Has anyone been able to build a good strong Deck with her? I can’t seem to do anything good with her. I’m definitely losing more games than I’m winning. Any recommendations?
Try focusing on the colors instead of the abilities. Green-Black is a very potent pair.
Graveyard shenanigans are especially good
Are there any ideas in this thread that might help you @Walker?
https://forums.505go.com/discussion/75875/vraska-golgari-queen-official-thread
You’ve got the wrong Vraska, it’s that simple. She just isn’t good. I like Vraska 1,she excels at countering out enemys control, aggro and combo setups. V2 can do the same, but not as good.
If you want to play her effectively.. Creatures with low P/T that get buffed by ETB or other effects are more or less immune to the downside of her first ability. Deinforcing doesn’t debuff. Also, graveyard stuff is a natural pairing. Lots of stuff to fill the gy and get it back again in green and black
Yeah, here’s some problems with Vraska 2 and why I usually don’t bother with her unless I need both of them in one event:
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Her first two abilities are contradictory: The first ability essentially asks you to play tokens (to reduce the backlash you get by losing reinforcement), but the second ability requires you to play creatures, and on top of that it needs too much buildup and dies to Mnemonic Betrayal among other things.
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Her 3rd abillity may be inevitable, but it requires way too much setup (she can’t run Squee or Murder Investigation, both of which may help).
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Considering her poor abilities, her mana gains are rather poor. Oh, sure, +4 on her main colors, but unlike Saheeli, nothing else.
I do admit that BG combination is potent since it has both ramp and excessively powerful kill spells (looking at you, Plague Wind), but frankly, prioritize on Vraska 1 instead; she’s more useful.
Her advantages just don’t compensate for her disadvantages. If I had it to do over I probably wouldn’t get her.
Savra+Saproling/Slimefoot tokens have been the only way to make her 1st useful consistently. From a bit of testing. But any deck with those will heavily go against her second.
Just glad I got her when I had an excess of crystals
Edit: Just use Vicious Offering from a -/- effect.
Savra is really key because of Vraska’s first ability, but the 4 life part works with Oathsworn Vampire and it brings them back from the graveyard BEFORE removing a reinforcement to draw a card (Need space in hand though).
Other thoughts would include the graveyard card that makes zombies when things lose reinforcements, so you end up losing nothing.
2nd ability I’ve only used in emergencies. 3rd is pretty nice. I was trying to work out a way to do complete black control and denial and win creatureless with just the third. Doable in Legacy with Curses and things but there isn’t heaps in Standard that is playable.
Some minor tweaks to her abilities would go a long way to making her more fun to play. If they changed the “lose a reinforcement,” to “discard a creature” and removed the wonky “creature on the board and damage” requirement for the ultimate it would be a good start. I also think the ultimate damage should correlate to the amount creatures in the graveyard. 1/2 or so.
Unfortunately, they won’t make any of those changes.
It is not a Tier 1 (what non-blue deck is), but I have found this Vraska 2 deck enjoyable:
Hatchery Spider
Underrealm Lich
Muldrotha
Growing Rites
Journey to Eternity
Gather the Pack
Assassin’s Trophy
Connive
Reclaim
Thunderherd Migration
JtE, Hatchery Spider, Reclaim can be pretty explosive. Muldrotha gives you access to one heck of a toolbox once you start filling your graveyard.
Vraska’s abilities aren’t great. The only one I really use is her A2.
Since they started doing “lose a reinforcement” type things they’ve added a few every set. So I suspect that in the future she’ll get better automatically.
I think a good place to fix things is with the 2nd ability. -x/-x to a creature or -x shields from a support or if that can’t be done add to the end “move x cards from your library to your graveyard”.
Doesn’t change her focus or overpower her, just makes things always usable.
You want a combination of creatures that can stick to the board and creatures you can lose.
Darigaaz and Despoiler of Souls work for the first option. Ochran Assassin and Poison-Tip Archer work for the other. Glowspore Shaman is another good card for her since it puts the creatures directly into your graveyard, same with Underrealm Lich.
Usually I just run little guys that are expendable with one big guy who sticks around and wait till I can pull off her third ability since it basically acts like a 1 power creature that reinforces itself every turn. Once you get that support it speeds things up pretty nicely.
Yeah, her third ability is awful but I have okay success with her, this is my deck
Wand of Vertebrae
Glowspore Shaman
Ochran Assassin
Swarm Guildmage
Mausoleum Secrets
Molderhulk
Daggerback Basilisk
Slice in Twain
Necrotic Wound
Rupture Spire