#The Mycotyrant

[neonjawbone]

i built vihaan, goldwaker recently and hes become far and away my favorite deck to play. strategy: money

[niuttuc]

The Graveyard Gang

Did you know Golgari likes the graveyard? Read the cards carefully next time you face a golgari deck, and you might notice it. As a result, a lot of Golgari commanders like the graveyard a whole lot, and specifically creatures being in there. So I made a deck for them, a deck that can use any of its ten commanders, randomly selected before each game. And their companion, Umori, just to make deckbuilding a bit spicier. Here's the gang as a whole!

They all have equal chance of leading the deck every game, and even if they don't show up in the command zone, they'll be somewhere in the 99. They're all in special versions when possible and all in foil, the only foils in the deck, as to be able to find them easily when sifting through the deck to pick one at random before every game. They're of differing power levels, but that's fine! If you end up rolling one that's too strong or weak for the table, you could always reroll, or worse, pick one of them, but that's less fun.

As far as strategies, we're playing only creatures, so I wanted to lean onto creatures that get really strong from having many of them in the graveyard, so there's lot of that! Their large bodies are our wincons, either through regular attacks or throwing them at people's faces with Jarad.

Of course, we're playing commander, so we're also eating our veggies, with plenty of ramp, card advantage, interaction, and in this case, self-mill.

This deck WILL fold like wet paper in games featuring plenty of graveyard hate, but that's the life of a graveyard deck. And we can survive a reasonable amount of it. Just don't get your graveyard exiled when it's your entire library, before you can recycle it with Endurance.

Speaking of, Endurance is here as a safety valve. If we do our plan TOO well and end up milling out, like this deck is known to do on occasion, the combination of Genesis triggering on our upkeep and Endurance having flash can ensure we shuffle our graveyard into our library to avoid dying. We may have a lot of work to do once again milling all that, and a couple */*s may die, but that's a worthwhile price to stay alive.

Is Umori optimal for this deck? No, I haven't used it once. But this is a deck with ten commanders all wanting slightly different things and trying to be alright with all of them. We're not here for optimal.

[ashensamurai]

Certified Mycotyrant Post

God invented winter so girls could exchange body heat

[almostlookedhuman]

[incorrect-mtg]

Lost Caverns of Ixalan + Tumblr Textposts

[whatsthatmagiccard]

There's only three Badgers legal in Standard right now, compared to ten Fungi and five Snakes. Too hard to make the joke deck.

[lootthekey]

I completely agree here. I really enjoyed this new villain to Magic, and I’d like to connect my own thoughts with this as they are pretty similar.

The way I see the Mycotyrant, while its big goofy face is very funny, is that its kind of the first true… “horror” Magic villain? And when I say that, it might sound very weird, because Phyrexians and Eldrazi can definitely delve into the realm of horror very easily. However, it more has to do with how they have been treated in their respective stories. Phyrexians have always been treated, as a villain, like something similar to “The Borg” or any other ‘the machine will purify your flesh, willing or not’ villain. More of an antagonistic invasion force than something truly horrifying. The Eldrazi are fairly similar overall. In all their stories, they have been written more as a “Zerg” or other big hungry alien insect race. They aren’t spooky, but you’ll be scared and alarmed if you see one. Only Emrakul got closer to true horror, and even then it was mainly because of the setting she was shown off in (Innistrad).

The Mycotyrant is something a little different because its NOT an army first and foremost. The Mycotyrant is shown to be incredibly difficult to kill, getting blasted to oblivion by Malcolm and Breeches but still lingering and even, in a way, succeeding despite by all means losing the battle. Why? Because The Mycotyrant is truly more of a plague or virus than even Phyrexia.

Like in the story of “The Last of Us” or, possibly more accurately with how it works and is treated, “Dead Space”, it is basically next to impossible to actually stop The Mycotyrant without wiping out every single last spore it proliferates or somehow obliterating its mind completely out of existence otherwise. And unlike Phyrexia, there is not individuality with The Mycotyrant. You aren’t Elesh Norn, Sheoldred, or Urabrask. You are just The Mycotyrant. A mindless corpse puppet to be used for nothing more than to spread the spores and take EVERYTHING from EVERYONE.

In The Lost Caverns of Ixalan story, Malcolm and Breeches’ story is remarkably different from the others because nothing actually gets better for them unless you count “not dying” as getting better. They are worse off by the end of the story. Despite everything, they lost. Every encounter other than them blasting the big fungus in the face doesn’t go well for them, with every member of the rest of their crew dying and being absorbed. Because in the end, like a true plague, you cannot win against The Mycotyrant while it still lives because nothing matters to it.

No doctrine. No rules. Just a simple, kind of primal desire for more. It cares not for losses as long as it gets something it didn’t have before. That is probably the key difference between it and Phyrexia. Phyrexia has a kind of ideological goal behind its evil. The Mycotyrant does not. It just kills, assimilates, and moves on.

The Mycotyrant is a really interesting and timely antagonist right after the Phyrexian arc because it shows, with contrast, what Phyrexia is not.

As much as Norn tries to present herself as the head of a unified hivemind, Phyrexia is clearly a fragmented people with individuals who think, hope, and have conflicting goals for the future. There are Phyrexian rebels, like Urabrask, who actively oppose the unification of their people because they know exactly who would be suppressed in the process.

The Mycotyrant just... is. It's the single mind behind a vast mycorrhizal network, and unlike Norn or other praetors I don't get the sense that it particularly wants political leverage or control or any of that. Despite its name, its villainy is a lot less about actual tyranny than Phyrexian villainy is, largely because its assimilation is much more absolute. While Phyrexia is more like cognitohazard-assisted cult indoctrination, the Mycotyrant reanimates corpses and speaks through them. There aren't really people left to dominate. Its goal is just... to grow.

Many Phyrexians claim that their conquest is a natural consequence of Phyrexia dividing and growing, but it really isn't--it does not come naturally to every individual. They must be beaten into line to maintain the facade.

Phyrexia is a controlling, colonialist state that bends the ideologies and goals of its people toward conquest, under pain of disassembly. The Mycotyrant is a motivationally and methodically much simpler force of (un)nature.

[two-energy-counters]

“What is that?,” Quintorius asked, gesturing to the flying pile of skeletons.

“Uchbenbak, the Great Mistake,” the mass of fungus gurgled. Quint jotted the name down furiously.

“And it’s called that because…?”

“I was three vodka tonics in and coming out of a bad break-up.”

[toweringclam]

The Mycotyrant sounds like a character from a Tumblr shitpost.

Like "compost your moldy bread or it'll join the armies of the Mycotyrant."

[theworldgate]

I feel like this is a spicy take, but hey.

[image of the Mycotyrant by Chase Stone, also copyright WotC 2023]

[bagf1sh]

my favorite that i’ve actually played is the mycotyrant, because he doesn’t make me pick between going tall or going wide.

but my absolute favorite, which i’ve brewed but haven’t actually played yet, is hazel of the rootbloom. she’s like kiki jiki but in more colors! well, not exactly. but still very cool!

anyways can you tell i like tokens and golgari

So there are more tumblr mtg players than I anticipated, it turns out. What's everyone's favourite commander?

I'll go first, Juri of the Revue.

(Honourable mention to my meme deck where you have to get a date for Jenson Carthalion, Druid Exile by swiping left or right with his scry ability.)

[neonjawbone]

magic the gathering has consumed my brain and my main deck is vampires

[jasper-the-menace]

*hands u 3 freebies* pick whatever ships you want for the bingo

(Unhinged) Ship Bingo

*vibrating rapidly* Thank you, anon, you have no idea what you've blessed me with. But now you get to hear about some of the toxic shit I ship just because I wanna see some characters suffer.

Atraxa/Spara

I am writing the most fucked up, torturous shit to happen to Spara with this one.

Mycotyrant/Malcolm

Here's toxic AF fuckery number two! Malcolm is not having a good time. The obsession box is one-sided (Mycotyrant @ Malcolm).

Oko/Tibalt

Somehow the healthiest relationship on this post.

Thanks for sending an ask, anon! I enjoyed the freebies!

~Jasper

[markrosewater]

I suppose you are introducing new villains (such as Aclazotz, the Mycotyrant, and Valgavoth) and watching our reaction.

Some of them are so terrifying yet fascinating. Please let them do their thing, and send high fives to the people involved.

Will do.

[almostlookedhuman]

[littjara-mirrorlake]

deeply unserious villain