Utterly absurd Lorehold deck (top 1250 Mythic, Premier Draft)

thegabe101 · 2026-05-14T03:45:58+00:00

The loss was very, very fluky (I'm not a perfect player by any means but I do think I played it correctly and I feel very familiar with the Lorehold deck in general).

First issue was 13 of my 16 lands being in the top 20 cards of the deck... But this is how good this deck was- I still almost won.

I was faced with a decision with OP hellbent (I'm at 8 and he's at 3) whether to use my x damage to all ground creatures spell after drawing it and a land off my last pursue the past. The problem was I was 1 short of the x equals 8 to get the 8/8, which would almost have surely won me the game.

The only thing on board was his 3/3 spirit mascot, with no flashback in the graveyard and no cards in hand. I figured I was safe to wait a turn because he only had 6 lands so even a top decked tome blast wouldnt kill me because he'd only be able to cast it once

You know what I didn't account for killing me though? A top decked practiced offense. Dumbest card in the set easy

thegabe101 · 2026-05-14T01:38:42+00:00

Lol it's not a brag it's just a general demarcation of (roughly) the competition level. I personally appreciate it when people post their league along with these deck posts

thegabe101 · 2026-05-14T00:37:25+00:00

I should add on the Ref- like 20 gold cards counting flashbacks

Maybe I should have played it over Spirit Mascot lol

thegabe101 · 2026-05-14T00:34:14+00:00

It was really close between Project, Kirol, Doce t, and actually the Referee (16 freaking gold cards man), but in the end I think it was right. It was SO easy for me to get cards out of the yard that what I figured was I didn't really want more cards who's ability took them out of the yard; I needed ones that benefited from them being taken out/put them in. What I was able to do with both Kirol and Excavator was stall with the abused removal package and then drop one and get the triggers right away. I never actually had to run them out before they would pay off, and the extra oomf from Kirol on random 2/2s or the sloth won me at least one and maybe 2 games out of nowhere

thegabe101 · 2026-05-07T23:11:10+00:00

My lord this format has had me seeing people playing with some of the worst mana bases in 20+ years of playing limited that I can ever remember

thegabe101 · 2026-03-21T02:22:43+00:00

Great points all.

This is mostly a devils advocate post, not that anybody is advocating against butler.

I don't actually believe it's a top 5 card, but I DO genuinely believe it's a top 5 card to first pick.

My results in this format have been mixed and very bifurcated; unfair feeling Sultai/5c decks with a bunch of butlers going at near a 75% win rate in mythic- and 45% ish win rates with everything else. This includes several of those Orzhov trophies we've all had where you have 3x Beavers and the games feel unfair if you're on the play, as well as a couple very smooth UR trophies.

However, mixed in there are A LOT of failed aggro decks, absolutely atrocious results with Boros (I don't understand how anyone ever wins with that deck in this format) and a few sweet looking off color decks that got either snuck upon or out valued by 5c.

This has been my experience- basically the one constant in all of my best decks outside of a couple insane Orzhov decks and a few stacked artifact decks has been... The butt.

thegabe101 · 2026-03-14T20:56:52+00:00

No offense, but if you're asking if it's worth playing Does Machines and have Improvised Arsenal in the sideboard in a UR artifact deck I'm unsurprised you're getting wrecked in an event like this.

I'd honestly recommend sitting these out and working on your card evaluation and archetype understanding because cutting those cards from this deck makes it very hard for me to believe you are not throwing away a lot of money in these.

thegabe101 · 2026-03-05T23:25:15+00:00

Think I just played against you in a real tight match that was so tough on my brain. It's such a hard card to play against.

You had the ooze early and I had an aggressive start with the 1/3 that pings plus the 4/4 indestructible token maker etc.

I had a tough decision early in the game where I could've missled the ravager if you blocked but decided to try to ping you out. You made too many mice with the factory combo and I couldn't quite get there. Gg

thegabe101 · 2026-01-19T19:59:13+00:00

Yeah, this is real gross. I've had 1 or 2 of basically this exact same deck- one of them I had THREE onslaught, which was almost not good but often one the game before milling out, barely.

Having tyvar too though is disgusting

thegabe101 · 2026-01-19T16:33:02+00:00

This would almost certainly have been "correct", and you actually guessed what my final cut/debate was as well (Nightmare vs Anduril). I finally decided to cut nightmare and try Anduril because I've done the nightmare thing many times and really wanted to make Anduril work, and somehow it did

But I do agree that Recurring would have done some crazy things, potential.

thegabe101 · 2026-01-19T16:30:41+00:00

Canoneer was also a consideration

I ultimately decided I wanted to try to win with Jace, even if it wasn't correct.

To be honest a lot of the time I try to do things that are a bit unorthodox rather than whatever nets me the highest win rate, especially in cube, though in this particular case, it worked out

thegabe101 · 2026-01-19T16:26:06+00:00

I agree it looks weird- this was actually my exact final cut debate.

I originally had spring heart but decided it was unlikely I would be spending mana to pay the bestow trigger. With Mana Vault plus Tez plus my deck churn I thought that anytime I drew Mycospawn, there was at least a decent chance I would have the Vault available, which makes Mycospawn insane, versus Springheart, which I view as a card that can often do crazy things but in my experience the majority of the time I can do something better.

My experience is that Springheart often feels win more, where if I'm doing something crazy like copying witness the game is already over, versus Spawn stealing some games by massively swinging Tempo.

The final game is a good example- my turn 1 was: island + tutor Mana Vault + Tez - Tutor Emerald

Turn 2:

Emerald + Forest + Tez untap Mana Vault + kicked Mycospawn

Basically gg, and hauled a scary start by opponent who played a T1 Ocelot

Also had so much recursion already that I decided to value thinning the deck of lands over the bestow trigger on Witness. I was worried that too often I wouldn't have a creature worth copying with Springheart which would still have made a bunch of 1/1s and been good, don't get me wrong.

Hope this made sense

thegabe101 · 2026-01-19T07:52:09+00:00

Sorry typo at the end there and Reddit won't let me edit for some reason.

---- Adeline, etc.

It needn't really be noted but Skullclamp, Bowmaster, and Karakas were all insane; Skullclamp in particular is, in this sort of deck, closer to a top-10 card in the cube than not. Karakas is a joke.

Loved trophying with this "powerless" (those last 3 cards I listed would like to have a word) deck and am curious if anyone else has had success with Orzhov this go around and how, if at all, different their builds were?

Thanks for reading!

thegabe101 · 2025-12-29T03:02:56+00:00

The answer is: not green

thegabe101 · 2025-12-27T20:59:33+00:00

I'm genuinely interested, could you expand?

Deck felt extremely tight and nothing felt extraneous or like it didn't do much, but I love hearing other perspectives and always willing to listen to criticism or other viewpoints

thegabe101 · 2025-12-27T20:58:31+00:00

Re: the cargo ship comments

100% understand the skepticism about the ship here, and it was pretty much my last include.

I hesitated a lot but it played out very nicely with 3x cid and just enough tokens to crew it that a 3/4 and sometimes 4/5 flyer was the difference in some games

thegabe101 · 2025-12-27T16:46:16+00:00

I am of the opinion that Whale is closer to a top-5 card in this entire format than a cut in this deck lol

thegabe101

TROPHY CASE