[Modern] 8-Whack Emissary

[KouriNick]

8-Whack Emissary

Basic Plan is to spit out so many creatures your opponent doesn't know what to do...
Comments welcome

[xxx-magicchris-xxx]

this looks awesome man   have you tried it competitive ?

I Think Simian Spirit Guide fits better than Hidden Herbalists, since you need a source of red mana instead of double green ?!
Otherwise i like it pretty much and i feel free to copy some parts of it

[edo90swimmer]

Why Eidolon?

[KouriNick]

Glad you like it, and feel free to copy as much of it as you like.
Simian Spirit Guide is an interesting choice, and could be pretty sweet.

I do like the hidden Herbalist because of the quasi-freeness of it. I can fetch land into Herbalist, into Burning Tree, into bushwhacker with pretty high consistency. Or even Herbalist into manamorphose into anything.

Still though, SSG can help make it even more consistent, so maybe I'd replace a couple of the Legion Loyalists with SSG. Thanks for the suggestion!

[KouriNick]

As for why Eidolon, it was more of needing an another creature, though that's one of the more flexible spots. I do like having Sideboard access to it at least since some decks just can't beat it.

[xxx-magicchris-xxx]

Of course the Hidden Herbalist fits in perfectly in this deck strategy, but your mentioned Combo ( Fetch into Herbalist into burning tree into Bushwhacker ) is a turn 2 Combo attack for 8 .

i think thats good if your on the draw, but on the Play i guess you want to hit as much as you can on Turn 1.
So SSG + Land drop into Burning tree into bushwhacker and attack for 5 on turn 1.

So i suggest Hidden Herbalist should be at least a 2-off main deck and 2-off in Sideboard .
But SSG has to be a 4-off main deck in my opinion

[THEpuy]

this is genius

[KouriNick]

this is genius

Thank you! There's a decent chance I take some version of this to GP Vancouver in a couple weeks (either this is BUG midrange, which will be fun but less likely to snag free wins).

I just love all the wierd ways this can win on T2, like:

Hand: 2 fetches, emissary, herbalist, goblin guide, devil, simian Spirit Guide.

T1: fetch, devil (doesn't matter which mode, but they probably make me sacrifice and take 4), SSG and guide, attack for 2, opponent at 14

T2: draw reckless bushwhacker. Play fetch, Herbalist, emmisary, bushwacker, swing for 14.

Theres probably a dozen or more configurations that all work, and worst case they're just stuck at like 4 or 5 on turn 3

[KouriNick]

So just ran a 50 game test with the deck. I played an uncontested board (no spells or responses from my opponent) just to see how fast the deck can count to 20. The results were as follows:

T2 kill: 0%
T3 kill: 28%
T4 kill: 48%
T5 kill: 16%
T6+: 8%

There are some caveats with this data.
1. About half the T4 wins had the opponent on 1-3 life at the start of turn, so could have been dead in a real game due to shocks and fetches. Same is true for the T5 wins.
2. I did mulligan hands without land, but my inexperience with sequencing and knowing what to keep and what to mulligan probably slowed some games down that could have won faster

I was able to draw some conclusions from this test on how id change the deck in future.
1. Simian Spirit Guide was okay but generally underperformed. It allowed for some interesting starts, but the deck wants to curve out so often that the wxtra mana just went to waste. And any game with more than 1 was just too slow. I think I'll cut 2 copies in favor of more 1 drop threats.

2. Manamorphose is the glue that makes the deck work. It makes Goblin Bushwhacker playable, and fixes the mana made by Herbalists, all while triggering prowess for swiftspear. It can also be held as a surge enabler for an extra Reckless Bushwhacker.

3. Hidden Herbalist, definitely worse than Burning Tree Emissary, but does a good enough impression to get the job done. I think I'll keep all 4 copies because of the bonkers things it's able to do, though I could see going down to 3 copies.

4. Will Necatl: I thought about bringing in Necatl in place of Narnam Renegade, but the mana base is already stretched pretty hard, but with Manamorphose I could probably replace the 2 renegade and 2 swiftspear for a plays etc of Necatl.