$30 of Varmints vs. Standard | Budget Magic 

The flavour of plot is that you are the big villain, monologuing about your plans to the hero.

Foretelling an event is secretive, plotting an event is public knowledge. Got it.

Screaming at my screen that picklock prankster's adventure is an instant...

Varmits were unrionically my prerelease draft all star. Its so easy to get a massive amount of bodies on the board.

For anyone curious I looked it up and the difference between vermin and varmint is that vermin refers specifically to small pests like mice and insects. Varmint is broadly just any troublesome animal like a wolf to sheep even, technically.

Seth just shipped a winning game at 29:00... he had 2 adventure fairies and a fairy in hand against an opponent with 4 life.... seth why?

I wasn't expecting the first 20 seconds 😅

At 50:05 I love the new lore that “The Magic Gods” are the ones asking if you had fun at the end of a match 😂

I love all the recent budget episodes. Sometimes it's just a different take in monored, but these have all been so good

Were you really out of the game at 29:00? You have all these potential vigilant (can't be exiled to gain life) flyers and opponent is at 4 with 2 cards?

That intro was peak

When Seth finally actually said 'Analyst' instead of 'analysis', I literally felt a knot in my shoulder vanish

Plot is face up because every good villain monologues about their evil plan before it's realized

Thanks for teaching us about ground squirrels

Attacking with the 0 power Archeologist probably confused the heck outta that opponent, what a power move! 😂😂😂

23:55 Opponent steals an island and plays it "What are they gonna steal from us?" later "Jokes on you opponent we got no blue mana" 😂

Yeahh you mention the bo3 grave hate: one of those was def me, it's a shame since just as you mentioned it was incidental casualty from temur analyst :( I was playing a bant Flicker list which can do really cool stuff but g1 was decided quickly then G2 I just hit the turn 2 RIP and it was over. Still fun to run into you on ladder!

The sourcing of that intro clip is already impressive.

29:03 with 3 1/4 fliers and opponent t 4 life. Like that was one of the weirdest positions to concede in.

When you said Varmint Time it just made my mind to to Muddstah's "game review time"

6:16 the disbelief in seth's voice was so funny to me

Seems like in a lot of game this deck is starved on blue sources, this deck could use more of then

I was looking at this card with Immodane's Recruiter and Bitter Reunion They let you give your Varmints haste, and Immodane's Recruiter makes your varmint swarm 3/1s with haste

Analyst❤! Oh, and I think the difference is that Varmints can be vermin, but not the other way around, because varmints live outside and prefer it that way, vermin invade homes and cities and sewers. It’s a subtle difference, but it’s like the difference between rats/mice and something like prairie dogs, possums, and armadillos. 😀 Squirrels and chipmunks are both at the same time, it depends on if they’re in the woods, or stuffing your attic with nuts.😂

Only time I ever play standard or historic or anything really on arena is when Seth puts together a budget deck. Love it.

Magic's flavor is peak, "I have outlaws, dragons, machine beings, angels to help me to victory!" "...so I'm going to maul them, and then you, to death with squirrels"

Great Deck and love the idea behind it!! As always, awesome content guys

I feel like there should be more than 2 islands in this deck considering the number of blue spells present. Seth was pinched on blue mana literally every game lol

"unpretentious main phase play with fire" KILLED ME LMAO

Interesting deck. Even more fun to watch

This reminds me of a deck I played back in the 90s. It used Ertais familiar to mill a lot of creatures into the graveyard, then I smacked Tombstone Stairwell on the board and attacked with a lot of zombies for lethal. I might craft this.

Vermin are small, rat creatures in nature, and Varmints are slightly larger rats that are a cross between a squirrel and a possum

Could be fun to add red for imodane's recruiter. when you cast the varmints for zero you have mana up to give them haste.

I need Seth to write a children's book called "Everyone Punts". To go on shelves next to "Everyone poops".

It’s so overtly crazy, the opponents never believed it was coming.

I would try to combo with Imodane recruiter to increase the damage even more and have letal in that one turn.

I dont know if anything is funnier than Atraxa being overwhelmed by a large pile of homey badgers.

23:53 The most excruciating thing here is seeing them take YOUR ISLAND

Surprised more people aren't talking about Rise of the Varmits. I've been brewing with i a ton. I've found Gruul is the best combo allowing to give your varmints haste, plus the thrill of playing a Devilish Valet then dropping a Rise if the Varmits feels soooo good!

Tip: if you click the number next to a stack of units, you can declare the whole stack to block, or attack. And then you can individually split the units out to the stack.

For future reference when gang-blocking, you can just click the number above the tokens and click what you want to block.

I haven't had a chance to play games with it yet myself, but another card I wonder about a lot for this (especially as a budget option) is Slickshot Lockpicker. Still a creature, can plot for when it's needed, and will let us directly flashback some Varmints.

Case of the Locked Hothouse + Tatyova, Steward of Tides = create 2 4/4 flying creatures with haste for free ... tech: Lost in the Maze(which you can play off the top with case) to tap any flyers in the way, or buy time on defense

I’m getting Innistrad Spider Spawning vibes from this deck. Cool budget brew Seth!

Vermin has a negative connotation, meaning the creature is a pest or unwanted creature. A varmint can refer to the same kind of small, furry, troublesome creature, but it lacks the same negative connotation usually. It's more like just a wild animal in general, if that makes any sense, while vermin is very specifically an unwanted pest. Some vermin are varmints and some varmints can be vermin as well, but on the whole they're distinct groupings. For example, a Rat might be both vermin and varmint, a regular mouse is a varmint that could be vermin but isn't necessarily vermin, and the same might go for a raccoon (some people keep raccoons as pets), and a cockroach or mosquito is an example of a vermin that isn't a varmint.

Varmints should have been squirrels. That way we could get some cross synergy with Bloomburrow in the next set. Thank you fir coming to my ted talk.

The little varmints that could

I’m thinking about making this deck. I was considering, because I’m cheap, replacing some of the rares with bitter reunions to give the varmints haste. You’re already running riveteers land, so throwing a couple of mountains might not hurt that much.

No Vilespawn Spider from VOW? {u}{g}, 2/3 creature with reach, at the beginning of your upkeeep mill a card, then {2}{u}{g}, {t}, sac ~: create a 1/1 green insect creature token for each creature card in your graveyard. No, 1/1 insects are not 2/1 varmints, but it does self-mill, puts a creature card in the graveyard when it sacs itself, and does a decent Rise of the Varmints approximation in mid-to-late game. You could use them in place of Blanchwood Prowler, which underperformed every time it showed up.

53:10 there is a cut that made my brain break

Wild America shoutout! Nice!

Honestly it would have been better thematically to have swapped the definition of Plot and Fortell. It would make more sense for Fortell to be known to all, but the Plot would be hidden.

Fun list. Makes me wanna experiment with a Gruul list. Use the plot and use the mana to sac a Bitter Reunion for some haste

@33:00 Ertai can counter abilities

Exceptional opening

What's funny is that at the end of game 2 against domain, they were just dead on board if you swung out *through* the Atraxa. The best they could do is block one of the 14 varmints and the Echo and Ertai, which would put them exactly dead to the 27 damage from 13 varmints and the archeologist 😳

29:05 You had a good chance of winnign with Picklock beeats. They were at four life and you had three in total. Picklock has flying and vigilance so Wandering Emperor cant exile them or make tokens to block it. Your life total was high enough that even if they did deal with the faeries that gives you tons of time to rebuild for another varmit wave or just beat them down with creatures.

Aw, when I saw Varmints I thought you were playing the interesting combo deck I saw on ladder that uses Rise of the Varmints+Devilish Valet to OTK you out of nowhere. That was an interesting deck.

@22:10 you had exactly leathel even if you didn't kill Atraxa, that's how overwhelming the varmints were

Love that intro 😭😀

The artistic design of Varmints is kinda strange. They have a big, beaver-like tail, but otherwise are a cross between an armadillo and a Gremlins gremlin. They're cute in the Rise of the Varmints art, but gross looking on the token.

I am shocked founding of the third path isn’t in this deck! It works with adventure cards mills for cards and lets you recast the varmits. It may not be a create itself but it does pull it’s weight!

So sad to not see ol 'stick here but the deck looked great

Wow I literally already have all the rares for this. The deck seems super fun

Best intro EVER!

8:43 The standard legal mono red sweeper for you would be End the Festivities, not likely main deck, but i could see it in sideboards to use against go wide token decks like this

Plot and foretell should swap hidden and revealed. Makes way more sense flavourwise that way

Someone steamrolled me around a week ago by playing this game plan but all the Rise of the Varmints are plotted to then put a Devilish Valet on the battlefield and swing with a stupidly lethal threat

Varmints plus Devilish Vallet is my favorite deck right now

i would love to pair a one of turtle for bouncing in the early game and shegeky loops later

Other than the mana base what upgrades do people recommend?

Does this card work in modern? Is there any reason to use it instead of some other mass-reanimator like all the cascade decks?

Could you do another Pioneer budget deck next?

I want to see this deck concept, but with Anger. XD

Amazing intro

Met someone with Temur version of this while playing Grixis Poison, i thought i was against Temur Worldsoul combo but they then cast Devilish Valet and cast Rise of the Varmint. Too bad i have Invoke Calamity in hand, dude scooped immediately when i recast Ill-Timed Explosion from my graveyard lol

33:06 Ertai can counter abilities. It could have countered that land effect and blocked

Says there is no combo with analyst.. proceeds to play 12 + sac lands 😂 love the deck idea

There is also a new creature that costs 3 mana its name has lockpicker in its name unsure of what its full name is but it is uncommon in ourlaws and has an etb that gives spells in our graveyard flashback... for 3 mana and leaves behind the 2/3 body ...its actually how i have been playing limited with rise.ofnthe varmints 😅

Wish I could See a Varmints and first day of class deck

Make a version of this deck that has a actually functioning mana base please.

Love the deck, but I don't think Seth knows the spell side of Picklock Prankster is an Instant (unless he's just being unpretentious).

Hi Seth! Thoughts on Bitter Reunion in the deck?

Wonder how good rosenof varmints is with the legendary creature that changes all of the tokens you create into a 3/1 dog with vigilance or 2/2 cat with haste suddenly youre able to win on the spot

i tried building sultai graveyard/varmints in standard but i was really unimpressed. 2 mana 18/18s with no evasion that either get chumped for days or die to removal.. I was hoping varmints would help the deck push through, but i didn't get to cast it very often.

12:00 foretell and plot should switch names

Isn't the flavor of the "Plot" mechanic related to land? Like plotting a stretch of land for development.

I feel like you could fuse this with the insidious roots deck to make a really powerful self mill brew.

run aftermath analyst as removal protection

At game 2, did seth forget that picklock prankster's adventure is instant speed? He kept ertai up to counter board wipes but kept forgetting to cast the prankster at end step.

Every match “missing blue mana”

Maybe after rotation kills the Analyst deck, graveyard hate in bo3 will dissipate.

Picklock Prankster’s adventure is also an instant Seth! Think how pretentious you could be!

I think I can fuse this with my insidious roots deck😮

11:50 One might say it’s a….plot hole Buh dun tiss

Watching Seth manually tap worse than auto tapping gave me an aneurysm

Can’t even keep dang varmints off my farm

I love me a good build-around uncommon

I'll spend premium removal on a fair analyst in this standard.

it’s the plural tense i believe right ? vermin is plural varmint