Failed Magic: the Gathering Mechanics: Thallids

[@Byggarebob]

They should make a thalid lord with "creatures have ward equal to the number of spore counters" would make them a bit more protected

[@TheSpiritombsableye]

Add a spore counter during each upkeep. Since they require 3 counters and there's an even amount of players, the gameplay will become unique each turn. This also scales well with Commander.

[@BusinessSkrub]

This is probably the best fix

[@nathanl8622]

That's still pretty slow, and scales badly in any format that isn't commander. I'd just make the trigger for spore counters more variable--maybe on one card it gets counters when you play a land, another gets counters when you play spells, one can put counters on your whole field as an activated effect. Basically let it go off in all the ways stuff like proliferate does.

[@Tgaxgriffen]

You could make it a dies trigger or a discard trigger. When a creature goes to the graveyard from anywhere put a spore counter and then have a bunch of thalids with graveyard mechanics. Can be cast from the graveyard can be cycled to make a saproling can be sacrificed to make a saproling or fetch a land. So every thalids ability would make a saproling on its own or give spore tokens to thalids on the board. The commander could be WBG that gives all fungus creature cards cycling and once per turn you may cast a creature with cmc equal to the amount of saprolings you control from your graveyard. That way you’ll be discarding them to draw cards and playing them from the graveyard. Essentially like a compost. Things die and go to the graveyard and from this things grows fungi.

[@destructimus]

Matches with verdant force, too. Nice.

[@Canido19]

Here's an idea: An Abzan Fungus commander that gets a spore on each upkeep and has "Remove three counters from creatures you control: The next Fungus spell you cast can't be countered." And "Sacrifice a Saproling: When target creature you control dies this turn, return that card to the battlefield under your control at the beginning of the next end step." For that matter, in addition to Thallids in general getting spores each upkeep, how about their activated abilities costing the removal of spores from *any* Fungus you control, instead of just themselves?

[@adlaireindl5012]

Thallids would probably be actually viable if they instead had “At the beginning of your upkeep, put a spore counter on each Fungus you control.”

[@freddiesimmons1394]

I'd rather it be every 2 turns than parasitic

[@erlanddrow7950]

Finally, the Thallid Lord

[@RedOphiuchus]

As mentioned in the video, one of them does! We could certainly have more with that ability. In recent years, though, we've seen a rise in mechanics that trigger on the beginning of combat, giving you one counter almost immediately when a card comes into play as long as you play it before your combat (a small strategic sacrifice that is still significant). I would love to see some take advantage of that as a means of speeding it up one turn without affecting the interaction with proliferate. In the last decade or so we've also seen a rise in attack triggers and ETB triggers, especially packaged together. A Thalid Titan would be pretty cool. Maybe a 6 mana 6/6 that gives every fungus a spore counter when it enters play and attacks and has a static ability that creates an additional token whenever a creature you control would create a creature token (slightly less parasitic that way).

[@BrootalMetalBanjo]

That could be the commander ability. Get extra spore counters, or ETB flood of spore counters.

[@bungiezzz]

That would totally make it playable. Like slivers, but they grow and spread.

[@soarel325]

Bizarre that they never considered simply making the Thallids faster in Time Spiral block. The 3-turn wait really is the death knell for the concept

[@shaftlamer]

Yeah, that and being in fallen empires😂

[@soarel325]

@@shaftlamer The issue is how slow they were even in Time Spiral

[@shaftlamer]

@@soarel325 when you don't understand jokes..

[@baronvonbeandip]

They did. It was called Paradox Haze

[@soarel325]

@@baronvonbeandip I'm talking about the cards themselves.

[@Luchs06]

No mention of Slimefoot in Dominaria who gave old Thallids a home and solved the issue with boardwipes.

[@dylanfleming1692]

Yeah, slimefoot!

[@Case2_0]

@@dylanfleming1692SLIMEFOOT! MY BOY!

[@aaronbormet3804]

I came here to say this. Dude went through commanders without mentioning THE best one.

[@UserNameMandatory]

Slimefoot would be in the 99, because this discussion included the white fungus and support cards.

[@ML7WL]

As good as slimefoot is, there's a good amount of proliferate and populate with white and some tribal synergies too.

[@spicedandy7370]

Thallids are my favorite tribe! I love mushrooms and idea of "growing" your resources. I rarely win with my thallids deck, but I always have a great time with the spore counters. Thanks for the video!

[@sakuuya1475]

Me too! They're fun and thematic. It's a shame they're not good, but that'll never stop me from whipping out thallid tribal for casual play

[@GreatgoatonFire]

Maybe the Spore Counters could be places on the player instead of the creatures? Like Energy.

[@sharlockshacolmes9381]

Or put/remove counters on/from any creature to activate the effects, like the mushrooms put their spore everywhere and the grow new shrooms

[@jesseperkins9669]

​@Sharlock Shacolmes that would work thematically too since mushrooms can have massive networks of underground roots (mycelium) spanning several football fields in length

[@GreatgoatonFire]

@@sharlockshacolmes9381 Well, the problem with that is that they'd still get blasted by Wrath of God and co.

[@sharlockshacolmes9381]

@@GreatgoatonFire any creature archetype does, nobody complains about slivers being weak because of that, thalid main problem is getting blasted by targeted removal because you lose access to creature with lots of counters that took time to build, if you can more heavenly spread and remove the counters then the strat becomes stronger against targeted removal, otherwise just play heroic intervention to dodge wraths.

[@UnuUO]

Giving counters to players is pretty hard to balance. For example, Energy was a mistake. Having a resource that can be utilized in so many ways by different cards that can’t be interacted with makes it way too strong. That being said, I do think it would be fine for Spore counters. There are Experience counter cards that give the counters to the player and they’re fine.

[@trogsothoth4919]

Atraxa and inexorable tide could send thallids into the stratosphere in terms of spore counters. any populate cards could, actually. also i like how he said "thallids don't have a great commander option" and then immediatly mentioned Ghave.

[@the_puppeteer2136]

I mean Ghave isnt much of a thallid commander as he doesnt help it much.

[@tefnutofhoney2832]

Now i wanna see homarid somehow get made decent and fun. Tide counters are like, actually neat. Proliferate helps thallids potentially...

[@ticklezcat5191]

Homarids are one of my favorite oddball creature types, with not enough creatures for a full deck, and the best card Homarid Spawning Bed making tokens with the wrong creature subtype.

[@tefnutofhoney2832]

@@ticklezcat5191 yes! Its to the point theyre on my "oddball tribe" color pie for a homebrew plane ive been casually brainstorming, alongside kobolds and dauthi

[@jessicalundholm2773]

I really tried to make Thallids work in commander a while ago and I honestly think Atraxa is the best commander because of the proliferate and you get to play Paradox Haze for more upkeep triggers. It was really fun but still very weak. Homarids are really sick but I've never tried brewing around it

[@Bluecho4]

I was also thinking of Proliferate during this video. Allowing one to accelerate Spore generation, in addition to any other counters you make. The recent sets with Phyrexia, including its Oil counter mechanics, provided a good roadmap for how a Proliferate Thallid deck could function. The main sticking point would be adding enough new Thallid and other Saproling adjacent cards that could really capitalize on all the extra counters. Otherwise, you're arguably using a good mechanic (Proliferate) to prop up a bad one (Spores), rather than using a good mechanic to improve another good mechanic.

[@normanbromley-xd7ls]

​@ticklezcat5191 also be nice to get an actual physical camarid token.

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

While Thallids themselves weren't front and center in them, Ravnica: City of Guilds and the entire Alara block had a fair bit of support for them in the form of cards that produced saprolings at a good rate. Sprouting Thrinax and Mycoloth are especially notable.

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

“At the beginning of each upkeep” is the only real change needed.

[@AMeekKiwi]

Thallid tribal was my first deck. I really wish they were better.

[@kingartuur1]

my slimefoot fungus tribal deck is realy strong

[@safertobeanonymous2224]

I’m trying to make a Myrkul deck as it saves the dying fungus and keeps them going.

[@safertobeanonymous2224]

I’m trying to make a Myrkul deck as it saves the dying fungus and keeps them going. Killing the fungus doesn’t change anything and less mass enchantment removal.

[@vennin7781]

Slimefoot is a pretty strong commander actually.

[@erlanddrow7950]

Same here 😓

[@SmitikusPlays]

Proliferate in Abzan colors and auras like Polenbright Wings do really help the Thallid deck. Don't forget your Mycoloth and Verdant Force for more bodies each upkeep. You can go mono-green with the deck and have Menata just be a giant mana dump for more Saptolings

[@ianbraun271]

Or go GB with Nemata, Primeval Warden, which exiles opponents creatures when they die (see Deathspore Thallid) and creates Saprolings while doing it. And has a card draw effect on top of that.

[@NeoN-PeoN]

From Fallen Empires, you forgot about the enchantment card "Night soil". It's almost exactly the same as "Fungal Plots".

[@releasethedogs]

And it had a cooler name.

[@SamiGodHater]

Fungus is my favorite tribe. Thelon of Havenwood has been my main edh deck for eight years. The deck can be quite good if you throw enough money at the support cards. I could go on all day about the deck and card choices.

[@ManaPirate]

Got a list? I'd be keen to check it out! 😍

[@JayDiz11]

I think focusing more on saprolings as opposed to just Thallids would make for a great commander deck. Using the saprolings as sac outlets for not only the Thallids, but also fungus themed creatures like Mycoloth. Also supported with proliferate to increase the pace at which spore counters are generated

[@hydrolythe]

I am still playing a saproling deck with Rith, the Awakener as the commander. I get that he is a dragon in a deck otherwise almost completely composed of fungi, but if his ability resolves (which is admittedly not that easy to accomplish) you will be creating a fair amount of saprolings. My personal record is about 115 saprolings, which I managed to create with him, a doubling season and a saproling symbiosis. There are token decks out there that can spam a lot more tokens, but I am still proud of my record.

[@javierpatag3609]

Great video! It's nice to see the spotlight on Thallids. Some points: 1. You missed one Thallid that came between the old and new Thallid design: *Tukatongue Thallid* from Conflux (2009). So between the old (Fallen Empires (1994) and Time Spiral (2006)), and the new (Dominaria (2018)), we already had an attempt to revise Thallids or was even perhaps a future vision of them. On a side note, I was surprised and disappointed that Tukatongue Thallid wasn't reprinted in Dominaria (even with a different name to fit the plane). 2. As an old player (started playing in 1995 and even bought some Fallen Empires boosters as a kid) who bought the Time Spiral Thallid preconstructed deck and based a deck on it (fun and ran well), I say that losing the spore counter mechanic central to the identity of Thallids is *_NOT_* an issue. Times change and things have to keep up. If it was too weak then, it's going to have a really rough time now with all the power creep over the years. If focusing on just Saprolings- and making them efficiently- is what it takes for them to keep up, I'm all for it. And even if they brought it back with some changes to make it better... 3. One problem with the Thallid mechanic is that it was a _chore_ doing all that bookkeeping of the spore counters. This is something they shared with another Fallen Empires creature type- Homarids and their tide counters. Even if players today are used to having counters or dice as standard gear for our decks, it is still a hassle keeping track of all those counters during your upkeep, especially if you've got lots of them. The simplicity and straightforwardness of modern Thallids is much better for the game, where players can instead focus more on actual play rather than keeping track of small details.

[@JaxMerrick]

Fun with Fungus from Time Spiral was my introduction to Magic, so it's great to see a video on my old favorite tribe.

[@nickd6303]

The Spore counter theme did get "buffs" via counter-manipulation cards.

[@Topaz542]

I love the history of thallid/saproling tribal, especially considering how popular the theme is in commander and how golgari saproling was THE best archetype in Dominaria limited back in the day 😅

[@rentonthurston5040]

Even if Thallids are considered a failed tribe, i still love them. They were the first deck i built and they allowed me to win my first tournament in AIT.

[@jigstraw2809]

I enjoy some of the thallids. My first from-scratch commander deck was Ghave, Guru of Spores, and it made some pretty good use of utopia mycon as an alternative to phyrexian arena. another fun little interaction is having deathspore thallid and nemata, primeval warden. sac a saproling to give target creature -1/-1, but whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, you create a saproling. So you can kill all of your opponent's 1/1s for free. I'm also running Life and Limb for the infinite combo with Sporemound, but one time, another player had Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth in play, and the tergrid player made me discard a card, so i started laughing and gave him life and limb. suddenly boardwipes meant everyone losing all their land, and i didn't even have to pay for it xD my favorite value combo in the deck though, is sticking keen sense or snake umbra on my slimefoot, the stowaway to draw 3 every time a saproling dies. And it's *may draw*, so you don't have to deck yourself.

[@TheUniversalEclipse]

Imagine we got a legendary creature - thalid, and it was just ghave's text box but swap +1/+1 for spore counters and he had eminence - creatures get +1/+1 for each spore counter on them.

[@astrowerm]

Can you do more of this series? Im totally into it!

[@archwing3441]

Taking a book from Yugioh, maybe having the spore counter move onto a card when the card that had the spore counter is destroyed. If we made a dedicated commander for it, it would be a unique commander ability that can be passive while in the commander zone. Also give the commander when on the field the ability to let other cards grab spore counters from it instead of itself.

[@ryenburns7054]

I really enjoyed the Fallen Empires Thallid deck.

[@marcoottina654]

Edit: "how to fix" in the end of this comment 7:45 do not forget the Paradox Haze, an enchantment from Time Spiral that increments the amount of upkeeps performed, and the combo with Doubling Season and Sprout Swarm. Also, those Fungus weren't either good attackers nor defenders. The "Soul Sisters" are good since you can recover life and gain tempo, but all of them are weak and depend on massive creature production, which could happen in later stages in the game only How to fix them: - more abilities to spread spore counters, maybe with tapping, gaining life, landfall - making all fungus as mana dork .. xd - give all of the above in a similar manner to Slivers - using saprolings for recursion / fog effects / lifegain / land ramp / tap creatures / destroying artifacts / tax effects/ clone other fungus / sac 3 to destroy lands

[@jmanwild87]

I'm surprised there isn't one that says whenever a creature you controll/ creature an opponent controls dies put a spore counter on each fungus you control or one that works like a titan or one that gives your funguses the ability to remove 3 spore counters from among creatures you control as well as a fungus that sacs a saproling to give a creature indestructible/ fog combat/ other utility. The problem with spore counters is more lack of support than anything. Because i'm sure you can make them good pretty easily

[@carlosv9677]

Thalids in pauper is a fun deck, with cards like: fungal infection, scatter the seeds and sprout swarm

[@kalebglenn5279]

Thallids have a unique mechanic which is why I still have my Thallid deck :D I also threw in changelings, as they round out the deck and Sporoloth Ancient gives them the ability to generate counters OR using Thelon of Havenwood to create truly monstrous changelings. My favorite, however, is using Parallel Lives + Birthing Boughs/Maskwood Nexus + Sporesower + Thelon/Sporoloth. IF you could get setup, Parallel Lives duplicated the changeling tokens, Sporesower put counters on all changelings, and you had your choice of Thelon for super buff tokens or Sporoloth for even MORE tokens (doubled as well). It is the only deck I know of where tokens can generate tokens.

[@banaman7746]

I think one big reason for thallid's still being popular is there are a lot of creatures and effects that just make saprolings now, and the thallids that sac a saproling just becomes that much stronger. That being said, I loved playing mycoloth... it was a 4/4 for 5 with devour 2 (so when it enters, sac any number of creatures, it gets 2 +1/+1 counters for each) and the ability where every upkeep, you get a 1/1 saproling for each +1/+1 counter on it. even by sacrificing only 2 or 3 creatures, you made a threat that could end a game by itself very quickly if not removed.

[@Adcougar]

This breakdown is fantastic. Thank you! I wonder if we consider cards that have the Proliferate mechanic if that would help them. Though even as I type this, more cards supporting a multi-turn mechanic doesn't seem viable.

[@CharlieRaspin]

One potential solution that comes to mind would be to detach spore counters from individual Thallids. Change spore counters to a separate pool that each Thallid adds to (and can use its abilities to spend) every turn, but which isn't lost if an individual Thallid dies. That means that losing a Thallid with 2 spore counters isn't such a waste of time and resources - it still added those spores to your pool, and you can use them with another Thallid creature later. In fact, make Thallids and Saprolings add a spore counter to your pool when they die, as well as the start of your turn, to further reduce the impact of removal and encourage you to spend spore counters on Saprolings. They're all flooding the air with spores, which will linger for the rest of the game. e.g. Thallid's text would be: Sporespawn (At the beginning of your upkeep, and each time this Fungus creature or a Saproling you control dies, add a spore counter to your spore pool. Remove three spore counters from your spore pool: Put a 1/1 green Saproling Fungus creature token onto the battlefield)

[@eddiekalista3222]

My main commander deck is Saprolings. The commander is Slimefoot, The Stowaway. The deck wins most often by going wide with an army of saprolings, using Doubling Season, Second Harvest, and Saproling Symbiosis to get lots of Saps out, with Overrun or Vraska, Golgari Queen's emblem. Mycoloth is an absolute powerhouse, allowing you to dump a stack of Saps into it, and refill your board the next turn. The deck works best by sacrificing for value. Spells that make you sacrifice a creature for effect are always best. Slimefoot in play means that every time you sacrifice your saprolings for mana, -1/-1 from Deathspore, or to feed Mycoloth, you're draining the table. Slimefoot also adds lots of value to chump blocking, because you're all too happy to throw saprolings into the grinder. It is absolutely my most oppressive deck. It's a solid midrange aggro that is prone to surprise wins, and is often overlooked at the table until it's too late. Saprolings don't do well in 60 card formats, but Commander makes them savage.

[@TheGrantross]

Great video. Had a slimefoot commander deck for a while with most of these guys in it. Wasn’t good but one of my favorite thematically. Always loved mushroom men and the such and hope they revisit them again with a new abzan commander

[@targetdreamer257]

One fix that I can think of would be thematic and work mechanically. The spores that are already on any Thallid get spread to any other creature when they die. Then when a different Thallid comes into play that one could pull spores from a different creature. Like you put spoke counters on any creature even if they aren’t your own and then Thallids pull those “stored” spores for growth. A linchpin to this would be some other place you could store counters. Either and Enchantment, a land or some indestructible Thallid. Also give them the ability to “eat cards” from the graveyard.

[@fullmentaljacket4159]

When I first played Thallids, I thought that the saprolings inherited enchantment abilities from the creature that spawned them. I remember playing Firebreathing on a Thallid, and paying red mana to boost the attack of a saproling it generated.

[@HeavyMetalMouse]

Some brainstorms for Thallid mechanics: As mentioned in video, ones that give a spore counter every upkeep, not just your upkeep New Thallids with abilities that remove spore counters could remove them from among *any* creatures you control that have them, not just the individual, so having more spore-generating creatures in play gives you Saprolings at a faster rate Ghave seems more like a 'Spikes' mechanic commander than Thallids, though Thallids and Spikes get along together pretty well. The 'Spike' mechanic had its own difficulties, if memory serves.

[@WIBYTIEDH]

I recently built a Thallid deck with Peregrin Took at the helm for Food tokens. A mechanic that the Fallen Empires Thallids LOVE is proliferate. There's also a fun interaction with Thorn Thallid and Overgrown Armasaur or Sporewed Spider where you can remove the spore counters to smack either of them and get a free Saproling. Throw in counter doublers like Doubling Season or Vorinclex and you got yourself quite the engine. Also if you can give Thorn Thallid deathtouch, you can pick creatures off

[@trialbyicecream]

I built a Thelon fungus deck last month. Really fun watching those fungi grow!

[@aevenova9780]

To fix this, I'd suggest "cumulative upkeep: Put a spore counter on this card" That's how they should have done it. And maybe balance it out where after 7 turns or something.

[@BCWasbrough]

The problem is that FE came out before Ice Age, and the team making Thallids wouldn't have access to cumulative upkeep, let alone the idea that it could be used as an upside for a card.

[@chiblast100x]

@@BCWasbrough There is that for the historical point, but also as I recall Rosewater is against the idea of them ever printing anything new with CU again making the idea moot for the foreseeable future as well.

[@BCWasbrough]

@@chiblast100x Well, good. All Cumulative Upkeep did on 99% of cards was to make them unplayable.

[@mbarker_lng]

I field a Thallid deck in commander with Thelon as the boss. This video is on the money. It wouldn't be hard to fix the spore problem honestly. All WotC would have to do is print some enchantments or artifacts that specifically do things like "Whenever you add a spore counter, add 2". Another option I've been considering is adding Atraxa (which I was lucky enough to get naturally) as the commander due to the Proliferate going off every turn. It would dillute the mana-base a little since the Blue and White are not really great thallid colors (although that white thallid is nice!) and my deck is G/B. Although that would also give me some great blue utility and more proliferate options like Tezzret's Gambit. I also have Doubling Season to get counters which is probably the least powerful way to utilize Doubling Season :P I feel like the deck could be pretty competitive and fun but would never be a powerhouse.

[@somethinganything9170]

You could probably make a keyword that gave the creature with it a spore counter on each upkeep, but make it so that you can remove three spore counters from ANY permanent to make a saproling. This would reduce the tempo swing of getting a creature with two counters on it destroyed (because you don't need to wait three upkeeps for each one, but to have three thalids on each upkeep), and would accelerate the process of making saproling in the first turns, giving a fighting chance against aggro with chumpblockers. It wouldn't solve the problem of board wipes, but maype some sort of thalid recursion or enchantment could help; or just giving synergistic protection pieces to the deck with proliferate or other more straightforward abilities

[@modernkiwi6447]

One idea I had to potentially fix the Spore Counter mechanic was to give them more value beyond the tokens they summon. Kinda like how the Mecha Phantom Beast archetype summons tokens that grant protection to the monsters while they’re on the field, maybe the Thallids that placed counters on themselves couldn’t be destroyed while they had those counters, making getting to 3 counters a lot easier

[@BCWasbrough]

A popular addition to thallid decks in the 90's was adding 4 copies of Skull Catapult. You could sac creatures at instant speed, which mitigated the pain of losing them to removal. The "Thallid Shooter" decks may have been terrible against the popular tournament decks of the day, like the first Necropotence decks, and TurboStasis, but they fun for casual games.

[@jaewilliss5407]

Counter doubling and token doubling benefit spore counters and your Saps. We could give them a support enchantment that gives all your fungus a spore counter whenever a creature dies(or spore counters equal to that creature's toughness?). things that let you use spore counters directly for protection. Things that make them come in with spore counters.

[@TheHive616]

I made a Saproling / Thallid deck with Ghave, Guru of Spores as the Commander. It also included Slimefoot from Domanaria. Now, was it a winner every time? No. Did I also include some very powerful support cards beyond Saproling synergy? Well yes, I wanted to win occasionally. But in all honesty, it wasn't dreadful, it wasn't boring, and it had some very cool moments where things just lined up in a beautiful way. The board state becomes collosal after a while, and it's not the sort of deck I would recommend for an inexperienced Commander player, a fast and aggressive player, or someone who likes things to work one specific way without any toolboxing or problem solving. If you like long games that require thinking on your toes, moving tons of counters and building an incredible board state, you might consider giving this mess a shot. It was always fun and it was always a different game, but it wasn't always easy.

[@S1L3NTDr460n]

Make a legendary thallid with [eminence: As long as (cardname) is on the battlefield or in the command zone, fungi you control have "at the beginning of each upkeep, place a spore counter on this card"]. And then (cardname) itself would have an effect on the field to remove spore counters from anywhere on the field to do a thing, maybe one of 3 different things or something. Would make every single one of the spore-counter-thallids instantly playable without relying on some card to stay on the battlefield to make them relevant, and would give you a counter-sink (once in play) to use the counters it placed on the fungi that don't have their own counter-sink.

[@vincentwerts4724]

You completely overlooked Slimefoot, the Stowaway. Seriously, everyone sleeps on my boy Slimefoot.

[@Devoguy]

Did you forget about Verdant Force? It made saprolings and was first printed in Tempest, I used it along in my early Thallid decks.

[@mikeb3735]

I have a deck with Xavier Sal, Infested Captain that I have a bunch of Thallids for, and they are honestly one of my favorite parts of the deck. Also, no mention of Mycoloth?

[@mr.philosophy]

Slimefoot! Im suprised you didnt mention that for commander. Its v fun, and was quite decent

[@BoundlessxArts]

My slimefoot deck started that way but eventually moved from Thallids to a more focused aristocrats kind of deck

[@Glitch-sp3qx]

I play commander and I use Atraxa, Preator's Voice as a commander for a spore deck, the extra blue color can let me put card draw and counters in the deck while having the white, green, and black for spore synergies. The extra proliferating from Atraxa lets me get a saproling almost every turn from each fungus that generates spores

[@C454D]

Also feel they should be able to expend spore counters from any creature you control. Also, ether some of them having an ETB "gains 1 spore counter" also may help kick-start some plays along with maybe having a creature that whenever a saproling enters the battlefield, add 1 spore counter to this creature. I feel some amount of ability to share resources should be done.

[@misteral9045]

I want to love thallids so much. Mushrooms are my jam, fungi are always welcome, and I'm lichen the dark and dank atmosphere they bring. As noted in the video, the spore counter mechanic and support cards are the issue. The spore counter never made sense to me, that's just growing like plants. Fungi are decomposers, feeding off already dead things, or parasites, feeding off of a host. I think the spore mechanic should be something like "whenever a creature on your side of the field dies, get a counter" or "exile x creatures from your graveyard, get x counters." That way the saproling/sacrifice engine is still a bit slow to get rolling, but hopefully ramps up quickly enough to be competitive. Going down the parasite route, that could offer a lot of board control, like mind controlling opponent creatures, or infecting opponent lands, or turning opponent creatures into saproling generators which you can then somehow take advantage of that, like you can sacrifice their saprolings too or something.

[@kevinb.2595]

I played Thallids in Time Spiral + Ravnica standard at my FNM a lot. I played it pretty controlly with a play set of Doubling Season (which actually quadruples the rate you can produce tokens). It could hit infinite combos with 2x Doubling Season and Sprout Storm in hand, but usually didn’t need to to overwhelm the opponent.

[@norrock1]

Heres an idea for an Abzan fungus commander: At the beginning of each upkeep put a spore counter on each fungus you control. Remove 3 spore counters: create a 1/1 saproling. Sacrifice a saproling choose 1: you gain 2 life, proliferate, target creature gets -1-1 until end of turn.

[@briandixon9140]

Thalids had their place in casual play. It took a long time but Time Spiral's Paradox Haze and Ravanica's Doubling Season. With Green being good with Ramp multicolor wasn't an issue. I had a fun Green/Black Thalid deck that focused on some early game ramp and discard to slow enemy plans and speed up into Thalid drops with Doubling Season in play. Black has a lot of removal options as well.

[@RedOphiuchus]

One thing that might be worth considering for these kinds of analysis is that tribal strategies are usually designed with limited in mind. You did mention limited a little but but only in passing. This is usually intentional because a lot of players feel like tribal decks have a "paint by the numbers" feel to them so they're deliberately not pushed to be top tiers in constructed so players can feel smarter when figuring out the best decks. (There are exceptions of course, Goblins, Elves, and sometimes Merfolk are occasionally competitive in eternal formats because of the massive support they've gotten over the entire lifetime of the game.) Fallen Empires was a really weak set from a time where 1 drops were often very bad so Thalid being a 1 drop that produces more creatures over time could have been good enough in a slow format, though bear in mind I've never played fallen empires limited to know for sure. Time spiral, on the other hand, had a lot of really strong stuff from what I remember and I don't think Thalids were strong in limited there but I could be wrong also. My point is just that their place in their respective limited formats could be a fun topic to go into greater detail with, since they are usually primarily designed for that, and it's also a topic that is hard to find discussions about. I realize that that means making the video about it will be harder but it also means that you can produce interesting information that isn't widely known at all.

[@67benn1995]

Spore flower was missed on this list. It was from the first set. Spore counter every turn, but instead of making saporlings, you remove 3 to make all creatures deal no damage this turn. Combine that with fungal bloom and 4 mana plus a turn, you can make your opponent unable to kill you with combat damage, making your other thalids get time to create tokens. Had a deck a few years ago based on it and did very well.

[@williamfarias7068]

Maybe, being primarily green, have an enchantment that give spore counters for each thallid you control. It would start weak, but scale as you get more thallids on the field. That would improve thallids greatly.

[@byeguyssry]

What if Thallids had a better early game? We combine both existing directions of having cards to spawn Saprolings, which can kick-start the cards that can sac Saprolings for an effect. However, if we gave them the ability to sac Saprolings for protection, this would allow them to survive longer to get the turns needed for enough spore counters for another Saproling. So the play pattern would be summoning Saprolings with cards that do mainly that, then placing down cards that can gain spore counters each turn with protective effects at the cost of sac-ing a Saproling. If your opponent tries to use removal, you Sac a Saproling to protect your Fungi. Your opponent runs out of Mana to cast removal, and 3 turns later your Fungi spawn more Saprolings, making you even more resistant to removal.

[@Shoyro]

I could see a change for Spore Counters that can work. Basically, a Thallid gets a keyword ability, like Indestructible, if they have a Spore Counter, but the Spore Counter(s) are automatically removed and creates a Saproling every turn. If not, you put a Spore Counter on the card.

[@mrapplegate4065]

I've actually mulled this one over a lot. I think that adding more cards like Sporoloth Ancient to the game could help a lot with how long it takes to build up a good fungus army. (For example, "remove a spore counter from a creature you control: target creature gains +1/+1 and trample until end of turn) It could help give players things to do in turns between token production.

[@japo3867]

In addition to giving Thallid's a spore counter every upkeep, not just your own (I'd do it by retcon errata, frankly, but it's solvable in a number of ways), you would probably need to look into some stall mechanics - something like using spores to give individual creatures protection/sac saps to give the whole board [color] protection, to get through board wipes, or something like "sac sap: target player needs to pay 1 more to cast a spell or ability" - That's sort of the bare minimum to make it playable. I'd focus on G or 1G for 0/2 or 0/3 creatures that were targeted narrowly to assist fungus creatures or spore counters/saporlings as an off-set. To make it competitive, I'd want to see 3 more cards - a cheap "1G Thallid Proliferator - T, sac saporling: Proliferate (but limit it to counters on fungus creatures)" - the limit makes it "technically" more balanced? I'd like to see a spore manager - a 1G Thallid that let you move spore counters around, so your 3 Thallids can make a saporling every turn, not make 3 saporlings after 3 turns, but also dual-typing all other counters on fungus creatures - so put 2 spores next to a spore/wither, and spend the 3 to make a sap, problem solved; or gather all the +1/+1 / spore counters onto one Thallid to make a beat stick if it's needed, before moving them off once the damage is on the stack to detonate an enemy without losing the counters, if you feel it's required - that sort of extra utility. Lastly, I'd like to see a speed starter/tutor. Something like "Fungal glade bloom (fungus tribal instant); B/G, you may pay xx life -or- X saporling tokens: Reveal cards from your library until x Fungus creature cards whose converted mana cost is X or less are revealed, place those Fungus creature cards into your hand. After you do so, return the other revealed card to the library and shuffle your deck. Fungus tribal spells cost 1/G less mana to cast until the end of this turn." A B/G to make Thallid's cheaper is cost effective as long as you cast at least two this turn - pretty easy, given how cheap Thallids are in general. Being able to pay 4 or 6 life to get card advantage that you probably can then play? Even better. Being able to convert excess saporlings into a search party to try and find your missing engine pieces mid-game? Heck yes!

[@themantyf1116]

Adding a spore counter every upkeep together with lowering the cost in general would have gone a great way to help the deck. Combined with the sacrifice effects and how well aristocrat strategies work in commander (which would eliminate the necessity of running white, though Ghave is still a decent Commander for the deck for providing fodder and interacting with the aristocrat components), plus token/counter doubling cards being kind of staples, and honestly a fungus precon would quite easily be a hit for providing a fun and fan-loved strategy. It doesn't hurt that the political aspect of the game can also work to help out lower-power decks. It is often said that having the weakest deck at the table means getting second place for a reason. So they wouldn't even need to be terribly powerful, just interesting.

[@antarath517]

Thallids need: Card advantage like Fungal Plots, but just more spins on it, and more tied in to other thallids. Have some variety with spore counters and let them draw Mana generation (tap or sac thallids for mana) Spore counter love (time spiral did that pretty decent tbf) Something like "Sac a thallid: target fungus gains indestructible till end of turn" I don't mind that thallids have trouble giving immediate value, the big issue is that they are vulnerable. Give them their own special graveyard interaction such as: "whenever a fungus or saproling you control dies, put a spore counter on this" "remove three spore counters: return target card from graveyard to hand" An ultimate such as: "Remove all spore counters from all creatures you control, then return any number of creatures from your graveyard to the battlefield under your control with total mana value less than or equal to the number of spore counters removed"

[@Spilsbury1989]

I spent £20 on thallid EDH about 10 years ago and its the gift that keeps on giving

[@doomexe]

You could just print more cards that put spore counters on each fungus, and other cards that give each fungus a spore counter ability and lastly fungi that do stuff on their own that. Or Enchantments that care about Thallids/Fungi. Would be a fitting for a Tribal Enchantment, which is actually the video that led me here and/or some kind of Fungus Tutor.

[@nharviala]

I feel like if each fungi placed a spore counter on each creature, it'd speed the deck up considerably, while also making sense on how fungi work in spreading spores.

[@Juggernautohyeah]

An interesting idea i had while watching this video (only even remotely viable in commander, even then, it's a bit of a set up): Sporesower Thallid in play, with Maskwood Nexus to make all your Saprolings also be Funguses so they get spore counters too. From here you can either use The Ozolith to collect all the extra spore counters from the Saps you sacrifice, or use Sporoloth Ancient so that your saps will be able to produce more saps themselves leading to potential exponential gains. Probably been tried before but it sounds fun.

[@squiiddpope7679]

Thallids were probably at their absolute best in Modern Masters limited. Because G/W's Archtype was "Go wide" with Thalids being the main focus. it was probably the 3rd best archtype in the format behind W/U Affinity and W/B Rebels. I still remember the dream "Thallid bowl" including about 2 of Sporesower and Sporeloth as well as Sandsowers to tap down creatures with the congaline of saprolings you were making and you major payoff was Echoing Courage to make every single Saproling a 3/3 for 2 mana

[@kralik394]

I know there are plenty of cards that have abilities where they are unaffected by targeted removal/disruption. Does the opposite exist? Where the card must be targeted to be affected by something, and immune to non-targeted effects? I would think that would shore up the big vulnerability to board wipes, and throw a bit of flavor onto Fungus cards.

[@bushido8077]

Back in time spiral, I made a legacy version of thallid plus splash of blue for paradox haze. Most of my opponent doesn't know how it work so it's a fun deck. They realised paradox haze is very important so they always target it when it's in play

[@SantisNight]

I'd like to raise: Atraxa, voice of the praetors as the commander for a saproiling tribal. Played this deck for years. Ghave, and slimefoot sit right there next to Mycoloth, deathspore thallid, Psycotrope, etc. that.. and the obv inclusion of token / counter doublers like doubling season, annointed procession, and parallel lives really make this mechanic worth it. even if you don't manage to grab any of the token doublers- Paradox Haze, and Atraxa's own proliferate abilities make it go. then there's populate effects. having Atraxa's access to blue gives you the ability to strategically counterspell. I'm honestly sad I've not played it more- just because i've not had anything interesting to add to it since Brother's War for Great Desert Prospector. that and Gala greeters from New Cappenna have been the only big mods on the last couple years. Is it competitive? fuck no. Is it optimized? fuck no. hell is it even consistent? not really. but is it fun to play? fuck yes it is. Oh that and running Myrkul and City of Shadows... treating Atraxa like a movie poster is hilarious sometimes. (sac Atraxa to city of shadows to get it's counter game kicked off, trigger Myrkul to turn her into a token enchantment that isn't a creature and you have access to 2x proliferate at your end step once you recast Atraxa. don't get me started on the weird multipliers you have to keep track of at the start and end of your turn. the deck is dumb, but I love it.

[@davidcampbell621]

They could make it playable I think, it just needs the right support. Imagine printing them in a set/meta with: A thallid that also acts like winding constrictor for fungi for 2-3 mana Thallids that let you sac saps for indestructible and hexproof (could be 2 cards) Primal vigor/doubling season Proliferate or a proliferate variant A cheaper sporesower with a weaker body. A couple instants/sorceries that make saprolings Dropping the thallid rule to 2 counters for a sap Convoke I think it could work out. Being able to at least partially dodge boardwipes would be super important though.

[@snowboundwhale6860]

Maybe something that'd work could be a legendary fungus that spreads spore counters around and instead of removing the counters for saprolings, has a passive that whenever a creature with spore counters dies it spawns saprolings based on the amount of counters. From there you can use sac outlets for other gains saccing spore'd creatures and tokens, which would spawn more tokens.

[@PrinceK0mali]

Tayam, Luminous Enigma might could be cool commander for Thalids. 3 mana to remove three spore counters from among creatures to mill three and return a creature 3 CMC or less allows for some interesting card advantage as they're constantly gaining counters to remove. Tayam also gives Vigilance counters to anything on ETB and doesn't say non-token so if you decide to use the Thalid's to make Sappies they too will get counters to use with Tayam. All this in the three Thalid colors.

[@Oxygen1004]

I would have liked if they took it into the "Thelon" method of having bonuses for stacking spore counters, something like "Each creature you control gets Ward {1} for each spore counter on it" or "Each creature you control with 3 or more spore coutners has first strike" while also having ways to midigate the downside of having to use spore counters to make tokens, either through making them cost less or putting spore counters on everything whenever you sac a sap

[@Timecunning]

It would be a nightmare for organizing you could have them get a counter in play OR in your graveyard keeping the counters when they do change zones (if between grave and play). This would make them a potentially strong tribe if they are "alive" for a long period and generate a unique spot for them to be in. (if an arena card keeping counters in any zone)

[@llerradschmidt537]

Im building a Thallid deck in simic colors utilizing the proliferate mechanic to boost spore counter production. Idk if thatll fix the issues but im excited to try it out

[@nnydepp]

They could fix it with the power rate of the amount of spore counters to do things. Example for an uncommon fungus that has the ability of "remove one spore counter make a 0/1 saproling, remove two make a 1/1, etc." And ratchet up the abilities with the rarity rates.

[@Xenozfan2]

Each upkeep is interesting. I would have gone with "Remove two spore counters among permanents you control:". It encourages you to go wide and allows you to flood the board quite quickly if you have enough cheap thallids.

[@thaneofstuff7340]

Love me some Thallids. I did build the Thelon deck and I have a Ghave deck that's just basic aristocrats as well. The cool thing with Ghave and Utopia Mycon is that just about any third synergy piece with those two cards allows you to go infinite. Anything that gives extra counters or tokens and a payoff for all the etb, deaths, and counters you build up and you've got a good gameplan. That said the Thelon deck is extremely lopsided in power level. I have so many amazing 2020+ green cards to save a board, draw cards, and build a board for my Thallids but wow is it hard to kill people. Thelon is very helpful when I proliferate a lot and then I can end the game with an Akroma's Memorial so I wouldn't call in an unsynergetic commander, but there could definitely be a better face card someday, if they return to Spore counters. In modern day cards, I could see there being a 1 mana enchantment that put a spore counter on each of your fungi creatures at the beginning of your upkeep which could really speed up the saproling clock, and then maybe had some other kind of proliferate ability or saproling sacrifice ability to use with the spore counters. Could be cool.

[@chiblast100x]

If I were to, through some impossible means, be put in charge of designing Thalids from the ground up I'd personally design them to be a pure Golgari graveyard hate tribal. Each gets the "during your upkeep put a spore counter on this". Each also gets "exile target creature card from any graveyard, put spore counters on this equal to it's mana value". The differences from there are how they use those counters.

[@johnk2506]

During Time Spiral it was best to play BG Thallids. That way you could run multiple copies of Paradox Haze to "ramp" your spore counters. That was when it was considered a relatively worthless uncommon.

[@wiebeengelen3375]

A really interesting commander for a fungus commander deck would sound something like this in my opinion "at the beginning of your upkeep, put a spore counter on each fungus you control. Pay x and remove x spore counters from creatures you control, target creature gains -x/-x"

[@EspherMercury]

Spore counter each turn or some kind of effect to let you move spore counters around when creatures die (e.g. an alternative take on Ozolith, though Ozolith also 'works') would probably give the mechanic more legs, yeah.

[@Nhawk316]

-Fungus and Saprolings you control get +1/+1. -Spore counters on permanents you control are put in each upkeep istead. -Remove 3 spore counters from a permanent you control and choose one: precon commander gets hexproof until end of turn,put 2 saps into play or add 2 mana of any one color to your pool.

[@salvatorestabile5547]

Wouldn't need Thallid for the first ability as that is not a creature type

[@Nhawk316]

@@salvatorestabile5547 fixed it

[@CocoMura]

Ran this. Use 4x [[!Paradox Haze]] (and a few [[!Strionic Resonator]] if you wanted to twist the knife more) Also you forgot the spore counter card that "Fog"s :3 Love the video.

[@teridax4]

I use Thallids in my Myrkul deck. He covers a lot of the weaknesses they usually have. If my thallids get dry before hand it lets me turn them into enchantments that are harder to destroy and cards like doubling season and the ozilith let me keep my spore counters up

[@braverzero3709]

I've tried a few times to work with a plant theme deck - I've often felt like, with cards like the 'the World Sculptor' (the Gruul Plant thing that's like put 4 [fucking FOUR] +1/+1 counters on a plant you control) that these Saprolings / fungi cards would be way better if they were "Plant" as well as "fungus" type. It is probably a bigger change than I'm envisioning, but I often think we could have like n'th degree more card interactions if certain cards had just an additional 'type' to them. There's so many "Human Elf Rogue Dragon Advisor"s (cards with a bunch of random types) I feel like it hurts certain 'tribal' decks to force them to be just one creature type. Sphinx, Horror, and Plant are 3 examples where I feel like we could easily have some more creatures in the 'tribe' that have more cohesion. It's a shame when I have to play a random, unrelated card just for an effect that I need in the deck if it's a tribal. i.e. I was running an "eye" based deck (Eyewitch, Curtain of concealment, Curse of Surveilance, and Beholders) - 'eye' is actually a creature type, but there's like 4 of them. Besides the beholders of course. But then why can't they be EYE Horrror Beholder or Eye Beholder something. Know what I mean?

[@phyrexian_dude4645]

As a Fungus tribal connoisseur, the only way to fix spore counters its either reduce the amount of spore counters, that they get them during each upkeep or they get them as a triggered/activated ability. Also, the tribe as a whole needs more support. Prolifarete was a blessing for it but its not enough if most Fungus are unplayable. They are still weak to wraths but that goes for most tribal decks, except zombies. The other direction Fungus could take its the Ghave route. Instead of spore counters they take advantage of +1/+1 counters which are more generic in the game as a whole... Yes, i know that they could have the potencial to become combo gods like Ghave is but at least the tribe would be more proactive on the idea of building a board over time instead of just not doing nothing until the engine has all its pieces ready to build a board.

[@Bongus_Bubogus]

Spore counters seems good with proliferating. Blue adds great cards for support, plus Paradox Haze for all those upkeep triggers. If adding white to keep options and availability to use all Thallids open…you want a Witch-maw commander that proliferates…goddamit.

[@lissythearchitect]

Interesting. The only Thallid deck I tried was Green/White. White for Castle (to defend the Thallids/ yourself) and Army of Allah (to make them effective on attack). Probably Giant Growth, though I don't recall. Lure/Basilisk to allow for clears of the enemy creatures, Disenchant/Swords to Plowshares to remove annoying cards. I may have had a Green 6/4 or two in the deck, and likely some White Knights (which were excellent, cheap cards), probably with a Serra Angel or two (to deal with flyers). I did not sacrifice Thallids. Worked well in the group I was in, but most of them were not strong players. Games with this deck tended to take a few turns longer to win than most decks I created and bothered to play with, but usually I'd get a few more creatures than my opponent could, and could swamp them with enough damage that they could not recover/died on the first major attack. From my experience with the deck, I would rate it as slightly below average at the time (shortly after the release of fallen empires). I'd guess I had a roughly 80% win rate against the stronger players I played against with the deck, which was lower than normal. Now, I don't think it would work as well any more. For one, the increase in minimum deck sizes from 40-> 60 makes the 4/deck restriction more important, and there just weren't that many Thallids generating saporlings to start with. I assume Army of Allah and/or Swords to Plowshares is banned, or at least out of print. I also have not seen Castle recently. Also, there seem to be a lot of other, likely better, options to create a similar deck.

[@chrisschweitzer1161]

My angle would be to change the purpose of the spore counters.If they all got better depending on how many counters were on them but also had an ability that said Sacrifice a Saporling: this creature gains indestructible until end of turn. That way you can save them from what they are weak against but by doing so it takes you further away from having the requisite # of spore counters you would want. Creates tension in the amount of spore counters that are on each.

[@TheKapuzina]

i loved them, i even had a block deck back then - black green thalids

[@TheStephenation]

I ran a Thelon of Havenwood EDH deck last year. After getting utterly pubstomped in most of my games, I eventually won a game by successfully hiding behind a Glacial Chasm for about 4 hours. Even taking steps to give Thelon and thallids a boost (Evolution Sage, Pitiless Plunderer, Winding Constrictor, Doubling Season, etc.), they'd still just get either killed or outpaced by pretty much any opponent.

[@umbrezi6216]

Slimefoot works perfectly with thallids as a commander and turns slow value generation into a slow but explosive deck that, if you can get rolling, is really hard to deal with because boardwipes mean losing a ton of health

[@gregconen]

It seems like a tribe that actually could have OK resilience to sweepers, if it has enough sacrifice effects that give other advantages. If you can sacrifice your board to draw a bunch of cards, etc, that would help a lot. Of course, it has an effect like that now, but not the density it would need.