u/MrNoBuddies

I mean as the title says, I dont understand why you wouldnt run a 0 mana burn spell with Flamebreather and Guttersnipe if only to trigger the boys.

I assume I am missing something

So I know Ive posted about it here a bunch but I have started playing Golgari Pestilence/Food Pest/ or as I have been naming it Golgari Cat Food for maybe a month or 2 now and like once again I want to express so much gratitude to the Reddit here for hearing me talk about struggling to find a control deck that resonates with me and pointed me to it.

I went 3-0 at the local pauper event tonight without losing a single game against White Weenie, Affinity and finished the night vs Altar Tron with the Altar Tron match up being my favorite because it was so complicated.

Its not huge, I understand that but like I decided I am locking in on this deck because the play patterns are so fun and so me, lots of positioning and holding on for turn 5 with the massive heel turn either when you start cracking enough food to get into commander life totals or you land Pestilence and get to kinda coast behind it.

And the people at the LGS arent like top rank but they are pretty good and particularly the Altar Tron deck kinda loomed like a monster in my mind so taking its legs out and having the game decided in the last turn at time in the round by tron being down 1 mana felt amazing.

Like its silly to thank reddit perhaps but you guys definitely had my back and I wanna amplify this suggestion. Its not Modern Blue White control, you have to let some combos go and what not but it feels very close to that kind of "creatureless control" that I wanted.

So I finally have my copy of the food pestilence deck. I dont have all 4 Ouphes, but I have 2 and thats the only thing missing.

This deck has been really really fun and rewarding to play even if I didn't win. Like the interplay between the Cat and every card in the deck is just so cool and fun. I don't think I understand the deck very well yet, but that feels really really good.

The main thing I appreciate here though is that I feel both engaged and relaxed when playing. I know where the cat is most of the time, I know how to interact with it and my opponent and I feel very little pressure to be constantly active.

Mind you like, sac cat into heap harvest sac to get back cat is awesome, 3 mana ramp two swamps is so strong is secured a game very well. And that was the sort of line I never saw when I was borrowing a version from a friend.

There are other food making cards I have looked at, [[Savor]] for weak removal, [[Revive the Shire]] for recurring permanents, [[Many Partings]] to get lands, but I think trying to add those would weaken the deck probably and really [[Lembas]] shuffling back in is such a good late game engine.

I really wanna thank the people on the reddit here for encouraging me again to pick up this really cool and fun deck when I was talking creatureless control, I have started trying to promote this deck among other Turbo Fog enjoyers for something that will feel very similar but garner perhaps less hostility from others.

So I am exclusively a Mega-Corp gamer ever since they came out. The idea of neglecting my own empire so I can help build up foreign powers is very appealing and eminently sensible.

I am now also exclusively a Nomad gamer because the idea of neglecting my planets so badly that I dont even live there anymore just makes sense. I was voidbound before and voidbound shall I ever be.

Mega-Corps need A LOT of Influence if you want to make branch offices everywhere which I do because I am a Xenophile Megacorp gamer. This means I set up spy networks, try and make friends and try to be cautious about making deals while also trying to maintain proper rivalries.

While bopping around the galaxy I finally had it happen, someone offered me a Commercial Pact for the first time ever and I got so excited that I immediately neglected my arkship (As customary for every mega corp player) and started looking around the map for their home system, dumped as many resources as I could into getting sensor links, went into their home system and clicked the "Establish Branch Office" button without even reading how much it would cost me because I WANT A BRANCH OFFICE DAMMIT!

I had spent almost 0 influence up until this point because spies are actually pretty cheap when you forget to use them.

But now I look and I have like 5 influence left over somehow.... like I cant use my spies for ANYTHING and my ability to establish new deals is practically ruined. I cant start new branch offices anywhere else.... and why? Because it cost me almost the full 1000 influence to build that one office...... I got too excited and was far enough away in my Arkship that I ruined my empire by establishing that office, despite as far as I understand just needing to pop over in my Arkship to say hello BEFORE trying to set it up.

I am a fool... my people do not trust me because I am a fool. Surely this will lead to our ruination... or at least having to wait a few months before trying to set up a McDonalds on a second planet, which is effectively the same as death.

So I really love Stellaris conceptually. The idea of being a cool space empire is cool. But I always dealt with kinda getting bored because your empire felt so static and it never felt like I was really interacting with the Galaxy.

Nomads has ENTIRELY changed my opinion here to being even more positive. Now everything feels so much more important. Like the biggest change to me is now I care where my resources are and come from which means things like actual factual on map "Empire Sprawl" matters to me. Not the Sprawl number, but the map sprawl. If my Arkship is like 10 jumps from my nearest Logi ship it can be super annoying to get all those delicious resources which makes deciding how to move my ships feel so much more important.

Because I play exclusively Mega-Corps because that is my Space Empire Fantasy, and the two work so well together. Like I have to work to maintain relationships so I can get Contracts to expand, keep my offices open to get other resources, and spying even matters somewhat but can also completely screw me over. Like this risk reward stuff for diplomatic feels awesome

The only thing I havent checked out yet is if I can establish Mercenary Enclaves or whatever they were called so I can pimp out my ships to other empires cuz if I can this game might be in its perfected form for me. The idea of doing Proxy wars and supplying military vessels to other empires and a megacorp and spying on people becoming the Galactic Shadow Government sounds AMAZING.

So I have been trying to find a nice comfortable deck to play for the past year, started on Brewing with Spider Manifestation and just kinda meandered around since I accidentally brewed it into a brick. Played some Mono-Black, played Ephemerate, Walls, and really jus played just a bunch of stuff.

Yesterday I played my second week with Golgari Gardens (Cat Food Edition) and man this is exactly my speed. I felt very at home with this deck, heavy removal plus sitting back on a good value engine with Campfire, and even had that feeling of security knowing I win the unending game because i can shuffle.

Just wanted to say a little thank you to the reddit here cuz yall suggested it which encouraged me to borrow from a local friend and try it out and yeah.. incredibly my speed.

For anyone else looking for a deck that gives you plenty of time but still also gives you a win condition check out Gardens, its fun.

So I found a funny deck on NeonMushroom's YouTube that conceptually seems pretty fun and is pretty cheap and was kind of taken in cuz iirc I have never seen it win a game

The deck is called WRifter and its a Red White Lightning Rift control deck cycling Eternal Dragon into the Rift in order to get a repeatable shock effect.

On some conceptual level I love this deck... im a huge fan of underdog decks but I play against G-Terravore, Dead Guy Ale, and UG madness a bunch since thats what my friends have and yall this deck eats dirt every game.

Its so weird cuz decks featured by NeonMushroom tend to be at least okay, if not actively good and I am used to decks with recognizable names being aomewhat good. But irl and in videos I've never seen this deck do anything and I am wondering if its just actually that bad... or if I am missing something

You hear it so often that Commander players are unique in how angry they get about the stupidest things and how they ruin the game and yet folks who intentionally play pauper and vintage will tilt so fucking hard.

Seeing folks tilt over [[Guttersnipe]] in Pauper or [[Nadu, Winged Wisdom]] Breakfast combo or [[Hymn to Tourach]] in value vintage and it all makes me think of how people talk about Commander.

Far as I seen it the salt isn't unique in Commander, hell as a control player I am constantly seeing folks tilt off. Its kinda funny seeing how people respond to Turbo Fog and the like.

I guess I just think its silly how annoying people will be about commander players. Like constantly talking down about it when far as I see most groups are no better

So [[Cryogen Relic]] came out a while ago and PFP Member Emma Partlow was even posting about wanting to jam it with [[Abjure]] and since then I just dont hear about it which is weird cuz for one small portion of the internet it really sounded like an avengers level threat

So my question is like is funny ball good? Is there like a good flicker-ball deck I should be looking at? Can I bounce my ball to dunk on opponents? Whats the most effective ways to play with these balls?

I really enjoy playing my Bant Wilderness Reclamation control deck in Value Vintage and recently in pauper threw together a pile of 4 Delvers, 3 Murmuring Mystics, a one of Azure Fleet Admiral and then card draw, counters and bounce spells and this deck is so freaking fun, particularly I love having Murmuring Mystic in play and using it as a control pay off. It feels like playing the Pauper version of my BantRec deck

So the ask here is for suggestions for decks that center the Mystic.... like is Delver the best home for it? I figure its pretty good since delver is early pressure that Mystic closes the door with, but maybe some more experienced players might have suggestions for how to better use the funny bird-o-mancer or even other suggestions for Mystic-like cards in pauper to look at.

So Pauper nights where I am at run events with 3 50 minute rounds and each round is Best of 3. This means each game gets around 16 minutes to play out and assuming perfect time equity you get approximately 8 minutes per game.

In reality I know it doesnt feel like this and its not exactly true, but damn does that mess with my perspective as someone wanting to settle into the format.

I am a somewhat slow person... I like to have plenty of time, but if all I have to respectfully play a game of magic is 8 minutes how can I really be "slow"

This isnt me complaining about the clock or even wanting events to go longer, its kinda just me musing on this. I suffer some timer anxiety and this feels like it puts things in perspective.

So I have been playing the format for about 5ish months now and I had been playing a few decks, started on Turbo Fog but clock anxiety kinda killed that deck for me. Went to brewing some nonsense using [[Spider Manifestation]] and stuff with reduces costs that just kinda died to everything.

The creature heavy nature of the format with the poor access to sweepers is making it hard for me to get my footing. In value vintage I run a Wilderness Rec control deck cuz that is my comfortable space, but pauper is so different.

I recently started trying to experiment with a Delver Tempo deck that felt a bit more my speed, but what I'd really like to be able to play is something that doesn't rely as much on committing to the board and plays at control speed. Something where I have plenty of time to figure out whats going on and how to deal with it.