I have recently got back into magic after a 10 year hiatus. I have picked up a copy of the sultai schemer's intro pack and played it a few times but can't figure out what to drop or what to add. And I always read your articles when I can so I was hoping you could help. I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Here is the list

 

Lands (25)

7 Swamp

8 Forest

6 Island

1 Jungle Hollow

2 Opulent Palace

1 Thornwood Falls

 

Creatures (10)

1 Typhoid Rats

1 Black Cat

1 Walking Corpse

2 Satyr Wayfinder

1 Wall of Mulch

1 Research Assistant

2 Necromancer’s Assistant

1 Gravedigger

1 Rotfeaster Maggot

 

Other spells (24)

1 Rakshasa Vizier

1 Sultai Soothsayer

2 Sultai Scavenger

2 Hooting Mandrills

2 Shambling Attendants

1 Necropolis Fiend

1 Debilitating Injury

2 Taigam’s Scheming

1 Sultai Banner

1 Rakshasa’s Secret

1 Scout the Borders

1 Sultai Charm

1 Bitter Revelation

1 Murderous Cut

1 Throttle

1 Become Immense

1 Set Adrift

1 Treasure Cruise

1 Dead Drop

1 Dismal Backwater

 

Thanks in advance.

zombieruler08

 

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Thanks, zombieruler, for sending in your deck to the garage. I'm glad to hear that I have some active readers who find what we do here useful!

 

Since Khans of Tarkir is still brand new, my opportunities to play with it have been somewhat limited. There are a lot of strategies to still be explored. What I want to do with your deck today is to look at the strategies your deck is already employing and find out how to do this most efficiently. I'm not going to introduce new cards into your deck, but instead, I'll help you make your deck more predictable by adding more copies of the better cards and removing a lot of the 1-ofs. 

 

So, what exactly IS the strategy of this deck? The Sultai love using the power of the graveyard. There are a lot of cards that use the delve mechanic to make spells cheaper. The cost of that is to have a lot of cards in your graveyard. Except for the unique way of paying for your spells, the basic plan of this deck isn't too different from most: kill opposing creatures and attack with yours.

 

So first, let's look at the cards that help you fill your all-important graveyard. These include: Satyr Wayfinder, Research Assistant, Necromancer's Assistant, Sultai Soothsayer, Taigam's Scheming, Rakshasa's Secret, Scout the Borders, and Bitter Revelation. That's a lot of different ways to do mostly the same thing. Some of these are more efficient than others. Satyr Wayfinder is great since it comes down early, helps you find your 2nd or 3rd color of mana, and provides a chump blocker for opposing threats. A definite 4-of. Research Assistant is very inefficient. 4 mana just to cycle through one card is not worth your while. Necromancer's assistant isn't too bad, but by the time you get to three mana, your opponent is likely going to have something that can trade with this guy, meaning all you really get is four cards (the three he mills, plus himself) in the graveyard. Sultai Soothsayer is just too expensive for a 2/5 that gains you 1 card. Plus, his three mana cost is more of a hassle than he is worth. Taigam's Scheming, on the other hand, is very efficient. For only 2 mana, you can look at the next 5 cards and decide for each one of them if it is more valuable as an upcoming draw or as a delve enabler in the graveyard. Good investment. Rakshasa's Secret has me on the fence. Making your opponent discard 2 cards is valuable, as is adding three cards (this plus 2) to your 'yard, but I'm going to drop it for now, because I'd rather focus on helping you set up your hand a little more, and for 3 mana, I'd rather see Scout the Borders. This allows you to put 5 cards in the 'yard and put a creature - likely something you can now cast with the delve fuel - into your hand. Bitter Revelation also comes out, because by 4 mana, we want to start really doing business and not still setting up our graveyard and hand.

 

-1 Research Assistant

-2 Necromancer's Assistant

-1 Sultai Soothsayer

-1 Rakshasa's Secret

-1 Bitter Revelation

+2 Satyr Wayfinder

+2 Taigam's Scheming

+2 Scout the Borders

 

Next, there are 2 main things we want to do - put out big creatures and destroy theirs. For the big creatures, we have Rotfeaster Maggot, Rakshasa Vizier, Sultai Scavenger, Hooting Mandrills, Shambling Attendants, and Necropolis Fiend. The Rotfeaster Maggot and Shambling Attendants don't give nearly enough value for their cost. Gaining life isn't what your deck is about, and for the mana cost, we can get a more powerful creature than the attendants. Rakshasa Vizier should be one of your man offensive weapons. If you use delve right, he can grow to be huge very quickly. Sultai Scavenger is mediocre, but you don't have much flying, so let's keep the two you have. Hooting Mandrills are a basic, yet efficient way to use your delve and get a powerful creautre. These are your bread and butter - let's go up to 4 of those. Necropolis Fiend is huge and expensive. When you can get him out and start using him either to attack or pick off opposing creatures, you should be quickly in control of the game. But, because he's rare and mana intensive, we'll go with just one more.

 

-1 Rotfeaster Maggot

-2 Shambling Attendants

+2 Rakshasa Vizier

+2 Hooting Mandrills

+1 Necropolis Fiend

 

Then, we need to remove opposing threats. Typhoid Rats (with their early deathtouch), Debilitating Injury, Sultai Charm, Murderous Cut, Throttle, and Dead Drop are the key players here. The rats can be useful as an early deterrent to opposing attacks, but I think we can make better use of their spot. Debilitating Injury is too weak and conditional. Sultai Charm is always useful in one of its forms, so we'll play 4 of those. Murderous Cut is another basic, yet invaluable piece of removal you will find yourself relying on quite often - much more so than Throttle, which will usually cost more and be less effective. Set Adrift can really set an opponent back, but I'd rather use something to completely get rid of the threat instead of letting it come back in a turn or two. Dead Drop can be extremely powerful in the right circumstances, but I'm afraid that casting cost may eat up too many of your resources.

 

-1 Typhoid Rats

-1 Debilitating Injury

-1 Throttle

-1 Set Adrift

-1 Dead Drop

+3 Sultai Charm

+3 Murderous Cut

 

This leaves a few other random cards that don't quite fit these other categories. Black Cat and Walking Corpse don't have the power level we need. Wall of Mulch would be nice if we had more defenders, but since we don't, he doesn't really fit. Gravedigger can be useful to have in case your graveyard fillers fill the 'yard with things you really need in your hand, so let's put in one more of those. The Sultai Banner is great for fixing your mana, but I'd rather do that with lands instead of taking up a spell slot. Become Immense can be a blowout if you use it at the right time. +6/+6 can either obliterate an unsuspecting blocker or turn an unassuming Satyr Wayfinder into a 7/7 monster. Two more of these are in order. Treasure Cruise is one more way to fill up your hand, but costs enough of your delve power that I don't think you want more than 2 total in the deck.

 

-1 Black Cat

-1 Walking Corpse

-1 Wall of Mulch

-1 Sultai Baner

+1 Gravedigger

+2 Become Immense

+1 Treasure Cruise

 

Finally, let's take a quick look at your land. First off, there are 26 lands in the deck. I'm not sure we need quite that many. Let's take out 2 of each basic land and add in one more of each of the 2-color lands. This should smooth out your mana a little.

 

-2 Swamp

-2 Forest

-2 Island

+1 Jungle Hollow

+1 Dismal Backwater

+1 Thornwood Falls

 

As we look at the conclusion of this, I noticed that your count (your numbers add to 59) and categories of the cards you started with were a little off. I've moved them into the right category to more easily see what we have. If you were to run a version like the following, I think you could have a more consistent deck while keeping the same basic theme. Then, after playing with it for a while, you might get ideas of other cards that compliment the theme that would be fun to introduce.

 

 

Lands (23)

5 Swamp

6 Forest

4 Island

2 Jungle Hollow

2 Opulent Palace

2 Thornwood Falls

2 Dismal Backwater

 

Creatures (17)

4 Satyr Wayfinder

2 Gravedigger

3 Rakshasa Vizier

2 Sultai Scavenger

4 Hooting Mandrills

2 Necropolis Fiend

 

Other spells (20)

 

4 Taigam’s Scheming

3 Scout the Borders

4 Sultai Charm

4 Murderous Cut

3 Become Immense

2 Treasure Cruise

 

 

Have fun digging through your graveyard!

 

- mattedesa