{"ops":[{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"The Mycotyrant"},{"insert":" is a graveyard-engine deck disguised as Fungus tribal. The fundamental goal is to turn ordinary game actions—milling, dredging, sacrificing, fetching, cycling, and discarding—into "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"descend"},{"insert":", then let The Mycotyrant convert those events into a massive Fungus army at the end of the turn. The important nuance is that descend counts "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"permanent cards"},{"insert":" going to the graveyard, so the deck is built with an unusually high density of permanents and ways to put them there. Cards such as "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Stitcher's Supplier, Satyr Wayfinder, Crawling Sensation, Golgari Grave-Troll, Doom Whisperer, Life from the Loam, Dakmor Salvage"},{"insert":", and especially "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Hermit Druid"},{"insert":" aren't merely filling the graveyard—they're effectively determining how many creatures The Mycotyrant is going to create. The deck therefore rewards patience: establish the machinery first, then cast The Mycotyrant when you can immediately generate a meaningful descend count rather than exposing him simply because you have the mana.\n\nThe nastiest games come from recognizing the "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"conversion turn"},{"insert":". A board containing The Mycotyrant and something like "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Mirkwood Bats"},{"insert":" or "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Ayara, First of Locthwain"},{"insert":" can suddenly turn self-mill into lethal damage. Hermit Druid is particularly filthy because the deck runs so few basic lands; a single activation can dump an enormous number of permanent cards into the graveyard, and multiple activations can produce a ridiculous end-step Mycotyrant trigger. If 15 permanent cards descend, The Mycotyrant creates 15 black Fungus tokens; Mirkwood Bats punishes the token creation while Ayara punishes the black creatures entering. With both present, what appeared to be a graveyard setup turn can suddenly become a lethal end step without ever entering combat. "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Mirkwood Bats, Ayara, Syr Konrad, Slimefoot"},{"insert":", and "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"The Meathook Massacre"},{"insert":" give the deck this aristocrats angle, while "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Beastmaster Ascension, Overwhelming Stampede"},{"insert":", a gigantic trampling Mycotyrant, and "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Filth + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth"},{"insert":" give it a completely different way to finish the table.\n\nThe graveyard should be viewed as a "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"second hand"},{"insert":", and that changes how the deck should be piloted. "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Life from the Loam"},{"insert":" retrieving "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Barren Moor, Dakmor Salvage"},{"insert":", fetchlands, or utility lands means discarded and milled lands aren't necessarily lost resources. "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Dread Return, Animate Dead, Squirming Emergence, Lich-Knights' Conquest, Eternal Witness, World Shaper"},{"insert":", and "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Bala Ged Recovery"},{"insert":" similarly allow creatures and other important cards to come back. This is why something as mundane as discarding to seven after a huge "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Rishkar's Expertise"},{"insert":" or "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Shamanic Revelation"},{"insert":" can actually improve the deck's position. Don't automatically protect every card in your hand, and don't dredge or mill simply because you can. The best pilot constantly asks whether the graveyard needs more fuel or whether it's time to stop accumulating resources and convert what is already there into a win. "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Out of the Tombs"},{"insert":" takes that philosophy to its extreme: its accelerating self-mill eventually empties the library, at which point future draws become creature reanimation as long as the graveyard can continue supplying creatures.\n\nThe deck is consequently much harder to play optimally than “mill myself and make mushrooms.” "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Sequencing is the real weapon."},{"insert":" Sandbag Hermit Druid until his activation matters. Don't expose The Mycotyrant several turns before you're ready to exploit him. Don't dump every drain engine onto the battlefield when one will force opponents to react. Graveyard exile is considerably more dangerous than an ordinary creature wipe, so against "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Rest in Peace"},{"insert":"-style effects or mass graveyard exile, stop feeding the graveyard and pivot toward the board. Conversely, when opponents leave your graveyard alone, make them regret it: Loam resources back, dredge selectively, recur your best creatures, and wait for the turn when one self-mill activation suddenly represents twenty descends. The deck's greatest strength is that its resources continuously change form—"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"library becomes graveyard, graveyard becomes hand or battlefield, descend becomes Fungi, Fungi become cards/mana/damage, and eventually the entire machine becomes lethal."},{"insert":" That's the real Mycotyrant game plan.\n"}]}