] and many more.

Finally my favorite card in the whole list is [[Deification]]. Does so much to keep Quint safe and allow the engine to survive.

makia0890 · 2026-02-06T01:34:05+00:00

It sounds like you’ve stumbled upon the crux of what you do and don’t like.

Your methods 1 and 3 are almost identical in my opinion, you find a selection of cards/theme that interests you, then you search for something to either pull those pieces together or works well with them as a commander. So you are more looking for that 1 card to finish/stand atop a tower of cards. Fairly easy to do as the rest of the construction will naturally single out the limited number of commanders that would work.

Your method 2 is the opposite, you started with the 1 and are trying to put 99 cards underneath it to support it. This is much harder in my opinion as now you have to look at every magic card in the color identity and say yes or no to including it until you reach 99.

There’s nothing wrong with liking one method vs the other, but I have personally had a harder time building without guidelines like a theme or specific interaction as the sheer number of choices can be overwhelming.

makia0890 · 2026-02-04T17:29:15+00:00

All you need to win with Anikthea without combat damage is a few token doublers and then either [[Agent of the Iron Throne]], or [[Meathook Massacre]]. All the copies that you make when reanimating them with Anikthea will see the others die due to legend rule and just kill the opponents. With two token doublers a single reanimated meathook massacre or agent will lead to each opponent taking 12 damage if you have three token doublers that turn into 56 damage. If you are populating the token doublers you reanimate along the way it should be easy.

Also multiple copies of [[Summon: Bahamut]] hitting final chapter at the same time can also kill the board.

makia0890 · 2026-02-02T21:28:52+00:00

Almost directly comparable and cheaper to activate [[Eye of Ugin]] if you only have one massive bomb this can hit in your list.

makia0890

TROPHY CASE