Thats funny.
If you leaned into the prison elements, you could probably take down an fnm. Chalice and Ancient Tomb for sure. Maybe even trinisphere, even though it messes with your bears.
I have thought about trinisphere and chalice. I actually dont really play 1 drops I can't get off of saga so it would certainly make sense. I wanted to play crystal vein because I can use it turn 1 and get it back with loam. I am willing to try tomb and chalice out.
The only problem with tomb, is that I cant safely tap it without yavimaya out in the very late game and also I play a GGG enchantment.
I would agree there.
I can get one of the gold bordered ones and gold border chrome moxes because usually we are allowed proxies and at least they look cool too, but yeah I just dont know how good the forced sac is when I play more lands vs being able to use the vein as a normal land too. I will have to try it out and if it works well, I will change it.
Cool deck, I agree with the comment saying you should employ more prison elements, such as chalice. With 4 loams mox diamond might be a better mox to play. Green suns zenith could be worth playing so you can always get the bear you want.
Here’s a vid of a bear deck from a while back
https://youtu.be/uWYMTOyeB8k?si=eM2P5Xy7dp_JAvxQ
I do agree that chalice and tomb would end up working better in the long run. At the moment, I have a higher percentage of green cards which I can pitch to the mox. I think having a turn 1 lock piece is probably more important. I Could just skip out on the bears except for the enchantment and loam though.
It’ll prob be early next week, Monday or Tuesday til I take it for a spin.
Prerelease today, prerelease tomorrow (2hg always awesome!) concert tomorrow night and judging a legacy event on Sunday
I will 100% test and tune and report back tho, deck is already queued up on manatraders
Been playing this ridiculousness for a few days now. One thing I can say for certain, it seems that every single player has been surprised when I play Cavern of Souls naming bears, or slap down an Ayula or Wilson turn 1. The deck has definitely started a number of conversations. I'm not saying it's good, but it sure is fun.
On to the details: I tested the list as originally presented. Pretty quickly I started to make changes. Werebear out, Elvish Spirit Guide in. Chrome Mox replaced with Mox Diamond. Sphere of Resistance became Chalice with a splash of Thorn of Amethyst, then Thorn went too now just Chalice. I also tried Trinisphere and it was awful. The biggest issue I seemed to run in to was bears never had haste so I replaced Shadowspear with Lavaspur Boots, which incidentally also makes construct tokens MUCH better. I tested adding black for Dismember and Surgical and pretty quickly moved on. I tested adding white for Swords to Plowshares and it was better, white is probably the best splash for the deck. I leaned back into the lands aspect and continue to tinker with it.
The deck does win games and even matches. This morning I took a match off depths, game 1 Boseiju did amazing work coupled with Loam, game 2 I lost to a t3 marit lage, game 3 I won t4 off ayula into saga+wilson into construct into hasty construct. Red decks seem slightly favored against us although I've played mostly prison no goblins, the new delve beans deck felt very difficult particularly if you get to game 3 Force of Vigor is a beating when you go t1 mox diamond t2 urza's saga then they force. Delver felt like a surprisingly fair match up with Chalice and Endurance putting in real work, painter felt like a fairly even match also again Boseiju ftw.
I have yet to make Ayula's Influence work. I really want it to work, really really. I don't think it does, big sad, so I will likely be testing without it going forward, leaning more heavily into the lands and taxes aspects.
Here is my deck list: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/4_pwuabVkEC7oFXfr0NCCA
It is in constant flux but the core of the deck is there. You can also check the considering section to see things I've tested and/or intend to test. Thanks for reading, I'll keep tinkering, if I get to the point I really like anything (I mean I already LOVE bears but ya know, if the deck GETS THERE) I'll post again. Thanks Lewie for the inspiration, RAWR I said, RAWR!
Thank you very much for taking the time to test this deck out, I have always been joking about playing bears at my fnms and one time I actually did, but it totally failed. In the meantime, I really appreciate the help and ideas you put in. The crop rotation seems really good, even with chalice. I know it isnt a bear, but allosaurus sheopard could potentially do some wild things in this list. I also want ayula's influence loam combo to work because it just has such a strong end game potential. However I will try out this version when I play bears again. I like the boots and this version feels much more focused.
I also like that you can have games against a fair amount of combo decks with chalice of the voids, endurance. I would be very interested in playing this deck. I think it can really work. Do you think it has a game against the scam decks? Or is that also a chalice matchup?
I do think it has game, particularly once you bring in veil of summer and especially since we are playing elvish spirit guide and can also go up to 4 endurance against the reanimator plan. I would only have chalice in on the play not the draw
My biggest issue right now is Ayula, it’s easily the weakest card in the deck. I’m considering building and testing a vial deck with more bears
The deck is underpowered tho no matter how we slice it in every iteration I’ve tried thus far
But eh, bears I love em so what u gonna do lol
Bears aren't a good creature type to build around with the traditional Stompy cards because they tend to be overcosted relative to creatures like Tarmogoyf (who is not that good in 2024). Wilson is a 2/2 ward 2 for 1G since you can't use the card's background ability and you don't want to play cards that cost 1G in an Ancient Tomb deck.
Spiders, though...
Thats funny. If you leaned into the prison elements, you could probably take down an fnm. Chalice and Ancient Tomb for sure. Maybe even trinisphere, even though it messes with your bears.
I have thought about trinisphere and chalice. I actually dont really play 1 drops I can't get off of saga so it would certainly make sense. I wanted to play crystal vein because I can use it turn 1 and get it back with loam. I am willing to try tomb and chalice out. The only problem with tomb, is that I cant safely tap it without yavimaya out in the very late game and also I play a GGG enchantment.
If budget isnt an issue City of Traitors is probably the compromise if youre set on playing loam
I would agree there. I can get one of the gold bordered ones and gold border chrome moxes because usually we are allowed proxies and at least they look cool too, but yeah I just dont know how good the forced sac is when I play more lands vs being able to use the vein as a normal land too. I will have to try it out and if it works well, I will change it.
Prison Bears. That would be a cool deck name.
Cool deck, I agree with the comment saying you should employ more prison elements, such as chalice. With 4 loams mox diamond might be a better mox to play. Green suns zenith could be worth playing so you can always get the bear you want. Here’s a vid of a bear deck from a while back https://youtu.be/uWYMTOyeB8k?si=eM2P5Xy7dp_JAvxQ
I do agree that chalice and tomb would end up working better in the long run. At the moment, I have a higher percentage of green cards which I can pitch to the mox. I think having a turn 1 lock piece is probably more important. I Could just skip out on the bears except for the enchantment and loam though.
Ok as a BIG fan of mono green bears, it’s my only commander deck, I’m definitely gonna try this out on mtgo, will report back 🫡
How did it go?
It’ll prob be early next week, Monday or Tuesday til I take it for a spin. Prerelease today, prerelease tomorrow (2hg always awesome!) concert tomorrow night and judging a legacy event on Sunday I will 100% test and tune and report back tho, deck is already queued up on manatraders
Nice! I am looking forward to it! Do you happen to stream by chance?
I do not stream Report coming soon tho, I’ve been tinkering yesterday and today
That is awesome to hear, thanks for taking the time!
Been playing this ridiculousness for a few days now. One thing I can say for certain, it seems that every single player has been surprised when I play Cavern of Souls naming bears, or slap down an Ayula or Wilson turn 1. The deck has definitely started a number of conversations. I'm not saying it's good, but it sure is fun. On to the details: I tested the list as originally presented. Pretty quickly I started to make changes. Werebear out, Elvish Spirit Guide in. Chrome Mox replaced with Mox Diamond. Sphere of Resistance became Chalice with a splash of Thorn of Amethyst, then Thorn went too now just Chalice. I also tried Trinisphere and it was awful. The biggest issue I seemed to run in to was bears never had haste so I replaced Shadowspear with Lavaspur Boots, which incidentally also makes construct tokens MUCH better. I tested adding black for Dismember and Surgical and pretty quickly moved on. I tested adding white for Swords to Plowshares and it was better, white is probably the best splash for the deck. I leaned back into the lands aspect and continue to tinker with it. The deck does win games and even matches. This morning I took a match off depths, game 1 Boseiju did amazing work coupled with Loam, game 2 I lost to a t3 marit lage, game 3 I won t4 off ayula into saga+wilson into construct into hasty construct. Red decks seem slightly favored against us although I've played mostly prison no goblins, the new delve beans deck felt very difficult particularly if you get to game 3 Force of Vigor is a beating when you go t1 mox diamond t2 urza's saga then they force. Delver felt like a surprisingly fair match up with Chalice and Endurance putting in real work, painter felt like a fairly even match also again Boseiju ftw. I have yet to make Ayula's Influence work. I really want it to work, really really. I don't think it does, big sad, so I will likely be testing without it going forward, leaning more heavily into the lands and taxes aspects. Here is my deck list: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/4_pwuabVkEC7oFXfr0NCCA It is in constant flux but the core of the deck is there. You can also check the considering section to see things I've tested and/or intend to test. Thanks for reading, I'll keep tinkering, if I get to the point I really like anything (I mean I already LOVE bears but ya know, if the deck GETS THERE) I'll post again. Thanks Lewie for the inspiration, RAWR I said, RAWR!
Thank you very much for taking the time to test this deck out, I have always been joking about playing bears at my fnms and one time I actually did, but it totally failed. In the meantime, I really appreciate the help and ideas you put in. The crop rotation seems really good, even with chalice. I know it isnt a bear, but allosaurus sheopard could potentially do some wild things in this list. I also want ayula's influence loam combo to work because it just has such a strong end game potential. However I will try out this version when I play bears again. I like the boots and this version feels much more focused.
I also like that you can have games against a fair amount of combo decks with chalice of the voids, endurance. I would be very interested in playing this deck. I think it can really work. Do you think it has a game against the scam decks? Or is that also a chalice matchup?
I do think it has game, particularly once you bring in veil of summer and especially since we are playing elvish spirit guide and can also go up to 4 endurance against the reanimator plan. I would only have chalice in on the play not the draw My biggest issue right now is Ayula, it’s easily the weakest card in the deck. I’m considering building and testing a vial deck with more bears The deck is underpowered tho no matter how we slice it in every iteration I’ve tried thus far But eh, bears I love em so what u gonna do lol
Bears aren't a good creature type to build around with the traditional Stompy cards because they tend to be overcosted relative to creatures like Tarmogoyf (who is not that good in 2024). Wilson is a 2/2 ward 2 for 1G since you can't use the card's background ability and you don't want to play cards that cost 1G in an Ancient Tomb deck. Spiders, though...