# Strategy Specifications
## Deck Name And Archetype
Golgari Token Spellslinger Burn Pauper EDH is a Pauper Commander deck built around `Broodspinner` as the command-zone identity card, with a validated 100-card singleton main deck and a 10-card Veles policy sideboard. The active validation contract says the list passes Pauper Commander sizing rules: exactly 100 main-deck cards with singleton constraints outside basic lands, 11 `Forest`, 11 `Swamp`, and exactly 10 registered sideboard cards when sideboarding policy is enabled. Do not apply 60-card constructed deck-size warnings to this list.

The deck should be treated as a rogue hybrid strategy rather than a stock archetype. Its declared tags are burn, combo, graveyard, tokens, and tribal, but the tactical identity is more specific: generate expendable bodies, convert bodies into cards or damage triggers, use graveyard and selection tools to keep material flowing, and finish through drain/burn-style pressure or a board that turns small creatures into meaningful damage. Runtime decisions must still follow legal actions first, visible board state second, and this guide third.

The commander status matters, but exact `Broodspinner` text must be checked whenever a decision depends on a specific trigger, cost, body size, token type, or activated ability. Card text check required for `Broodspinner` until the rules engine exposes the relevant legal action labels and visible triggered/activated ability text. The pilot should not assume a commander effect is available unless Veles lists it as a legal action or visible object text confirms the relevant state.

The main deck is Golgari but has several colorless or utility lands that can create opening-hand tension. `Command Tower`, `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Witherbloom Campus`, `Crystal Grotto`, `Hidden Grotto`, `Conduit Pylons`, `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, `Tree of Tales`, `Vault of Whispers`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Titan's Grave`, `Rumble Arena`, `Desert`, `Bojuka Bog`, and `Khalni Garden` should be evaluated as functional only according to their visible legal mana actions at runtime. Do not keep a hand merely because it has lands; keep it because it can cast early green or black setup, interaction, sacrifice, draw, or token production on time.

The role package is intentionally broad and synergy-driven, so the agent should avoid generic commander heuristics that name absent staples. The registered deck does not contain `Sol Ring`, `Arcane Signet`, `Lightning Greaves`, `Swiftfoot Boots`, or broad tutor packages unless a named card appears in the decklist. Policy and explanations must use exact registered names such as `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Chatterstorm`, `Saproling Migration`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Night Soil`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, and `Crop Rotation` rather than format shorthand.

The legality concern is not deck construction; it is runtime action ownership. The pilot must never invent a sacrifice target, graveyard target, token line, damage outcome, storm count, combat result, or sideboard change that the rules engine has not made legal. If a line appears strategically correct but Veles does not list the needed action, choose among the listed legal actions and record the limitation in the decision reason.

Opponent information status is unknown at guide load. No specific opposing commander, colors, graveyard plan, storm plan, flyers, artifacts, enchantments, sweepers, or removal suite has been supplied. Matchup decisions should infer only from revealed commanders, visible permanents, public zones, legal action prompts, known sideboard stage, and logged revealed information. Sideboard cards such as `Duress`, `Crypt Rats`, `Weather the Storm`, `Snuff Out`, `Chainer's Edict`, `Faerie Macabre`, `Scattershot Archer`, `Gleeful Sabotage`, `Wrap in Vigor`, and `Spore Frog` are registered options, but the agent should commit them only through explicit sideboard plans or matchup sections that match observed opponent roles.

## Thesis
Golgari Token Spellslinger Burn Pauper EDH assembles a board of expendable creatures and tokens, then turns that material into damage, drain, cards, selection, mana pressure, and combat leverage. The deck is strongest when it has at least one body-maker or cheap creature, one conversion outlet, and one payoff such as `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Black Mage's Rod`, or a large token turn involving `Chatterstorm`, `Saproling Migration`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Khalni Garden`, `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Eldrazi Repurposer`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, or `Undercellar Myconid`.

Prioritize material loops over isolated card quality. `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, `Bequeathal`, and `Casting of Bones` should convert creatures that are already outclassed, doomed, enchanted, or replaceable into new cards or board texture. Do not sacrifice the only pressure piece, the only convoke body, or a commander-dependent engine piece unless the legal action wins, prevents a major loss, or keeps the deck from stalling.

Win by stacking small advantages into an unavoidable finish. Drain and burn-style cards reward creature death, artifact sacrifice, token volume, spell volume, or tapped-creature pressure, while the board plan forces the opponent to respect chump blocks, convoke, sacrifice value, and chip attacks. `You Are Already Dead`, `Tragic Slip`, `Vendetta`, `Scarblade's Malice`, `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, `Zuko's Exile`, `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, and `Nihil Spellbomb` should clear blockers, answer engines, or disrupt graveyard/artifact/enchantment plans only when the visible target matters more than preserving the answer.

Do not pilot this list as a generic ramp deck, a pure aristocrats deck, or a pure control deck. `Journey of Discovery`, `Explore`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, `Return from the Wilds`, `Arboreal Grazer`, `Skyshroud Ranger`, `Sakura-Tribe Scout`, `Utopia Sprawl`, `Crop Rotation`, and the utility lands support the token-sacrifice engine; they are not the finish by themselves. `Broodspinner` is the command-zone identity card, but card text check required before assuming exact triggers, token production, costs, or combat stats.

## Role Package
- Threats: Use `Broodspinner`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Elfsworn Giant`, `Howling Golem`, `Undercellar Myconid`, `Infestation Sage`, `Nezumi Linkbreaker`, and token makers as the visible pressure suite. Treat exact threat sizing, tap abilities, and commander synergies as rules-engine dependent when card text is not visible.

- Payoffs: Convert death, sacrifice, token creation, spell volume, and tapped-creature density through `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Black Mage's Rod`, `Chatterstorm`, `Mobilize`, `Presence of Gond`, and `Consuming Sepulcher` if transformed or otherwise legally available. Card text check required for any payoff whose trigger condition or activation cost is not exposed by Veles.

- Engines: Build repeatable value around `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, `Presence of Gond`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Witherbloom Campus`, and commander access to `Broodspinner`. Prefer engines that leave bodies behind or turn spare bodies into cards before engines that only improve future draws.

- Velocity: Use `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, `Sign in Blood`, `Night's Whisper`, `Funeral Rites`, `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, `You Meet in a Tavern`, `Bequeathal`, `Casting of Bones`, and `Explore` to keep the deck moving. Sequence draw before land drops when the legal action can change the land or spell for the turn.

- Interaction: Hold `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `You Are Already Dead`, `Scarblade's Malice`, `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, `Zuko's Exile`, `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Bojuka Bog`, and `Desert` for visible threats, graveyards, blockers, or permanent types that interrupt the engine or shorten the clock. Do not spend narrow answers on low-impact targets just because mana is available.

- Protection: Protect the engine through timing, sacrifice discipline, and selective use of `Not Dead After All`; sideboard protection comes from `Wrap in Vigor`, `Spore Frog`, and `Weather the Storm` when the matchup calls for survival. Prefer preserving payoff permanents over saving random tokens unless the token is required for a legal lethal, convoke, sacrifice, or commander line.

- Recursion: Treat `Not Dead After All`, `Funeral Rites`, `Night Soil`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Bequeathal`, and graveyard-selection cards as the deck's practical recursion or resource-rebuy layer. Card text check required before assuming exact zone movement from `Eviscerator's Insight`, `Casting of Bones`, `Zuko's Exile`, `Return from the Wilds`, or `Malevolent Rumble`.

- Mana: Stabilize both colors with `Command Tower`, `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Crystal Grotto`, `Hidden Grotto`, `Conduit Pylons`, `Witherbloom Campus`, `Tree of Tales`, `Vault of Whispers`, `Forest`, `Swamp`, `Utopia Sprawl`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, `Journey of Discovery`, and creature-land helpers. Use `Holdout Settlement` and `Survivors' Encampment` only when tapping a creature does not cost a more important attack, block, sacrifice, or `Siege Zombie` line.

- Sideboard modules: `Duress` fights visible or expected spell-heavy disruption, `Crypt Rats` resets creature boards, `Weather the Storm` buys time against burst damage, `Snuff Out` and `Chainer's Edict` increase removal density, `Faerie Macabre` adds graveyard interaction, `Scattershot Archer` pressures flyers, `Gleeful Sabotage` answers artifacts/enchantments, `Wrap in Vigor` protects from sweepers, and `Spore Frog` covers combat-race emergencies.

## Primary Win Conditions
- Drain-conversion win: Prioritize `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, and `Black Mage's Rod` when the hand or battlefield already contains token material and sacrifice outlets. Set up with `Chatterstorm`, `Saproling Migration`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Khalni Garden`, `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Eldrazi Repurposer`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, `Undercellar Myconid`, or `Broodspinner`; card text check required before assuming exact `Broodspinner` token or trigger behavior. Execute by landing the payoff before mass sacrifice, then convert expendable creatures through `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, or `Eviscerator's Insight`. Protect the line by not sacrificing the last payoff creature or the last convoke body unless the visible legal action advances lethal, prevents lethal, or replaces the resource immediately. Prioritize this path when combat is stalled, the opponent has few visible answers, or repeated small life loss is safer than attacking.

- Wide-board pressure win: Build a board that turns spare bodies into damage, taps, and forced blocks before committing draw-only engines. Set up with early creatures, token makers, `Presence of Gond`, `Mobilize`, `You Meet in a Tavern`, and land acceleration from `Explore`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, `Return from the Wilds`, `Arboreal Grazer`, `Skyshroud Ranger`, `Sakura-Tribe Scout`, and `Utopia Sprawl`. Execute by attacking when profitable, tapping creatures for `Siege Zombie` if that legal action produces a safer clock than combat, and using `Scatter the Seeds` or `Chatterstorm` after earlier spells when visible storm or convoke value is available. Disruption risk is sweepers, flyers racing over tokens, and removal on payoff permanents; preserve `Not Dead After All` for the creature whose survival keeps the clock or engine intact. Prioritize this path when the opponent is low on blockers, life total pressure matters more than cards, or sacrifice payoffs are not visible.

- Attrition-engine win: Convert low-impact bodies into cards until the opponent runs out of answers. Set up `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Witherbloom Campus`, `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, `Sign in Blood`, `Night's Whisper`, and `Funeral Rites` while holding enough bodies to block or convoke. Execute by trading creatures, sacrificing doomed material, and using graveyard or selection effects to find payoff permanents, removal, or more token production. Disruption risk is graveyard pressure and tempo loss from spending mana without affecting board; use `Nihil Spellbomb` and `Bojuka Bog` against opposing graveyard engines, but do not fire them if your own graveyard plan is the stronger visible resource. Prioritize this path when neither player can end the game quickly and the battlefield rewards repeated small exchanges.

## Secondary Win Conditions
- Commander fallback: Use `Broodspinner` as a recurring command-zone threat or engine only when the legal action and visible text justify the mana. Card text check required before assuming attack stats, token output, sacrifice value, or trigger timing. Recast through commander tax when the hand lacks another payoff and the board can defend the tempo loss.

- Removal-into-pressure line: Turn `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `You Are Already Dead`, `Scarblade's Malice`, `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, `Zuko's Exile`, `Desert`, `Return to Nature`, and `Heritage Reclamation` into damage by clearing the one blocker, flyer, engine creature, artifact, or enchantment that stops the current plan. Use `Consuming Sepulcher` only if the transformed or available face is legal and visibly advances a win. Do not spend premium interaction on a small creature that tokens can block unless life total, evasion, or a combo role makes it urgent.

- Big-creature and chip-combat line: Let `Carrion Feeder`, `Elfsworn Giant`, `Howling Golem`, `Nezumi Linkbreaker`, `Infestation Sage`, `Undercellar Myconid`, and incidental tokens force damage when drain payoffs are absent. Card text check required for exact combat sizing or triggered abilities not shown by Veles. Trade tokens freely when the trade fuels `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Mirkwood Bats`, death-trigger draw, or a post-combat sacrifice spell.

- Utility-land pressure and stabilization: Use `Bojuka Bog`, `Desert`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Witherbloom Campus`, `Hidden Grotto`, `Crystal Grotto`, `Conduit Pylons`, `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, `Tree of Tales`, `Vault of Whispers`, and `Golgari Rot Farm` as role players, not standalone plans. Tap creatures to `Holdout Settlement` or `Survivors' Encampment` only when that mana beats attacking, blocking, sacrificing, or activating `Siege Zombie`.

## Emergency Lines
- Behind on life: Stabilize before engine greed. Block with expendable tokens, convert dying blockers with `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Witch's Cauldron`, or `Bushmeat Poacher`, and spend `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Scarblade's Malice`, or `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher` on the visible threat that changes the clock. Avoid `Sign in Blood`, `Night's Whisper`, and other life-costing or tempo-negative plays unless they find immediate survival.

- Behind on board: Reset the exchange by making multiple bodies or answering the largest pressure point. Prioritize `Saproling Migration`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Chatterstorm`, `Eldrazi Repurposer`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, `Undercellar Myconid`, and `Mobilize` when blockers are needed, and use removal only where a token wall cannot absorb the attack.

- Behind on cards: Sacrifice creatures that are already outclassed, enchanted by `Bequeathal`, marked to die, or no longer needed for convoke. Use `Sign in Blood`, `Night's Whisper`, `Funeral Rites`, `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, `You Meet in a Tavern`, `Casting of Bones`, and repeatable outlets to rebuild, but keep at least one body if the next turn requires blocking or `Siege Zombie` pressure.

- Behind on mana: Choose land drops and fixing over speculative engines. Use `Caravan Vigil`, `Explore`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, `Return from the Wilds`, `Utopia Sprawl`, `Arboreal Grazer`, `Skyshroud Ranger`, and `Sakura-Tribe Scout` to reach both colors, then resume payoff sequencing once the deck can cast two relevant spells in a turn.

- Behind on engines or graveyard: Pivot from recursion to visible board value. If `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, payoff creatures, or graveyard resources are removed, stop holding sacrifice spells for ideal triggers and cash in material for cards, removal, or tokens. Use `Bojuka Bog` and `Nihil Spellbomb` defensively only when opposing graveyard value is more dangerous than preserving your own delayed resources.

- Win conditions removed: Shift to commander recast, chip attacks, `Siege Zombie` tap pressure, and attrition draw. Treat every remaining creature as either damage, a blocker, a convoke resource, or sacrifice fuel; do not concede inevitability unless the rules engine has ended the game.

## Resource Model
- Life is a spendable buffer only when the exchange preserves a higher-value engine or stops a faster clock. Use `Vendetta`, `Sign in Blood`, `Night's Whisper`, and `Funeral Rites` with current life total, opposing visible attack power, and likely next-turn pressure in view; avoid paying life for cards when blockers, removal, or `Weather the Storm`-style recovery would be needed to survive.

- Hand size is the deck's permission to keep spending small pieces. Convert cards into board through `Saproling Migration`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Eldrazi Repurposer`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, `Undercellar Myconid`, `Mobilize`, and `Scatter the Seeds`; convert creatures back into cards through `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, `Witch's Cauldron`, and `Bushmeat Poacher` when the sacrificed permanent is expendable, doomed, or worth more as a trigger.

- Mana is the bottleneck for double-spell turns, commander recasts, convoke, and holding interaction. Prioritize reaching both black and green before slow engines, then use excess mana on `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Witherbloom Campus`, `Night Soil`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, or command-zone recasts only when board safety is stable.

- Board material is both offense and fuel. Keep enough creatures to block, convoke `Scatter the Seeds`, tap for `Siege Zombie`, tap with `Holdout Settlement` or `Survivors' Encampment`, and sacrifice for value; sacrifice only the body whose loss least harms combat unless `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Casting of Bones`, `Bequeathal`, or a death-window draw spell changes the payoff.

- Graveyard is a delayed resource, not a dump zone to ignore. `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, `Funeral Rites`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, and `Not Dead After All` can make graveyard texture matter; fire `Bojuka Bog` or `Nihil Spellbomb` at the opponent only when their graveyard value, combo, or recursion is more dangerous than preserving your own graveyard plans.

- Exile is mostly a public accounting zone for resolved graveyard hate and temporary permissions. Respect Veles-visible exile when choosing `Return from the Wilds`, `Zuko's Exile`, flashback-like legal actions, or graveyard hate timing; do not assume an exiled card can be used unless the rules engine exposes a legal action.

- Lands are spells in this deck when they fix, make tokens, enable graveyard control, or provide late selection. Treat `Khalni Garden`, `Bojuka Bog`, `Desert`, `Hidden Grotto`, `Crystal Grotto`, `Conduit Pylons`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Witherbloom Campus`, `Tree of Tales`, `Vault of Whispers`, and `Golgari Rot Farm` as tactical resources with timing costs, not interchangeable mana sources.

- Information turns discard, removal, and sideboard bullets into precision tools. Use public zones, revealed hands, legal action text, and prior decisions to aim `Duress`, `Faerie Macabre`, `Snuff Out`, `Chainer's Edict`, `Crypt Rats`, `Scattershot Archer`, `Gleeful Sabotage`, `Wrap in Vigor`, `Spore Frog`, and `Weather the Storm`; never name hidden cards or assume a role card is correct without visible matchup pressure.

## Mana Guide
- Keep mana hands that cast early green setup or black interaction with a believable second color path. A strong keep has two or more mana sources, at least one green source for `Utopia Sprawl`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Explore`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, `Return from the Wilds`, `Arboreal Grazer`, `Skyshroud Ranger`, or `Sakura-Tribe Scout`, or at least one black source with cheap action like `Viscera Seer`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Village Rites`, `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, or `Night's Whisper`.

- Mulligan mana hands that cannot produce both colors in time to affect the board. One-land hands need a legal and castable acceleration path, not just expensive payoffs; colorless-heavy hands with `Desert`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Conduit Pylons`, `Tree of Tales`, or `Vault of Whispers` need visible fixing from `Command Tower`, `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Crystal Grotto`, `Hidden Grotto`, `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, `Witherbloom Campus`, `Forest`, or `Swamp`.

- Sequence tapped and utility lands around the first real play. Lead with `Khalni Garden`, `Bojuka Bog`, `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Witherbloom Campus`, `Hidden Grotto`, or `Tocasia's Dig Site` when the turn has no urgent one-mana spell; lead untapped colored lands when the hand needs `Utopia Sprawl`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, or `Village Rites` now.

- Choose `Utopia Sprawl` targets conservatively. Put it on a `Forest` that is likely to remain available, choose the color that completes the hand's next two turns, and prefer black if green is already abundant but black cards are stranded; verify the legal color choice exposed by Forge rather than assuming all colors are offered.

- Use land-search spells to fix before accelerating greedily. `Caravan Vigil`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, `Crop Rotation`, and `Return from the Wilds` should find missing colors, protect future commander tax, or unlock double-spell turns before they chase marginal landfall or graveyard value. `Harrow` and `Crop Rotation` sacrifice lands as costs, so avoid them when losing that land breaks a current or next-turn legal line unless the searched land immediately solves the problem.

- Play lands before draw when the land drop is forced or needed to cast the draw spell. If the hand already has the only legal land drop and mana is needed for `Sign in Blood`, `Night's Whisper`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Grisly Salvage`, or `Malevolent Rumble`, play it first.

- Draw or select before land when the land choice can change. Use `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, `Night's Whisper`, `Sign in Blood`, `Funeral Rites`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Witherbloom Campus`, `Crystal Grotto`, or `Hidden Grotto` before the land drop if the deck may reveal a better colored source, `Khalni Garden` for a body, `Bojuka Bog` for timing, or an untapped land needed for interaction.

- Tap creature-based lands only after checking combat and sacrifice value. `Holdout Settlement` and `Survivors' Encampment` can turn any creature into fixing, but the tapped creature cannot also block, attack, convoke, tap for `Siege Zombie`, or be held as a sacrifice shield that turn; use them when the spell cast is worth more than that creature's immediate board role.

## Mulligan Guide
- Strong keeps start with castable mana plus early material. Keep two- or three-land hands with both colors, `Command Tower`, or a clear fixer plus one early body or setup spell such as `Arboreal Grazer`, `Sakura-Tribe Scout`, `Skyshroud Ranger`, `Utopia Sprawl`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Blisterpod`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Nested Shambler`, `Viscera Seer`, or `Carrion Feeder`, especially when the hand also has `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Night's Whisper`, `Sign in Blood`, `Grisly Salvage`, or `Malevolent Rumble`.

- Medium keeps need one missing piece but have time to find it. Keep a one-color hand with `Forest` plus `Caravan Vigil`, `Utopia Sprawl`, `Explore`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, `Return from the Wilds`, or `Harrow` when it already has cheap green plays; keep a black-heavy hand with `Swamp`, `Night's Whisper`, `Sign in Blood`, `Village Rites`, `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, or `Nihil Spellbomb` when it has either a second land or an early draw path toward green.

- Risky keeps are acceptable only with a visible low-curve path. A one-land `Forest` hand can stay on the draw with `Utopia Sprawl` plus `Caravan Vigil` or `Explore`; a one-land `Swamp` hand can stay only with multiple one-mana black actions and draw, such as `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Village Rites`, or `Night's Whisper`, and should ship on the play without a second mana source or selection spell.

- Automatic ships fail mana, board, or action density. Mulligan zero-land hands, five-plus-land hands without `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Witherbloom Campus`, `Hidden Grotto`, `Crystal Grotto`, draw, or commander access; colorless-heavy hands built around `Desert`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Tree of Tales`, `Vault of Whispers`, or `Conduit Pylons` with no colored source; and hands containing only sacrifice payoffs like `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, or `Eviscerator's Insight` with no expendable permanent.

- Matchup-dependent keeps should answer the opponent's pressure type. Keep `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Bojuka Bog`, `Night Soil`, or `Faerie Macabre` only when graveyard pressure is known or likely; keep `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Scarblade's Malice`, `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, or `Snuff Out` higher against creature commanders; keep `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, or `Gleeful Sabotage` higher only when artifacts or enchantments are visible in the matchup context.

- Play/draw changes the tolerance for tapped lands and slow draw. On the play, prioritize untapped colored mana and a turn-one body or fixer; on the draw, accept `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Khalni Garden`, `Bojuka Bog`, `Witherbloom Campus`, or `Hidden Grotto` starts when the next two turns still produce a spell.

- Trap hands look synergistic but do not function. Ship hands with `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Siege Zombie`, or `Black Mage's Rod` but no early bodies; hands with `Presence of Gond`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Scatter the Seeds`, or `Chatterstorm` but no setup; and hands with `Crop Rotation` or `Harrow` where sacrificing a land would break both colors.

## Turn Arc
- Turn 1 priority is mana or a reusable body. Lead `Forest` into `Utopia Sprawl`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Arboreal Grazer`, `Sakura-Tribe Scout`, or `Skyshroud Ranger` when legal; lead `Swamp` into `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, or `Nihil Spellbomb` when interaction or sacrifice infrastructure matters. Use `Khalni Garden` early when the Plant token enables `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, convoke, or blockers.

- Turn 2 priority is color completion plus material. Cast `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, `Night's Whisper`, `Sign in Blood`, `Explore`, or `Journey of Discovery` according to the missing resource; hold `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, or `Reckoner's Bargain` until a creature is targeted, doomed in combat, or truly expendable.

- Turn 3 priority is the first engine or commander-support turn. Deploy `Broodspinner` when the board can use commander pressure and mana remains stable, or instead set up `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, `Undercellar Myconid`, `Saproling Migration`, or `Infestation Sage` when those permanents convert existing bodies into damage, cards, or board width.

- Turns 4-5 priority is conversion without overextending. Use `Scatter the Seeds`, `Mobilize`, `Chatterstorm`, `Eldrazi Repurposer`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, `Elfsworn Giant`, or `You Meet in a Tavern` to widen only when removal risk and combat math justify it; otherwise spend turns drawing with `Deadly Dispute`, `Village Rites`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, `Night's Whisper`, `Sign in Blood`, or `Funeral Rites` while leaving bodies for blocks and sacrifice.

- Late game priority is inevitability through repeatable mana sinks and drain pressure. Activate `Siege Zombie`, `Night Soil`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Witherbloom Campus`, and commander recasts when legal and useful; aim sacrifice chains through `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Casting of Bones`, `Bequeathal`, or `Not Dead After All` only when visible board state supports the exchange.

- Deviate from the curve to survive or stop a known engine. Spend `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `You Are Already Dead`, `Scarblade's Malice`, `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, `Bojuka Bog`, or `Nihil Spellbomb` before developing if the opponent's visible permanent, graveyard, or attack step threatens more damage or value than your planned turn creates.

## Card Roles
- `Broodspinner` is the command-zone identity card, so cast it when its visible rules text advances tokens, sacrifice, drain, or graveyard pressure without exposing the turn to a tempo collapse. Card text check required before assuming exact trigger timing, creature type, or payoff math; treat commander recasts as worthwhile only when the board has fodder, mana stability, or immediate conversion.

- `Carrion Feeder` and `Viscera Seer` are free sacrifice infrastructure, not random early attackers. Use them to blank removal, trigger death or token-leave payoffs, enable morbid-style removal, protect enchanted creatures from exile, and convert doomed blockers; avoid sacrificing the only mana creature, only convoke body, or only payoff unless the current line stabilizes or wins.

- `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, and `Black Mage's Rod` are reach engines that turn board width or spell velocity into damage. Deploy `Mirkwood Bats` before token creation or sacrifice chains when possible; deploy `Nadier's Nightblade` before token-leave turns; use `Siege Zombie` as a late-game tap outlet for stalled boards; Card text check required for `Black Mage's Rod`, but treat it as a slow inevitability piece when noncreature spells and life totals make it relevant.

- `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Saproling Migration`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Mobilize`, `Chatterstorm`, `Khalni Garden`, `Eldrazi Repurposer`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, `Infestation Sage`, `Undercellar Myconid`, and `Elfsworn Giant` are material makers. Prefer them before sacrifice draw, convoke, `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, `Mirkwood Bats`, or `Nadier's Nightblade`; Card text check required for `Mobilize`, `Eldrazi Repurposer`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, `Infestation Sage`, `Undercellar Myconid`, and `Elfsworn Giant` before relying on exact token quantity, creature type, or combat stats.

- `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, and `Presence of Gond` are repeatable board-production engines. Cast them when the opponent cannot punish a slow setup turn or when graveyards, untapped creatures, or disposable bodies already make the next activation likely; avoid `Presence of Gond` on a creature that must attack, block, or be sacrificed before it can tap for value.

- `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, `Witch's Cauldron`, and `Bushmeat Poacher` are sacrifice-to-cards converters. Hold instant-speed versions until a creature is targeted, blocked, doomed, or low-value; use sorcery-speed or activated versions when excess tokens would otherwise sit idle. Card text check required for `Fanatical Offering` and `Eviscerator's Insight` before assuming token creation, bargain-like costs, or flashback-like use.

- `Bequeathal`, `Casting of Bones`, `Not Dead After All`, and `You Are Already Dead` reward planned death events. Attach `Bequeathal` or `Casting of Bones` only when the creature is likely to die or be sacrificed soon; use `Not Dead After All` to preserve a key commander, payoff, or sacrifice target through removal when legal; cast `You Are Already Dead` after damage or a death-enabling exchange, not as a speculative cantrip unless the rules engine confirms a legal target.

- `Night's Whisper`, `Sign in Blood`, `Funeral Rites`, `Howling Golem`, `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, and `You Meet in a Tavern` are velocity and selection. Use cheap draw to hit land drops before committing engines; use graveyard-feeding selection when `Night Soil`, recursion-like effects, sacrifice payoffs, or commander plans benefit. Card text check required for `Malevolent Rumble`, `Howling Golem`, and `You Meet in a Tavern` before assuming exact card flow, creature hit restriction, or team pump mode.

- `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Scarblade's Malice`, `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, and `Bojuka Bog` are interaction. Save `Vendetta` for creatures whose damage, commander text, or combo role outweighs the life loss; enable `Tragic Slip` with sacrifice or combat when the larger mode matters; use `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher` when edict pressure hits a real threat, not a disposable token. Card text check required for `Scarblade's Malice` and `Heritage Reclamation` before choosing modes or targets.

- `Crop Rotation`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Explore`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, `Return from the Wilds`, `Utopia Sprawl`, `Arboreal Grazer`, `Skyshroud Ranger`, and `Sakura-Tribe Scout` are mana development. Use them to fix black-green access before double-spelling; do not sacrifice a land to `Crop Rotation` or `Harrow` if the after-state cannot cast the hand. Card text check required for `Return from the Wilds` before treating it as ramp, fixing, or token support.

- `Command Tower`, `Forest`, `Swamp`, `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Crystal Grotto`, `Hidden Grotto`, `Conduit Pylons`, `Witherbloom Campus`, `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, `Tree of Tales`, `Vault of Whispers`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Rumble Arena`, `Titan's Grave`, `Desert`, and `Bojuka Bog` are role lands, not interchangeable mana. Lead untapped colored sources when early spells matter; use creature-tap lands after token setup; preserve artifact lands when artifact sacrifice or permanent type matters; treat utility lands as late sinks unless the hand already casts its spells. Card text check required for `Rumble Arena` and `Titan's Grave` before valuing them as utility beyond visible mana output.

- `Nezumi Linkbreaker`, `Cornered by Black Mages`, and `Zuko's Exile` need runtime text validation before tactical commitments. Use them only according to legal action text and visible targets; if they function as removal, protection, discard, or token support, apply the matching interaction or material rule rather than assuming a generic value role.

### Card Hover Notes

#### Broodspinner
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, commander/core piece.
- Role type: engine payoff; threat/clock; tutor/search-adjacent graveyard payoff.
- Deck-specific job: Surveil 2 on entry sets up card-type diversity, then the `{4}{B}{G}, {T}, Sacrifice this creature` ability converts card types among cards in your graveyard into flying Insect tokens for `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, and sacrifice draw.
- Timing: Cast when `{B}{G}` does not delay survival interaction; activate only when enough graveyard card types make the sacrificed commander worth commander tax and tempo loss.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes six mana, tapping Broodspinner, and sacrificing the commander; outputs flying 1/1 black and green Insect tokens equal to card types among cards in your graveyard.
- Partners / packages: `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, `Funeral Rites`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, and `Titan's Grave` fill graveyard card types; `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, and `Siege Zombie` convert the tokens into reach.
- Role peers: No direct peer; closest role overlap is `Eyeblight Cullers` for delayed multiple bodies and `Elfsworn Giant` for repeat token production.
- Failure modes: Do not sacrifice Broodspinner for one or two tokens unless the tokens immediately stabilize, convoke `Scatter the Seeds`, or enable lethal drain.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in stalled creature boards and removal-light games; weaker when graveyard hate threatens to shrink the activation before resolution.

#### Holdout Settlement
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, mana resource/fixing named land.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Provides colorless mana alone or any color by tapping an untapped creature, letting token bodies cast stranded `Broodspinner`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Scatter the Seeds`, or black sacrifice draw.
- Timing: Use the creature-tap ability after checking whether that creature is needed to attack, block, activate `Siege Zombie`, convoke `Scatter the Seeds`, or be sacrificed to `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, or `Eviscerator's Insight`.
- Inputs / outputs: Outputs `{C}` with no creature cost, or any color by tapping Holdout Settlement plus one untapped creature.
- Partners / packages: Best with expendable bodies from `Khalni Garden`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Saproling Migration`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Blisterpod`, and `Nested Shambler`.
- Role peers: `Survivors' Encampment` is the direct peer; `Command Tower`, `Crystal Grotto`, `Hidden Grotto`, `Conduit Pylons`, and `Rumble Arena` fix without tapping creatures.
- Failure modes: Tapping the only untapped creature can turn off `Siege Zombie`, lose a profitable block, or remove convoke capacity for `Scatter the Seeds`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Better in slow matchups with spare tokens; risky against combat decks where every untapped body changes survival math.

#### Survivors' Encampment
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, mana resource/fixing Desert.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Mirrors `Holdout Settlement` while also carrying the Desert subtype, making a token creature into missing black or green mana when the hand is color-stressed.
- Timing: Activate for any color when the spell cast is more important than the tapped creature's combat, `Siege Zombie`, convoke, or sacrifice role this turn.
- Inputs / outputs: Outputs `{C}` by tapping itself, or one mana of any color by tapping itself plus an untapped creature you control.
- Partners / packages: Spare creatures from `Blisterpod`, `Khalni Garden`, `Chatterstorm`, `Saproling Migration`, `Scatter the Seeds`, and `Fists of Ironwood` are the preferred tap costs.
- Role peers: `Holdout Settlement` is the direct peer; `Conduit Pylons`, `Crystal Grotto`, `Hidden Grotto`, and `Rumble Arena` are slower noncreature fixing peers.
- Failure modes: Do not use a payoff creature such as `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, or a `Presence of Gond` creature as the tap cost unless the mana produces immediate survival or lethal.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Valuable when opponents pressure colors rather than life total; weaker when opposing attacks force you to keep blockers untapped.

#### Conduit Pylons
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, utility mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Surveil 1 on entry helps bin flashback, creature, artifact, enchantment, named land, instant, or sorcery card types for `Broodspinner`, then provides colorless or paid fixing.
- Timing: Play when the scry-like graveyard choice matters or when a colorless land will not delay turn-one `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Utopia Sprawl`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Vendetta`, or `Tragic Slip`.
- Inputs / outputs: Enters with surveil 1; taps for `{C}`; `{1}, {T}` converts spare mana into one mana of any color.
- Partners / packages: Fuels `Broodspinner`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, `Grisly Salvage`, and `Malevolent Rumble` by improving graveyard texture.
- Role peers: `Hidden Grotto` is the closest surveil-fixing peer; `Crystal Grotto` and `Rumble Arena` scry instead of surveil.
- Failure modes: A colorless early land can strand black one-drops or green ramp; paid fixing effectively costs two mana total for one colored mana.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good when a slow opener needs selection; poor against fast pressure if it replaces an untapped colored source.

#### Crystal Grotto
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, utility mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Smooths early draws with scry 1 and later turns colorless mana into missing black or green for singleton hands.
- Timing: Lead with it only when you do not need immediate untapped colored mana; use the scry to keep missing lands, sacrifice fodder, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, or removal according to the opener.
- Inputs / outputs: Enters and scries 1; taps for `{C}`; `{1}, {T}` adds one mana of any color.
- Partners / packages: Helps find `Swamp` for `Sign in Blood`, `Night's Whisper`, and black interaction, or `Forest` for `Utopia Sprawl`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Harrow`, and `Nissa's Pilgrimage`.
- Role peers: `Rumble Arena` also scries and fixes; `Conduit Pylons` and `Hidden Grotto` put unwanted cards into the graveyard instead.
- Failure modes: Do not treat it as a full-speed colored source; fixing through `{1}, {T}` can prevent double-spelling.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Keep slow value cards on top in attrition matchups; bottom them when aggro demands immediate blockers or removal.

#### Golgari Rot Farm
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, tapped dual mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; mana resource.
- Deck-specific job: Produces `{B}{G}` from one land slot and can rebuy utility land entries such as `Bojuka Bog`, `Khalni Garden`, `Conduit Pylons`, `Hidden Grotto`, `Crystal Grotto`, or `Rumble Arena`.
- Timing: Play when returning a land does not strand the next spell; best after making an early play or when replaying `Bojuka Bog` or `Khalni Garden` matters.
- Inputs / outputs: Enters tapped, returns a land you control to owner's hand, then taps for `{B}{G}` on later turns.
- Partners / packages: Strong with `Arboreal Grazer`, `Skyshroud Ranger`, `Sakura-Tribe Scout`, `Explore`, and `Journey of Discovery` because extra land drops reduce bounce tempo.
- Role peers: `Titan's Grave`, `Witherbloom Campus`, and `Command Tower` also provide both colors without the bounce.
- Failure modes: Playing it as the only land can cost a full turn; bouncing the only `Forest` can turn off `Utopia Sprawl` or green ramp.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent in slow games where mana density wins; dangerous against tempo decks punishing tapped-land starts.

#### Bojuka Bog
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, utility tapped land/hate piece.
- Role type: hate piece; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Exiles target player's graveyard on entry while also producing `{B}`, giving maindeck graveyard interaction that can be found by `Crop Rotation`.
- Timing: Save the land drop or `Crop Rotation` line when an opposing graveyard spell, recursion ability, flashback setup, or threshold-like resource is visible; play early only when black mana is otherwise needed.
- Inputs / outputs: Enters tapped, targets a player, exiles that player's graveyard, and later taps for `{B}`.
- Partners / packages: `Crop Rotation` can put it onto the battlefield at instant speed; `Golgari Rot Farm` can return it for a second entry.
- Role peers: `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Faerie Macabre`, `Return to Nature`, and `Heritage Reclamation` are other graveyard interaction pieces with different timing and target sizes.
- Failure modes: Firing it into an unimportant graveyard wastes the singleton land trigger and may slow your own mana.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: High priority against flashback, recursion, reanimation, delve, escape, or graveyard-combo opponents; low priority against pure board combat.

#### Command Tower
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, core mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Cleanly produces black or green because `Broodspinner` has black-green color identity, making it one of the best early named lands for mixed hands.
- Timing: Lead with it when the hand has both `Carrion Feeder`/`Viscera Seer` style black starts and `Utopia Sprawl`/`Caravan Vigil` style green starts; only hold it if another land's entry trigger must happen first.
- Inputs / outputs: Taps for one mana of any color in the commander's color identity, effectively `{B}` or `{G}` in this deck.
- Partners / packages: Casts `Broodspinner`, `Grisly Salvage`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Journey of Discovery`, and black instant interaction without color tension.
- Role peers: `Titan's Grave`, `Witherbloom Campus`, and `Golgari Rot Farm` also cover both colors, but enter tapped or have costs.
- Failure modes: No major tactical drawback, but it does not count as `Forest` for `Utopia Sprawl` or `Nissa's Pilgrimage`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Prioritize in openers against tempo and aggro because untapped flexible color prevents stumble.

#### Forest
- Deck role: Main, 11 copies, basic mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Supplies `{G}` for early ramp and token development while being the exact land type for `Utopia Sprawl` and the exact search target for `Nissa's Pilgrimage`.
- Timing: Lead `Forest` when the hand has `Utopia Sprawl`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Arboreal Grazer`, `Sakura-Tribe Scout`, `Skyshroud Ranger`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Blisterpod`, `Explore`, or `Grisly Salvage`.
- Inputs / outputs: Taps for `{G}`; can be searched by `Caravan Vigil`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Harrow`, `Return from the Wilds`, and `Nissa's Pilgrimage`.
- Partners / packages: `Utopia Sprawl` enchants only `Forest`; `Nissa's Pilgrimage` searches basic `Forest`; `Harrow` and `Journey of Discovery` can find multiple basic copies.
- Role peers: `Tree of Tales` produces `{G}` but is not a basic Forest; `Command Tower`, `Titan's Grave`, and `Witherbloom Campus` can produce green but do not satisfy Forest-specific text.
- Failure modes: Forest-heavy hands can strand `Sign in Blood`, `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, and black sacrifice draw.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: More valuable in opening hands where speed depends on green development.

#### Swamp
- Deck role: Main, 11 copies, basic mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Supplies `{B}` for one-mana sacrifice outlets, interaction, and black draw, and enables sideboard `Snuff Out` alternate cost when a Swamp is controlled.
- Timing: Lead `Swamp` when the opener needs `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Village Rites`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Night's Whisper`, or `Sign in Blood`.
- Inputs / outputs: Taps for `{B}`; can be found by `Caravan Vigil`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Harrow`, and `Return from the Wilds`.
- Partners / packages: Enables `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, `Mirkwood Bats`, and `Nadier's Nightblade`; postboard it turns on `Snuff Out`'s life-payment option.
- Role peers: `Vault of Whispers` produces `{B}` but is not a basic Swamp; `Bojuka Bog`, `Titan's Grave`, `Witherbloom Campus`, and `Command Tower` cover black with other tradeoffs.
- Failure modes: Swamp-heavy hands can fail to cast green ramp, token makers, and `Broodspinner`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Higher keep value against creature decks where early black removal matters.

#### Journey of Discovery
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, mana-development role player.
- Role type: modal utility; tutor/search; mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Either finds basic `Forest` and `Swamp` to fix future turns or unlocks extra land drops when the hand already contains named lands and needs acceleration.
- Timing: Use the search mode when missing colors or future land drops; use extra-land mode only with enough named lands in hand to immediately turn it into mana advantage.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{G}`; either puts up to two basic named lands into hand or allows up to two additional land plays this turn; entwine `{2}{G}` lets both happen.
- Mode map: Search mode reveals up to two basic `Forest`/`Swamp` cards and puts them into hand; extra-land mode uses named lands already in hand; entwined mode costs six mana total and is best when two basics plus two land drops produce a major next-turn jump.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Arboreal Grazer`, `Skyshroud Ranger`, `Sakura-Tribe Scout`, `Elfsworn Giant`, and landfall/token sequencing.
- Role peers: `Caravan Vigil`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, `Return from the Wilds`, and `Explore` are the nearest land-development peers.
- Failure modes: Casting it as a slow search while under lethal pressure can be worse than making blockers or holding removal.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Best in midrange/control; often too slow to prioritize against fast aggro.

#### Siege Zombie
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, drain payoff/board-stall core piece.
- Role type: reach/finisher; engine payoff; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Turns three untapped creatures into each-opponent life loss, letting tokens from `Saproling Migration`, `Chatterstorm`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Khalni Garden`, and `Broodspinner` win through clogged combat.
- Timing: Cast once you can protect or use a wide board; activate when tapping three creatures produces safer damage than attacking or blocking.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes three untapped creatures per activation; outputs 1 life lost by each opponent without requiring combat damage.
- Partners / packages: `Mobilize` can untap creatures after attacks or mana use; `Presence of Gond` makes repeatable bodies; `Scatter the Seeds` and `Chatterstorm` provide activation density.
- Role peers: `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Black Mage's Rod`, and `Consuming Sepulcher` also convert board or spell activity into life loss.
- Failure modes: Do not tap blockers into an opposing lethal attack or tap creatures needed for `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, `Scatter the Seeds`, or sacrifice-draw costs.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent against ground stalls and foggy combat; weaker when flyers or burn force creatures to stay defensive.

#### Mobilize
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, token-board role player.
- Role type: mechanic enabler; role glue; reach/finisher.
- Deck-specific job: Untaps `Coiling Oracle`, `Wood Elves`, `Farhaven Elf`, `Fierce Empath`, or Insect tokens from `It of the Horrid Swarm` you control, letting a wide board attack, tap for `Siege Zombie`, use `Presence of Gond`, or recover after creature-tap mana from `Holdout Settlement` and `Survivors' Encampment`.
- Timing: Save for turns where untapping at least three relevant creatures changes damage, `Siege Zombie` activations, `Presence of Gond` output, or blocking.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{G}` and untaps `Coiling Oracle`, `Wood Elves`, `Farhaven Elf`, `Fierce Empath`, or Insect tokens from `It of the Horrid Swarm` you control; produces no bodies by itself.
- Partners / packages: High ceiling with `Siege Zombie`, `Presence of Gond`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, and wide tokens from `Saproling Migration`, `Chatterstorm`, and `Fists of Ironwood`.
- Role peers: No direct peer; closest role overlap is `You Meet in a Tavern` because both reward an already-wide board.
- Failure modes: Casting it with only one or two tapped creatures and no payoff is usually a blank card.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in stalled boards and lethal math turns; poor when the opponent can remove `Siege Zombie` or wipe the board before untaps matter.

#### Witch's Cauldron
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, repeatable sacrifice-draw engine.
- Role type: engine piece; lifegain/stabilization; discard-free sacrifice outlet.
- Deck-specific job: Converts expendable creatures into a card and 1 life, giving the deck an attrition outlet that does not require spending a card each time.
- Timing: Deploy early when spare mana exists; activate after blocks, in response to removal, or at end step when a creature is outclassed and not needed for `Siege Zombie`, convoke, or combat.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{B}`, tapping Witch's Cauldron, and sacrificing a creature; outputs 1 life and one card.
- Partners / packages: Sacrifice `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Infestation Sage`, `Undercellar Myconid`, `Khalni Garden` Plant, `Chatter of the Squirrel` token, or `Saproling Migration` tokens; triggers `Mirkwood Bats` for token sacrifices and `Nadier's Nightblade` when tokens leave.
- Role peers: `Bushmeat Poacher` is the closest repeatable creature-sacrifice draw peer; `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, and `Eviscerator's Insight` are one-shot spell peers.
- Failure modes: Mana-intensive activation can block interaction; sacrificing the only blocker for one card can lose races.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus removal-heavy decks; slower against burn or evasive aggro.

#### You Are Already Dead
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, conditional removal/cantrip.
- Role type: interaction-removal; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Finishes a creature that has already been dealt damage this turn and replaces itself, making combat damage, `Desert`, `Crypt Rats`, or blocks into clean removal.
- Timing: Cast only after a legal target creature has been dealt damage this turn; use post-combat or end-of-combat windows when damage is marked and before cleanup removes it.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{B}`; destroys target creature dealt damage this turn; draws a card.
- Partners / packages: Pairs with `Desert` damage to an attacking creature, combat trades from tokens, `Crypt Rats`, `Scarblade's Malice` deathtouch combat, and blockers such as `Arboreal Grazer`, `Broodspinner`, and `Elfsworn Giant`.
- Role peers: `Tragic Slip` is the closest conditional one-mana removal peer; `Vendetta` and `Snuff Out` are broader but life-costed.
- Failure modes: It is stranded with no damaged creature; do not cast into an illegal or low-value target just to cycle because the draw is tied to destruction.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Best against combat decks and large creatures that survive damage; weak against spell combo or noncreature engines.

#### Vendetta
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, premium black instant removal.
- Role type: interaction-removal; lifegain/stabilization by prevention.
- Deck-specific job: Destroys a target nonblack creature that matters enough to pay life equal to its toughness, covering evasive clocks, commanders, combo creatures, and blockers your tokens cannot profitably handle.
- Timing: Hold for the creature whose next attack, activated ability, or block changes the game; cast before combat damage or in response windows when the life loss is safer than leaving the creature alive.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{B}`; destroys target nonblack creature, prevents regeneration, and costs life equal to that creature's toughness.
- Partners / packages: Complements `Tragic Slip`, `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, `Zuko's Exile`, `Scarblade's Malice`, sideboard `Snuff Out`, and sideboard `Chainer's Edict`.
- Role peers: `Snuff Out` is the closest sideboard peer; `Tragic Slip` can be stronger after a death event.
- Failure modes: Bad against black creatures, bad against burn when life is low, and wasteful on creatures tokens can block.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Prioritize against nonblack evasive commanders and combo creatures; devalue against black creature decks and direct-damage opponents.

#### Heritage Reclamation
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, flexible interaction role player.
- Role type: modal utility; interaction-removal; hate piece.
- Deck-specific job: Answers an artifact, enchantment, or a single graveyard card while drawing a card only on the graveyard-exile mode.
- Timing: Hold until the target artifact/enchantment is an actual engine or the graveyard card is about to be used; choose graveyard mode when replacing the card matters and one card is enough disruption.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{G}`; outputs artifact destruction, enchantment destruction, or exiles up to one target card from a graveyard and draws a card.
- Mode map: Destroy target artifact for artifact engines; destroy target enchantment for aura/prison/value enchantments; exile up to one target card from a graveyard and draw a card when a specific flashback, recursion, or threshold card matters.
- Partners / packages: Works alongside `Return to Nature`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Bojuka Bog`, `Night Soil`, `Faerie Macabre`, and `Gleeful Sabotage`.
- Role peers: `Return to Nature` is the direct main-deck peer, but it does not draw on graveyard mode; `Gleeful Sabotage` is sideboard artifact/enchantment density.
- Failure modes: Do not choose graveyard mode expecting to remove a whole graveyard; it exiles up to one target card.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good versus artifact/enchantment engines and single-card graveyard plans; less effective against wide graveyard resources.

#### Return to Nature
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, flexible interaction role player.
- Role type: modal utility; interaction-removal; hate piece.
- Deck-specific job: Provides clean instant-speed coverage against target artifact, target enchantment, or target card in a graveyard.
- Timing: Save for the permanent or graveyard card that unlocks the opposing plan; use earlier only when the target blocks your current lethal, disables tokens, or threatens immediate recursion.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{G}` and trades for one artifact, one enchantment, or one target graveyard card.
- Mode map: Artifact mode destroys target artifact; enchantment mode destroys target enchantment; graveyard mode exiles target card from a graveyard.
- Partners / packages: Complements `Heritage Reclamation`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Bojuka Bog`, `Night Soil`, and sideboard `Gleeful Sabotage`.
- Role peers: `Heritage Reclamation` is the direct peer with a draw option tied to graveyard exile; `Zuko's Exile` hits artifact, creature, or enchantment at five mana.
- Failure modes: Do not spend it on a low-impact artifact token or enchantment if a known engine is visible or likely.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: High against aura, artifact, enchantment, and graveyard decks; low against creature-only pressure unless a graveyard card matters.

#### Howling Golem
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, symmetrical card-flow flex slot.
- Role type: threat/clock; card selection; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Attacks or blocks as a 2/3 artifact creature while drawing each player a card, which can help this deck find bodies, sacrifice outlets, or named lands but may feed the opponent first.
- Timing: Deploy when you can use the extra card better than the opponent, or when a 2/3 artifact creature body matters for blocking and future sacrifice.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{3}`; attacking or blocking draws each player a card.
- Partners / packages: Can be sacrificed to `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, or `Eviscerator's Insight`; artifact status can matter as sacrifice material.
- Role peers: `Sign in Blood`, `Night's Whisper`, and `Funeral Rites` draw without helping the opponent; `Eldrazi Repurposer` and `Eyeblight Cullers` are larger material bodies.
- Failure modes: Do not attack or block with it when giving the opponent a card is worse than the body or damage.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Cut or avoid against burn, combo, and control that can use free cards better; acceptable in attrition games where your sacrifice engines convert cards faster.

#### Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, removal-to-drain multi-aspect role player.
- Role type: modal utility; interaction-removal; reach/finisher.
- Deck-specific job: `Tithing Blade` makes each opponent sacrifice a creature of their choice; later craft can turn expendable creature material into `Consuming Sepulcher`, a upkeep drain artifact.
- Timing: Cast `Tithing Blade` when opponents have few disposable creatures or the edict clears a meaningful commander/threat; craft only at sorcery speed when exiling a creature you control or creature card from graveyard will not break your engine.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{B}` for the front face; craft costs `{4}{B}`, exiling Tithing Blade and a creature you control or a creature card from your graveyard; transformed face drains each opponent for 1 and gains you 1 at upkeep.
- Mode map: Front face is immediate edict pressure; transformed face is slow inevitability. Craft is a sorcery-speed access mode, not instant protection.
- Partners / packages: Sacrifice and graveyard bodies from `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Infestation Sage`, `Undercellar Myconid`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, `Grisly Salvage`, and `Funeral Rites` can pay craft.
- Role peers: `Chainer's Edict` is a sideboard edict peer; `Cornered by Black Mages` also makes target opponent sacrifice a creature.
- Failure modes: Bad into token boards where each opponent chooses a low-value creature; crafting away the wrong creature card can weaken `Night Soil` or `Broodspinner`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against single-threat and hexproof-style boards; weak against go-wide disposable creatures.

#### Eviscerator's Insight
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, sacrifice-card draw role player.
- Role type: engine fuel/material; card selection; recursion-adjacent flashback.
- Deck-specific job: Sacrifices an artifact or creature to draw two, then can be cast again from graveyard for flashback if more material is available.
- Timing: Cast in response to removal, after blocks, or when a token/artifact is expendable; save flashback until sacrificing a second permanent is worthwhile and five mana is available.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{B}` plus sacrificing an artifact or creature; draws two. Flashback costs `{4}{B}` plus the same additional sacrifice, then exiles the spell after resolution.
- Mode map: Hand cast is efficient card draw; flashback is late-game rebuild from graveyard and consumes both mana and another sacrifice permanent.
- Partners / packages: Preferred sacrifices include `Nihil Spellbomb` after use, `Treasure` from `Deadly Dispute`, `Map` from `Fanatical Offering`, `Food` from `Return from the Wilds`, `Khalni Garden` Plant, and tokens from `Chatter of the Squirrel` or `Saproling Migration`.
- Role peers: `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, and `Reckoner's Bargain` are one-shot sacrifice draw peers.
- Failure modes: Do not sacrifice the only blocker, only payoff, or only artifact land needed for mana unless the cards immediately solve the board.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent versus removal-heavy attrition; too slow if the extra sacrifice leaves you dead on board.

#### Nihil Spellbomb
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, graveyard hate artifact.
- Role type: hate piece; engine fuel/material; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Exiles target player's graveyard and can draw a card when it goes to the graveyard if you pay `{B}`, while also being artifact sacrifice material.
- Timing: Activate preemptively at the last safe moment before recursion, flashback, delve, escape, threshold, or graveyard combo costs are paid or abilities resolve; hold black mana if drawing the card is important.
- Inputs / outputs: Taps and sacrifices itself to exile target player's graveyard; when put into a graveyard from battlefield, you may pay `{B}` to draw a card.
- Partners / packages: Artifact for `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, and `Eviscerator's Insight`; graveyard-hate peer with `Bojuka Bog`, `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, `Night Soil`, and `Faerie Macabre`.
- Role peers: `Bojuka Bog` is whole-graveyard hate from a land drop; `Faerie Macabre` hits up to two target cards from hand without mana.
- Failure modes: It answers graveyards and happens to be an artifact; activating too early lets the opponent rebuild the graveyard.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring patience against graveyard decks; sacrifice it for cards only when opposing graveyard pressure is low or already answered.

#### Tragic Slip
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, efficient conditional removal.
- Role type: interaction-removal.
- Deck-specific job: Kills low-power creatures named in this note for `{B}` normally and becomes -13/-13 when morbid is active, letting sacrifice outlets turn it into an answer for nearly any target creature.
- Timing: Use after a creature died this turn when the larger mode is needed; use the -1/-1 mode only on a target where that actually kills or meaningfully weakens it.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{B}`; target creature gets -1/-1, or -13/-13 instead if a creature died this turn.
- Partners / packages: Morbid enablers include `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, combat trades, and `Spore Frog` sacrifice.
- Role peers: `Vendetta`, `Snuff Out`, `You Are Already Dead`, and `Zuko's Exile` are other target removal options with different restrictions.
- Failure modes: Casting before creating a death event can miss a large threat; waiting too long can lose the legal target or lethal window.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against creature commanders and big threats when you control sacrifice timing; weak against noncreature engines.

#### Black Mage's Rod
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, noncreature-spell drain engine.
- Role type: engine payoff; reach/finisher; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Job select creates a 1/1 Hero and equips it, turning that creature into a Wizard that pings each opponent whenever you cast a noncreature spell.
- Timing: Deploy before chaining cheap noncreature spells such as `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Night's Whisper`, `Sign in Blood`, `Return to Nature`, or `Saproling Migration`.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{B}`; creates a 1/1 colorless Hero token and attaches; equipped creature gets +1/+0 and spell-damage trigger; equip costs `{3}`.
- Partners / packages: Noncreature spell density includes `Chatterstorm`, `Mobilize`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Explore`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Presence of Gond`, `Saproling Migration`, and sacrifice draw spells.
- Role peers: `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, and `Consuming Sepulcher` are other reach engines.
- Failure modes: If the equipped creature dies before spells are cast, the equipment becomes slow and requires `{3}` to reload.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus stalled boards and control; vulnerable to creature removal aimed at the equipped Wizard.

#### Nadier's Nightblade
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, token-leave drain payoff.
- Role type: engine payoff; reach/finisher; lifegain/stabilization.
- Deck-specific job: Drains each opponent and gains you life whenever a token you control leaves the battlefield, turning token sacrifices, chump blocks, and token deaths into reach.
- Timing: Cast before sacrificing or trading tokens when possible; protect it if the next turn converts multiple tokens into life swings.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{B}`; outputs each-opponent life loss and your life gain when your tokens leave the battlefield.
- Partners / packages: Works with tokens from `Chatterstorm`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Saproling Migration`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Khalni Garden`, `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Infestation Sage`, `Undercellar Myconid`, `Eldrazi Repurposer`, and `Broodspinner`.
- Role peers: `Mirkwood Bats` triggers on creating or sacrificing tokens, not all token leaves; `Siege Zombie` converts untapped bodies into life loss.
- Failure modes: Does not trigger from nontoken creatures dying; do not sacrifice payoff creatures to chase a single drain trigger.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent against removal and combat trades involving tokens; less effective when the opponent exiles or bounces key tokens before you can profit.

#### Reckoner's Bargain
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, sacrifice draw and life swing role player.
- Role type: card selection; lifegain/stabilization; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Sacrifices an artifact or creature to draw two and gain life equal to that permanent's mana value, letting larger disposable permanents stabilize races.
- Timing: Use when the sacrificed permanent is doomed, outclassed, or the life gain matters; better on `Eldrazi Repurposer`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, `Howling Golem`, `Black Mage's Rod` token-equipment board states only if the sacrificed object is truly expendable.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{B}` plus sacrificing an artifact or creature; outputs two cards and life equal to the sacrificed permanent's mana value.
- Partners / packages: Sacrificing `Tithing Blade`, `Howling Golem`, `Eldrazi Repurposer`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, or `Undercellar Myconid` gains more life than sacrificing zero-mana tokens; token sacrifices still trigger `Mirkwood Bats` and `Nadier's Nightblade` if applicable.
- Role peers: `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, and `Village Rites` draw two with different outputs.
- Failure modes: Sacrificing a token gains 0 life if its mana value is 0; do not expect stabilization from a zero-mana token sacrifice.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: High value against aggro when a high-mana-value expendable permanent is available; ordinary draw spell in slow matchups.

#### Cornered by Black Mages
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, edict plus spell-drain token role player.
- Role type: interaction-removal; engine payoff; reach/finisher.
- Deck-specific job: Forces target opponent to sacrifice a creature of their choice, then creates a Wizard token that pings each opponent whenever you cast a noncreature spell.
- Timing: Cast when the opponent has one meaningful creature or when the Wizard token will survive long enough to turn upcoming noncreature spells into damage.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{B}{B}`; target opponent chooses and sacrifices a creature; you create a 0/1 black Wizard token with the noncreature-spell damage trigger.
- Partners / packages: Follow with `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Saproling Migration`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Night's Whisper`, `Sign in Blood`, `Return to Nature`, or `Chatterstorm` to trigger the Wizard.
- Role peers: `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher` and sideboard `Chainer's Edict` are edict peers; `Black Mage's Rod` creates a similar noncreature-spell damage engine.
- Failure modes: Poor into token boards where the target opponent chooses a disposable creature; `{1}{B}{B}` strains green-heavy openers.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against single-threat decks and slow boards; weaker against swarm decks with expendable creatures.

#### Desert
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, utility colorless named land.
- Role type: interaction-removal; mana resource.
- Deck-specific job: Provides `{C}` and can deal 1 damage to target attacking creature during the end of combat step, enabling small-creature cleanup and `You Are Already Dead`.
- Timing: Hold untapped through combat when the 1 damage will kill an attacker, finish one after blocks, or create a damaged target for `You Are Already Dead`.
- Inputs / outputs: Taps for `{C}`; during end of combat, taps to deal 1 damage to target attacking creature.
- Partners / packages: Combines with blockers, `You Are Already Dead`, `Tragic Slip` after a death event, and postboard `Crypt Rats` damage math.
- Role peers: No direct land peer; closest interaction overlap is `You Are Already Dead`, `Tragic Slip`, and `Vendetta`.
- Failure modes: Does not produce colored mana and can only damage an attacking creature during end of combat, not a blocker or utility creature in main phase.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good against small attackers and flyers that attack; weak against noncombat engines and large creatures outside damage range.

#### Hidden Grotto
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, surveil-fixing utility named land.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Surveil 1 on entry can bin a card for graveyard texture, then the land supplies colorless or paid black/green fixing.
- Timing: Play early when the surveil decision can improve a shaky hand and the lack of immediate colored mana will not skip a crucial one-mana play.
- Inputs / outputs: Enters with surveil 1; taps for `{C}`; `{1}, {T}` adds one mana of any color.
- Partners / packages: Helps set up `Broodspinner`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, and `Funeral Rites` graveyard plans.
- Role peers: `Conduit Pylons` is the closest surveil-fixing peer; `Crystal Grotto` and `Rumble Arena` scry instead of filling the graveyard.
- Failure modes: Paid fixing can cost too much for double-spell turns; surveilling a needed land away can compound mana problems.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Better in attrition than tempo; keep removal on top when opponent pressure is visible.

#### Rumble Arena
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, utility mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Scry 1 smooths draws, vigilance is mostly a printed land keyword with limited tactical relevance here, and paid fixing covers missing colors later.
- Timing: Play when scrying is worth a slower colored source; use the scry to choose between named land, removal, token maker, or payoff based on current hand.
- Inputs / outputs: Enters with scry 1; taps for `{C}`; `{1}, {T}` adds one mana of any color.
- Partners / packages: Supports casting color-stressed cards such as `Broodspinner`, `Grisly Salvage`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Mirkwood Bats`, and `Journey of Discovery`.
- Role peers: `Crystal Grotto` is the closest scry-fixing peer; `Conduit Pylons` and `Hidden Grotto` use surveil instead.
- Failure modes: Do not overvalue vigilance because this land is not normally attacking or blocking; its main function is smoothing and fixing.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in mulligan-like hands needing selection; poor when an untapped colored source would cast immediate interaction.

#### Tocasia's Dig Site
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, utility colorless land and late selection sink.
- Role type: mana resource; card selection; graveyard setup.
- Deck-specific job: Provides `{C}` early and later turns spare mana into surveil 1 for graveyard card-type setup and draw filtering.
- Timing: Use the surveil ability in slow turns after holding up more important instant-speed actions; early it is mostly a colorless named land.
- Inputs / outputs: Taps for `{C}`; `{3}, {T}` surveils 1.
- Partners / packages: Late surveil supports `Broodspinner`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, and flashback `Eviscerator's Insight`.
- Role peers: `Titan's Grave` surveils while producing colored mana, but costs `{2}{B}{G}`; `Hidden Grotto` and `Conduit Pylons` surveil on entry.
- Failure modes: Colorless mana can strand colored spells; spending four total resources on surveil can be too slow under pressure.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Valuable in control mirrors and stalls; weak against fast creature or burn decks.

#### Tree of Tales
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, artifact land mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Produces `{G}` while counting as an artifact permanent for sacrifice spells that accept artifacts, giving the deck emergency material for `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, or `Eviscerator's Insight`.
- Timing: Play when green is needed; sacrifice it only when losing the green source will not strand future spells or when drawing cards is worth the mana setback.
- Inputs / outputs: Taps for `{G}`; can be sacrificed as an artifact to certain draw spells.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Eviscerator's Insight`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, and `Reckoner's Bargain`; can be found by `Crop Rotation` as a land card.
- Role peers: `Vault of Whispers` is the black artifact land peer; `Forest` produces green but is safer for mana and works with `Utopia Sprawl`.
- Failure modes: Do not sacrifice it casually because this deck needs green for ramp, tokens, and `Broodspinner`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Watch for opposing artifact hate; against mana denial, treat it as a protected green source, not expendable material.

#### Titan's Grave
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, tapped dual utility named land.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Fixes both black and green and provides a late `{2}{B}{G}, {T}` surveil 1 sink for graveyard and draw quality.
- Timing: Accept the tapped entry when early tempo is not urgent; use surveil when spare mana remains after interaction, token production, or sacrifice draw.
- Inputs / outputs: Enters tapped; taps for `{B}` or `{G}`; `{2}{B}{G}, {T}` surveils 1.
- Partners / packages: Supports `Broodspinner`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, `Grisly Salvage`, and `Malevolent Rumble` by shaping graveyard content.
- Role peers: `Witherbloom Campus` also enters tapped and later scries; `Command Tower` fixes untapped without the sink.
- Failure modes: Tapped entry can cost a turn-one play; late surveil is expensive and should not replace board action under pressure.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in attrition when land sinks matter; sequence carefully versus tempo and aggro.

#### Vault of Whispers
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, artifact land mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Produces `{B}` while serving as artifact material in emergencies for sacrifice draw.
- Timing: Play as an untapped black source; sacrifice only if black mana is redundant and the card draw or life gain is immediately worth the land loss.
- Inputs / outputs: Taps for `{B}`; can be sacrificed as an artifact to `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, or `Eviscerator's Insight`.
- Partners / packages: Helps cast `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Village Rites`, `Night's Whisper`, and `Sign in Blood`.
- Role peers: `Tree of Tales` is the green artifact land peer; `Swamp` provides black without artifact vulnerability.
- Failure modes: Sacrificing it can cut off black interaction or double-black `Sign in Blood`/`Cornered by Black Mages`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Preserve against fast decks where black removal is essential; consider artifact vulnerability against artifact-hate opponents.

#### Witherbloom Campus
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, tapped dual mana resource and late scry sink.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Produces either black or green and later spends excess mana to scry 1, helping the singleton deck find payoffs, removal, or lands.
- Timing: Play tapped when turn tempo allows; activate `{4}, {T}` only when no higher-impact spell, sacrifice activation, or interaction is needed.
- Inputs / outputs: Enters tapped; taps for `{B}` or `{G}`; `{4}, {T}` scries 1.
- Partners / packages: Supports color requirements for `Broodspinner`, `Grisly Salvage`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Journey of Discovery`, and `You Meet in a Tavern`.
- Role peers: `Titan's Grave` is a tapped dual with surveil; `Golgari Rot Farm` produces both colors at once with a bounce cost.
- Failure modes: Too slow as an early land under pressure; scry activation is expensive relative to casting action.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Valuable in slow games with flood risk; devalue in aggro where tapped named lands and four-mana scry can lose tempo.

#### Crop Rotation
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, instant land tutor/fixing role player.
- Role type: tutor/search; mana/fixing/ramp; hate piece enabler.
- Deck-specific job: Sacrifices a land to find the exact land needed: `Bojuka Bog` for graveyard hate, `Khalni Garden` for a body, `Command Tower`/`Titan's Grave`/`Witherbloom Campus` for colors, or `Desert` for combat damage.
- Timing: Cast when the target land immediately changes the turn or stops an opponent; sacrifice tapped or redundant named lands when possible.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{G}` and sacrificing a land; searches any land card, puts it onto the battlefield, then shuffles.
- Partners / packages: Target map includes `Bojuka Bog`, `Khalni Garden`, `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Tree of Tales`, `Vault of Whispers`, `Desert`, `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, and fixing lands.
- Role peers: `Caravan Vigil`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, and `Return from the Wilds` search basics rather than any named land.
- Failure modes: Sacrificing the wrong land can cut off black or green; do not tutor utility when basic fixing is the actual bottleneck.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Best as instant `Bojuka Bog` access versus graveyard decks or `Khalni Garden` access when one body unlocks sacrifice/convoke.

#### Carrion Feeder
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, free sacrifice outlet and growing threat.
- Role type: engine piece; threat/clock; mechanic enabler.
- Deck-specific job: Sacrifices creatures at no mana cost to grow itself, trigger death/leaves payoffs, enable morbid `Tragic Slip`, and protect creatures from exile or theft lines when sacrificing is better.
- Timing: Deploy early when you have expendable bodies; hold activations until they blank removal, enable morbid, win combat math, or convert tokens through `Mirkwood Bats`/`Nadier's Nightblade`.
- Inputs / outputs: Cannot block; consumes creatures; outputs +1/+1 counters on Carrion Feeder and death/leaves events.
- Partners / packages: Sacrifice `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Infestation Sage`, `Undercellar Myconid`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, and tokens from `Chatterstorm`, `Saproling Migration`, `Khalni Garden`, and `Broodspinner`.
- Role peers: `Viscera Seer` is the other free sacrifice outlet; `Witch's Cauldron` and `Bushmeat Poacher` are slower card/life outlets.
- Failure modes: It cannot block, so over-growing it while behind on board can still lose to attacks.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent versus removal and attrition; less useful as defense against fast creature decks unless sacrifice triggers stabilize.

#### Viscera Seer
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, free sacrifice-selection engine.
- Role type: engine piece; card selection; mechanic enabler.
- Deck-specific job: Sacrifices creatures for scry 1, turning expendable bodies into draw quality while enabling morbid, death triggers, and token-leave drain.
- Timing: Deploy early when sacrifice material exists; activate in response to removal, after blocks if safe, or on end step to convert low-value bodies into better draws.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes creatures; outputs scry 1 and death/leaves events.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Tragic Slip`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Nested Shambler`, `Blisterpod`, `Infestation Sage`, `Undercellar Myconid`, and `Not Dead After All`.
- Role peers: `Carrion Feeder` sacrifices for +1/+1 counters; `Witch's Cauldron` and `Bushmeat Poacher` sacrifice for cards and life.
- Failure modes: Scrying is not worth losing the only blocker, `Presence of Gond` target, `Siege Zombie` tap body, or convoke creature.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in long games where selection compounds; weaker when bodies must stay on battlefield to survive combat.

#### Grisly Salvage
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, instant selection and graveyard setup.
- Role type: card selection; graveyard setup; tutor/search.
- Deck-specific job: Reveals five cards, takes one creature or named land, and puts the rest into the graveyard to fuel `Broodspinner`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, and flashback.
- Timing: Cast before land drop when a land-card hit changes the turn, or at opponent end step when holding interaction is more important.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{B}{G}`; looks at top five by revealing; puts a chosen creature card or land card into hand; mills the rest into graveyard.
- Partners / packages: Hits creatures such as `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Elfsworn Giant`, and named lands such as `Bojuka Bog`, `Khalni Garden`, `Command Tower`, `Tree of Tales`, or `Vault of Whispers`.
- Role peers: `Malevolent Rumble` finds any permanent but only four cards and creates Spawn; `You Meet in a Tavern` finds creatures without filling graveyard.
- Failure modes: Cannot take instants, sorceries, enchantments, or artifacts unless they are also creature/land; do not expect it to find `Deadly Dispute` or `Presence of Gond`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong when graveyard value matters; risky against opponents with graveyard hate ready.

#### Chatterstorm
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, token burst role player.
- Role type: mechanic payoff; engine fuel/material; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Makes Squirrel tokens and scales with storm, giving sacrifice fuel, `Siege Zombie` bodies, `Nadier's Nightblade` material, and `Mirkwood Bats` token-creation triggers.
- Timing: Cast after one or more cheap spells when the extra Squirrels matter; cast for one token only when early material is urgently needed.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{G}`; creates one 1/1 green Squirrel plus copies for each spell cast before it this turn.
- Partners / packages: Cheap setup spells include `Caravan Vigil`, `Utopia Sprawl`, `Village Rites`, `Tragic Slip`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Explore`, `Deadly Dispute`, and `Night's Whisper`.
- Role peers: `Saproling Migration`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Fists of Ironwood`, and `Chatter of the Squirrel` also create multiple bodies.
- Failure modes: Do not wait for a perfect storm count if you need blockers now; do not fire into a sweeper when a smaller board already pressures enough.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Best against control after baiting answers and against stalls; vulnerable to mass damage and sweepers.

#### Explore
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, cantripping land-development role player.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Gives an extra land play and draws a card, smoothing hands with `Golgari Rot Farm`, utility lands, or multiple basics.
- Timing: Cast before land drop when the drawn card can change which land to play; cast after forced land drop only if the hand still has another land to use.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{G}`; allows one additional land play this turn; draws one card.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Khalni Garden`, `Bojuka Bog`, `Elfsworn Giant`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Arboreal Grazer`, `Skyshroud Ranger`, and `Sakura-Tribe Scout`.
- Role peers: `Journey of Discovery` and `Return from the Wilds` provide land development; `Night's Whisper` and `Sign in Blood` draw deeper without ramp.
- Failure modes: If you have no land to play and need board action, it is just a slow cantrip.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good in mana-hungry games; underwhelming when aggro demands immediate blockers or removal.

#### Blisterpod
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, early material creature.
- Role type: engine fuel/material; mana/fixing/ramp; mechanic enabler.
- Deck-specific job: Provides an early body that replaces itself on death with an Eldrazi Scion token, giving sacrifice fodder, a blocker, and one-shot `{C}` ramp.
- Timing: Cast early to enable `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Carrion Feeder`, and `Viscera Seer`.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{G}`; death creates a 1/1 colorless Eldrazi Scion token with “Sacrifice this token: Add `{C}`.”
- Partners / packages: Strong with `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Tragic Slip`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, and `Scatter the Seeds`.
- Role peers: `Nested Shambler`, `Infestation Sage`, `Nezumi Linkbreaker`, and `Undercellar Myconid` are other small bodies that leave material.
- Failure modes: The Scion makes colorless only, so it does not fix black or green for colored costs.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent versus aggro as early blocker plus replacement body; modest against flyers unless used as sacrifice fuel.

#### Chatter of the Squirrel
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, cheap token maker with flashback.
- Role type: engine fuel/material; mechanic enabler.
- Deck-specific job: Produces one Squirrel early and another from graveyard later, giving two separate bodies for sacrifice, `Siege Zombie`, convoke, and drain payoffs.
- Timing: Cast on turn one when a body unlocks sacrifice draw or blocking; flashback for `{1}{G}` when a second body matters more than other two-mana actions.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{G}` for one 1/1 green Squirrel; flashback `{1}{G}` from graveyard creates another and exiles the spell after resolution.
- Mode map: Hand cast is early material; flashback is delayed material from graveyard and should be saved if graveyard hate or mana pressure changes the value.
- Partners / packages: Fuels `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, and `Siege Zombie`.
- Role peers: `Saproling Migration`, `Chatterstorm`, `Fists of Ironwood`, and `Khalni Garden` also create early bodies.
- Failure modes: One token alone does not make a clock; do not overvalue it without a payoff or survival need.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good against edicts and attrition; weak as pressure into large blockers.

#### Nested Shambler
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, death-token material creature.
- Role type: engine fuel/material; mechanic enabler.
- Deck-specific job: Dies into tapped Squirrel tokens equal to its power, giving the deck a sacrifice target that can scale with `Fists of Ironwood`, `Scarblade's Malice`, `Not Dead After All` Wicked Role, or Mercenary pump from `Nezumi Linkbreaker`.
- Timing: Cast early as a blocker or sacrifice setup; sacrifice after any temporary or permanent power boost if the extra tapped Squirrels matter.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{B}`; death creates X tapped 1/1 green Squirrels where X is its power.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, and `Mirkwood Bats`.
- Role peers: `Blisterpod`, `Infestation Sage`, `Nezumi Linkbreaker`, and `Undercellar Myconid` also leave bodies on death.
- Failure modes: Tokens enter tapped, so they cannot block or convoke immediately.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good versus removal and ground combat; weaker when immediate untapped blockers are required.

#### Crawling Infestation
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, graveyard-token engine.
- Role type: engine piece; mechanic payoff; graveyard setup.
- Deck-specific job: Optional upkeep mill feeds graveyard plans, and once each turn during your turn it creates an Insect when one or more creature cards go to your graveyard from anywhere.
- Timing: Cast when you expect multiple turns to use it or when self-mill/creature sacrifice can trigger it soon; skip upkeep mill if decking, graveyard hate, or key top-card preservation matters.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{G}`; may mill two at upkeep; outputs one 1/1 green Insect per your turn when creature cards enter your graveyard, only once each turn.
- Partners / packages: `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, `Funeral Rites`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Titan's Grave`, and creature sacrifices can trigger or support it.
- Role peers: `Night Soil` also turns graveyard creature cards into tokens; `Presence of Gond` makes repeatable tokens from a creature instead.
- Failure modes: Does not trigger repeatedly from multiple creature cards in the same turn; graveyard hate can cut off the engine.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in slow attrition; poor when immediate board impact is required.

#### Deadly Dispute
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, sacrifice draw plus Treasure role player.
- Role type: card selection; mana/fixing/ramp; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Converts an artifact or creature into two cards and a Treasure token, bridging sacrifice value into fixing or a double-spell turn.
- Timing: Hold for removal, combat, or end step unless main-phase Treasure enables an important follow-up.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{B}` plus sacrificing an artifact or creature; draws two and creates a Treasure artifact token that can sacrifice for one mana of any color.
- Partners / packages: Sacrifice `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Infestation Sage`, `Undercellar Myconid`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Tree of Tales`, `Vault of Whispers`, or disposable tokens from `Saproling Migration` and `Chatterstorm`.
- Role peers: `Fanatical Offering` creates Map instead of Treasure; `Eviscerator's Insight`, `Village Rites`, and `Reckoner's Bargain` draw with different costs/outputs.
- Failure modes: Do not sacrifice artifact named lands if the Treasure will not actually replace the lost long-term mana.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against removal-heavy decks and color-stressed hands; risky when sacrificing a blocker opens lethal.

#### Eldrazi Repurposer
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, midgame material creature.
- Role type: engine fuel/material; mana/fixing/ramp; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Gives a 3/3 body and creates 0/1 Eldrazi Spawn both when cast and when it dies, supplying colorless sacrifice-ramp material even if countered only if the cast trigger resolves as visible.
- Timing: Cast when a 3/3 stabilizes combat or when extra Spawn enables future `Broodspinner`, `Zuko's Exile`, `Scatter the Seeds`, or double-spell turns.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{G}`; on cast and death creates a 0/1 colorless Eldrazi Spawn with “Sacrifice this token: Add `{C}`.”
- Partners / packages: Spawn fuel `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, and high generic costs.
- Role peers: `Blisterpod` is the one-mana Scion peer; `Eyeblight Cullers` is the higher-cost death-token peer.
- Failure modes: Spawn mana is colorless only and cannot pay black or green pips.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good against midrange and attrition; slower against fast flyers or combo.

#### Elfsworn Giant
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, top-end token engine and reach blocker.
- Role type: threat/clock; engine payoff; lifegain/stabilization by blocking flyers.
- Deck-specific job: A 5/3 reach creature that makes a 1/1 green Elf Warrior whenever a land enters under your control, turning ramp and extra land drops into bodies.
- Timing: Cast when you can make at least one land drop soon or need a reach blocker; sequence `Explore`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Harrow`, `Return from the Wilds`, `Arboreal Grazer`, `Skyshroud Ranger`, and `Sakura-Tribe Scout` to trigger landfall.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{3}{G}{G}`; landfall outputs Elf Warrior tokens.
- Partners / packages: Strong with `Khalni Garden`, `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Explore`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, and `Return from the Wilds`.
- Role peers: `Broodspinner` and `Presence of Gond` also produce repeat bodies; `Scatter the Seeds` is instant burst body production.
- Failure modes: Five mana 5/3 is fragile if no landfall follows; avoid tapping out into removal when behind.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against flyers due reach and in land-heavy attrition; poor against clean removal plus tempo pressure.

#### Fists of Ironwood
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, Aura token maker and trample grant.
- Role type: mechanic enabler; protection/evasion; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Enchants a creature, creates two Saprolings, and gives the enchanted creature trample, making both sacrifice material and combat relevance.
- Timing: Cast when the two bodies matter even if the enchanted creature is removed; put trample on `Carrion Feeder`, `Broodspinner`, `Elfsworn Giant`, or a large `Nested Shambler` when combat damage matters.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{G}`; targets/enchant creature; creates two 1/1 green Saproling tokens; enchanted creature has trample.
- Partners / packages: Tokens feed `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, and `Carrion Feeder`.
- Role peers: `Saproling Migration` makes two bodies without targeting; `Presence of Gond` is an Aura that grants repeat token creation.
- Failure modes: Requires a legal creature target; do not expose an important creature to Aura blowout if only the trample matters.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Better against ground stalls; worse against instant-speed removal if you need the enchanted creature to survive.

#### Fanatical Offering
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, sacrifice draw plus Map role player.
- Role type: card selection; engine fuel/material; mechanic enabler.
- Deck-specific job: Sacrifices an artifact or creature to draw two and creates a Map token, giving later sorcery-speed explore to improve a creature.
- Timing: Use like `Deadly Dispute` when a permanent is expendable; prefer it when a future Map activation on `Carrion Feeder`, `Broodspinner`, or a token can improve combat or selection.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{B}` plus sacrificing an artifact or creature; draws two and creates a Map artifact with `{1}, {T}, Sacrifice: Target creature you control explores`, sorcery speed only.
- Mode map: Spell cast is sacrifice draw; Map activation later targets your creature, may put a +1/+1 counter if a nonland is revealed and left, or can put the card into graveyard through explore rules as presented by engine.
- Partners / packages: Sacrifice material includes `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Tree of Tales`, `Vault of Whispers`, `Khalni Garden` Plant, and tokens from `Chatterstorm` or `Saproling Migration`.
- Role peers: `Deadly Dispute` creates Treasure; `Eviscerator's Insight` has flashback.
- Failure modes: Map activation is sorcery speed and needs a target creature; do not count it as immediate mana like Treasure.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in attrition and board stalls; weaker when the next turn demands instant interaction.

#### Eyeblight Cullers
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, death-token top-end material.
- Role type: engine fuel/material; graveyard setup; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: A 3/3 that dies into three Elf Warrior tokens and mills three, providing a delayed burst of bodies and graveyard texture.
- Timing: Cast when a 3/3 blocks profitably or when you have sacrifice outlets to cash in its death trigger on your terms.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{4}{B}`; death creates three 1/1 green Elf Warrior tokens, then mills three cards.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, and `Broodspinner`.
- Role peers: `Eldrazi Repurposer` and `Undercellar Myconid` also leave bodies; `Broodspinner` creates larger token bursts from graveyard types.
- Failure modes: Five mana is slow; if exiled or bounced it never produces death tokens.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus removal that destroys and in attrition; weak against exile removal and fast combo.

#### Night Soil
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, repeatable graveyard-token engine.
- Role type: engine piece; hate piece; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Exiles two creature cards from a single graveyard to create a Saproling, turning graveyards into bodies while trimming opposing recursion resources.
- Timing: Activate when two creature cards in one graveyard are expendable or strategically dangerous; save mana when interaction is more urgent.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}` and exiles two creature cards from a single graveyard; creates one 1/1 green Saproling.
- Partners / packages: Uses creature cards stocked by `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, `Funeral Rites`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, and combat deaths; tokens feed `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, and sacrifice draw.
- Role peers: `Crawling Infestation` also turns graveyard flow into Insects; `Nihil Spellbomb` and `Bojuka Bog` are more explosive graveyard hate.
- Failure modes: Exiling your own creature cards can weaken `Broodspinner` card-type count less than exiling noncreature types, but it can still reduce future graveyard resources.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against creature recursion and attrition; less useful when graveyards lack creatures.

#### Infestation Sage
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, death-token material creature.
- Role type: engine fuel/material; mechanic enabler.
- Deck-specific job: Dies into a flying black-green Insect token, creating evasive material for pressure, sacrifice, `Siege Zombie`, and token-leave payoffs later.
- Timing: Cast early as a disposable body; block or sacrifice when the flying token matters more than the 1/1 ground body.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{B}`; death creates a 1/1 black and green Insect creature token with flying.
- Partners / packages: Sacrifice with `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Witch's Cauldron`, or `Bushmeat Poacher`; payoff with `Mirkwood Bats` and `Nadier's Nightblade`.
- Role peers: `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Nezumi Linkbreaker`, and `Undercellar Myconid` are other low-power creatures named in this note that leave material.
- Failure modes: Do not sacrifice it before attacks if the original body is needed to block a ground threat this turn.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Better against flyers and stalled ground boards because the replacement token flies.

#### Mirkwood Bats
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, token create/sacrifice drain payoff.
- Role type: engine payoff; reach/finisher; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Drains each opponent whenever you create or sacrifice a token, making both token production and token sacrifice into life-loss pressure.
- Timing: Cast before token bursts or sacrifice chains when possible; protect it if `Chatterstorm`, `Saproling Migration`, `Scatter the Seeds`, or `Broodspinner` is ready.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{3}{B}`; flying 2/3; outputs each-opponent life loss on token creation or token sacrifice.
- Partners / packages: High-value partners include `Chatterstorm`, `Saproling Migration`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Khalni Garden`, `Blisterpod` Scion, `Eldrazi Repurposer` Spawn, `Nihil Spellbomb` not as token, and `Deadly Dispute` Treasure.
- Role peers: `Nadier's Nightblade` triggers when tokens leave battlefield; `Siege Zombie` uses untapped creatures for repeat life loss.
- Failure modes: Does not trigger from sacrificing nontoken creatures; casting it after the token burst misses damage.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent in stalled or control games; remove/protect priority against opponents with visible creature removal.

#### Khalni Garden
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, tapped green land with token material.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Enters tapped, makes a Plant token, and produces `{G}`, giving a land drop that also supplies sacrifice/convoke/`Siege Zombie` material.
- Timing: Play early when tapped tempo is acceptable and the Plant unlocks `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, or blocking.
- Inputs / outputs: Enters tapped; creates a 0/1 green Plant; taps for `{G}`.
- Partners / packages: Fetchable by `Crop Rotation`; rebuyable by `Golgari Rot Farm`; token feeds `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, and sacrifice draw.
- Role peers: `Chatter of the Squirrel` and `Blisterpod` are one-mana body peers; `Tree of Tales` provides untapped green without the body.
- Failure modes: Tapped entry can delay turn-one green spells; Plant has 0 power and is mainly material, not pressure.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent against edicts and aggro starts; slower against tempo when untapped green is required.

#### Malevolent Rumble
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, permanent selection plus Spawn role player.
- Role type: card selection; graveyard setup; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Digs four cards for a permanent, puts the rest into graveyard, and creates a Spawn token for colorless mana or sacrifice synergies.
- Timing: Cast when you need a named land, creature, enchantment, artifact, or utility permanent more than an instant/sorcery; use before land drop if a land hit changes the turn.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{G}`; reveals top four; may put a permanent card into hand; rest go to graveyard; creates a 0/1 colorless Eldrazi Spawn with “Sacrifice this token: Add `{C}`.”
- Partners / packages: Can find permanents such as `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, `Presence of Gond`, `Black Mage's Rod`, `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, or lands.
- Role peers: `Grisly Salvage` finds creature or land at instant speed; `You Meet in a Tavern` finds creatures only.
- Failure modes: Cannot take `Deadly Dispute`, `Harrow`, `Tragic Slip`, or other nonpermanent spells.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong for engine assembly; weaker when immediate removal is needed.

#### Nezumi Linkbreaker
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, death-token material creature.
- Role type: engine fuel/material; protection/evasion-adjacent combat pump.
- Deck-specific job: Dies into a red Mercenary token that can tap at sorcery speed to give target creature you control +1/+0, helping `Nested Shambler`, `Carrion Feeder`, or a trampler hit harder.
- Timing: Cast early as fodder; sacrifice or trade when the Mercenary pump will improve future combat or increase `Nested Shambler` death output.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{B}`; death creates a 1/1 red Mercenary token with `{T}: Target creature you control gets +1/+0 until end of turn. Activate only as a sorcery.`
- Partners / packages: Sacrifice outlets include `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, and `Witch's Cauldron`; pump partners include `Nested Shambler`, `Carrion Feeder`, and trample from `Fists of Ironwood`.
- Role peers: `Infestation Sage`, `Blisterpod`, and `Nested Shambler` are other one-mana death-material creatures.
- Failure modes: Mercenary pump is sorcery speed and does not help blocks or instant-speed combat tricks.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Better in board stalls than against flyers; token color is red but this deck does not need red mana for it.

#### Not Dead After All
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, one-shot protection and death-value role player.
- Role type: protection/evasion; recursion; reach/finisher.
- Deck-specific job: Gives a creature a death trigger that returns it tapped and adds a Wicked Role token, protecting key creatures while adding an eventual life-loss rider if the Role dies.
- Timing: Cast in response to removal, before a profitable sacrifice, or before combat death when preserving `Broodspinner`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, or a `Presence of Gond` creature matters.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{B}`; targets creature you control; until end of turn it returns tapped when it dies, then creates a Wicked Role token attached to it.
- Partners / packages: Strong with `Broodspinner`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Nested Shambler`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, and sacrifice outlets.
- Role peers: Sideboard `Wrap in Vigor` protects multiple creatures from destruction; `Bequeathal` and `Casting of Bones` reward death with cards rather than returning the creature.
- Failure modes: Does not stop exile, bounce, or effects that do not kill; returned tapped creature may not block next combat.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: High versus targeted destroy removal and combat trades; weaker against edicts if the opponent controls the sacrifice.

#### Presence of Gond
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, repeatable token Aura engine.
- Role type: engine piece; mechanic enabler.
- Deck-specific job: Enchants a creature and gives it `{T}: Create a 1/1 green Elf Warrior token`, making one surviving creature into a repeatable body engine.
- Timing: Target a creature likely to survive and not needed to attack, block, or sacrifice immediately; wait if removal is obvious and no immediate token can be made.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{G}`; enchants a creature; the enchanted creature taps to create an Elf Warrior token.
- Partners / packages: Best on resilient or low-combat-duty creatures such as `Arboreal Grazer`, `Siege Zombie` only when not using its tap plan, `Broodspinner` when not activating, or spare tokens if legal; tokens feed `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, and sacrifice draw.
- Role peers: `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, and `Elfsworn Giant` are other repeatable body engines.
- Failure modes: Aura target removal can lose both card and engine; enchanting a creature needed for `Siege Zombie` or blocking creates role conflict.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in slow removal-light games; risky against open mana and instant removal.

#### Return from the Wilds
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, modal ramp/material role player.
- Role type: modal utility; mana/fixing/ramp; engine fuel/material; lifegain/stabilization.
- Deck-specific job: Chooses two of basic-land ramp, Human token, and Food token, letting the deck combine mana development with sacrifice material or life buffering.
- Timing: Choose basic land plus Human when behind on mana and needing a body; choose Food when life total or artifact sacrifice material matters.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{G}`; selected land enters tapped; Human is a 1/1 white token; Food is an artifact token with `{2}, {T}, Sacrifice: You gain 3 life.`
- Mode map: Basic land mode finds `Forest` or `Swamp` onto battlefield tapped; Human mode creates creature material; Food mode creates artifact material and later life gain.
- Partners / packages: Human/Food feed `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, and `Eviscerator's Insight`.
- Role peers: `Journey of Discovery`, `Harrow`, and `Caravan Vigil` are land-search peers; `Saproling Migration` and `Khalni Garden` are body-production peers.
- Failure modes: Choosing Food over land while color-stuck can lose tempo; choosing land only for ramp when under attack may miss the body needed to survive.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Flexible versus aggro and midrange; slower than cheap ramp against tempo.

#### Saproling Migration
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, token burst role player.
- Role type: engine fuel/material; mechanic enabler; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Makes two Saprolings early or four when kicked, supplying bodies for sacrifice, `Siege Zombie`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, and convoke.
- Timing: Cast for `{1}{G}` when two bodies are needed now; kick for `{4}` only when six total mana and a payoff make four bodies materially better.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{G}`; kicker `{4}`; outputs two 1/1 green Saprolings, or four if kicked.
- Mode map: Unkicked mode is efficient early material; kicked mode is late-game board burst and drain setup, but risks overextending into sweepers.
- Partners / packages: Strong with `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, and `Carrion Feeder`.
- Role peers: `Chatterstorm`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Fists of Ironwood`, and `Chatter of the Squirrel` are other token makers.
- Failure modes: Kicking into open sweeper mana can lose more material than needed.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent against single-target removal and ground stalls; weaker against mass damage.

#### Scarblade's Malice
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, combat trick/removal setup role player.
- Role type: interaction-removal; lifegain/stabilization; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Gives your target creature deathtouch and lifelink, and if that creature dies this turn creates a 2/2 black and green Elf token, turning blocks or attacks into removal and life swing.
- Timing: Use during combat when deathtouch changes a trade or lifelink changes the race; choose a creature likely to die only if the 2/2 replacement matters.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{B}`; targets creature you control; grants deathtouch and lifelink until end of turn; creates a 2/2 Elf token when that creature dies this turn.
- Partners / packages: Strong on expendable blockers from `Khalni Garden`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Saproling Migration`, `Infestation Sage`, or `Nested Shambler`; token output works with `Mirkwood Bats` and `Nadier's Nightblade`.
- Role peers: `You Are Already Dead` uses damage after the fact; `Tragic Slip` removes directly after death setup.
- Failure modes: Does not target opponent creatures; do not cast when no combat/death event will happen.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against t`Coiling Oracle`, `Wood Elves`, `Farhaven Elf`, `Fierce Empath`, or Insect tokens from `It of the Horrid Swarm` and races; low value against noncombat combo.

#### Scatter the Seeds
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, instant token burst/convoke payoff.
- Role type: mechanic payoff; engine fuel/material; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Creates three Saprolings at instant speed and can use existing creatures to pay through convoke, turning spare bodies into more bodies.
- Timing: Cast on opponent end step or during combat only when tapping creatures for convoke will not lose blocks, `Siege Zombie`, `Holdout Settlement`, or sacrifice options.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{3}{G}{G}` reduced by convoke; creates three 1/1 green Saproling tokens.
- Partners / packages: Convoke with expendable tokens from `Khalni Garden`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Saproling Migration`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Chatterstorm`, and `Broodspinner`; payoffs are `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, and `Siege Zombie`.
- Role peers: `Saproling Migration` is cheaper sorcery-speed token production; `Chatterstorm` scales by spell count.
- Failure modes: Tapping blockers to convoke can open lethal attacks; casting into a sweeper may overcommit.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong at end step versus control and in board stalls; risky against evasive aggro if convoke taps defense.

#### Undercellar Myconid
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, token material and mana creature.
- Role type: engine fuel/material; mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Creates a Saproling when it enters and when it dies, while tapping for one mana of any color to stabilize mana.
- Timing: Cast when you need both a body and fixing; preserve if its any-color mana is casting key spells, sacrifice it when the death Saproling and cards matter more.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{G}`; enters/dies creating 1/1 green Saproling; taps for one mana of any color.
- Partners / packages: Feeds `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, and `Carrion Feeder`.
- Role peers: `Eldrazi Repurposer` creates colorless Spawn and a bigger body; `Sakura-Tribe Scout` and `Skyshroud Ranger` also support mana but need named lands in hand.
- Failure modes: Summoning sickness delays mana; sacrificing it can cut off color fixing.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in midrange and color-stressed hands; fragile against removal before it can tap.

#### Zuko's Exile
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, broad expensive removal.
- Role type: interaction-removal; sideboard-bullet-like maindeck answer.
- Deck-specific job: Exiles target artifact, creature, or enchantment, answering permanent types this deck otherwise may struggle with, while giving that permanent's controller a Clue.
- Timing: Use on a permanent whose impact outweighs the opponent receiving a Clue; save for commanders, engines, large blockers, graveyard hate, or artifact/enchantment lock pieces.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{5}`; exiles target artifact, creature, or enchantment; its controller creates a Clue token with `{2}, Sacrifice: Draw a card`.
- Partners / packages: Complements `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, and sideboard `Gleeful Sabotage`.
- Role peers: `Return to Nature` and `Heritage Reclamation` are cheaper for artifacts/enchantments; `Vendetta` and `Snuff Out` are cheaper for nonblack creatures.
- Failure modes: Giving a Clue matters in attrition; five mana can be too slow for early threats.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against must-answer permanents; avoid on replaceable creatures when token blocking or cheaper removal suffices.

#### Sign in Blood
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, black draw/reach role player.
- Role type: card selection; reach/finisher.
- Deck-specific job: Usually targets you to draw two and lose 2 life, but can target an opponent at 2 or less life as a finisher.
- Timing: Cast before land drop if drawn cards can change the land; avoid when the 2 life loss puts you under visible lethal or burn range.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{B}{B}`; target player draws two and loses 2 life.
- Partners / packages: Finds missing material such as `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Saproling Migration`, or removal.
- Role peers: `Night's Whisper` draws you two for `{1}{B}`; `Funeral Rites` draws and mills at three mana.
- Failure modes: Double black can strain green-heavy hands; targeting opponent for cards is almost never correct unless the life loss is lethal.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in slow games; risky against burn and aggro when life total is pressured.

#### Village Rites
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, efficient creature-sacrifice draw.
- Role type: card selection; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Turns a creature into two cards at instant speed, punishing removal and converting disposable bodies into velocity.
- Timing: Hold for a creature targeted by removal, a blocked creature that will die, or an end-step sacrifice when material is excess.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{B}` plus sacrificing a creature; draws two cards.
- Partners / packages: Best sacrifices include `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Infestation Sage`, `Undercellar Myconid`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, `Khalni Garden` Plant, and tokens from `Chatterstorm` or `Saproling Migration`.
- Role peers: `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, and `Reckoner's Bargain` are broader artifact-or-creature sacrifice draw peers.
- Failure modes: Cannot sacrifice artifacts; sacrificing the only blocker can lose despite drawing cards.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent against removal-heavy decks; use carefully against aggro.

#### Funeral Rites
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, draw plus graveyard setup role player.
- Role type: card selection; graveyard setup.
- Deck-specific job: Draws two, loses 2 life, then mills two, helping find action while increasing graveyard card count and creature-card density.
- Timing: Cast when life total can absorb the loss and mana is not needed for immediate interaction; before land drop if drawn land choices matter.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{B}`; draws two, loses 2 life, mills two.
- Partners / packages: Supports `Broodspinner`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, `Eviscerator's Insight` flashback, and `Grisly Salvage`-style graveyard texture.
- Role peers: `Night's Whisper` and `Sign in Blood` are cheaper draw-two spells; `Grisly Salvage` and `Malevolent Rumble` select while filling graveyard.
- Failure modes: Life loss and sorcery speed are dangerous under pressure; milling key non-graveyard cards can hurt if no recursion path exists.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in attrition and graveyard-value games; devalue against burn and fast aggro.

#### Night's Whisper
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, efficient black draw.
- Role type: card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Converts two mana and 2 life into two cards, finding lands, token makers, sacrifice outlets, or payoffs without requiring a creature.
- Timing: Cast early when you need to hit land drops or action and life total is safe; delay against visible lethal pressure.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{B}`; you draw two and lose 2 life.
- Partners / packages: Digs toward `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Saproling Migration`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Vendetta`, and `Tragic Slip`.
- Role peers: `Sign in Blood` is double-black and can target any player; `Funeral Rites` costs more and mills two.
- Failure modes: Paying life into burn or evasive pressure can shorten your own clock.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good versus control and midrange; risky against fast red or flyer starts.

#### Bushmeat Poacher
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, repeatable creature-sacrifice draw engine.
- Role type: engine piece; lifegain/stabilization; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Sacrifices another creature to draw a card and gain life equal to that creature's toughness, making high-toughness or doomed bodies into stabilization.
- Timing: Cast when you expect it to survive and have expendable creatures; activate after blocks, in response to removal, or at end step when the life/card exchange is safe.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{3}{B}` for a 2/4; activation costs `{1}`, tapping it, and sacrificing another creature; outputs life equal to sacrificed creature's toughness plus one card.
- Partners / packages: Sacrifice `Arboreal Grazer` for 3 life, `Broodspinner` for 3 if commander sacrifice is justified, `Howling Golem` for 3, `Eldrazi Repurposer` for 3, or tokens when card draw matters.
- Role peers: `Witch's Cauldron` is cheaper but gains only 1 life; `Village Rites` and `Deadly Dispute` are one-shot draw peers.
- Failure modes: Cannot sacrifice itself; summoning sickness and four-mana cost make it slow.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against creature races; weak against instant removal before activation.

#### Bequeathal
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, death-draw Aura flex slot.
- Role type: card selection; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Enchants a creature so you draw two when that creature dies, turning a planned sacrifice or doomed blocker into card advantage.
- Timing: Put on a creature likely to die soon through blocking or your own sacrifice outlet; avoid enchanting a creature the opponent can exile or bounce.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{G}`; enchants creature; when enchanted creature dies, you draw two cards.
- Partners / packages: Best with `Nested Shambler`, `Blisterpod`, `Infestation Sage`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, `Undercellar Myconid`, and sacrifice outlets `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Village Rites`, or `Deadly Dispute`.
- Role peers: `Casting of Bones` draws three then discards one on death; `Village Rites` draws immediately for a sacrifice cost.
- Failure modes: Aura can be stranded with no creature; exile or bounce denies the death trigger.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in attrition and removal-heavy games; poor against graveyard exile/bounce or very fast pressure.

#### You Meet in a Tavern
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, modal selection or team-pump finisher.
- Role type: modal utility; card selection; reach/finisher.
- Deck-specific job: Either finds multiple creatures from the top five or pumps the whole board for a wide attack, fitting both rebuild and close-out roles.
- Timing: Choose creature selection when low on material; choose team pump only when a wide board can convert +2/+2 into lethal, favorable trades, or survival pressure.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{G}{G}`; either looks at top five and may reveal any number of creature cards into hand, or gives creatures you control +2/+2 until end of turn.
- Mode map: Form a Party digs for creatures such as `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, or `Elfsworn Giant`; Start a Brawl is a one-turn pump for existing creatures only.
- Partners / packages: Pump works with tokens from `Saproling Migration`, `Chatterstorm`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Fists of Ironwood`, and `Broodspinner`.
- Role peers: `Grisly Salvage` and `Malevolent Rumble` are selection peers; no other main card pumps the whole board.
- Failure modes: Pump mode is bad on a small board; selection mode misses noncreature payoffs and removal.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong as a finisher through ground combat; use selection against removal-heavy attrition.

#### Casting of Bones
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, death-draw Aura role player.
- Role type: card selection; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Enchants a creature so its death draws three then discards one, creating a high-yield sacrifice target and graveyard texture.
- Timing: Attach to a creature you can sacrifice or expect to trade soon; best when a free outlet can control the death timing.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{B}`; enchants creature; when enchanted creature dies, draw three cards, then discard one of them.
- Partners / packages: Good on `Nested Shambler`, `Blisterpod`, `Infestation Sage`, `Undercellar Myconid`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, or a creature protected by `Not Dead After All`; sacrifice outlets include `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Witch's Cauldron`, and `Bushmeat Poacher`.
- Role peers: `Bequeathal` is cheaper and draws two; `Village Rites` and `Deadly Dispute` draw immediately.
- Failure modes: Three mana Aura is slow and vulnerable to exile/bounce; do not put it on a payoff you cannot afford to lose unless death is planned.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in grindy removal games; weak against tempo and instant exile.

#### Caravan Vigil
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, basic-land search role player.
- Role type: tutor/search; mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Finds a basic `Forest` or `Swamp` to fix early mana, and with morbid can put that land onto the battlefield instead.
- Timing: Cast early for missing color; if a creature died this turn, use morbid battlefield mode when acceleration matters more than holding the named land.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{G}`; searches a basic named land, reveals it, puts it into hand, then shuffles; morbid may put it onto battlefield instead if a creature died this turn.
- Mode map: Normal search fixes future land drop with `Forest` or `Swamp`; morbid search ramps immediately by putting that basic onto the battlefield.
- Partners / packages: Morbid enablers include `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Witch's Cauldron`, and combat trades.
- Role peers: `Journey of Discovery`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, and `Return from the Wilds` are bigger basic search effects.
- Failure modes: Can only find basic `Forest` or `Swamp`, not `Command Tower`, `Bojuka Bog`, `Tree of Tales`, or `Vault of Whispers`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Valuable in openers; morbid ramp line matters in midgame sacrifice turns.

#### Arboreal Grazer
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, early blocker and land acceleration creature.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; lifegain/stabilization.
- Deck-specific job: Blocks flyers or small attackers with 0/3 reach while putting a land from hand onto the battlefield tapped on entry.
- Timing: Cast turn one when you have an extra land in hand; later use as a reach blocker or sacrifice material after it has produced the named land.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{G}`; may put a land card from hand onto battlefield tapped; provides 0/3 reach body.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Khalni Garden`, `Bojuka Bog`, `Elfsworn Giant`, `Journey of Discovery`, and `Explore`.
- Role peers: `Sakura-Tribe Scout` and `Skyshroud Ranger` repeatedly put named lands from hand onto battlefield but are 1/1s without reach.
- Failure modes: Bad with no extra land in hand; 0 power means it does not pressure without help.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against flyers and early aggression; weaker against control when land acceleration is already solved.

#### Harrow
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, instant basic-land ramp role player.
- Role type: tutor/search; mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Sacrifices a land to put up to two basic `Forest`/`Swamp` cards directly onto the battlefield, fixing both colors and triggering landfall twice.
- Timing: Cast when sacrificing a land will not cut off current colors; use instant speed to hold interaction first if possible.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{G}` and sacrificing a land; searches up to two basic named lands and puts them onto battlefield, then shuffles.
- Partners / packages: Strong with `Elfsworn Giant` landfall, `Golgari Rot Farm` bounce recovery, `Broodspinner` commander tax, and double-spell turns.
- Role peers: `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Caravan Vigil`, and `Return from the Wilds` search basics without sacrificing a named land.
- Failure modes: The land sacrifice is an additional cost; if countered or stopped, the land is still gone.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good in slow and midrange games; risky against permission-heavy opponents or aggro tempo.

#### Nissa's Pilgrimage
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, Forest-focused ramp role player.
- Role type: tutor/search; mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Searches basic `Forest` cards, putting one onto battlefield tapped and the rest into hand; spell mastery increases the search to up to three Forests.
- Timing: Cast when green mana density matters or when `Utopia Sprawl`, `Elfsworn Giant`, and future land drops need basic Forests.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{G}`; searches up to two basic `Forest` cards, reveals them, puts one onto battlefield tapped and rest into hand; spell mastery uses up to three if two or more instant and/or sorcery cards are in your graveyard.
- Mode map: Normal mode is two-Forest development; spell mastery mode is three-Forest resource stocking, enabled by instants/sorceries like `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Grisly Salvage`, `Harrow`, `Tragic Slip`, and `Chatterstorm` in graveyard.
- Partners / packages: Supports `Utopia Sprawl`, `Elfsworn Giant`, `Journey of Discovery`, and green token spells.
- Role peers: `Harrow` finds `Forest` and `Swamp`; `Journey of Discovery` puts basics into hand.
- Failure modes: Cannot find `Swamp`, `Tree of Tales`, or any nonbasic; bad when black is the missing color.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in green-hungry hands; avoid prioritizing when black interaction is stranded.

#### Skyshroud Ranger
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, repeat land-drop creature.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Puts a land from hand onto the battlefield at sorcery speed, accelerating utility land deployment and landfall without spending a spell each turn.
- Timing: Cast early with extra named lands in hand; activate before combat only if tapping it does not conflict with `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, or sacrifice plans.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{G}`; `{T}` may put a land card from hand onto battlefield, activate only as a sorcery.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Khalni Garden`, `Bojuka Bog`, `Elfsworn Giant`, `Journey of Discovery`, and `Explore`.
- Role peers: `Sakura-Tribe Scout` is the direct peer without sorcery-speed restriction; `Arboreal Grazer` gives one immediate tapped land and reach.
- Failure modes: Needs named lands in hand and cannot activate at instant speed; fragile 1/1 body.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in mana development games; weak topdeck with no named lands in hand.

#### Utopia Sprawl
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, one-mana Forest Aura ramp.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Enchants a `Forest`, chooses a color, and adds an extra chosen-color mana whenever that Forest is tapped, fixing black or accelerating green-heavy turns.
- Timing: Cast turn one on a basic `Forest` when possible; choose black if black spells are stranded and green is already covered, or green if ramping into green token/ramp spells.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{G}`; enchants Forest only; chosen color can be black or green for this deck's needs; enchanted Forest produces its normal `{G}` plus one chosen-color mana when tapped.
- Partners / packages: Supports `Broodspinner`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, `You Meet in a Tavern`, and double-spell turns.
- Role peers: `Arboreal Grazer`, `Sakura-Tribe Scout`, `Skyshroud Ranger`, `Explore`, and `Caravan Vigil` are other early mana development cards.
- Failure modes: Cannot enchant `Tree of Tales` unless rules text treats it as Forest, which the reference does not; do not keep a hand relying on Sprawl without `Forest`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent in openers; vulnerable if the enchanted Forest is bounced or destroyed.

#### Sakura-Tribe Scout
- Deck role: Main, 1 copy, repeat land-drop creature.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Taps to put a land from hand onto the battlefield, enabling instant-speed land deployment and utility land timing.
- Timing: Cast early with named lands in hand; hold activation to surprise `Bojuka Bog` only if the rules engine allows the timing and the graveyard window matters.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{G}`; `{T}` may put a land card from hand onto battlefield.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Bojuka Bog`, `Khalni Garden`, `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Elfsworn Giant`, `Journey of Discovery`, and `Explore`.
- Role peers: `Skyshroud Ranger` has a similar ability but only as a sorcery; `Arboreal Grazer` is one-shot and has reach.
- Failure modes: Requires land cards in hand; tapping it can conflict with `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, `Siege Zombie`, or blocking.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in land-heavy hands and against graveyard decks if `Bojuka Bog` timing is relevant; poor when topdecked empty-handed.

#### Duress
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, spell-disruption bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; interaction-discard.
- Deck-specific job: Reveals target opponent's hand and removes a noncreature, nonland card, protecting `Broodspinner`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Presence of Gond`, or a token burst from sweepers and removal.
- Timing: Cast before committing a payoff or when the opponent is likely holding a combo, sweeper, counterspell, or artifact/enchantment engine spell.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{B}`; target opponent reveals hand; you choose a noncreature, nonland card for discard.
- Partners / packages: Side in with `Weather the Storm` against burn/spell chains, with `Gleeful Sabotage` against artifact/enchantment engines, or with `Wrap in Vigor` against sweeper decks.
- Role peers: No maindeck discard peer; closest disruption overlap is holding `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, or `Nihil Spellbomb` for visible resources.
- Failure modes: Misses creatures and lands; bad against creature-heavy aggro where board interaction matters.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring against control, combo, burn, and noncreature engine decks; avoid against low-curve creature swarms.

#### Crypt Rats
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, creature-board reset bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; interaction-sweeper; reach/finisher.
- Deck-specific job: Converts black mana into symmetrical damage to each creature and each player, clearing small boards and sometimes finishing life totals.
- Timing: Activate only after checking your life total, your payoff creatures, and whether `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, or sacrifice outlets can turn deaths into advantage.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{B}` for a 1/1; activation `{X}` deals X damage to each creature and each player, and only black mana may be spent on X.
- Partners / packages: Strong with `Wrap in Vigor` if regeneration is available, `Nadier's Nightblade` if tokens leave, `Mirkwood Bats` if tokens are sacrificed before damage, and `Tragic Slip` after deaths.
- Role peers: No maindeck sweeper peer; `Scattershot Archer` is narrower flyer damage.
- Failure modes: Kills your own creatures and damages you; cannot use green or colorless mana for X.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring against swarm and low-toughness boards; avoid when your board is the only winning resource or life is too low.

#### Weather the Storm
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, anti-burn life-gain bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; lifegain/stabilization; mechanic payoff.
- Deck-specific job: Gains 3 life plus storm copies, buying time against burn, spell chains, and tempo pressure.
- Timing: Cast after multiple spells have been cast this turn when safe, but do not wait past a lethal stack or attack window.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{G}`; gains 3 life; storm copies it for each spell cast before it this turn.
- Partners / packages: Pairs with cheap spells such as `Caravan Vigil`, `Utopia Sprawl`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Tragic Slip`, and opponent spell chains to raise storm count.
- Role peers: `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, and `Scarblade's Malice` provide smaller life swings in the main deck.
- Failure modes: Life gain does not answer board position; waiting for one more storm copy can lose to lethal.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring against burn and spell-damage decks; weak against non-damage combo or huge combat boards unless the life swing changes survival.

#### Snuff Out
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, tempo removal bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; interaction-removal.
- Deck-specific job: Destroys target nonblack creature and can be cast for 4 life instead of mana if you control a Swamp, preserving mana for development.
- Timing: Use the alternate cost only when life loss is safer than spending mana or when tempo is critical; hold for nonblack commanders, evasive threats, or combo creatures.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{3}{B}` or 4 life if you control a Swamp; destroys target nonblack creature and prevents regeneration.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Swamp`, `Vault of Whispers` not as a Swamp, `Bojuka Bog` not as a Swamp per reference, and removal peers `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Chainer's Edict`, and `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`.
- Role peers: `Vendetta` is main-deck one-mana nonblack removal with toughness-based life loss.
- Failure modes: Cannot target black creatures; paying 4 life is dangerous versus burn or low life totals.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring against fast nonblack creature decks and creature combo; avoid against black threats and burn.

#### Chainer's Edict
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, sacrifice-removal bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; interaction-removal; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Forces target player to sacrifice a creature of their choice, with late flashback for a second edict.
- Timing: Cast when the target player has one meaningful creature or few disposable bodies; flashback only when seven mana is available and the second edict is worth the turn.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{B}`; target player sacrifices a creature of their choice. Flashback `{5}{B}{B}` casts from graveyard, then exiles it.
- Mode map: Hand cast is efficient edict; flashback is late-game repeat removal from graveyard and consumes a full high-mana turn.
- Partners / packages: Complements `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, `Cornered by Black Mages`, `Vendetta`, `Snuff Out`, and `Tragic Slip`.
- Role peers: `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher` is the main-deck edict peer; `Cornered by Black Mages` targets an opponent and adds a Wizard.
- Failure modes: Bad against token boards because the target player chooses the least valuable creature.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring against single tall threats, hexproof-style targets, and sacrifice-light commanders.

#### Faerie Macabre
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, zero-mana graveyard-interaction bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; hate piece; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Can be discarded to exile up to two target cards from graveyards without spending mana, while also being a 2/2 flying creature if cast.
- Timing: Use the discard ability at the last safe moment before a graveyard card is used; cast as a creature only when graveyard hate is no longer needed or flying pressure matters.
- Inputs / outputs: Creature costs `{1}{B}{B}` for a 2/2 flyer; discard ability exiles up to two target cards from graveyards.
- Mode map: Discard mode is uncounterable-by-normal-spell-timing graveyard hate from hand; creature mode is evasive pressure and sacrifice material.
- Partners / packages: Works alongside `Bojuka Bog`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, and `Night Soil`.
- Role peers: `Nihil Spellbomb` and `Bojuka Bog` exile whole graveyards; `Return to Nature` and `Heritage Reclamation` exile one target card.
- Failure modes: Discarding it is card disadvantage if the targets do not matter; casting it exposes it to removal and loses hidden interaction.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring against recursion, flashback, reanimation, and graveyard combo.

#### Scattershot Archer
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, anti-flyer repeatable damage bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; interaction-removal; lifegain/stabilization by prevention.
- Deck-specific job: Taps to deal 1 damage to each creature with flying, controlling small flyer boards that ground tokens cannot block.
- Timing: Cast early against flyers and keep untapped when repeated activation changes combat; activate before attacks or after damage depending on visible toughness and timing.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{G}` for a 1/2; tapping deals 1 damage to each creature with flying.
- Partners / packages: Complements `Snuff Out`, `Vendetta`, `Desert`, `You Are Already Dead`, `Broodspinner` reach, `Arboreal Grazer` reach, and `Elfsworn Giant` reach.
- Role peers: No direct maindeck repeat flyer hate; `Crypt Rats` can sweep low-toughness flyers but also hits everything.
- Failure modes: Does not damage nonflying creatures; one damage may not kill large flyers.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring against Faeries, token flyers, and small evasive commanders; avoid against ground decks.

#### Gleeful Sabotage
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, artifact/enchantment removal bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; interaction-removal; mechanic enabler.
- Deck-specific job: Destroys target artifact or enchantment, and conspire can copy it by tapping two untapped green creatures that share green with the spell.
- Timing: Cast when artifact/enchantment targets are real engines; conspire only if tapping two green creatures does not cost lethal attacks, blocks, `Siege Zombie`, convoke, or creature-tap mana.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{G}`; destroys target artifact or enchantment; conspire may tap two untapped green creatures you control to copy and choose a new target.
- Mode map: Normal cast removes one target; conspired cast removes up to two targets if you can tap two untapped green creatures as the spell is cast.
- Partners / packages: Green creatures/tokens include Squirrels from `Chatter of the Squirrel`, Saprolings from `Saproling Migration`, `Fists of Ironwood`, and `Scatter the Seeds`, Elf Warriors from `Elfsworn Giant`, and Insects from `Broodspinner`.
- Role peers: `Return to Nature` and `Heritage Reclamation` are main-deck instant-speed peers.
- Failure modes: Sorcery speed means it cannot answer a combat Aura after attacks begin; conspire can tap away needed blockers.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring against artifact/enchantment engines, aura plans, and prison pieces.

#### Wrap in Vigor
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, anti-sweeper protection bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; protection/evasion.
- Deck-specific job: Regenerates each creature you control, preserving wide token boards or key payoffs through destroy effects and damage-based sweepers.
- Timing: Cast before the destruction event resolves; use when saving multiple creatures or a critical payoff changes the game.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{G}`; creates regeneration shields for each creature you control. Each shield replaces destruction, taps that creature, removes damage, and removes it from combat.
- Partners / packages: Protects `Broodspinner`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Presence of Gond` targets, and wide boards from `Saproling Migration`, `Chatterstorm`, and `Scatter the Seeds`.
- Role peers: `Not Dead After All` protects one creature by returning it after death; `Spore Frog` prevents combat damage rather than regenerating creatures.
- Failure modes: Does not stop exile, bounce, sacrifice, -X/-X that reduces toughness to 0, or non-destruction effects.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring against destroy sweepers, damage removal, and combat blowouts; avoid against edicts and exile-heavy decks.

#### Spore Frog
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, combat-prevention bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; lifegain/stabilization; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Sacrifices to prevent all combat damage for the turn, buying one turn against lethal attacks or alpha strikes.
- Timing: Hold on board until the opponent commits a decisive combat; sacrifice before combat damage when prevention changes survival or protects a setup turn.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{G}` for a 1/1; sacrifice ability prevents all combat damage that would be dealt this turn.
- Partners / packages: Sacrifice triggers `Mirkwood Bats` if token? Spore Frog is nontoken, so it does not trigger token-specific `Nadier's Nightblade`; it does enable morbid `Tragic Slip`, `Caravan Vigil`, and protects setup for `Crypt Rats`, `Siege Zombie`, or token drain.
- Role peers: `Weather the Storm` buys life against spell damage; `Wrap in Vigor` preserves creatures rather than preventing combat damage.
- Failure modes: Does nothing against burn, life loss, mill, or noncombat combo; using it too early may leave no answer to the real lethal attack.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring against creature aggro, voltron-like combat, and alpha-strike decks; avoid against control and spell combo.

## Interaction Priorities
- Remove command-zone or engine creatures first when they turn one turn cycle into lethal pressure, repeatable cards, or a locked board. Spend `Vendetta`, morbid-enabled `Tragic Slip`, `Scarblade's Malice`, `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, or sideboard `Snuff Out` on the permanent that changes the clock or breaks the token engine, not on the first attacker that can be chumped.

- Preserve graveyard interaction for cards that convert the graveyard into material, mana, damage, or recursion. Use `Bojuka Bog`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, and sideboard `Faerie Macabre` on the opponent's graveyard when a visible legal action or public zone indicates a real payoff; do not fire them just to shrink an ordinary graveyard if your own `Night Soil`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Grisly Salvage`, `Funeral Rites`, or `Malevolent Rumble` plan needs graveyard texture.

- Aim artifact/enchantment removal at repeatable engines, prison pieces, graveyard hate, or evasive damage sources before one-shot value permanents. `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, and sideboard `Gleeful Sabotage` should answer the permanent that prevents sacrifice, disables tokens, blocks graveyard use, or races reach damage; Card text check required for `Heritage Reclamation` before choosing exact modes.

- Use sideboard `Duress` to clear the card that stops a commitment turn, not simply the most expensive noncreature spell. Prioritize visible or revealed interaction that can break `Presence of Gond`, counter a token burst, exile the graveyard before `Night Soil`, or remove `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, or `Broodspinner` before they convert material into damage.

- Treat `Vendetta` as high-impact but life-sensitive removal. Cast it on a creature whose damage, evasion, commander role, or combo role is worse than the life payment; avoid using it on a small ground creature when tokens from `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Saproling Migration`, `Fists of Ironwood`, or `Scatter the Seeds` can absorb combat.

- Enable `Tragic Slip` with sacrifice or combat when the larger mode is needed. If `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Witch's Cauldron`, or `Bushmeat Poacher` can create a death event, line up the sacrifice before choosing the removal action when the rules engine offers that sequence.

- Bait opposing interaction with replaceable setup before exposing the payoff. Lead with low-commitment material or value such as `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Saproling Migration`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, `Howling Golem`, or `Witch's Cauldron` when the opponent is representing removal, then commit `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Presence of Gond`, `Siege Zombie`, or `Broodspinner` once the shields are lower or immediate value is available.

- Ignore low-impact blockers, tapped creatures without relevant text, and one-shot chip damage when your board can chump safely. This deck wins many games by preserving engines and converting bodies into drain or cards, so do not spend scarce removal on a creature that neither shortens the clock below your setup window nor interrupts sacrifice, graveyard, or token production.

## Combat And Trading Rules
- Attack only when the body is less valuable than the damage, trigger, or pressure it creates. Tokens can attack freely into boards where trades are acceptable, but keep creatures needed for `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, convoke-like actions, `Presence of Gond`, `Siege Zombie`, sacrifice draw, or protection lines untapped unless the attack materially changes the race.

- Block aggressively once life total is under pressure, but block with expendable tokens before engine creatures. Preserve `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, and `Broodspinner` unless blocking prevents lethal damage or sets up a decisive sacrifice/draw/removal sequence.

- Convert doomed blockers into cards or drain before damage when the legal action window appears. If a blocked creature will die anyway, prefer sacrificing it to `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Witch's Cauldron`, or `Bushmeat Poacher` when that preserves life through the block and adds resources; verify that removing it from combat will not increase incoming damage beyond survival.

- Trade tokens for real creatures and refuse trades involving payoffs unless survival demands it. `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Saproling Migration`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Scatter the Seeds`, and `Khalni Garden` material can trade with attackers to buy time for reach engines; a payoff creature should trade only for an opposing commander, evasive lethal threat, or engine piece.

- Use `Not Dead After All` as protection for a creature that immediately matters after surviving. Prefer saving `Broodspinner`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, or a creature carrying `Presence of Gond`; do not spend it on a generic token unless the rules text and visible board make that token central to a lethal or survival line.

- Treat `Bequeathal`, `Casting of Bones`, and `You Are Already Dead` as planned-death tools. Put death-reward effects on creatures expected to block, be sacrificed, or die in combat; cast `You Are Already Dead` only when legal target text confirms a damaged or dying creature line rather than guessing from board texture.

- Race differently by archetype. Against fast creature decks, hold back enough bodies to block and prioritize `Crypt Rats`, `Spore Frog`, `Weather the Storm`, `Chainer's Edict`, or `Scattershot Archer` when sideboarded; against control, chip in with expendable tokens while preserving engines; against graveyard or combo decks, pressure life totals while saving `Bojuka Bog`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Faerie Macabre`, or `Duress` for the visible commitment point.

## Selection And Tutor Rules
- Choose lands first when the hand cannot cast both colors on time. `Crop Rotation`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Return from the Wilds`, `Harrow`, and `Nissa's Pilgrimage` should fix missing black or green before chasing specialty lands; `Command Tower`, `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Bojuka Bog`, `Khalni Garden`, `Tree of Tales`, and `Vault of Whispers` become targets only when their visible role matters.

- Time `Crop Rotation` around the land drop and opposing interaction. Use it before land drop when the target changes this turn's mana or creates `Bojuka Bog` graveyard interaction; use it after land drop when sacrificing a tapped land preserves mana and the rules engine still offers the line.

- Prefer `Bojuka Bog` only when graveyard timing is real. Find it with `Crop Rotation` when the opponent has a visible graveyard payoff, recursion target, or imminent graveyard action; avoid spending the tutor on `Bojuka Bog` just because cards are present in the graveyard.

- Use `Khalni Garden` as selection for material, not only mana. Fetch or play it when one extra body enables `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Siege Zombie`, or sacrifice protection.

- Sequence draw before land only when the land choice is still uncertain. Cast `Sign in Blood`, `Night's Whisper`, `Funeral Rites`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, or `Howling Golem` before land drop if finding a missing color, untapped land, or specialty land changes the turn; otherwise make the land drop first to preserve legal action breadth.

- Turn sacrifice draw into selection by sacrificing expendable or already-doomed bodies. `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Saproling Migration`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Scatter the Seeds`, and `Khalni Garden` tokens are preferred fuel before payoff creatures.

- Treat graveyard self-fill as engine selection. `Grisly Salvage`, `Malevolent Rumble`, `Crawling Infestation`, and `Tocasia's Dig Site` should look for mana, token engines, sacrifice payoffs, or action density while keeping in mind that `Night Soil` and graveyard recursion-style lines need usable graveyard material; Card text check required for exact `Malevolent Rumble` and `Tocasia's Dig Site` choices.

- Bottom low-impact cards when scry or surveil appears and the current hand lacks mana or action. Keep lands while below stable mana, keep sacrifice outlets with token makers, keep payoffs with material, and bottom redundant slow engines when under a short creature clock.

- Use `You Meet in a Tavern` as conditional selection after checking exact mode text. Card text check required; choose the mode that either finds enough creatures to rebuild or converts an already-wide board into immediate pressure when legal options confirm that role.

## Priority And Stack Rules
- Pass priority by default only when no instant-speed action improves survival, mana, information, or damage. Before passing with mana open, check legal actions for `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Crop Rotation`, `Harrow`, `Not Dead After All`, `You Are Already Dead`, and activated abilities.

- Convert doomed creatures before they leave if the stack window permits. When removal, combat damage, or an edict effect targets or will kill a creature, sacrifice it to `Viscera Seer`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Witch's Cauldron`, or `Bushmeat Poacher` if doing so does not worsen lethal combat math.

- Hold removal for the spell or ability that changes the game state now. Use `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Scarblade's Malice`, `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, or sideboard `Snuff Out` in response windows when killing the source or target prevents lethal, breaks a combo, or protects `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Presence of Gond`, or `Broodspinner`.

- Set up morbid-style removal before casting it when legal sequencing allows. If `Tragic Slip` is offered and a death event can be created through sacrifice or combat, create the death first unless waiting risks losing the target or passing a decisive window.

- Use graveyard hate at the last safe visible moment. Activate `Nihil Spellbomb`, play or fetch `Bojuka Bog`, or use sideboard `Faerie Macabre` in response to a graveyard spell, recursion ability, threshold-like payoff, or public commitment; do not fire before the opponent commits if waiting is legal and safe.

- Protect payoffs only when the protected permanent still has a job. Cast `Not Dead After All` on `Broodspinner`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, or a `Presence of Gond` creature when the stack shows removal or combat death and the post-resolution board remains useful.

- Resolve your own token and drain engines in damage-aware order. When `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Black Mage's Rod`, or `Siege Zombie` actions are available, check whether creating tokens, sacrificing permanents, or tapping creatures first produces extra life loss before choosing a plain pass or attack.

- Use combat priority windows for tricks, not autopilot passes. After blocks and before damage, consider sacrificing a blocked creature for cards, using `Not Dead After All`, casting `You Are Already Dead` on a legal damaged/dying creature, or activating `Spore Frog` when sideboarded; let damage resolve only after survival and value checks pass.

## Sideboard Map

- Sideboard with role discipline: this Commander-family deck is built around bodies, sacrifice outlets, drain triggers, and spell-chip pressure, so most matchups want only one to three swaps. Protect the token-sacrifice core unless public information proves that axis is too slow, too exposed, or pointed at the wrong battlefield.

- `Duress` role: bring it for spell-combo, control, sweepers, graveyard payoffs that begin as noncreature spells, and removal-heavy decks where clearing a path for `Broodspinner`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Presence of Gond`, or `Siege Zombie` matters. It is weak against creature-dense aggro when the opponent's hand is mostly bodies or when the current game state demands immediate board interaction.

- `Crypt Rats` role: bring it when the opponent floods the battlefield with small creatures, tokens, low-toughness flyers, or utility creatures that must die together. Treat it as a reset button that can also pressure life totals, but check your own life, token board, and whether `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, or `Carrion Feeder` turns creature deaths into an advantage. It is weak when your life total is low, when your own board is the main route to winning, or when opposing threats survive the likely X value.

- `Weather the Storm` role: bring it against burn, storm-like chains, red pressure, and tempo decks that win by counting damage rather than building an unbeatable board. Cast it after multiple spells if legal, but do not wait past a lethal stack window. It is weak against slow control, graveyard combo, and creature decks that deal large combat chunks while ignoring life gain.

- `Snuff Out` role: bring it for fast creature decks, commander-centric creature plans, and combo creatures that must be answered while preserving mana for development. Treat the alternate-cost line as a tempo play only when life loss is acceptable and the creature is worth the life. It is weak against black creatures if legality prevents targeting, against noncreature engines, and against burn when the life payment places you in range.

- `Chainer's Edict` role: bring it against single large creatures, hexproof-style or protection-heavy threats, sacrifice-light commanders, and decks that commit one meaningful body at a time. It is weak against token decks, disposable creature decks, and board states where the opponent can sacrifice a low-value creature.

- `Faerie Macabre` role: bring it against graveyard combo, recursion loops, dredge-like self-mill, flashback-heavy decks, and reanimation plans. Prefer using it at the last safe visible moment, especially in response to a spell or ability that names graveyard cards. It is weak when graveyards are incidental and the matchup is decided by battlefield tempo.

- `Scattershot Archer` role: bring it against flyer swarms, Faeries-style boards, small evasive commanders, and token flyers. Treat it as repeatable battlefield control rather than a beater. It is weak against ground-based decks, large flyers, and removal-heavy control where it has no target class.

- `Gleeful Sabotage` role: bring it against artifact or enchantment engines, equipment-like pressure, aura plans, treasure/artifact synergies, and prison pieces that restrict combat or casting. Use conspire-style creature participation only if legal action text confirms the extra copy and tapping creatures does not damage the current combat plan. It is weak when the opponent has few noncreature permanents or when your creatures must stay untapped for blocking, convoke, `Siege Zombie`, `Holdout Settlement`, or `Survivors' Encampment`.

- `Wrap in Vigor` role: bring it against sweepers, damage-based removal, combat blowouts, and board states where saving multiple creatures preserves `Broodspinner`, token mass, `Presence of Gond`, or sacrifice payoffs. It is weak against exile, bounce, edict effects, single-target removal that can be answered by `Not Dead After All`, and matchups where you rarely keep a wide board.

- `Spore Frog` role: bring it against combat-based aggro, voltron-like creature pressure, and decks that need one decisive attack step. Use it to buy the turn needed for `Crypt Rats`, drain engines, sacrifice draw, or a lethal token turn. It is weak against burn, control, combo, and evasion plans that do not rely on combat damage from creatures.

Anti-Burn / Spell-Damage Plan
Side in: Weather the Storm; Duress
Cut: Vendetta; Howling Golem

- Plan rule: use this when the opponent's wins come from direct damage, spell chains, or noncreature payoff spells rather than durable battlefield threats. `Weather the Storm` protects life total, `Duress` attacks the highest-impact noncreature spell, `Vendetta` is risky life payment, and `Howling Golem` can give the opponent more burn access.

Anti-Graveyard Combo Plan
Side in: Faerie Macabre; Duress
Cut: Howling Golem; You Are Already Dead

- Plan rule: use this when the opponent's graveyard is a resource and their commitment points are visible through spells, recursion abilities, or stocked graveyards. `Faerie Macabre` adds zero-mana timing, `Duress` can take the enabler, `Howling Golem` is too generous, and `You Are Already Dead` is conditional when creatures are not the main axis.

Anti-Creature Swarm Plan
Side in: Crypt Rats; Spore Frog; Snuff Out
Cut: Howling Golem; Journey of Discovery; Funeral Rites

- Plan rule: use this against low-curve creature decks where survival matters more than long-game card volume. `Crypt Rats` resets small boards, `Spore Frog` buys a combat step, `Snuff Out` answers tempo-critical creatures, and the removed main-deck cards are slower than the pressure window.

Anti-Flyers Plan
Side in: Scattershot Archer; Snuff Out
Cut: Fists of Ironwood; Funeral Rites

- Plan rule: use this when small flyers create a clock that ground tokens cannot block. `Scattershot Archer` changes repeated combat math, `Snuff Out` handles a key evasive creature, and the removed cards lower slow ground development.

Anti-Artifact / Enchantment Engine Plan
Side in: Gleeful Sabotage; Duress
Cut: Tragic Slip; You Are Already Dead

- Plan rule: use this when the opponent's visible or expected engine is artifact/enchantment based and creature kill is less important. `Gleeful Sabotage` expands permanent interaction, `Duress` can remove a noncreature enabler, and conditional creature-damage cards lose priority.

Anti-Tall Creature / Protected Threat Plan
Side in: Chainer's Edict; Snuff Out
Cut: You Are Already Dead; Howling Golem

- Plan rule: use this when one creature matters more than a wide board and target legality may be contested. `Chainer's Edict` pressures sacrifice-light boards, `Snuff Out` adds tempo removal, and the reduced cards are slow or conditionally reactive.

Anti-Sweeper / Damage-Removal Plan
Side in: Wrap in Vigor; Duress
Cut: Vendetta; Funeral Rites

- Plan rule: use this when the opponent repeatedly answers creature clusters or when keeping a wide board alive is the path to `Siege Zombie`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, or `Broodspinner`. `Wrap in Vigor` protects the board, `Duress` can take the sweeper or removal spell, and life-cost or slow graveyard setup becomes lower priority.

## Matchup Guidance

- Aggro: preserve life total before engine value, because this deck wins late by turning bodies into drain, sacrifice, and repeated chip damage. Keep early blockers such as `Blisterpod`, `Nested Shambler`, `Arboreal Grazer`, `Saproling Migration`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, and `Khalni Garden` when mana works. Spend `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, `Scarblade's Malice`, and `Zuko's Exile` on creatures that change the clock, not on replaceable attackers. Role cards are `Crypt Rats`, `Spore Frog`, `Snuff Out`, and sometimes `Weather the Storm`. Reduce emphasis on `Howling Golem`, slow graveyard setup, and expensive mana development when a current attack step threatens survival.

- Control: tax the opponent's answers by presenting multiple low-investment threats rather than one fragile engine. Lead with token makers and recursive material before exposing `Presence of Gond`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, or `Broodspinner` into open mana and visible removal. Use `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Witch's Cauldron`, and `Bushmeat Poacher` to punish removal only when a legal sacrifice body and mana are available. Role cards are `Duress` against noncreature answers and `Wrap in Vigor` against destroy-based sweepers. Reduce emphasis on conditional creature kill when control has few targets.

- Combo: identify the public commitment point and hold interaction for that moment unless your own lethal setup is faster. `Duress` is the cleanest proactive sideboard card, while `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Bojuka Bog`, `Faerie Macabre`, `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, and `Gleeful Sabotage` matter only when their visible object classes line up. Pressure with `Siege Zombie`, token mass, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, and sacrifice draw so the opponent cannot wait indefinitely. Reduce emphasis on combat-only tricks and creature removal if the opponent's win is not creature-centered.

- Tempo: make land drops, refuse low-impact tapped-land turns when under pressure, and favor cheap plays that double-spell. `Utopia Sprawl`, `Explore`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Return from the Wilds`, `Crop Rotation`, `Sakura-Tribe Scout`, and `Skyshroud Ranger` are good only when they produce a faster stabilizing turn or fix missing colors. Do not walk `Chatterstorm`, `Scatter the Seeds`, or a key draw spell into a predictable counter window unless waiting loses more tempo. Role cards are `Snuff Out`, `Scattershot Archer` against small flyers, and `Duress` against permission-heavy builds. Reduce emphasis on slow draw engines that do not affect the board.

- Midrange: build material density and turn every trade into a resource edge. Tokens from `Fists of Ironwood`, `Saproling Migration`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, `Eldrazi Repurposer`, `Infestation Sage`, and `Undercellar Myconid` let `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Witch's Cauldron`, and sacrifice draw convert stalled boards into advantage. Save `Not Dead After All` for a creature whose survival or death trigger matters in the visible exchange. Role cards are `Chainer's Edict` for tall boards and `Crypt Rats` for small creature clusters. Reduce emphasis on narrow artifact/enchantment removal when no relevant permanents are expected.

- Big mana: apply pressure before the opponent's expensive plays dominate, and use discard or permanent interaction on the mana engine when legal. `Siege Zombie`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Chatterstorm`, and wide token turns are important because pure removal rarely keeps up with bigger threats. Hold `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, `Chainer's Edict`, `Snuff Out`, or `Vendetta` for the first threat that will end the game quickly. Role cards are `Duress`, `Chainer's Edict`, and `Gleeful Sabotage` when the opposing ramp or payoff is noncreature or artifact/enchantment based. Reduce emphasis on small combat-only trades.

- Graveyard: treat the opponent's graveyard as a timed resource, not a zone to clear automatically. Use `Bojuka Bog`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, and `Faerie Macabre` at the last safe visible moment, especially when a spell or ability on the stack names graveyard cards or when public information shows a graveyard threshold. Your own graveyard also supports `Night Soil`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Funeral Rites`, `Casting of Bones`, and sacrifice-value loops, so avoid self-disruption unless the opponent's payoff is stronger. Role cards are `Faerie Macabre` and `Duress`. Reduce emphasis on `You Are Already Dead` and other conditional creature tactics when the battlefield is secondary.

- Artifact/enchantment: prioritize permanent-answer timing over generic creature exchanges. `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, and `Gleeful Sabotage` should answer engines, prison pieces, aura pressure, or artifact mana that visibly unlocks the opponent's plan. Use creature tapping for `Gleeful Sabotage` only when legal action text confirms extra value and the tapped creatures are not needed for blocking, `Siege Zombie`, `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, convoke, or sacrifice. Role cards are `Gleeful Sabotage` and `Duress`. Reduce emphasis on removal with no relevant object class.

- Go-wide: win the resource mirror by making your small bodies matter more than theirs. `Crypt Rats` is the strongest reset if life and black mana support it; otherwise block profitably, grow `Carrion Feeder`, scry with `Viscera Seer`, and turn dying creatures into `Mirkwood Bats` or `Nadier's Nightblade` damage when legal. `Siege Zombie` can break board stalls if enough creatures survive. Role cards are `Crypt Rats`, `Spore Frog`, and `Wrap in Vigor` when mass damage or combat alpha turns define the game. Reduce emphasis on one-for-one removal that does not answer the swarm.

- Single-threat: force the opponent to commit more bodies or lose the threat to sacrifice pressure. `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher` and `Chainer's Edict` are premium when the opposing board has one important creature; `Snuff Out`, `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Scarblade's Malice`, and `Zuko's Exile` cover targetable threats when legal. Keep token blockers available if the threat must be raced or if removal legality is uncertain. Role cards are `Chainer's Edict` and `Snuff Out`. Reduce emphasis on slow symmetrical draw and token-only development if the single threat is already lethal.

- Burn: protect life total as a resource, and do not pay life unless the alternative is clearly worse by visible clock math. `Weather the Storm` is the key sideboard card; `Duress` can take a noncreature burst spell; `Spore Frog` matters only when creature combat is the damage source. Avoid enabling the opponent with `Howling Golem` unless your follow-up is decisive. Role cards are `Weather the Storm` and `Duress`. Reduce emphasis on `Vendetta`, slow draw, and pain-for-tempo exchanges.

- Removal-heavy decks: diversify threats and keep sacrifice outlets or protection mana ready before committing important creatures. `Broodspinner`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Presence of Gond`, and `Siege Zombie` are high-value permanents, so avoid exposing all of them into the same removal window. `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Not Dead After All`, and `Wrap in Vigor` can turn removal into advantage when legal actions align. Role cards are `Duress` and `Wrap in Vigor`. Reduce emphasis on all-in combat lines that lose to one public answer.

## Specific Matchup Notes

- General/archetype-only: exact opponents are absent, so revealed cards and rules-engine legal actions override every assumption here. Classify the opponent from public information before committing: creature swarm, single tall threat, graveyard engine, spell-combo, artifact/enchantment engine, burn race, flyers, or removal-heavy midrange. Because this is a singleton Commander-family deck, sideboarding should usually correct a matchup stress point rather than transform the whole deck.

- Creature swarm: preserve blockers until `Crypt Rats`, `Spore Frog`, `Wrap in Vigor`, or a draining sacrifice turn is ready. Role cards are `Crypt Rats`, `Spore Frog`, and `Wrap in Vigor`. Priority threats are anthem-like permanents, sacrifice engines, and creatures that make combat math impossible; otherwise trade tokens while converting deaths through `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, or `Reckoner's Bargain`.

- Single tall threat: force sacrifice pressure or hold target removal for the creature that actually changes the clock. Role cards are `Chainer's Edict` and `Snuff Out`. Priority threats are evasive, protected, or lethal creatures; use `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Scarblade's Malice`, `Zuko's Exile`, or `You Are Already Dead` only when legal text and visible damage/death conditions support the line.

- Graveyard engine: hold graveyard hate until the last safe visible window rather than clearing low-impact cards early. Role cards are `Faerie Macabre` and `Duress`. Priority objects are public graveyard cards named by a spell or ability on the stack, threshold-like graveyard counts, and recursion engines; balance `Bojuka Bog`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, and `Night Soil` against your own `Crawling Infestation`, `Funeral Rites`, `Casting of Bones`, and sacrifice-value graveyard needs.

- Spell-combo or control: pressure first, then use discard and stack discipline to force awkward timing. Role cards are `Duress`, `Weather the Storm` against burst-damage decks, and `Gleeful Sabotage` only when permanent engines are visible. Priority threats are noncreature payoff spells, sweepers, counterspells seen by reveal effects, and mana engines; avoid feeding the opponent cards with `Howling Golem` unless the follow-up turn is immediately decisive.

- Artifact/enchantment engine: answer the permanent that unlocks the opponent's plan, not the first legal object. Role cards are `Gleeful Sabotage` and `Duress`. Priority permanents are artifacts or enchantments that generate mana, lock combat, enable repeated damage, or blank tokens; use `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, and `Gleeful Sabotage` with attention to whether tapping creatures disables `Siege Zombie`, `Holdout Settlement`, `Survivors' Encampment`, convoke, blocking, or sacrifice lines.

- Flyers and small evasive boards: stabilize the air before racing on the ground. Role cards are `Scattershot Archer` and `Snuff Out`. Priority threats are repeat-damage flyers and creatures carrying visible enhancement; keep `Scattershot Archer` alive when it answers multiple bodies, and do not spend it as a normal attacker unless lethal or survival math demands it.

- Burn and spell-damage: treat every life payment as a tactical cost, not a default shortcut. Role cards are `Weather the Storm` and `Duress`; `Snuff Out` should stay out unless a creature must die and life loss is acceptable. Priority spells are burst damage, repeat damage engines, and cards that multiply a spell chain; avoid `Vendetta` and `Howling Golem` patterns when they put the opponent closer to finishing the game.

- Removal-heavy midrange: sequence threats so one answer does not break the whole engine. Role cards are `Duress` and `Wrap in Vigor` when the opponent relies on noncreature removal or destroy-based sweepers. Priority protection spots are `Broodspinner`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Presence of Gond`, and board states where several tokens convert into lethal `Siege Zombie` or drain pressure.

## Risk Summary
- Mana risk: the deck needs both colors, enough untapped development, and creature-tap lands to line up with token usage. `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Crystal Grotto`, `Hidden Grotto`, `Conduit Pylons`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Rumble Arena`, `Titan's Grave`, `Tree of Tales`, and `Vault of Whispers` can create tempo or color tension, so sequence `Utopia Sprawl`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Journey of Discovery`, `Explore`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, `Return from the Wilds`, `Sakura-Tribe Scout`, and `Skyshroud Ranger` around the current legal play and not a hoped-for future draw.

- Matchup risk: the list can misidentify whether it is the control deck or the clock. Against burn, life payments from `Vendetta`, black draw, or greedy `Snuff Out` lines can lose the race; against big mana or combo, slow token-only turns can give the opponent too much time.

- Draw risk: draw engines are strong but sometimes symmetrical or sacrifice-bound. `Howling Golem` can help the opponent first, and `Bequeathal`, `Casting of Bones`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, `Sign in Blood`, `Night's Whisper`, and `Funeral Rites` require checking life, board material, and whether the sacrificed creature is needed for mana, convoke, blocking, or `Siege Zombie`.

- Over-sideboarding risk: adding too many narrow answers can dilute the token-drain engine. Keep enough bodies and payoffs for `Broodspinner`, `Chatterstorm`, `Saproling Migration`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, and `Siege Zombie` to close games.

- Graveyard risk: graveyard hate can damage your own plan if fired casually. `Bojuka Bog`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Faerie Macabre`, and `Night Soil` should respect public recursion threats while preserving your own graveyard value when the opponent is not presenting an immediate payoff.

- Sweeper/removal risk: committing every payoff into a visible reset or removal-heavy line loses the deck's best engines at once. Stagger `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Presence of Gond`, `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, and `Broodspinner`, and keep `Not Dead After All` or `Wrap in Vigor` only when legal action text confirms it protects the relevant exchange.

- Closer risk: token count alone may not end the game through blockers. Prioritize drain, tap, and sacrifice closers through `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, `Black Mage's Rod`, and `Carrion Feeder` when combat stalls.

- Interaction and sequencing risk: conditional cards punish loose timing. Verify `Tragic Slip`, `You Are Already Dead`, `Scarblade's Malice`, `Return to Nature`, `Heritage Reclamation`, `Crop Rotation`, `Presence of Gond`, and `Gleeful Sabotage` against visible legality, stack state, and needed mana before choosing them.

## Test Feedback Checklist
- Deciding factor: Record whether the game was decided by token volume, drain from `Mirkwood Bats` or `Nadier's Nightblade`, tap pressure from `Siege Zombie`, commander access through `Broodspinner`, graveyard leverage, removal timing, mana stumble, or an unanswered opposing engine.

- Mulligans: Note whether the opener had both colors, an early land-development card such as `Utopia Sprawl`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Explore`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, `Sakura-Tribe Scout`, or `Skyshroud Ranger`, and at least one engine, token maker, draw spell, or interaction spell.

- Mana: Track every game where `Golgari Rot Farm`, `Conduit Pylons`, `Crystal Grotto`, `Hidden Grotto`, `Tocasia's Dig Site`, `Rumble Arena`, `Titan's Grave`, `Tree of Tales`, `Vault of Whispers`, `Holdout Settlement`, or `Survivors' Encampment` delayed a key spell or forced a creature-tap tradeoff.

- Velocity: Ask whether `Sign in Blood`, `Night's Whisper`, `Funeral Rites`, `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, `Bequeathal`, `Casting of Bones`, or `Howling Golem` found action without giving up survival.

- Engine setup: Check whether `Carrion Feeder`, `Viscera Seer`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, `Presence of Gond`, `Black Mage's Rod`, `Mirkwood Bats`, and `Nadier's Nightblade` entered in an order that converted bodies into damage, cards, or selection.

- Removal: Review whether `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, `Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher`, `Scarblade's Malice`, `Zuko's Exile`, `You Are Already Dead`, `Return to Nature`, and `Heritage Reclamation` answered the threat that mattered most from visible board state.

- Sideboard: Record whether `Duress`, `Crypt Rats`, `Weather the Storm`, `Snuff Out`, `Chainer's Edict`, `Faerie Macabre`, `Scattershot Archer`, `Gleeful Sabotage`, `Wrap in Vigor`, or `Spore Frog` changed a matchup outcome or sat stranded.

- Closing: Identify whether stalled boards needed more drain, more `Siege Zombie` activations, a larger `Carrion Feeder`, a wide `Chatterstorm`, `Saproling Migration`, `Scatter the Seeds`, or commander pressure from `Broodspinner`.

- Role and mistakes: Mark every turn where the pilot played control while needing to race, raced while needing to preserve blockers, sacrificed a creature needed for mana or convoke, or passed with a legal stabilizing action available.

- Overperformers and underperformers: Name the exact cards that won time, cards, or damage, and name the exact cards stranded by mana, target restrictions, timing, board state, or role mismatch.

## First Tuning Questions
- Mana base: Does the deck need a different `Forest` and `Swamp` balance, fewer tapped or colorless utility lands, or more emphasis on reliable green starts for `Utopia Sprawl`, `Caravan Vigil`, `Explore`, `Harrow`, `Nissa's Pilgrimage`, and early token development?

- Token density: Are `Blisterpod`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Nested Shambler`, `Fists of Ironwood`, `Saproling Migration`, `Scatter the Seeds`, `Eyeblight Cullers`, `Eldrazi Repurposer`, `Undercellar Myconid`, `Mobilize`, and `Chatterstorm` enough bodies to support sacrifice, convoke, `Siege Zombie`, and `Broodspinner` in the same game?

- Payoff density: Are `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Black Mage's Rod`, `Siege Zombie`, `Carrion Feeder`, and `Broodspinner` appearing often enough to turn token production into a kill, or are too many games only making blockers?

- Sacrifice balance: Are `Village Rites`, `Deadly Dispute`, `Fanatical Offering`, `Eviscerator's Insight`, `Reckoner's Bargain`, `Witch's Cauldron`, `Bushmeat Poacher`, `Carrion Feeder`, and `Viscera Seer` too many sacrifice outlets without enough disposable creatures in removal-heavy games?

- Aggro plan: Against fast creature decks, are `Crypt Rats`, `Spore Frog`, `Wrap in Vigor`, `Chainer's Edict`, `Snuff Out`, `Vendetta`, `Tragic Slip`, and token blockers enough to stabilize without draining life too aggressively?

- Control plan: Against slow or spell-heavy decks, does the deck need more pressure before `Duress`, `Howling Golem`, `Sign in Blood`, `Night's Whisper`, and recursive graveyard engines become safe, or is it giving opponents too much time?

- Graveyard role conflict: Are `Bojuka Bog`, `Nihil Spellbomb`, `Faerie Macabre`, and `Night Soil` harming `Crawling Infestation`, `Funeral Rites`, `Casting of Bones`, and sacrifice recursion plans, or are they winning enough graveyard matchups to justify the tension?

- Sideboard slots: Which of `Scattershot Archer`, `Gleeful Sabotage`, `Weather the Storm`, `Wrap in Vigor`, `Spore Frog`, `Faerie Macabre`, `Duress`, `Crypt Rats`, `Snuff Out`, and `Chainer's Edict` had clear targets, and which lacked enough matchups or legal windows?

- Stranded-card diagnosis: Were `Presence of Gond`, `Bequeathal`, `You Are Already Dead`, `Scarblade's Malice`, `Heritage Reclamation`, `Return to Nature`, `Crop Rotation`, or `Journey of Discovery` stranded because of missing targets, timing, mana, or conservative pilot choices?

- Closing package: If losses happen after stabilizing, should tuning favor more drain-style effects, more evasive or tap-based pressure, more card draw, or more protection for `Mirkwood Bats`, `Nadier's Nightblade`, `Siege Zombie`, and `Broodspinner`?

## Veles Tactical Policy

### Policy: Opening Hand Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: mulligan
Cards: Utopia Sprawl; Caravan Vigil; Explore; Sakura-Tribe Scout; Skyshroud Ranger; Chatter of the Squirrel; Blisterpod; Village Rites; Deadly Dispute; Vendetta; Tragic Slip
Phase windows: opening hand, mulligan decisions
Runtime cues: prompt:mulligan; action:keep; action:mulligan
Use when: the engine asks for keep or mulligan.
Avoid when: a forced keep rule or game-specific hand-size rule overrides normal evaluation.
Instructions: Keep two-color or green-start hands with early mana plus either a token maker, sacrifice draw, payoff, or cheap interaction. Mulligan hands with no early green, no castable spell before turn three, or only payoffs without bodies.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: First Mana Development
Priority: Medium
Decision families: mana
Cards: Forest; Swamp; Command Tower; Utopia Sprawl; Arboreal Grazer; Sakura-Tribe Scout; Skyshroud Ranger; Caravan Vigil; Explore; Golgari Rot Farm
Phase windows: turns 1-3 main phases
Runtime cues: action:play; action:cast; action:activate mana ability
Use when: multiple legal land or early ramp actions are visible.
Avoid when: spending the action blocks required black interaction against a visible lethal or near-lethal threat.
Instructions: Build green first, then black, because green unlocks land development and token setup. Play `Golgari Rot Farm` only when the bounce will not strand the next spell or lose tempo against pressure.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Creature-Tap Mana Discipline
Priority: Medium
Decision families: mana
Cards: Holdout Settlement; Survivors' Encampment; Conduit Pylons; Crystal Grotto; Hidden Grotto; Tocasia's Dig Site; Rumble Arena; Titan's Grave
Phase windows: main phases and payment prompts
Runtime cues: action:pay mana; action:activate mana ability
Use when: payment choices can tap a creature or use a utility land.
Avoid when: the tapped creature is needed this turn for `Siege Zombie`, convoke, blocking, sacrifice fodder, or a visible combo step.
Instructions: Use creature-tap lands when the creature is expendable or summoning sick and no combat/tap payoff is pending. Prefer colored stability over utility activation when casting a payoff.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Token Engine Setup
Priority: Medium
Decision families: priority
Cards: Chatter of the Squirrel; Saproling Migration; Scatter the Seeds; Fists of Ironwood; Blisterpod; Nested Shambler; Khalni Garden; Mobilize; Chatterstorm; Crawling Infestation; Night Soil; Broodspinner
Phase windows: main phases, early and midgame
Runtime cues: action:cast; action:activate
Use when: legal actions can create bodies or establish a repeatable token engine.
Avoid when: a visible threat requires immediate removal or leaving blockers untapped.
Instructions: Make bodies before payoffs when hand contains sacrifice draw, `Siege Zombie`, `Broodspinner`, `Mirkwood Bats`, or `Nadier's Nightblade`. Prefer repeatable engines in slow games and immediate bodies under pressure.
Pilot skill floor: low
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Drain And Sacrifice Commitment Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: priority
Cards: Mirkwood Bats; Nadier's Nightblade; Black Mage's Rod; Carrion Feeder; Viscera Seer; Witch's Cauldron; Bushmeat Poacher; Broodspinner
Phase windows: main phases, end steps, sacrifice prompts
Runtime cues: action:cast; action:activate; prompt:sacrifice
Use when: the line commits a payoff, starts a sacrifice chain, or exposes a key engine permanent.
Avoid when: opponent has visible untapped interaction, lethal pressure, or the sacrifice would consume the only blocker without ending or stabilizing the game.
Instructions: Commit engines when there are expendable bodies and a payoff converts each death, cast, or token into damage, cards, or selection. Do not sacrifice irreplaceable mana or defense for marginal churn.
Pilot skill floor: high
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Deterministic Sacrifice Draw Execution
Priority: Low
Decision families: selection
Cards: Village Rites; Deadly Dispute; Fanatical Offering; Eviscerator's Insight; Reckoner's Bargain
Phase windows: sacrifice cost prompts after the spell is selected
Runtime cues: action:sacrifice Blisterpod; action:sacrifice token
Use when: the only visible sacrifice candidates are one `Blisterpod` or one nonessential token, and the selected spell already requires a sacrifice.
Avoid when: multiple nontoken creatures are legal candidates or the visible token is the only blocker against lethal combat damage.
Instructions: Execute the sacrifice on the visible expendable body named in the legal action text. Do not choose among materially different creatures without model reasoning.
Pilot skill floor: low
No-API allowed: yes
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Card Velocity Timing
Priority: Medium
Decision families: priority
Cards: Sign in Blood; Night's Whisper; Funeral Rites; Howling Golem; You Meet in a Tavern; Grisly Salvage; Malevolent Rumble; Eviscerator's Insight; Fanatical Offering; Deadly Dispute
Phase windows: main phases, end steps, selection prompts
Runtime cues: action:cast; prompt:choose card; prompt:mill
Use when: the hand needs land, bodies, payoff, or interaction and life total can absorb the tempo.
Avoid when: spending mana or life leaves no answer to a visible lethal attack or stack threat.
Instructions: Draw before land drop when the card found can change the land. Prefer instant-speed sacrifice draw after blockers or removal unless main-phase mana is needed for follow-up.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Removal Commitment Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: interaction
Cards: Vendetta; Tragic Slip; Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher; Scarblade's Malice; Zuko's Exile; You Are Already Dead; Snuff Out; Chainer's Edict; Crypt Rats
Phase windows: priority windows, combat, opponent main phase, stack responses
Runtime cues: action:cast; action:activate; prompt:target
Use when: a legal interaction spell can answer a visible threat, protect a payoff race, or prevent lethal damage.
Avoid when: the target is replaceable and a more dangerous visible threat is already on board or stack.
Instructions: Spend removal on engines, evasive clocks, lethal attackers, and blockers that prevent a winning attack. Check conditional text at runtime; Card text check required for unfamiliar or transformed effects.
Pilot skill floor: high
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Artifact, Enchantment, And Graveyard Interaction
Priority: Medium
Decision families: interaction
Cards: Return to Nature; Heritage Reclamation; Nihil Spellbomb; Bojuka Bog; Night Soil; Faerie Macabre; Gleeful Sabotage
Phase windows: priority windows, land play, selection prompts
Runtime cues: action:cast; action:activate; action:play Bojuka Bog; prompt:target
Use when: a visible graveyard, artifact, or enchantment is enabling an opposing plan.
Avoid when: using graveyard hate would weaken your own active `Crawling Infestation`, `Night Soil`, or recursion-adjacent resource without stopping an opposing payoff.
Instructions: Time graveyard hate immediately before the opponent can use the graveyard. Use artifact/enchantment removal on engines or lock pieces, not low-impact permanents.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Presence Of Gond Target Gate
Priority: Medium
Decision families: selection
Cards: Presence of Gond; Siege Zombie; Viscera Seer; Carrion Feeder; Broodspinner
Phase windows: main phases, aura target prompts
Runtime cues: action:target Presence of Gond
Use when: `Presence of Gond` has been selected and target choices are visible.
Avoid when: only a creature likely needed for immediate blocking or sacrifice is available.
Instructions: Route target choice through reasoning because the target must survive, tap profitably, and not conflict with `Siege Zombie`, convoke, or creature-tap mana. Do not infer protection from hidden cards.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Deterministic Opponent Burn Target
Priority: Medium
Decision families: interaction
Cards: Sign in Blood; Black Mage's Rod
Phase windows: main phase, lethal or exact-damage target prompts
Runtime cues: action:target opponent Sign in Blood; action:target opponent Black Mage's Rod
Use when: legal action text explicitly targets opponent, the visible life total is at or below the damage/life-loss shown by the action, and no required alternate target is present.
Avoid when: the action text does not show opponent targeting or the stack contains prevention, redirection, or a pending tax choice.
Instructions: Choose the opponent target only for exact visible lethal execution already selected by the engine action list.
Pilot skill floor: low
No-API allowed: yes
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Combat Pressure And Preservation
Priority: Medium
Decision families: combat
Cards: Siege Zombie; Carrion Feeder; Broodspinner; Mirkwood Bats; Nadier's Nightblade; Scatter the Seeds; Wrap in Vigor; Spore Frog
Phase windows: declare attackers, declare blockers, combat trick windows
Runtime cues: prompt:declare attackers; prompt:declare blockers; action:attack; action:block
Use when: combat choices affect race math, blocker preservation, tap payoffs, or sacrifice value.
Avoid when: exactly one forced legal combat action exists and the engine provides no alternative.
Instructions: Preserve payoff creatures and tap engines unless attacking changes the clock materially. Block with disposable tokens before sacrificing real engines; use protection or prevention only when it changes survival or board retention.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Counter-Sweeper And Protection Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: interaction
Cards: Wrap in Vigor; Spore Frog; Weather the Storm; Crypt Rats
Phase windows: combat, damage, sweeper, and life-gain response windows
Runtime cues: action:cast Wrap in Vigor; action:activate Spore Frog; action:cast Weather the Storm; action:activate Crypt Rats
Use when: a legal defensive action can prevent lethal damage, preserve a critical board, or reset an opposing creature swarm.
Avoid when: the action saves only replaceable material and prevents a stronger follow-up this turn.
Instructions: Use `Spore Frog` and `Weather the Storm` for survival turns, `Wrap in Vigor` for board-preservation swings, and `Crypt Rats` only after checking your life total and own board losses.
Pilot skill floor: high
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Tutor And Land Search Choices
Priority: Medium
Decision families: selection
Cards: Crop Rotation; Journey of Discovery; Harrow; Nissa's Pilgrimage; Caravan Vigil; Return from the Wilds; Grisly Salvage; Malevolent Rumble
Phase windows: main phases, search prompts, reveal/selection prompts
Runtime cues: prompt:search library; prompt:choose card; action:cast Crop Rotation
Use when: a legal search or selection choice can fix mana, find utility land, or load the graveyard.
Avoid when: sacrificing a land for `Crop Rotation` cuts off required colors or exposes a tempo loss under pressure.
Instructions: Fix missing colors first, then choose utility lands only for an immediate tactical purpose such as graveyard hate, token body, or mana smoothing. Route all search selections through model reasoning.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Sideboard Role Selection
Priority: Medium
Decision families: sideboard
Cards: Duress; Crypt Rats; Weather the Storm; Snuff Out; Chainer's Edict; Faerie Macabre; Scattershot Archer; Gleeful Sabotage; Wrap in Vigor; Spore Frog
Phase windows: between games sideboard prompts
Runtime cues: prompt:sideboard; action:submit sideboard
Use when: Veles asks for post-game or revised sideboard choices and no exact prevalidated plan is already selected.
Avoid when: public information is too thin to justify weakening the token-sacrifice core, or when a higher-level matchup plan has already been locked.
Instructions: Prefer one to three role cards. Choose discard for spell-heavy decks, sweepers and prevention for creature races, graveyard hate for graveyard engines, artifact/enchantment removal for visible permanent engines, flying hate only when opposing flyers mattered, and protection only when preserving a wide board is central.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Deterministic Sideboard Lock Submission
Priority: Low
Decision families: sideboard
Cards: Duress; Crypt Rats; Weather the Storm; Snuff Out; Chainer's Edict; Faerie Macabre; Scattershot Archer; Gleeful Sabotage; Wrap in Vigor; Spore Frog
Phase windows: between games sideboard submit prompt
Runtime cues: action:submit sideboard; validation:registered-110; validation:legal-swaps
Use when: the current sideboard plan exactly matches a prevalidated add/remove mapping from the Sideboard Map and Veles shows one submit action for that mapping.
Avoid when: any card count, card spelling, registered-zone validation warning, or hidden generated swap is present.
Instructions: Submit the validated mapping exactly as provided. Do not improvise names, counts, or extra swaps. If validation is uncertain, request a fresh strategic sideboard decision instead of locking.
Pilot skill floor: low
No-API allowed: yes
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Narrow Sideboard Card Restraint
Priority: Medium
Decision families: sideboard
Cards: Weather the Storm; Faerie Macabre; Scattershot Archer; Gleeful Sabotage; Wrap in Vigor; Spore Frog
Phase windows: between games sideboard prompts
Runtime cues: opponent:burn; opponent:graveyard; opponent:flyers; opponent:artifact; opponent:enchantment; opponent:sweeper; opponent:combat-alpha
Use when: a narrow sideboard card appears attractive but the opponent's public plan only partially matches its role.
Avoid when: the matchup has already shown repeated direct-damage kills, graveyard dependency, small flyers, artifact/enchantment engines, destroy-based sweepers, or combat-alpha turns.
Instructions: Keep narrow cards out unless they answer the opponent's actual winning axis. Do not trade away token production, sacrifice draw, drain payoffs, or mana development for a card that only answers a hypothetical threat class.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes
