Lathril Advice

[Slyvester12]

Okay, I've finally decided to take another stab at building Lathril. I've been really busy with moving/getting ready for grad school/pandemic/etc... But, I think I'm ready to sit down and hammer out a test list. This is what I have so far:
https://deckstats.net/decks/132279/2157003-lathril-elfball

Obviously, it's still a work in progress. I was hoping that some of you on here with more experience in black or golgari would have some hidden gems for me. I think I've got the green cards pretty well figured out from running Ezuri for so long, but feel free to tell me if I've forgotten something.

The strategy is pretty straightforward: Play Lathril, ramp really hard, make infinite mana/untaps and kill everyone in one turn. I'm planning to use the same infinite combos I run in Ezuri, but I want to see if Lathril proves more reliable, adding black tutors and removal.

I'll be trimming the list down over the next week or so and hopefully playtesting in the near future. I need to get my hands on Lathril herself and some of the newer cards, but I have most of this in paper already from other decks.

[The Golgari Guy]

I have a Lathril list I'm pretty happy with, although it's probably not the power level you're going for:

https://deckstats.net/decks/149180/2006820-lathril-elfball

I think that one of the possibilities with Lathril is adding some Aristocrats cards instead of going full Elfball (at least, this is what I did). This also has the good side effect that your opponents may find themselves unable to board wipe, since your aristocrats (such as Nadier's Nightblade) may just kill them if they do. Here are some black/Golgari cards that you may find interesting for your build:

- Skemfar Avenger is good card draw and helps recovering after a board wipe.

- Nadier's Nightblade, Poison-Tip Archer, Moldervine Reclamation and Elderfang Venom are pretty good if you go for the Aristocrats plan (but if you don't, you probably don't need them).

- Skemfar Shadowsage can give you some reach and sometimes one-shot the table

- Throne of the God Pharaoh is pretty effective if you plan to use Lathril's second ability (otherwise, probably not worth it).

- Species Specialist (although not an Elf) is pretty bonkers when it comes to drawing cards -- notice that it doesn't say "nontoken"!

- Plumb the Forbidden can also provide extremely efficient card draw, and also kill your opponents in combination with the aristocrats.

- Shizo, Death's Storehouse is pretty useful with Lathril.

Maybe you'll find some of these cards interesting!

[Slyvester12]

Thanks for the recommendations. I definitely meant to put Shizo, Death's Storehouse in. For the rest:

I'm not really interested in aristocrats effects because I want creatures on the board. I need a whopping 10 for Lathril's second ability, and I'm not sure how easy that would be running sac effects.

For the same reason, I'm not sure about the kaldheim elves that rely on creatures dying. I'm thinking I'd rather run more protection than plan for things to die so I can draw.

Skemfar Shadowsage seems a little redundant. It's not super useful unless I have a lot of elves, but if I have a lot of elves, I'd probably be using them for Lathril. If the ability wasn't only on ETB, or if it had more use after coming down, then maybe. As it is, I'm not sure 4 mana is worth it.

I ran Throne of the God Pharaoh in Ezuri for a while, but I realized that it didn't help me win any faster and I often wanted to leave elves untapped for chump blockers or fast access to mana. If only it weren't on MY end step, it would be a lot more interesting.

Species specialist is just a worse Skemfar Avenger to me. Yes, it triggers when a token dies, but I still don't want to depend on my own creatures dying.

Plumb the Forbidden seems a little pricey for what it does in this deck. I'm not sure it's worth running through half of my board and a lot of life trying to dig for a combo piece, at least not when other draw options work too.

So, thanks for the response, but I'm not sure a lot of these would fit that well into my strategy. I can definitely see how they would work in a Lathril deck, but I think they run too counter to what I'm trying to do to be terribly helpful. Who knows, though? Maybe after playtesting, I'll come back and try them out.

EDIT: You know what? On second thought, I think I'll playtest Skemfar Shadowsage as an alternate win con. It would be easy to tutor for, and making enough mana to play it 10+ times would be easy enough if I have Cloudstone Curio or Temur Sabertooth.

[The Golgari Guy]

I think that in the end it really depends on the strategy you're going for. I see you're really going for the classic elfball/combo route, which actually makes a lot of sense if you're aiming for a higher power level.

Personally, as I have built this deck to be at a lower power, I like to have an insurance against board wipes, and aristocrats are just that. I feel like a big downside of playing Elves is that a board wipe can wreck you, but sometimes a couple aristocrats on the board are sufficient to deter your opponents from casting a wrath.

Also cards like Plumb the Forbidden can double as win conditions when you go the aristocrats route. However, I recognize that going full combo is probably the right call if you want something higher power.

As an aside, I see that you included Realmwalker: what is your experience with it? It seemed a bit clunky to me in an Elf deck at 3 CMC, but I'm starting to think that the ability to churn though the top of your library may be well worth it.

[Slyvester12]

I actually don't run Realmwalker in Ezuri. I thought I would try it out in Lathril, but I'm not sure it'll make the cut. I haven't really playtested it yet, mainly because I didn't think it would be fast enough, like you mentioned.

EDIT: Didn't see the typo until it showed up in the quote.

[The Golgari Guy]

I actually don't run Realmwalker in Ezuri. I thought I would try it out in Lathril, but I'm not sure it'll make the cut. I haven't really playtested it yet, mainly because I didn't think it would be fast enough, Limes you mentioned.

Ok, I guess maybe I'll try it myself and see then!