Path of the Soulbound (Mono Green)

Decks
#1

Hello Faeria Community!

I figured I’d try and share with everyone the journey I plan to take revolving around one of my favorite cards: The Soulbound Sagami.

Soulbound Sagami

  • :faeriasecurity: Note: This card was recently patched to be 6 faeria + FF originall announced in the Nov 30 Patch Notes under Balance Changes.
  • :faeriasecurity: Note: Additional details for the Patch can be found right here on the boards!

The card itself embodies one of my favorite memories from playing MTG: Arcbound Artifact Creatures from the Mirrodin (Darksteel) Block. It was the first style of deck I ever played and was loads of fun to see bouncing from one creature to another. Although artifact lands, “affinity” cost reductions, and card-tokens are not seen yet or in the near future: I give you my attempt at trying to mimic the Arcbound-themed deck into Faeria revolving around the Soulbound Sagami:

SOULBOUND
Mono Green (Big/Sacrifice) Decklist

DECK CONCEPT
The “Soulbound” Deck attempts to capitalize on the following:

  • Cheap high-health taunt creatures to protect key cards (Bone Collector, Spirit of Rebirth, Feral Kodama) while providing a strong faeria collecting presence.
  • Multiple sources of board buffing by means of Soulbound Sagami, Eredon, and Ruunin’s Guidance, and the means to protect key key cards (Bone Collectors, Wild Avengers, and Feral Kodamas) with Safeguard.
  • Maintaining a strong enough delay to push to Mid to Late game with Ruunin’s Presence (+5 Life) Feed the Forest and in some cases Safeguard to allow Bone Collector and heavy hitters like Wild Avenger and Feral Kodama to carry the victory.
  • Good balance of action economy with Wood Elemental, Living Willow, and Feed the Forest.
  • Once at least two wells are contested, the deck can play very aggressively and push to control the board or go in for the kill.

As always thoughts and suggestions are always welcome!

Recent update to reflect some of the Theory Crafting Feedback. As with keeping with the Soulbound concept and a heavy amount of creatures both on the field and in hand, I’ve opted to take advantage of my recent draw of Ruunin. the Relentless with the following changes:

  • 12/20/16: Added Voice of Hunger to capitalize on Elderwood Hermits and Soulbound Sagami in the event of unfavorable trades and to pass a buff early without using Feed the Forest on low-health creatures.
  • 12/20/16: Added Sagami Huntmaster for defensive/offensive tricks.
  • 12/20/16: Replaced Ancient Beastmaster with Spirit of Rebirth.
  • 12/21/16: Replaced Grove Guardian with Wild Avenger (this really made a difference!)
  • 12/22/16: Fairly significant changes, pace was too slow and being able to bounce back against red hate. Dropped Oaklings all together, as Sagami works a lot better.
  • 12/22/16: Needed some larger meat to go with the deck, this time Feral Kodama is in the mix, and with Soulbound trading solid hits and dying, I’ve had two games where Soulbound landed on Kodama for a 10/12 with slam and jumping.
  • 12/22/16: Swapped out some cards to fit in Wood Elemental. I have not regretted it yet!
  • 12/22/16: Games are running up to half an hour now, but I’m winning. Progress!
  • 12/23/16: Spirit of Rebirth had to go, and some unsavory encounters with Seifer prompted the inclusion of Protection to allow a more favorable trade against buffed Seifers and early trades with Bone Collector/Wild Avenger/Feral Kodama.
  • 12/23/16: Found that although Safeguard can be negated with Falcon Dive/SoulDrain/Seifer’s Wrath, I’ve found that I will typically only use it on the same turn I tend to break the Safeguard for maximum effect. Having a Safeguarded Kodama that has already been buffed by Soulbound can make for a brutal combination.

Seems to be a good balance so far, land/action/faeria economy hasn’t been a problem any more thanks to Wood Elemental and stalling tactics with Ruunin’s Guidance. Kodama and Wild Avenger make for some solid threats, and Soulbound now compliments them a lot better. Ruunin herself has provided me a saving grace in most games, and although Frogified I typically save her for when I know I can get a death trade and/or when enemy faeria is very low against blue. Check Game Journal for further details!

Keep in mind that only key cards are intended to be sacrificed while others are intended to stay on the board unless the trade is worth while. Key cards being Living willow, Wood Elemental, Eredon, and Soulbound Sagami. In rare instances I’ll drop a Wild Avenger, trade, and if I’ve taken a lot of damage already THEN sacrifice the Avenger (often by late game with 10+ life) for a big swing in Faeria. Key weaknesses to this deck include Mountain Seifer, Lake Control, and 3 Wish decks, as they can often times use these cards to great effect against you!

Game Journals:
Games 1-6 (Rank 22 to 21): “Soulbound Awakening”
Games 7-11 (Rank 21 to 20, NEW TIER!): “Silence of the Oakling’s Hunger”

3 Likes
#2

Interesting deck. I always liked Eredon, but haven’t really tried to make him work.

What seems a bit odd to me at first glance are the the 3x possessed ursus. I understand you have plenty of stuff to constantly get it to more than just one inital attack. But you’re missing the Falcon Dives to trigger a surprise double attack at will.
Might be Kodama works just better; the same synergies apply. And you’re building 3 forests for FtF, Eredon and Grove Guardian anyways. So another forest isn’t that far away. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#3

Short answer: I sadly do not have Kodama, being a new card and my shards being a bit limited (been saving up for some Legends for some time now, my luck with getting them didn’t change till AFTER I crafted some, go figure).

Long answer in addition to the above:
The reasoning behind the Ursus was that of a replacement for the Deepwood Grizzly, though in conjunction with Eredon and the Beastmasters I start with a fairly beefy creature by saving me a card slot.

I’ll be honest that the new card seems a good fit, though until I can get my hands on a copy I’ll have to put it in the list of cards to test out. With as much “bouncing” of buffs for all the large creatures, I imagine that the “free” buffs won’t be so much of a problem and I’ll get a chance to use them in the same sense that I do with the Deepwood Grizzly.

#4

Mh, what do you think about some movement tricks then, to get your big nasty ursus in place? Probably in that order: Huntmaster > Banquet > Horsemaster.
And 1 or 2 falcon dives might do the trick.

What I imagine this deck to have problems with is to get into place in general. Except Boar (which I think is good), you literally have to build a forest near your opponent’s orb. And even then it’s fairly easy to body block.
Maybe I’m wrong though and it’s not too difficult to get there. Guess we just have to try it. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#5

In the game’s I’ve played so far, the “Slam” with the Boar is great, and the “beef” of creatures are there to help survive the early game and allow me to carry late game. I still need to test it, though if I play my cards right (pun intended) I hope to blitz the boards ahead and place lands in such a way to contest close to the opponents orb.

I do that a lot with the jumping typically, though given that I’ll need at most 3 lands once I get the basics around my orb I can push ahead with plains before going in for the kill. Mind you this is all Theorycrafting right now, and Primarily I’m mostly looking to capitalize on Soulbound Sagami. Been tempted to replace Ursus with Voice of Hunger as well, though I find the friendly creature loss without some level of haste makes it a very situational card, even if I do get to move an insanely huge creature around.

#6

Good morning DicesMuse! :slight_smile:

Your deck looks pretty fun! Im glad Soulbound Sagami was changed to 2 forests, or this deck would be pretty hard to run with sooo many 3x Forest cards :smiley:

Keep us updated with how it goes and any changes!! If you have the cards, I would probably add Sagami Huntmasters, not only because they are INCREDIBLY good and helps you go from defense of offence to defence in the blink of an eye, but also because… Soulbound!

2 Likes
#7

I didn’t realise Soulbound Sagami was changed, this seems worth a try. I really like the card, since it has such a lot of value, but I found its cost was too high for a card which doesn’t pose much immediate threat and if the buffs stack on the same creature, it can be very sad to have it removed by blue or yellow. I suspect the cost reduction isn’t going to be much of a heartbreak reduction, but it is so nice when it does go well.

My similar green deck doesn’t run Tiki Caretaker, because I don’t think it’s usually as good as Elderwood Embrace. I don’t have to worry about early collection because I’m going to play Feed the Forest, which is easily the best card in this kind of deck, imo. I’ll save my Tiki Pipers for the occasion and get a lot more Faeria than I would by making any turn 1 play.

Elderwood Hermit is potentially better than Elderwood Embrace though, in stats and with regard to giving you a creature to buff.

I’d consider switching the Caretakers for Hermits (if only to prepare you for the devastation of having your enormous buffed creatures Nightmared) and probably making room for another Piper if possible.

I think even though Ancient Boar synergises with Ancient Beastmaster, it’s not that strong or versatile relative to other green creatures and probably the Ancient Boars are what I’d be replacing with Sagami Huntmasters, which are so powerful that they fit in any green deck, regardless of synergy. Kodama is probably better than Ursus too, since you don’t have any activators and you already have a heap of Feed the Forest targets.

I hope the deck works out to be satisfying more often than not.

2 Likes
#8

I absolutely agree on all points.

The largest problem I have had in the past with regards to the “Soulbound” style cards has always been their lack of immediate board presence. For example, by playing Elderwood Hermit too early was the fact that a simple Falcon Dive could drop it without having another target to pass the buff to.

This could of course be alleviated by simply having another creature on the board, though in the same mindset Bloomsprite could pose better. To keep in the mindset of “Soulbound” I am very tempted to replace tiki piper and caretaker for 3x Bone Collectors and 2x Elderwood Hermits. Maybe go as far as swapping one of the Ursus/Sagami Soulbound for a Voice of Hunger.

With regards to the Huntmaster, I’ve been really tempted to toss it into the deck. I want to see if I can manage it with just the Boars to start and see if I can “bridge” them like I hope for. With so much High-Health creatures on the board, it would be a shame not to take advantage of it.

Furthermore, I imagine this deck will indeed be a bit of a slower paced “march” while focusing on the bottom two wells to start. This is really giving me a lot to think about, thanks everyone for the feedback so far! Hoping to get some game time in soon, holiday season is busy and I’ve been lucky enough to get into the deck builder long enough to get the deck together before having to check on my son. More news to come! Cheers!

1 Like
#9

Just updated to include deck theorycrafting during my recent work-break! Hoping to grab a game later tomorrow afternoon assuming all goes well. Really liking how this is shaping up on paper, practice will be another monster to tackle!

1 Like
#10

:mythicchest: GAME JOURNAL 12/21/16: “Soulbound Awakening” :mythicchest:

Move to test the mettle in ranked for the first time in a long hiatus and see how well this goes!

  • GAME 1 (Loss): 3 Wishes

Was doing really well up until I saw the other land placements. Next thing I know my opponent gets Eredon, Ruunin the Relentless, and the only Soulbound Sagami I’ll see all night. It was a very sad game after that as my oponnent quickly took over faeria and had the resources to play the cards that I hadn’t drawn yet.

  • GAME 2 (Win): Gabrian Enchantment

Suprisingly despite my big hitters being turned to toads, I was able to pull out on top with some combo tricks with Sagami Huntmaster and Voice of Hunger. First win of the night brings me to Level 21!

  • GAME 3 (Loss): Red Burn

This game was much more of a close exchange. I was down to four health, the opponent down to 3. Though with the Red Hate, it was a well played match and the opponent was able to combo protection and “Lose Two Life” on combat. Was an enjoyable match, and partly due to me being a little too greedy.

  • GAME 4 (Win): Yellow Rush

This game went a lot better than I had anticipated. With so many targets that had the potential to buff my hand and the creatures on the field, my oponent had to make some hard choices. At one point I dropped a voice of hunger, pushed two lands to the opponents orb, buffing Voice to a 17/14. Following turn dropped a forest next to their orb followed by Sagami Huntmaster, dropping the voice of hunger. With no harvester on the field and the new change in soulpact the opponent surrendered.

  • GAME 5 (Loss): OHKO Desert/Lake Combo Deck

This deck REALLY caught me off guard.

I was feeling fairly confident that my creatures were storming ahead, and in a matter of two turns I had a 19/18 Aurora’s disciple slapping away at my orb. Despite having had two taunts and some body blocks, I wasn’t able to turn the tables away before the big turtle slapped me for all I had. Not only that, but with the “Failed Experiment” stacking on Storyteller, my hand was maxed out and was forced to discard some necessary cards to counter. It wasn’t a pretty or enjoyable experience win/loss wise but still an amazing sight to see as it dropped.

Cards that I got to see all in a matter of two turns:

Lakes: Failed Experiment, Shifting Tide, Aurora’s Disciple, Lore Thief
Plains: Campfire, Court Jester, Storyteller
Desert: Flash Wind, Soul Pact, Windborne, Souldrain

  • GAME 6 (Loss): Blue Control

This game was a bit of a mess, as I found out by accident that Sagami Huntmaster is a required teleport rather than a “may” teleport, which forced me to teleport a creature that I needed in front of my orb. Thinking I still had a chance with Ruunin, the opponent Mirror Phantasomed her followed by frogifying my main heavy hitters and proceeded to dominate the board. With nothing more than my Sagami Huntmaster and 3 faeria surrounded by Mirror Phantasms and tricked up frogs I conceded.

:mythicchest: GAME LESSONS :mythicchest:

I played this deck very aggressively at most, active defense at the very least. The games I did the best (against rush) I played Passive Defense instead (blitzing for the first two wells) and then march forward. Too many times I got too greedy with an orb attack that I pushed too far and got punished very heavily.

Another thing I found was that out of the 6 matches I played, four of them had water control decks. Sadly this deck doesn’t fair well at all against decks like that as they bypass a lot of the synergy in the deck. I’m partially tempted to drop at least two of the cards to put in either a pair of Wood Elementals or even better a pair of Earthcrafts. This would help with key land placement and card control since playing a passive defense will promote more of a control approach with this deck.

Sadly during this whole set of games, I only saw Soulbound Sagami show up twice in my games, once when someone else was playing it with 3 Wishes and again when facing Blue Control and having the card morphed into a frog.

1 Like
#11

Keep this updates coming! Really entertaining :slight_smile:

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#12

Thanks @J0k3se! Just updated my list, think I made a bit of a breakthrough. Journal to come later today!

1 Like
#13

:mythicchest: GAME JOURNAL 12/22/16: “Silence of the Oakling’s Hunger” :mythicchest:

I have to admit that the Oakling had a lot of potential in my last few games, though with Soulbound acting almost identical but just targeting the board rather than my hand, I found it increasingly difficult to keep it around. Furthermore, Voice of Hunger needs a wide area to summon to be entirely effective.

Furthermore without any other benefit than “BIG GREEN!” the card was getting “Toaded” or removed, I was effectively losing two cards, a substantial faeria investment, and board presence. Until this card gets changed, cost reduced, or additional combat/gift abilities this card simply isn’t effective in the current scheme of things.

By the end of all this, I’ve since dropped the 5 cards from the list in favor of Kodama and Wood Elementals. Also dropped Elderwood Hermit somewhere in the mix for more instant cards. The Life Gain from Ruunin is all the deck needed to find a place on ranked when facing Red Hate decks, which outside of a green on green mirror matches they are the closest to a good exchange. Blue Control still poses a problem, and something I’ll have find ways to work around and increase my win/lose ration.

Now without further delay: the Game Journal!

  • GAME 1 (Loss) - Yellow Flying Control

This game was fairly intense, running at around half an hour. There were decent trades to be had between the two decks, though sadly I over extended and was punished very heavily. I lost a large number of my backup harvesters to Deathwalker, Falcon Dives, and hard removal. My hand was full of an un-discounted Ruunin at 8 and a hand full of 6 cost cards with no Feed the Forest/Willow in sight. I played to the best of my ability. By the end of it, my opponent was taunting “You will not win!” and for the fun of it I summoned an 18/24 Wild Avenger from my hand that had been buffed constantly that I could do nothing with. Sadly no haste and no additional buff in sight.

Well played Soul Eater, well played.

  • GAME 2 (Win) - Plains Rush

Short game, was human rush with a bit of protection, deathtouch, and charge creatures. Traded my Soulband Sagami with the Deathtouch and luckily landed on Wild Avenger. Game ended just shy of 8 minutes with the opponent leaving the game as I rushed a now 11/15 Wild Avenger next to his orb by turn 5 and a few taunts next to my orb.

I’m finding the deck I’ve put together eats rush decks alive.

  • GAME 3 (Loss) - Desert/Forest Sacrifice Deck

Play Time 32 minutes. This game was really intense and a lot of fun. I’m fairly sure the opponent was toying with me the whole game, as he easily had a solid 20 faeria lead for most of the game. By the end of it I was able to hold my own and brought him down to 8 faeria.

Sadly the turn after having the 8 faeria, he moved a lot of creatures into taunted faeria wells, dropped two Soul Eaters and a Dragon buffing itself to 11/11. I had one taunt, though it was then promptly nuked with a hard removal and was proceeded to be slapped by two Flying 15/15 Soul Eaters and an 11/11 Dragon. I hope I provided an entertaining game if anything in this one. Good lessons to be learned either way.

Did I forget to mention the player had drawn all of his cards at this point? Yeah, he had like 12 health by the time they decided to end it.

  • GAME 4 (Win) - Unranked “Practice” :eggrapala:Water Control AI :eggrapala:

Did not count towards anything, but this is when I swapped out the cards mentioned in the update log for 12/22 in the top post. Had a large number of frogifies, though in this instance it was in my favor as I turned the once Ruunin into a hard to catch Faeria collector. Won decisively, and have a better grasp of how to play my deck.

  • GAME 5 (Win) - Blue/Red Control

Another long half hour game. Though very enjoyable. Player had the Queen and King out by turn 4, to which I contested all faeria wells regardless. Although the opponent was able to get some free cards, I had already established board dominance and was slowly widdling away at his large health creatures while I continued to buff my side fo the board and hand. At one point the player overextended and I got to taunt my way to victory. At 17 health, I marched two (newly added) Kodama’s to his orb each with a buff from Soulbound Sagami and one by Spirit of Rebirth. I had secured three wells with multiple taunts, Bone Collectors, and Willows who were ready to be fed back to the forest when needed.

The inclusion of both the Wild Avenger, Willow, and now the Wood Elemental works wonders when I have key cards like Bone Collector, Wild Avenger, and Kodamas in Play. It really won me the game this time, and allowed for land placement that if using the old deck I simply would not have had.

All in all by far one of my favorite games yet, and a hard earned victory agianst someone who was at a higher tier than me. Now at rank 20 and 1 star in!

:mythicchest: GAME LESSONS :mythicchest:

Sadly out of time, I walked away from these games with a good solid feeling about the direction this list has taken. All the problems I had before have vanished, options have opened up, and the mentality of having to decide between Oakling or Soulbound is easy to make now. Additionally, Soulbound Sagami is a great choice to drop early when contesting wells.

Good early hands includes Bone Collector, a Soulbound Sagami, and either Willow or Wood Elemental. Wood Elemental and/or Bone Collector turn one, turn two Wood Elemental, three Soulbound ahead to contest and march the Bone Collector and Taunt ahead. This way if another big creature takes out Soulbound, I can easily trigger Bone Collector and have a chance of the Soulbound tagging the Taunt or Bone Collector. Even if not, having Spirit of Rebirth out early is also favorable, as long as another taunt is in hand, and with so many taunt creatures (9 in total) the odds are in my favor.

Interesting note: All these games Soulbound showed up every time, with Eredon being MIA in all but one of the matches (against the AI of course).

2 Likes
#14

:mythicchest: GAME JOURNAL 12/23/16: Silencing Seifer’s Wrath :mythicchest:

After three consecutive games where Seifer landed on the board, requiring an immediate counter (that sadly I never seemed to have) I had to figure out how to keep to my original concept and improve my odds against this card. Speaking with @J0k3se and a number of my local friends we tested out a different approach to the deck. After much deliberation and just being shy of Rank 20 I needed to forsake using the Spirit of Rebirth, as although it was a great card in most decks Bone Collector was needed more, and I needed a card to provide more control against these large numbers of Burn decks that had Seifer marching in the lead.

After having lost these three games, I put together the most recent update to the decklist as detailed above and proceeded to the game board. As much as I’d like to include all the games I played, but in a matter of 2 hours my odds changed dramatically and after regaining my lead I had a 5 game win streak!

  • Yellow Rush: 2 Wins, and my first loss! Poor start of hand on my part, perfect hand on his…
  • Red Control/Hate: Out of what seemed like 5 games against this kind of deck, I was able to win 3 out of 5. The two losses were against an amazing early lead and well placed removal of Bone Collector early, clear placement of Flame Thrower, and/or some poor placements on my part that could have won me the game.
  • Blue Control: Didn’t see this as much today, though a LOT of King/Queen with Forbidden Library seemed to be popular. Thankfully Kodama and some early aggression won me all three games.
  • Mirror Match (Big Green): These games were a lot of fun, but out of three matches I still won twice. It was one of these early matches that I lost to that I realized the value of some well-placed Safeguard Spells.

:mythicchest: GAME LESSONS :mythicchest:

I think at this point I’m very much settled on how the deck has shaped up. I’m beginning to see where at least two of the losses I’ve had where due to me making a poor choice, and at least two other losses due to simply the opponent having the better draw which is simply in the nature of the game.

Furthermore, it is very important to play this deck defensively until you have at least two wells contested. Yes, you can do fairly well with just one if playing aggressive is necessary (which in the case of playing against Red or Blue is often the case). There are enough options in the deck to survive against most aggressive decks, and when playing against any Yellow Rush or Green/Yellow Sacrifice it can come with an extremely high level of satisfaction to end up on the better end of such decks.

I’ll continue to provide updates as I play around with this deck, though I feel it is at a point where I have achieved what I set out to do. Soulbound Sagami is a very central point in this deck, and it’s ability to “avoid” removal has provided an indirect threat in many games. It doesn’t provide as much of a threat as a +5/+5 buffed card from a lost Oakling, but the immediate board presence and the 3 attack power provides enough of an early threat to contest wells, early constructs, and has enough of a bite that when buffed by a Ruunin’s Guidance that it can help dominate early on where Oakling just couldn’t.

And with Bone Collector, Wild Avenger, and Feral Kodama in step, Sagami Huntmaster making key appearances, the deck has truly flesh itself out well! I hope others can come to enjoy this deck as much as I have. Now I feel it may be time to try out another!

Thank you to everyone who has helped follow along up till now, your input has been greatly appreciated. Happy Holidays!

4 Likes
#15

Really happy to see you doing well with this deck! And even more happy to follow your detailed descriptions of how its going and when/why you make changes!

Thank you so much this!

1 Like
#16

That looks powerful and really fun :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#17

This one is for you @DicesMuse!

1 Like
#18

Thank you so much for the link J0k3se! I’ll be checking that out here shortly! Time to update my deck and repost in the Hub! LoL