This is by far my favorite list for Bilbo. Its got lots of lands, interaction, and understands its wincons so its creatures all advance its gameplan. I'm curious how witherbloom command has played for you; it looks underwhelming to me but modal cards have a sneaky ability to be better than they look. Also, I know card draw is critical here, but treacherous blessing feels like such a drag. Maybe Dawn of Hope? I get that its sluggish but this is a deck that can really draw a lot of cards on it, and it produces lifelink tokens that can do triple duty. Or maybe an elixir of immortality. Its a classic card that can gain you life and put any unfortunate victims back into the deck for bilbo to bring out again.
Seems like going wide with tokens and giving them lifelink would be the way to go because it gains life from: 1) Etb with soul sisters effects 2) combat damage 3) Ltb’s with blood artist effects In effect a single 1/1 with lifelink can have 3 separate lifegain triggers The tutor effect at 111 could grab the creature overrun effects like nykthos paragon, blossoming bogbeast, etc. combing that with a card like goldnight redeemer should be enough to close it out
You said that since Bilbo's second ability cares about creatures the deck should be built with mostly creatures, yet you have only 17 in the 99. I think that's completely fine though, since you only need felidar sovereign to end the game. I'm confused by the presence of you meet in a tavern: the first mode is not great with so little creatures, while the second one I think is to buff the lifelinkers to gain even more life. But at this point why not run for the emperor! (bonus vigilance and lifelink) or righteous charge (1 less mana)? Or even lunarch veteran
Thanks for watching! I love the chance to talk about these decks more and this video was going a little long for me so some of this was cut short, but bear with me: - Bilbo's two abilities are a little strange. Strictly speaking, neither ability *needs* the other, but for all practical reasons the second ability needs the first one in order to fire off. If we were to weight those two abilities, the first one needs to have greater "importance" in the decklist because *that's the ability that's putting in work over the life of the game* rather than on just one turn. - You Meet in a Tavern does want to find creatures, and it's because there are so few that that mode is desireable- we need help finding them- though the second ability to pump our lifleinkers is great as well. The bigger reason it's in there though is for card advantage. Our creatures aren't really big enough/getting into combat enough to take advantage of most Green card draw effects, and white card draw leaves a lot to be desired, which essentially leaves us with (a) black card draw or (b) some less-than-desireable green card draw. I don't feel super comfortable including a lot of the black card draw since our goal is to gain life- not lose it- which leaves some kinda clunky green draw effects- none of which are particularly great. Greater good, momentus fall, Driven//Despair aren't really doing much for us, which pretty much leaves us with those "look for creatures" cards. Hope this helped answer your questions!
Spending 4 mana to look at the top five cards of my library and failing to find a creature seems like a waste to me, the chances to actually draw off of that are very low. I'd rather play welcoming vampire
This is by far my favorite list for Bilbo. Its got lots of lands, interaction, and understands its wincons so its creatures all advance its gameplan.
I'm curious how witherbloom command has played for you; it looks underwhelming to me but modal cards have a sneaky ability to be better than they look.
Also, I know card draw is critical here, but treacherous blessing feels like such a drag. Maybe Dawn of Hope? I get that its sluggish but this is a deck that can really draw a lot of cards on it, and it produces lifelink tokens that can do triple duty. Or maybe an elixir of immortality. Its a classic card that can gain you life and put any unfortunate victims back into the deck for bilbo to bring out again.
Seems like going wide with tokens and giving them lifelink would be the way to go because it gains life from:
1) Etb with soul sisters effects
2) combat damage
3) Ltb’s with blood artist effects
In effect a single 1/1 with lifelink can have 3 separate lifegain triggers
The tutor effect at 111 could grab the creature overrun effects like nykthos paragon, blossoming bogbeast, etc. combing that with a card like goldnight redeemer should be enough to close it out
Birds is never bad
blue has lifegain, Illusions of grandeur :)
Dawn of hope
Well of lost dreams 😊
Great job!
You said that since Bilbo's second ability cares about creatures the deck should be built with mostly creatures, yet you have only 17 in the 99. I think that's completely fine though, since you only need felidar sovereign to end the game.
I'm confused by the presence of you meet in a tavern: the first mode is not great with so little creatures, while the second one I think is to buff the lifelinkers to gain even more life. But at this point why not run for the emperor! (bonus vigilance and lifelink) or righteous charge (1 less mana)? Or even lunarch veteran
Thanks for watching! I love the chance to talk about these decks more and this video was going a little long for me so some of this was cut short, but bear with me:
- Bilbo's two abilities are a little strange. Strictly speaking, neither ability *needs* the other, but for all practical reasons the second ability needs the first one in order to fire off. If we were to weight those two abilities, the first one needs to have greater "importance" in the decklist because *that's the ability that's putting in work over the life of the game* rather than on just one turn.
- You Meet in a Tavern does want to find creatures, and it's because there are so few that that mode is desireable- we need help finding them- though the second ability to pump our lifleinkers is great as well. The bigger reason it's in there though is for card advantage. Our creatures aren't really big enough/getting into combat enough to take advantage of most Green card draw effects, and white card draw leaves a lot to be desired, which essentially leaves us with (a) black card draw or (b) some less-than-desireable green card draw. I don't feel super comfortable including a lot of the black card draw since our goal is to gain life- not lose it- which leaves some kinda clunky green draw effects- none of which are particularly great. Greater good, momentus fall, Driven//Despair aren't really doing much for us, which pretty much leaves us with those "look for creatures" cards.
Hope this helped answer your questions!
Spending 4 mana to look at the top five cards of my library and failing to find a creature seems like a waste to me, the chances to actually draw off of that are very low. I'd rather play welcoming vampire
Bond of Flourishing would be a good swap. Find a permanent and gain some life.
Pillage the bog
Sun Droplet doesn't prevent damage
-.- You know exactly what he meant when he said that tho, do you not?