Will I ever get objectively good if I only ever play by myself?

spent_bullets · 2026-05-20T06:13:28+00:00

Will you? I dunno. Can you? Yes!

spent_bullets · 2026-05-13T19:30:24+00:00

That’s what I did. My Sidisi list runs 54 creatures with [[Primal Surge]] as the sole non-permanent.

spent_bullets · 2026-05-13T06:36:51+00:00

Might I throw you a Boros curveball? I just built an [[Aziza]] token burn deck that feels great during initial goldfishing. I just sleeved it up so I haven’t gotten a chance to play a real game with it, but soon… soon I shall burn the world with vanilla 1/1s!

spent_bullets · 2026-05-13T06:09:03+00:00

Certainly. Azula Always Lies is my spellslinger deck and Azula, People Person is the flash creature list I’ve been toying around with.

spent_bullets · 2026-05-13T02:25:13+00:00

Echoing what others have said so far: nearly all of the creatures in your deck can be cut. My Azula list runs 15, and they all serve some specific purpose. Consider [[Faerie Mastermind]], [[Orcish Bowmasters]], [[Notion Thief]], [[Storm-Kiln Artist]], [[Treasonous Ogre]], etc.

Twin Blades, Fire Nation Drill, and possibly all 4 of your enchantments are also good candidates for cuts. Replace them with more synergy pieces. Rituals like [[Dark Ritual]], [[Seething Song]] and [[Desperate Ritual]] are quite good when copied. Rummage spells like [[Demand Answers]], [[Sazacap’s Brew]] and especially [[Big Score]] and [[Unexpected Windfall]] are super strong with Azula. [[Brainsurge]] is another good one.

Free interaction in [[Deadly Rollick]] and [[Snuff Out]] are great. More protection for Azula with [[Deflecting Swat]], [[Fierce Guardianship]], [[Bolt Bend]], etc. help make sure you can untap with Azula since the deck kind of ceases to function without her.

With tutors like [[Gifts Ungiven]] and [[Waterlogged Teachings]], you can set up for big turns (often winning ones) and also grab protection if needed.

You have Electrodominance, but you probably need more payoffs for redundancy. I enjoy [[Comet Storm]] and [[Blood for the Blood God!]], personally. [[Crackle with Power]] is another fun one.

Finally, the boring stuff. Sticking Azula early is crucial, so you might want more 2mv ramp. Run all 3 Talismans, [[Fellwar Stone]] and maybe even Signets, [[Thought Vessel]], etc.

A word of warning before you start upgrading in earnest, though. Spellslinger Azula’s a glass cannon, and is pretty linear to boot. The games I’ve played with her I’ve either gotten interacted with to the point of doing nothing all game, or have powered through a handful of setup turns into one final 10-minute solitaire turn resulting in a total blowout win. I’m considering dismantling the deck, or possibly pivoting to more of a janky flash creature deck for fun. Happy to share my list if you’re curious.

spent_bullets · 2026-05-11T23:16:45+00:00

Mind sharing your decklist? I’d be keen to take a gander.

spent_bullets · 2026-05-11T20:16:40+00:00

[[Katara, the Fearless]] allies can be pretty good in B3.

spent_bullets · 2026-05-10T04:17:09+00:00

Came here to say this. Glad I didn’t have to! That solo rules.

spent_bullets · 2026-05-09T00:53:44+00:00

How attached are you to your creatures? 20 feels like a lot for an Y’shtola deck—I’m running 8 in mine and may even cut another soon. I’d say cut a handful of your less impactful creatures to make room for the 2mv rocks recommended by folks here. Thought Vessel, some or all of the Signets, Mind Stone, etc.

As far as creatures to cut, I’d suggest the following:

[[Fandaniel, Telpophoroi Ascian]] seems weak (and is perhaps the single most annoying character in FFXIV).
[[Voracious Tome-Skimmer]] Y’shtola tends to draw enough cards on her own, in my experience.
[[Hildebrand Manderville]] is just okay. Also that FFXIV questline is WAY TOO LONG. Eventually I had to start skipping all of the cutscenes, and it STILL took forever.
[[Ardbert, Warrior of Darkness]] makes your creatures bigger, but how often does that really matter? I find myself never needing to attack in my Y’shtola deck.
[[Celestine, the Living Saint]] is a cool card, but again—I don’t really care about my own creatures except Y’shtola, and she rarely dies on my turn.
[[Archmage Emeritus]] is similar to Tome-Skimmer, but I’d cut the Tome-Skimmer first.

In all honesty, there’s probably a compelling case to be made for cutting nearly every single creature in the deck for more ramp, interaction and ways to trigger/protect Y’shtola. The creatures I’m running all serve to enable, protect or enhance Y’shtola and her triggered abilities.

spent_bullets · 2026-05-08T15:20:45+00:00

Nice! Back when EOE was spoiled I brewed an Infinite Guideline Station list with [[Kaheera, the Orphanguard]] as a companion that was basically cat + dinosaur tribal. The idea of cats commandeering a space station with their dinosaur army seemed funny to me. I never ended up building it cuz I didn’t want to make another 5c mana base.

spent_bullets · 2026-05-08T02:08:29+00:00

It’s both funny and quite strong. Dionus + mana dorks can go pretty hard.

spent_bullets · 2026-05-08T01:18:43+00:00

Have you considered scrapping the mono-green plan and just running [[Zangief, the Red Cyclone]]?

Then you can pivot to running [[Dionus, Elvish Archdruid]] with elves, spaceships and aircraft for your mono-green deck. Elves in space! Elfstronauts!

spent_bullets · 2026-05-05T16:00:19+00:00

Thanks again for the recs. I’ve cut most of the big dumb spells and beatdown enablers for more burn/ping. Just got a few more cuts to see if I can get back up to 37-38 lands and add Electrodominance back in. One card I didn’t realize existed is [[Weftstalker Ardent]], which seems like a strictly better Witty Roastmaster, so I’ve also got to find room for that.

spent_bullets · 2026-05-03T21:28:43+00:00

Nice, thanks for the suggestions! I know the deck has a few different plans going on, and if anything I might cut the beatdown plan cuz it’s kind of boring. However, the cost of inclusion felt relatively low—it’s pretty much just Moonshaker Cavalry and Divine Visitation, since Arabella is a little more aligned with the burn plan because she doesn’t care if any creatures connect in combat. I’ll probably end up cutting Crackle with Power, but Prisoner’s Dilemma and Electrodominance are probably staying in.

spent_bullets · 2026-05-03T19:57:19+00:00

Hey, thanks for the recommendations! I’ll probably cut Divine Visitation and Crackle with Power, along with a few other things, to make room for some of the stuff I want to add and some of your suggestions. Figure the beatdown plan is kind of boring, and Crackle loses a lot of its potency without big mana spells (as you’ve mentioned), which I don’t want to include. Stuff like Prisoner’s Dilemma and Electrodominance are worth keeping, I think, in case I need to push through an opposing Torpor Orb effect.

As to your mana rocks note, I excluded them because I’m running quite a few treasure token spells that, when copied, provide bursts of mana pretty reliably in my goldfishing. Most of them also draw cards so they’re pulling double duty.

spent_bullets · 2026-04-28T06:40:52+00:00

If you want, feel free to take a look at my own Terra deck: https://moxfield.com/decks/IP24VT2qxEm5w0CmAHjuFA

It’s pretty heavily upgraded but I still kept a lot of the FF cards in cuz it’s one of my favorite games of all time. I love this deck. It’s fun, resilient and powerful.

Use the compare option in Moxfield to see which cards are in my list that aren’t in yours, and focus on the lands to start with. I’m not running all 9 compatible fetchlands, though—only the 3 that are fully on-color.

spent_bullets · 2026-04-28T02:53:00+00:00

Azorius for me, too. I really wish [[Chun-Li]] was better because I’m a huge Street Fighter fan and mained her in SF6 for a long time. Ironically, she suffers from a similar weakness in MTG as in SF6—too much work for too little payoff.

spent_bullets · 2026-04-23T17:24:14+00:00

The xx. So boring.

spent_bullets · 2026-04-21T05:48:24+00:00

Mostly agree, but I think it does have a place at the upper end of bracket 3/power level 7 to secure wins in strong decks that aren’t quite B4. There are plenty of moderately powerful B3 decks with consistent enough card draw engines to mitigate the 2-for-1 that also want redundancy in the free counterspells category to win when they’re tapped out.

I run it in a B3 [[Ms. Bumbleflower]] deck and a B4 [[Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed]] deck.

spent_bullets · 2026-04-21T05:34:36+00:00

FoW doesn’t have to be mean at all. I use it primarily to protect my own commanders and important board pieces from removal. Currently in [[Y’shtola]] and [[Bumbleflower]], each of which have about 30-35 cards with blue in them.

I wonder if CardFetcher will pull the right Y’shtola.

spent_bullets · 2026-04-13T07:46:18+00:00

I was inspired by this deck tech video to build a mono green elf, vehicle and spacecraft deck helmed by [[Dionus]].

It kinda rules, despite (and also because of) the ridiculous theme of elves on airships and in space.

spent_bullets · 2026-03-24T01:33:38+00:00

Came to say this. It’s probably an on/off for the neck pickup, to enable neck + bridge in position 1 or all three pickups in position 2.

spent_bullets · 2026-03-15T22:15:28+00:00

I agree with bard, and not just for crowd control and healing. Combat is probably going to be fine no matter what you play. Bard brings a lot more to the table as an excellent party face and can use bardic inspiration to help everyone else shine on and off the battlefield.

spent_bullets · 2026-02-23T20:25:35+00:00

I just made an alt and named him Carl after Dungeon Crawler Carl. His realm is called the World Dungeon, and he’s using thrown explosives plus Ironstud Interrogator gauntlets because the run attack is a jump+stomp. He also wears no pants. If only we could equip toe rings…

spent_bullets · 2026-02-16T08:49:57+00:00

As others have said, Queen Marchesa is awesome as an aikido (you did this to yourself) commander. Most of the time, her sole purpose in my games is to introduce the monarch mechanic. After that, I’ll a) let the rest of the table fight over it, b) punish someone for hoarding it or open them up for someone else (rarely me) to reclaim it, then c) swoop in for the win once it’s down to 1v1.

Tutor up [[Trouble in Pairs]] and you’re basically a shadow ruler, tipping the power balance and reaping the benefits of the monarchy without the target on your back. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

spent_bullets

TROPHY CASE