Help tightening up Villain Mayhem/Connive deck
Asked previously, kept tinkering, hopefully having a moxfield link instead of manually linking to each card will make things easier on you guys since I never got a response
Hoping to find a way to make this more consistent - if I can't get Doc Ock on the board, I spend a lot of time mid game just playing a land and passing
https://moxfield.com/decks/Xsgs2wK27k6xOvnzMEhYEQ
Ultimate Green Goblin & a Raging Goblinoid can swing for 10 damage on T4, along with UGG helping with Mana by producing a treasure token every turn
Shadow of the Goblin + Construct a Cosmic Cube gives a Villain token on the board every turn, with Doom Reigns Supreme sweeting the pot
Hydra Assault Robots + Mysterio can be a bomb
Sandman's Quicksand is in the sideboard for tribal decks (goblins / Cats / Elves that have a lot of sub 3 toughness cards with vicious effects that add up)
I think there's a very good deck hidden somewhere in here
EDIT: Forgot to mention, Norman Osborn's in there as early game Conniving and late game card discounts when he turns everything into having Mayhem
5 comments · 100% upvoted · other discussions
The best way to make a deck more consistent is to play most of your cards at 4 copies, so you'll see them more often.
You're running relatively few creatures for something that's presumably trying to be an assertive deck. Your mana curve is also pretty high, with only 13 things to do on turn 1 or 2 and 11 spells and mana value 5 or above. Your mana base is quite shaky, with not enough blue sources and too many tapped lands.
Standard is a pretty powerful format. 10 damage on turn 4 isn't all that crazy and you usually can't play 7-mana cards "fairly". You have some reanimation, but not enough to do so reliably.
So, first you should decide if you want this to be a Reanimator deck that aims to get Doctor Octopus out as quickly as possible or more of a Villains or Mayhem deck, in which case you probably don't run Doctor Octopus and the reanimation package at all.
For Reanimator, you probably won't run all that many other Villains and instead more cheap reanimation spells like [[Superior Spider-Man]] and [[Zombify]], other great reanimation targets like [[Ardyn, the Usurper]] or [[Valgavoth, Terror Eater]] and better ways to put your reanimation targets in the graveyard like [[Overlord of the Balemurk]] and [[Bitter Triumph]].
If you want to focus on Villains, you need cheaper payoffs than Vulture and Doctor Octopus. Go up to 4 copies of Doom Reigns Supreme and HYDRA Assault Robot and consider cards like [[Tombstone, Career Criminal]] or [[Avengers: Under Siege]]. Also, you probably want to increase your density of creatures. [[Agents of HYDRA]], [[Morlun, Devourer of Spiders]], [[The Ruinous Wrecking Crew]] or [[Elektra, Daughter of the Hand]] could all be good options. The Spot's Portal and Venom's Hunger are a pretty bad cards, even if you go all in on Villains, see below for alternatives.
To maximise Mayhem, go up on the number of Norman Osborn, Ultimate Green Goblin and Shadow of the Goblin and add some more aggressive Mayhem creatures like [[Scarlet Spider, Kaine]] or [[Carnage, Crimson Chaos]] or some general discard payoff like [[Monument to Endurance]]. [[Kefka, Court Mage]] and [[Fear of Missing Out]] could also be nice enablers.
Death to Our Enemies doesn't really synergize with any of those plans and can probably be cut and your removal suite also isn't very good. Electro's Bolt, Shock, The Spot's Portal, Venom's Hunger, Whoosh!, Wisecrack could all be replaced with some combination of [[Requiting Hex]], Bitter Triumph, [[Shoot the Sheriff]], [[Strategic Betrayal]] or [[Burst Lightning]]. Maybe [[Nameless Inversion]] in Villains or [[The Death of Gwen Stacy]] in Reanimator.
thisusedyet [OP] 1 points · Sep 2026
Tried to lean more into mayhem/connive, while also staying within the two Marvel sets - this on the right track, or making things worse?
https://moxfield.com/decks/CoULKNZdmUuJOyzc_7gxGw
Maybe I'm just not imaginative enough, but Scarlet Spider, Kaine didn't really impress me. Yes, can get him out for 1 mana, but you'd need to have a chain of cheap mayhem cards to not just have a 3/2 with menace that can only have one copy at a time on the board
Edit: The first couple games certainly feel better
herranym 2 points · Sep 2026
It certainly looks more focussed. I'm still worried about the low number of early plays, your colors, the number of 2-ofs and now also the low number of interaction.
Staying within the Marvel sets is a serious limitation and you'll probably need to play some of the suboptimal removal spells instead of cutting them completely. I'm thinking some combination of [[Shock]], [[Dark Deed]], [[The Death of Gwen Stacy]] or [[Elektra, Daughter of the Hand]].
Same for your mana base, you probably want full playsets of [[Dark Fortess]], [[Hidden Lair]] and [[Multiversal Passage]] to cast all your spells on time reliably.
Without any discard enablers or payoffs from the outside the Marvel sets, options for a "pure" Mayhem deck are a bit slim, so you could consider adding more villain payoffs (Doom Reigns Supreme, HYDRA Assault Robot, Tombstone, Career Criminal, Avengers: Under Siege). The Ruinous Wrecking Crew would probably also synergize nicely. Spider-Villagers isn't very good anyway and could safely be cut. Similarly, you also don't have much reason to still play Prison Break.