I won the local Game Day Aether Revolt with my RG Pummeler deck. Felt amazing. Then I won the Ixalan Store Championship, at which point the deck had a blue splash. Also finished in 10th place at the 2018 Swedish Nationals, winning all my Standard matches but performing poorly in M19 draft. I still have the deck assembled in its final form (with a few Pioneer upgrades that never saw use, so I plan to restore it to 2018 Standard). Absolutely going to have to make a Historic deck now that the cards are on Arena.
My favorite Nationals story is from game 2 in a match-up against the turbo fog Nexus Teferi deck, where I ended up hitting my opponent with a 2/2 Servant and a 1/1 Pummeler for a couple of turns, so as to not play into a fog. I'd kept a cautious starting hand with 2x Negate, 2x Spell Pierce, 2 lands, and one of those creatures. Countered Teferis on turns 5 and 6, and with opponent's shields down finally reached a position where the buffs and energy I had were enough to immediately take the opponent out.
@@MTGGoldfish I think it's definitely a must for budget decks in Historic (given Arena is the only client that supports the format), and arguably also for Standard. Thanks again for thinking about it!
Thrilled to see this deck back! A few people at my shop built this deck and swept with it back when you made your budget standard video. Fond memories :) was an absolute nail-biter to play against, win or lose haha. Happy to see it back
Hello Seth ! I remember I discovered mtggoldfish with youre video budget magic "pummeler" back on time in 2016 maybe now ? Youre videos gave me the envy to replay mtg after a 10 years break. 4 years later, still on deck sir ! Hope youre understand me :) Kisses from France
Pummeler will always be a pet deck of mine. And I will say HUGE thanks Seth for taking the input on Rare pricing. It is incredibly hard with Kaladesh as so many cards are affordable in paper but have high costs in rarity. While there are a few small things I'd change (like Embercleave being something like Questing Beast or Aethersphere Harvester being somewhere in the deck), you did an INCREDIBLE job on building this deck on a budget. As soon as I saw 10 rares, I was very curious. Especially when the name sake is a rare and I knew Bristling Hydra would probably be a playset. Haven't even watched yet, but I am incredibly hyped.
I thinking you're playing too many lands. Generally back when these cards were standard, we played 2 less lands than normal if we were playing the full 4 attune. You dont need 23 lands, coulda gotten away with 21
@@cory5476 nothing with luck, the games shuffle alogrythm is known to be compete shit. I have had 10-15 lands in a row many times. There is no way in real world shuffing that that would ever happen
@@TrainmasterGT The opponent was a 4 life, just blew a crap-ton of removal, and was facing down a massive doublestriking & trampling cub. Seth definitely should have at least untapped and made them have yet another removal spell.
When I played this in standard my super secret tech was two copies of Samut voice of dissent, one in main deck and one in side (versus control). I remember she was like a fifth copy of pummeler, with that nice double strike and a pump spell she can one-shot out of the blue! Such a powerhouse
I played Pummeler semi-competitively for its entire run in Standard, and I converted it to Pioneer when that format was announced. Here are some of my thoughts on this deck. First, thank you for the video! The original Budget Magic Standard Infect was the MTG content that got me started on Pummeler. I don't like Embercleave in this deck. Yes, it is very nasty when equipped on a Hydra, but that is Beat-down Plan C. Embercleave is almost useless towards the gameplan of a Turn 4 win. In Pioneer, I would suggest Ghor-Clan Rampager but we don't have access to the Beast in Historic. I would recommend replacing at least one Embercleave with Rhonas, the Indomitable but even he isn't as good in Historic without Ghor-Clan as well to turn him on. Bonecrusher Giant might be an interesting option, although you'll keep Shocking yourself whenever you pump the Giant. I could see the idea of Embercleaves in the sideboard, and trading out Pummelers for them in Game 2 or 3. For adding blue - Rogue Refiner is a decent option. I also like Cartouche of Knowledge as additional evasion; it pairs very nicely with a Hydra. When Attune with Aether was banned in Standard, I went to a Simic build of Pummeler that also added Hadana's Climb to combo with the Cubs and Hydras. I doubt that is an effective Historic strategy, but it was another option. Admiral's Orders makes a good sideboard counterspell since most of the removal we are worried about (e.g., Settle the Wreckage) will be cast while we are attacking.
Thoughts on adding Rimrock Knight as a glue card for this deck? Having a creature pump spell hybrid seems to address the main failure mode in the deck!
Can someone explain what happened on game 2 of the first match? He had a 6/6 Longtusk Cub with Embercleave, a pump spell, 13 life, and his opponent had 8 damage on board and 4 life. So far as I can tell, if he can fade a removal spell for one turn, he wins the game on the crackback. Am I wrong?
I think he might have thought they killed the cub rather than countered the pump spell? IDK why opponent countered the pump rather than just killing the cub
When exactly? The turn before he had 5 mana after casting the cub. Can't cast it for full price. Before that the opponent was never shields down. Remember, opponent had multiple counterspells in hand
@@CSDragon at 10:05, just before he draws the Bristling Hydra he had 7 mana on the opponent's end step. If he counters the empty-board Embercleave (which I doubt they do), that means one of the actual threats that was countered resolves instead.
Loved watching the Emry deck go off (I run her as a commander and in a modern deck), but yeah I wa surprised how long it took you to see the mind stone line 😂 love you seth
Since I'm all about that Pummeler life, I thought I'd share my 2018 pre-rotation decklist: 2x Spell Pierce, 4x Blossoming Defense 2x Longtusk Cub, 4x Servant of the Conduit, 4x Voltaic Brawler 4x Cartouche of Knowledge, 4x Invigorated Rampage, 1x Heroic Intervention, 3x Larger Than Life 2x Rhonas the Indomitable, 4x Electrostatic Pummeler 4x Bristling Hydra 1x Island, 3x Mountain, 5x Forest, 1x Spirebluff Canal, 4x Rootbound Crag 2x Botanical Sanctum, 2x Hinterland Harbor, 4x Aether Hub Sideboard: 2x Spell Pierce, 4x Negate, 2x Abrade 2x Harnessed Lightning, 1x Crook of Condemnation 2x Fiery Cannonade, 2x Deathgorge Scavenger As the sideboard might reveal, I was very concerned with control decks, graveyard decks, and also mono red. This is the iteration of the deck that went undefeated at the Swedish Nationals, while previous versions won a Game Day Aether Revolt and an Ixalan Store Championship.
11:39 was an early scoop. Your cub was still alive and you weren't outright dead. I agree that they probably did have removal as they had 2 draws but... Make them have it Seth.
21:02 I love how you kill the honor guard before it gets the counter, forgetting that its stopping itself from getting one, so you therefore just ended up letting them get a counter on their token for free.
My fave energy deck returns! I made my own budget ver but I will consider some of the differences you have made in this deck. My "non budget" ver splashes into black for a more slower midrange style of deck.
Killing a tocatli honor guard in response to a venerated loxodon being cast is an interesting choice... If you let it resolve first they wouldn't have gotten any counters
In general control decks need a lot of mana to leave up removal and play finishers. Land destruction (attached to a body especially, I probably wouldn't bring in literal Stone Rain against control in most cases) is a good way to sort of tempo them out. It doesn't just straight up beat them, but it does slow them down a bit, which is you're playing aggro can be enough to swing the game.
I play a Golgari pummeler deck in Pioneer (very sad I lost the Walking Ballista thanks to Heliod.) It's not a top tier, but it's fun as hell at FNM. It's based around Winding Constrictor and dropping +1/+1 counters on the pummeler.
So Seth. I have this ridiculous combo I’d love to see you try cuz it’s panharmonicon Whirler virtuoso+decoction module+panharmonicon+a copy of either the module or panharmonicon. Or even just 3 modules. But with that you get to make infinite thopters and I’d love to see it if you can try haha
Obliagatory pointing out a misplay, you shouldn’t have killed the honor guard in response to the loxodon because all you did was give your opponent a free counter
I nean, 2 energy on etb is very important. Also, he has no good 3 drops besides pummler, and he probably doesn't want to cast a turn 2 pummler anyway because it's the first card to get hit by removal. So unless he changes the deck to have more 3 drops, I think he's msking the right choice.
Seth got so excited when he topdecked that cleave! As a control player, it brought me immense joy to see him yelling at the control player when he drew it, that was an amazing reaction.
Yeah, so far I've been working with roughly 15 or less total rares/mythics for Arena budget decks, with less being better if possible. I'm glad it's working!
Yeah, that could be an interesting sideboard card (Allosaurus Shepherd) although it doesn't actually stop Pummeler itself from being countered since it only protects green creatures.
Winding Constrictor could be sweet, the only issue is that it would up the budget a lot of make the mana work I think. We'd probably need like 8 rare dual lands. For non-budget builds I think splashing into black or blue (or even both) is probably ideal.
In my experience... no amount of deck thinning will ever save you on Arena... If all you can draw are lands, the trend will continue until you've drawn all your lands... then before your answers arrive, it'll slip you the rest of your mana ramp, prioritizing the ones that would search your library for nonexistent lands, then your weak mana ramping creatures... and once all that is done, and the deck has no choice, it will start to feed you the half of your deck that you need.
