Expand the sphere’s sneaky proliferate mode can finish off opponents who take a monument hit, so maybe it’s worth playing 4 of those and 2 survey? You probably will whiff slightly more frequently, but since the entire goal is to get a monument kill it seems worth it to me.
Toxic Nine is because the rest of the card is based on the number 9, it is a 9/9 that requires 9 lands, it is a reference to the fact that the original Phyrexia had 9 Spheres.
Really is too bad they didn't make it a Toxic 10 - I mean, when you have to get 9 lands with different names, and half of them come into play tapped and none of them fix your mana very well; is a Blightsteel that doesn't Trample really too much to ask for as a reward?
It's more for the flavor reasons - there are exactly 9 spheres in New Phyrexia, also toxic 9 puts them just one Proliferate trigger from perfection. No trample is a big fail though.
Yeah, I think it would have been super fine with toxic 10. It takes a lot of work to turn it on, and it still gets chumped. I think being a one-shot kill would be a fair reward for how much effort you have to put into it.
Thirsting Roots would help fix lands and could potentially proliferate a monument hit into a win. Wouldn't necessarily make the deck good, but seems like a good fit.
Thirsting roots seems like slam dunk to me. Early game fix your mana and get another land name, late game proliferate after getting in a monument attack to win on the spot. Similar story for experimental augury, though probably not as good
My very first 60 card deck back in the day was a Green/Black infect deck built from random cards i pulled from a friends pizza box full of bulk magic cards. The land base has the original Locus lands in it because i always like the concept. Cool to see it come back even if in a small way. As always love the videos Seth, thanks for the content!
The seed core adds color of any mana for phyrexian creatures so you can fix for atraxa when you thought you couldn’t play it against the mardu deck. That is kind of a cool interaction and another reason to run atraxa in the deck lol
Oh my god...I submited a monument deck for goldfish commander thinking it was a very Phil deck but also that it was in the spirit of against the odds, and now comes an against the odds video on monument hahah. Glorious!
I’ve noticed if Seth looses he typically will just say it’s because the opponent top decked the right card even if he has no idea what’s in his opponents hand 😂
I think with the angel 2 damage thing it would have been used earlier if they had it. Of course we can't know but I will almost always trust Seth's game sense.
Love this idea, Seth! I put it into a mono white control list, and it's working well enough to get me to the finish line about half the time, which is great odds for some janky fun! Appreciate you sharing, as always.
Yeah, Skrelv is a funny way to get in the last poison counter. It's really awkward until the super late game though when we turn on Monument because we don't really have anything to do with it or creatures to protect. Is it worth cutting some ramp for? I'm not sure, honestly.
I know Mono Red is the enemy of fun most of the time, but the G1 deck was pretty interesting, and didnt seem to have any of the usual Kumano or Bloodthirsty culprits.
10:59 you still had the out of atraxa into untapped white source + depopulate? mirrex and mycosynth gardens are 2 colourless, 2 forests, 1 swamp, blue from headquarters, white from the seedcore (to cast a phyrexian creature spell)- this leaves you with an untapped jetmirs garden, black sphere, green sphere. From there the atraxa trigger has to hit depopulate and an untapped white source so that you can play the land and cast the spell. OR failing to see this line you have the potential out of activating a sphere land to draw a card and hoping that it's a wrath
@@malcomchase9777 in the same way they teased battles with Atraxa, printing a card at rare that wants locuses, a land type not on arena and not printed in years, seems like a strong sign they'll be reintroduced.
@@willashcroft2396 Honestly, pretty unlikely. Locust already exist, and are powerful. They are the Slivers of lands, so any more you print make the old ones even better. That's a nod to old cards, not a tease.
Like a lot of the other comments, a way to get the 10th or 1st poison counter seems helpful, but fitting it into the deck is the challenge. Still very fun!
Game 2 you could have atraxad, found an untapped white source, and cast depopulate. Seedcore gives you white for Atraxa, it doesn't need to be used for colourless.
The big problem I'm seeing, other than just how many lands 9 lands is, is that it requires you to play so many bad spheres to get it up. Maybe in Historic where you can play snow basics to up the number of untapped lands you can run would be more viable, only running Mirrex, Seedcore, and Mycosynth Gardens plus a couple snow covered versions of your basics to have more than enough names
i am curious how this would do with spelunking in standard now. maybe it would help a bit since you could pull 2 untapped lands to cast a go for the throat in the same turn
There ain't Growth Spiral, perpetual card draw ramp these days, but I'm not sure the big mana ramp payoffs scaled up as the efficiency of ramp scaled down.
I think some sort of split between that and the one that searches for a land or proliferates....swing with the monument and proliferate for one mana in second end step
This week on Against the Odds: Is a vanilla 9/9 for 9 strong enough to take games in standard? Let’s find out! (It isn’t but I commend your attempt Seth).
i actually think hardcasting atraxa actually hurts this deck i believe that slot could be something that either benefits the deck or keeps you alive. Drag to the bottom? There was also several occasions that you didn't grab mirrex to get 1 point of poison damage in. Which puts them dead to 1 monument attack.
I think some cards that granted trample could’ve helped to secure a hit, or if the wrath plan was more ideal then some of the cards that just give a single poison counter like the infectious bite or the draw a card one could’ve helped?
Id like to see this deck in a different format. It could potentially be good with just a ramp deck that plays Karn and you get the Monument from your sideboard w/ Karn.
We need monument to perfection + rootpath purifier commander against the odds. Basically just straight green blue ramp with artifact copying. Rootpath Purifier to turn all the monuments online.
I would definitely build my own version of this on arena if the economy was decent, but sadly I won't be able to dust it away so it's too much of a cost to brew around janky cards like this.
For all the work it takes, it should have been a one shot. In formats with only 20 life, and at 9 power and needing two hits, the toxic is more flavor text than anything.
I don't understand why people wouldn't let you win! You're only trying to turn them into Perfect Magic Players! Why would they so easily shun the greatest gift they could receive?
I think you would have done better with monument if you played Pioneer/Explorer. It is much easier to turn on with snow covered and normal basics. You have Cultivate and Sad robot to get each option.
they really could have left the word 'locus' off this card and made it actually somewhat reasonable in standard. I feel like they made it intentionally super clunky because they were afraid of what it might do in older/commander formats
@@3N3MYKN1GHT I think the idea is that they could have made the play or the search 1 mana cheaper, or given it trample, or something if it didn't also get locuses. Basically the idea being that the card itself could be stronger if it didn't let you search locuses as well as everything else.
@@thaddeusgenhelm8979 I would argue that activation to search isn't needed at all, but its a nice upside if you aren't using your mana or need fixing to cast your board wipes. you can give this trample or fear/shadow/unblockable in older formats quite easily, hell its even trivial in standard to give it trample. I'm running a one of angelfire ignition, with skrelv or proliferate it doesn't need you to do much for this to be a lethal attack. It has locus cause Memnarch created the locuses on mirrodin and since (new) Phyrexia is still mirrodin it would make sense why the sphere searching artifact also finds loci.
14:26 Why did you surrender? You had the mana for Leyline Binding and could have responded to its trigger by exiling it! Because the creature does the damage, it would have been unable to and would have whiffed!
@@Steamer2001 Not if the target is the one dealing the damage. If it were "if archangel of wrath was kicked, deal 2 damage to any target" then that would be true. But the trigger specifies that Archangel of Wrath deals the damage, which means if the creature is not on the battlefield, the source does not exist when the triggered ability attempts to resolve.
@@honorableintent that is simply not true, it still deals the damage, it even still has lifelink. This is because in the absence of regular info the game uses its last known info, which was that the angel existed and had lifelink.
I get the impression that Wizards was afraid of the bunch of broken and interesting cards they released in Brothers War and Phyrexia and so they decided to have every kind of removal imaginable together in the meta. Too boring to see every interesting card never have a chance.
There's been a trend for a few years now that there's always a bunch of maindeckable hit-everything removal around, even up to older formats - it's making cool buildarounds so much worse, even ones like Aether Vial that used to be just good, not even very spicy.
I've tried a similar deck and I've won a single time... with White Sun's Zenith. There was a game where I was able to make the 9/9, but after all the hoops you have to jump through, it doesn't even have haste. I was so disappointed... this gets got by portal hole from a mile away... what a waste of a card. Perfection? Ha! Not...
I wish I got to see a competent magic player pilot the deck to see if it has any legs. As it is Seth just concedes at the first sign of a challenge 🤷♂
Expand the sphere’s sneaky proliferate mode can finish off opponents who take a monument hit, so maybe it’s worth playing 4 of those and 2 survey? You probably will whiff slightly more frequently, but since the entire goal is to get a monument kill it seems worth it to me.
Ha, yeah! It never actually came up in the games, but sooner or later it will happen and be hilarious :)
Toxic Nine is because the rest of the card is based on the number 9, it is a 9/9 that requires 9 lands, it is a reference to the fact that the original Phyrexia had 9 Spheres.
New Phyrexia also has 9 spheres, and its a reference to the 9 circles of Hell in Dante's inferno :D
Really is too bad they didn't make it a Toxic 10 - I mean, when you have to get 9 lands with different names, and half of them come into play tapped and none of them fix your mana very well; is a Blightsteel that doesn't Trample really too much to ask for as a reward?
It's more for the flavor reasons - there are exactly 9 spheres in New Phyrexia, also toxic 9 puts them just one Proliferate trigger from perfection.
No trample is a big fail though.
It isn't as bad in Pioneer. I consistently got the 9 different land requirements by turn 5.
@@KebbieG You get 9 differently named basics, Spheres, and Locus lands by turn 5?
@@mrlescure Yes you get both Snow and regular basics with Fabled Passage to get the colors you want. The video I did drops next Tuesday with it.
Yeah, I think it would have been super fine with toxic 10. It takes a lot of work to turn it on, and it still gets chumped. I think being a one-shot kill would be a fair reward for how much effort you have to put into it.
Love ya SethProbablyBetterKnownAsSaffronOlive ❤️
S,PBKASO, probably better known as Seth.
Crim's Mirrex: "Let me carry all your decks on my back, friend."
Seth's Mirrex: "Am I a joke to you, sirrah?"
Thirsting Roots would help fix lands and could potentially proliferate a monument hit into a win. Wouldn't necessarily make the deck good, but seems like a good fit.
Nothing would make this deck good
I’ve been shocked by the amount of Mono red in the format. I thought everyone would be too intimidated by Phyrexian Obliterator.
They burn you to the face for the last points of damage
In my experience Sheoldred is a generally better against mono red than Obliterator.
They are relying off of people not having the wildcards lol
You don't play monored to play scared
I've been farming people with mono-black and Golgari Glissa due to that.
Seth really underatting Mirrex. Those mites can chip away in setup turns
Thirsting roots seems like slam dunk to me. Early game fix your mana and get another land name, late game proliferate after getting in a monument attack to win on the spot.
Similar story for experimental augury, though probably not as good
Love this tech, if you run out of basics then you are probably winning. Also I love Thirsting Roots
Better tech, dig up, adding a tutor for sweepers is just what this deck needed.
Hey Seth! I'd love to see The Dragon-Kami Reborn go off! We have some big, new creature hits to hide in those eggs.
My very first 60 card deck back in the day was a Green/Black infect deck built from random cards i pulled from a friends pizza box full of bulk magic cards. The land base has the original Locus lands in it because i always like the concept. Cool to see it come back even if in a small way. As always love the videos Seth, thanks for the content!
The seed core adds color of any mana for phyrexian creatures so you can fix for atraxa when you thought you couldn’t play it against the mardu deck. That is kind of a cool interaction and another reason to run atraxa in the deck lol
This. This right here, this level of glorious jank is why I’m subscribed.
Oh my god...I submited a monument deck for goldfish commander thinking it was a very Phil deck but also that it was in the spirit of against the odds, and now comes an against the odds video on monument hahah. Glorious!
Granted standard doesnt have as many tools to make it work xD but its the intention that counts
Why none of the card filtering proliferate or poison cards? Seems like they'd smooth the issue of Monument only doing 9.
I’ve noticed if Seth looses he typically will just say it’s because the opponent top decked the right card even if he has no idea what’s in his opponents hand 😂
Hmm, maybe I do that without realizing. I'll keep it in mind.
@@MTGGoldfish You're just stating what is clearly facts.
@@MTGGoldfish no worries haha. I watch all your videos keep up the good stuff!
I think with the angel 2 damage thing it would have been used earlier if they had it. Of course we can't know but I will almost always trust Seth's game sense.
Love this idea, Seth! I put it into a mono white control list, and it's working well enough to get me to the finish line about half the time, which is great odds for some janky fun! Appreciate you sharing, as always.
You could run Skrelv. He gives toxic 1 when you activate his ability. The problem is fitting it in the deck.
He also makes your guy semi un block able.
Yeah, Skrelv is a funny way to get in the last poison counter. It's really awkward until the super late game though when we turn on Monument because we don't really have anything to do with it or creatures to protect. Is it worth cutting some ramp for? I'm not sure, honestly.
@@MTGGoldfish Yeah. Would be funny but how do you find space, right?
@@MTGGoldfish Necrogen Rotpriest would work too but also probably not worthwhile
I know Mono Red is the enemy of fun most of the time, but the G1 deck was pretty interesting, and didnt seem to have any of the usual Kumano or Bloodthirsty culprits.
10:59 you still had the out of atraxa into untapped white source + depopulate?
mirrex and mycosynth gardens are 2 colourless, 2 forests, 1 swamp, blue from headquarters, white from the seedcore (to cast a phyrexian creature spell)- this leaves you with an untapped jetmirs garden, black sphere, green sphere.
From there the atraxa trigger has to hit depopulate and an untapped white source so that you can play the land and cast the spell.
OR failing to see this line you have the potential out of activating a sphere land to draw a card and hoping that it's a wrath
I think monument would work well with skrelv. Make it unblockable by one color and toxic 10 sounds good
"Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoy it." is so much nicer to hear than any annoying call to action. You guys are rad.
Thanks!
Love seeing Seth's joy in a win.
I have a feeling that the next set will make this a much more playable card.
How?
@@malcomchase9777 Not necessarily exactly next set, but at some point they could add some Locus lands to standard.
@@malcomchase9777 in the same way they teased battles with Atraxa, printing a card at rare that wants locuses, a land type not on arena and not printed in years, seems like a strong sign they'll be reintroduced.
@@willashcroft2396 Honestly, pretty unlikely. Locust already exist, and are powerful. They are the Slivers of lands, so any more you print make the old ones even better. That's a nod to old cards, not a tease.
Like a lot of the other comments, a way to get the 10th or 1st poison counter seems helpful, but fitting it into the deck is the challenge. Still very fun!
32:33 this was the perfect moment to use the “Nice!” emote, I’m sad this was passed up
Perhaps the deck needs some blue or black cards that just give the opponent poison counters, so Monument can one shot
Gets better in formats with "Snow-Covered" and Waste basics. Extra 6 fetchable cards, allows you to cut out a couple colors for consistency!
Game 2 you could have atraxad, found an untapped white source, and cast depopulate. Seedcore gives you white for Atraxa, it doesn't need to be used for colourless.
Infect:”Look what they need to mimic even a fraction of my power”
Another fun video brother Set. This deck feels too expensive for me.
To bad Kaldheim is no longer in standard. Snow basics would be a huge mana base improvement.
I get so much joy from his reactions to unlikely wins against busted decks.
The big problem I'm seeing, other than just how many lands 9 lands is, is that it requires you to play so many bad spheres to get it up. Maybe in Historic where you can play snow basics to up the number of untapped lands you can run would be more viable, only running Mirrex, Seedcore, and Mycosynth Gardens plus a couple snow covered versions of your basics to have more than enough names
Topiary Stomper won't attack or block...but he will drive a car. Ahh Magic.
if you add Skrelv it adds evasion AND 1 toxic to make it a one shot kill.
In my opinion, 4 street wraith and 4 Mishra's bauble just for free draw and consistency. Excellent videos!
Modern deck that needs to be made: monument tribal:
i am curious how this would do with spelunking in standard now. maybe it would help a bit since you could pull 2 untapped lands to cast a go for the throat in the same turn
I would try this with Formats that have Snow Covered Lands
There ain't Growth Spiral, perpetual card draw ramp these days, but I'm not sure the big mana ramp payoffs scaled up as the efficiency of ramp scaled down.
i think playing vraskas fall or prologue to phyresis could be an option to get that one poison on the opponent
Have you considered running skrelv in this deck to make monument toxic 10 and unblockable by a color?
Maybe Bushwack would have helped? Mana fixing turn one and fight spell later on.
I think some sort of split between that and the one that searches for a land or proliferates....swing with the monument and proliferate for one mana in second end step
If you are using it as a fight spell, you either have atraxa or monument, at which point it’s useless
Atraxa's lifelink would have saved Seth a few times in the early games for sure
I think creating Mites with Mirrex to get in an early poison counter could be a good play.
30:05 this line is fragile to removal, but you could've triple blocked the trespasser and used two of the devils' triggers to kill the underdog
Having a tutor seems invaluable to me, my list plays dig up, but if you are on atraxa plan you should probably play cruelty of gix
How about sprinkling Tamiyo's Protection to secure Atraxa and the Monument?
This deck is like trying to set off a Rube Goldberg machine to kill the opponent while they are firing an AR-15 at you.
This week on Against the Odds: Is a vanilla 9/9 for 9 strong enough to take games in standard? Let’s find out! (It isn’t but I commend your attempt Seth).
Looking back on it, this standard was brutal to artifacts/enchantments
It's just u need to be in at least 4 colors to turn it on. It may get some lands but it's a lot of work
Seth using a superhero movie reference, in what world are we living?
Hey Seth I’m trying to build this type of deck for standard on a budget! What would be cheaper replacements or swaps for atraxa?
i actually think hardcasting atraxa actually hurts this deck i believe that slot could be something that either benefits the deck or keeps you alive. Drag to the bottom? There was also several occasions that you didn't grab mirrex to get 1 point of poison damage in. Which puts them dead to 1 monument attack.
Is that a The Faint shirt? Gonna be Dancing Macabre later?
I think some cards that granted trample could’ve helped to secure a hit, or if the wrath plan was more ideal then some of the cards that just give a single poison counter like the infectious bite or the draw a card one could’ve helped?
the first few matches felt more like "against the odds: atraxa but with bad mana and 4 dead cards (monument)"
Seth-opponent is at 6 and 9.
Me, a 30 year old child-NICE!
I must admit, Seth is the first thing I thought of when I saw the monument
The equipment that gives 1 toxic could be a good option. Activating the monument is cheap enough to allow the equipping the same turn
Id like to see this deck in a different format. It could potentially be good with just a ramp deck that plays Karn and you get the Monument from your sideboard w/ Karn.
Pretty sure they arent in standard, but do snow lands count as separate lands for the monument count?
We need monument to perfection + rootpath purifier commander against the odds. Basically just straight green blue ramp with artifact copying. Rootpath Purifier to turn all the monuments online.
8:15 were you not able to exile it with Leyline?
I'd swap Depopulate for White Sun's Twilight. It wipes and one mite getting in ends it for the opponent.
Just created a dimir defender toxic control deck. I love defenders.
I would definitely build my own version of this on arena if the economy was decent, but sadly I won't be able to dust it away so it's too much of a cost to brew around janky cards like this.
Wait, why couldn't you cast Atraxa at 10:15? You had all the colors right?
I think you missed that the seedcore taps for any color of mana for Phyrexian spells since you tapped it for colorless when tapping for her later.
Seth is a national treasure inting his tier 1 rank for our entertainment.
If you want a crazy Against the odds, try making an "Eye" creature type deck... without Changeling, it's gonna be hard to win with.
For all the work it takes, it should have been a one shot. In formats with only 20 life, and at 9 power and needing two hits, the toxic is more flavor text than anything.
20:45 Why did you not negate the abrade?
I don't understand why people wouldn't let you win! You're only trying to turn them into Perfect Magic Players! Why would they so easily shun the greatest gift they could receive?
Once again contagious vorrac might be good here
Also thirsting roots and probably cut a color (blue or red i'd say)
I’m shocked that Infectious Inquiry isn’t in this. The deck is probably so much worse when you need to hit with Monument twice.
I feel like against the odds was due for a deck like this after quite a few kind of actually good decks recently haha
I think you would have done better with monument if you played Pioneer/Explorer. It is much easier to turn on with snow covered and normal basics. You have Cultivate and Sad robot to get each option.
I think the monument would be really cool if it had trample. Then it's still 2 attacks to win, but can't be chumped effectively.
May use one of those “opponents get a poison counter” cantrips so Monument is a one-shot?
Why u get two segments when winning at platinum?
they really could have left the word 'locus' off this card and made it actually somewhat reasonable in standard. I feel like they made it intentionally super clunky because they were afraid of what it might do in older/commander formats
Why would removing locus make it any better, it is absurdly easy with snow mana tho.
@@3N3MYKN1GHT I think the idea is that they could have made the play or the search 1 mana cheaper, or given it trample, or something if it didn't also get locuses. Basically the idea being that the card itself could be stronger if it didn't let you search locuses as well as everything else.
@@thaddeusgenhelm8979 I would argue that activation to search isn't needed at all, but its a nice upside if you aren't using your mana or need fixing to cast your board wipes. you can give this trample or fear/shadow/unblockable in older formats quite easily, hell its even trivial in standard to give it trample. I'm running a one of angelfire ignition, with skrelv or proliferate it doesn't need you to do much for this to be a lethal attack. It has locus cause Memnarch created the locuses on mirrodin and since (new) Phyrexia is still mirrodin it would make sense why the sphere searching artifact also finds loci.
@@3N3MYKN1GHT To be clear, I was attempting to clarify what I thought the original poster meant, not really weighing in with my own opinion.
"The one person who believes in aggro still"
Signs of a healthy format /sarcasm
It was stupidly jank, but when it worked, it was sooooo satisfying!!!
14:26 Why did you surrender? You had the mana for Leyline Binding and could have responded to its trigger by exiling it! Because the creature does the damage, it would have been unable to and would have whiffed!
That’s not how abilities on the stack work. Once on the stack, the damage is going to happen whether its source survives or not.
@@Steamer2001 Not if the target is the one dealing the damage. If it were "if archangel of wrath was kicked, deal 2 damage to any target" then that would be true. But the trigger specifies that Archangel of Wrath deals the damage, which means if the creature is not on the battlefield, the source does not exist when the triggered ability attempts to resolve.
@@honorableintent that is simply not true, it still deals the damage, it even still has lifelink. This is because in the absence of regular info the game uses its last known info, which was that the angel existed and had lifelink.
Skrelv needs to be in this deck, can add toxic 1 to a creature for a phyrexian white at instant speed
I get the impression that Wizards was afraid of the bunch of broken and interesting cards they released in Brothers War and Phyrexia and so they decided to have every kind of removal imaginable together in the meta. Too boring to see every interesting card never have a chance.
There's been a trend for a few years now that there's always a bunch of maindeckable hit-everything removal around, even up to older formats - it's making cool buildarounds so much worse, even ones like Aether Vial that used to be just good, not even very spicy.
I've tried a similar deck and I've won a single time... with White Sun's Zenith. There was a game where I was able to make the 9/9, but after all the hoops you have to jump through, it doesn't even have haste. I was so disappointed... this gets got by portal hole from a mile away... what a waste of a card. Perfection? Ha! Not...
couldnt you use a card that just throws out a single toxic? like a mite or draw 1 toxic or something
It should really have indestructible even before turning into a creature. Either that or the sphere lands should be even remotely playable
1:50 atleast on this screen, you're missing the seedcore.
Looks like this is one of those decks that Shuffler absolutely shits on for some reason.
Snow basics would so help this deck
I wish I got to see a competent magic player pilot the deck to see if it has any legs. As it is Seth just concedes at the first sign of a challenge 🤷♂
is there like an MTGGoldfish modern channel I'm missing? this just seem to be 90% standard
Surprise the legendary mite didn't make the cut. It gives 1 more toxic making it lethal
@32:32 Nice
Omg it's a locus tutor!
i think its all 9 because of the 9 spheres of phyrexia. so flavor reasons basically
I wonder if he'll ever reach the point where he's better known as Seth.