This list is the conversion of my Oros Equipment deck to Jor Kadeen. Still Equipment, but now with more Metalcraft and more metal!
Creatures
Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer
Serra Ascendant
Weathered Wayfarer
Stoneforge Mystic
Puresteel Palladin
Kemba, Kha Regent
Mirran Crusader
Taj-Nar Swordsmith
Hero of the Bladehold
Reveillark
Stonehewer Giant
Sun Titan
Spikeshot Elder
Flametongue Kavu
Vulshok Battlemaster
Urabrask the Hidden
Godo, Bandit Warlord
Inferno Titan
Figure of Destiny
Boros Swiftblade
Duergar Hedge-Mage
Hearthfire Hobgoblin
Sunhome Enforcer
Argus Kos, Wojek Veteran
Brass Squire
Etched Champion
Solemn Simulacrum
Wurmcoil Engine
Myr Battlesphere
Spells and Stuff
Path to Exile
Swords to Plowshares
Steelshaper's Gift
Enlightened Tutor
Remember the Fallen
Orim's Thunder
Second Sunrise
Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Return to Dust
Day of Judgement
Austere Command
Reverberate
Chaos Warp
Wheel of Fortune
Wild Ricochet
In the Web of War
Glory of Warfare
Order // Chaos
Skullclamp
Basilisk Collar
Lightning Greaves
Nim Deathmantle
Sword of Fire and Ice
Sword of Light and Shadow
Sword of Feast and Famine
Sword of War and Peace
Sword of Vengeance
Sunforger
Sol Ring
Exepdition Map
Darksteel Ingot
Coalition Relic
Temple Bell
Mind's Eye
Citanul Flute
Lands
Plains x7
Mountain x7
Sacred Foundry
Rugged Prairie
Battlefield Forge
City of Brass
Ancient Ampitheater
Boros Garrison
Scabland
Arid Mesa
Vivid Meadow
Vivid Crag
New Benalia
Misveil Plains
Secluded Steppe
Forbidding Watchtower
Ancient Den
Forgotten Cave
Ghitu Encampment
Great Furnace
Kor Haven
High Market
Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
Darksteel Citadel
Things I want to add:
Inkmoth Nexus
Sword of Body and Mind
Mox Opal
Duplicant
Boros Signet
Scroll Rack
Swiftfoot Boots
Land Tax
Dispense Justice
Scepter of Dominance
Master's Call
Ranger of Eos
Sanctum Gargoyle
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Wrecks Y'all
Um... decklist, yo.
Creatures
Wrexial, the Risen Deep
Riddlekeeper
Jace's Archivist
Phyrexian Metamorph
Mulldrifter
Body Double
River Kelpie
Consecrated Sphinx
Sphinx of Uthuun
Chancellor of the Spires
Fleshbag Marauder
Big Game Hunter
Dimir House Guard
Shriekmaw
Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Puppeteer Clique
Geth, Lord of the Vault
Scythe Specter
Shadowmage Infiltrator
Nemesis of Reason
Mindleech Mass
Solemn Simulacrum
Steel Hellkite
Duplicant
Spells and Stuff
Twincast
Call to Mind
Fact of Fiction
Mystical Teachings
Deep Analysis
Rite of Replication
Treachery
Bribery
Jace, Memory Adept
Volition Reins
Knowledge Exploitation
Vampiric Tutor
Demonic Tutor
Go for the Throat
Words of Waste
Bottomless Pit
Praetor's Grasp
Reckless Spite
Unnerve
Syphon Mind
Damnation
Beacon of Unreast
Liliana Vess
Life's Finale
Decree of Pain
Suffer the Past
Profane Command
Black Sun's Zenith
Recoil
Memory Plunder
Spinal Embrace
Lightning Greaves
Mimic Vat
Geth's Grimoire
Sol Ring
Expedition Map
Dimir Signet
Darksteel Ingot
Coalition Relic
Lands
Island x8
Swamp x8
Minamo, School at Water's Edge
Halimar Depths
Lonely Sandbar
Tolaria West
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Cabal Coffers
Bojuka Bog
Barren Moor
Watery Grave
Dreadship Reef
Creeping Tar Pit
Underground River
Drowned Catacomb
Tainted Isle
Dimir Aqueduct
Terramorphic Expanse
Evolving Wilds
Duskmantle, House of Shadow
Hall of the Bandit Lord
Temple of the False God
Reliquary Tower
I've already done commentary on this one once, and it's been updated slightly since then, but not much. Mostly just the new Jace from M12 and Hall of the Bandit Lord for Hastey Wrexial beats.
Enjoy.
Creatures
Wrexial, the Risen Deep
Riddlekeeper
Jace's Archivist
Phyrexian Metamorph
Mulldrifter
Body Double
River Kelpie
Consecrated Sphinx
Sphinx of Uthuun
Chancellor of the Spires
Fleshbag Marauder
Big Game Hunter
Dimir House Guard
Shriekmaw
Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Puppeteer Clique
Geth, Lord of the Vault
Scythe Specter
Shadowmage Infiltrator
Nemesis of Reason
Mindleech Mass
Solemn Simulacrum
Steel Hellkite
Duplicant
Spells and Stuff
Twincast
Call to Mind
Fact of Fiction
Mystical Teachings
Deep Analysis
Rite of Replication
Treachery
Bribery
Jace, Memory Adept
Volition Reins
Knowledge Exploitation
Vampiric Tutor
Demonic Tutor
Go for the Throat
Words of Waste
Bottomless Pit
Praetor's Grasp
Reckless Spite
Unnerve
Syphon Mind
Damnation
Beacon of Unreast
Liliana Vess
Life's Finale
Decree of Pain
Suffer the Past
Profane Command
Black Sun's Zenith
Recoil
Memory Plunder
Spinal Embrace
Lightning Greaves
Mimic Vat
Geth's Grimoire
Sol Ring
Expedition Map
Dimir Signet
Darksteel Ingot
Coalition Relic
Lands
Island x8
Swamp x8
Minamo, School at Water's Edge
Halimar Depths
Lonely Sandbar
Tolaria West
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Cabal Coffers
Bojuka Bog
Barren Moor
Watery Grave
Dreadship Reef
Creeping Tar Pit
Underground River
Drowned Catacomb
Tainted Isle
Dimir Aqueduct
Terramorphic Expanse
Evolving Wilds
Duskmantle, House of Shadow
Hall of the Bandit Lord
Temple of the False God
Reliquary Tower
I've already done commentary on this one once, and it's been updated slightly since then, but not much. Mostly just the new Jace from M12 and Hall of the Bandit Lord for Hastey Wrexial beats.
Enjoy.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Ghave, Guru of Spores - Final List
And I'm back with another list, this time for Ghave, Guru of Spores. I've long been of the opinion that Token decks are, usually, pretty weak in EDH. I've played against a few Rhys the Redeemed decks in my time, and to be perfectly frank, I found them rather easy to defeat.
Counterpunch changes all that, though. Ghave is a powerhouse at churning out tokens and grinding out incremental advantages over the course of a game, and the benefits of having access to Black gives us a lot of important tools that Rhys had to do without. Grave Pact and Attrition, for example, are huge bombs that Ghave is in a unique position to exploit.
Ghave makes tokens very cheaply and efficiently, and just as cheaply converts them into +1/+1 counters where needed most. One of the first and most basic applications of Ghave's abilities is to attack with multiple creatures and, once blockers are declared, use Ghave to move as many +1/+1 counters as possible onto something that didn't get blocked.
But, one of the greatest joys of playing this deck was discovering the multitudes of less-obvious applications. For example, you can put counters on an opponent's creatures when they attack another opponent, making their attack suddenly lethal... I once enabled my Edric, Spymaster of Trest opponent to kill another opponent with General Damage by putting 13 or so counters on Edric. No one was expecting to die to 21 General Damage from Edric, but I made it happen, surprising the hell out of the Edric player and the player being attacked! Watch out, though cause you can't take the counters off of a creature you don't control, even if Ghave put them there.
I don't want to spoil all the fun, though, because that's half the fun of playing this deck... so I'll jut get to the list.
Creatures
Ghave, Guru of Spores
Twilight Drover
Mirror Entity
Academy Rector
Emeria Angel
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobyte
Fleshbag Marauder
Shriekmaw
Puppeteer Clique
Phyrexian Plaguelord
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Fertilid
Eternal Witness
Forgotten Ancient
Mitotic Slime
Acidic Slime
Primeval Titan
Vigor
Hornet Queen
Avenger of Zendikar
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
Kitchen Finks
Knight of the Reliquary
Juniper Order Ranger
Teneb, the Harvester
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter
Karador, Ghost Chieftan
Mindless Automaton
Spells and Stuff
Ajani Goldmane
Elspeth Tirel
Martyr's Bond
Hour of Reckoning
Storm Herd
Attrition
Vigor Mortis
Barter in Blood
Reprocess
Grave Pact
Awakening Zone
Fecundity
Cultivate
Harmonize
Doubling Season
Aura Mutation
Putrefy
Mortify
Vindicate
Aura Shards
Glare of Subdual
Mirari's Wake
Crime // Punishment
Sol Ring
Selesnaya Signet
Orzhov Signet
Golgari Signet
Darksteel Ingot
Lightning Greaves
Blade of the Bloodchief
Skullclamp
Druidic Satchel
Acorn Catapult
Eldrazi Monument
Lands
38 Lands, including the following:
Gaea's Cradel
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
Volrath's Stronghold
Kor Haven
Ok, first let's get to the elephant in the room, shall we? Doubling Season should have been in this deck. The casual-only Enchantment has seen ZERO competitive play (to the best of my knowledge), but has reached asinine prices due solely to it's huge popularity with the kitchen-table crowd. It's such a damn good card that interacts with a million different things, so it makes sense that it should be one of the most sought-after casual cards in the Ravnica block. But it also would have made sense for WotC to toss us a bone and reprint it in this deck. Alas, they did not, so we must manage on our own. Fortunately I picked up a few when they were about $5 a pop. But, folks, lemme say this: whatever price they command today, if your serious about playing a Ghave deck, PAY IT. It will be worth it.
Moving on, let's talk about parity. Ghave is very cheap and efficient at what he does, but without some outside help, he can't generate a profit of resources. He can turn creatures into counters and counters into creatures, but he needs help to generate more than what he starts with. Doubling Season is just one of the tools that can help Ghave start producing at a profit. For every counter you remove, you get two tokens, one of which you can sac to get two +1/+1 counters. Viola! for 2 colorless mana you just magically gave Ghave an extra +1/+1 counter and made a 1/1 token. Thusly, you can turn every mana you spend into a counter or a token without ever running out of counters or tokens to sacrifice.
Next to Doubling Season, Blade of the Bloodcheif is probably the next best option. Equipping the Guru with this little Blade lets him turn one creature into two +1/+1 counters, but it doesn't work the other way around. Other such cards include: Druidic Satchel, Acorn Catapult, Awakening Zone, Ajani Goldmane, Juniper Order Range, Skullbriar, Vigor, Forgotten Ancient, Emeria Angel, and Twilight Drover. All of these are capable of generating tokens or counters without having to convert one into the other, so combined with Ghave and a sizeable quantity of mana, can generate counters or tokens at a profit. If left unanswered you will continuously generate more and more creatures that will grow and grow.
The real fun is when you get two or three of these incremental-advantage engines going at once - your army will grow exponentially. Some of the options about are a bit slow or unwieldy, but they all have their individual niches where they're quite useful.
Turning those resources into cards is also a neat trick. Reprocess, Skullclamp and Mindless Automaton are good examples of how to achieve this.
Speaking of mana... Gaea's Cradle is easily the second most important card in my list, next to Doubling Season (and not counting Ghave, as he's a gimme). Gaea's Cradle is one of those cards that can single-handedly dominate a game. Well, not single-handedly, I guess - all it does is make mana, so you need something to DO with that mana... but once the Cradle gets rolling it is VERY difficult to stop Ghave from completely dominating the table.
If you're willing to shell out some serious cash to make the deck really sing for you, Gaea's Cradle should be either #1 or #2 on your list, possibly above Doubling Season, but I'm leaning slightly toward the Enchantment, myself.
Academy Rector is pretty clutch, too, since two of the absolute best cards in the deck are Grave Pact and Doubling Season - she'll fetch whichever of those you need most (and, how convenient! Ghave has a built-in sacrifice ability!), and if you're lucky enough to draw both of those targets, she also gets Martyr's Bond or Glare of Subdual.
Phyrexian Plaguelord is a fucking HOUSE. That is all.
Primeval Titan and Knight of the Reliquary... both are such amazing cards in their own right, but here they pretty much exist to find Gaea's Cradle, and once you have the Cradle, their really kinda "meh". Oh, but if you find your Cradle getting popped with Acidic Slimes or Vindicates too often, throw in Mistviel Plains to keep putting Cradle into your library so that KotR or Prime Time can keep digging it back out for you.
Skullbriar is pretty sweet in this deck. I like to use him as a cache for my counters in case of Wrath. Just use all available mana to put as many +1/+1 counters on him as possible, then if you have a reanimation spell or Karador or something, you can bring him back with all of those counters stored safely away with him.
The last card I want to address is Fecundity. I know this effect is "symmetrical" in that your opponents get to draw cards when their dudes bite it. But trust me on this: you will draw 10 times as many cards as any of your opponents ever will. You just wouldn't believe how many times you'll sac a token for some other effect - getting to draw a card on top of that effect is just too damn good. Fecundity might help your opponents out a little here and there - honestly just enough that it might even buy you a little bit of political favor. But by the end of the game, you should be miles ahead in card advantage - enough so that what little help your opponents get off your Fecundity, you will still be so far ahead it won't matter.
Oh, almost forgot - if your group is fine with Infect cards, try Triumph of the Hordes for OMG WIN OUT OF NOWHERE!
Well, that's all for Ghave. Next up I think it'll be Jor Kadeen, but I haven't made my mind up.
Enjoy.
Counterpunch changes all that, though. Ghave is a powerhouse at churning out tokens and grinding out incremental advantages over the course of a game, and the benefits of having access to Black gives us a lot of important tools that Rhys had to do without. Grave Pact and Attrition, for example, are huge bombs that Ghave is in a unique position to exploit.
Ghave makes tokens very cheaply and efficiently, and just as cheaply converts them into +1/+1 counters where needed most. One of the first and most basic applications of Ghave's abilities is to attack with multiple creatures and, once blockers are declared, use Ghave to move as many +1/+1 counters as possible onto something that didn't get blocked.
But, one of the greatest joys of playing this deck was discovering the multitudes of less-obvious applications. For example, you can put counters on an opponent's creatures when they attack another opponent, making their attack suddenly lethal... I once enabled my Edric, Spymaster of Trest opponent to kill another opponent with General Damage by putting 13 or so counters on Edric. No one was expecting to die to 21 General Damage from Edric, but I made it happen, surprising the hell out of the Edric player and the player being attacked! Watch out, though cause you can't take the counters off of a creature you don't control, even if Ghave put them there.
I don't want to spoil all the fun, though, because that's half the fun of playing this deck... so I'll jut get to the list.
Creatures
Ghave, Guru of Spores
Twilight Drover
Mirror Entity
Academy Rector
Emeria Angel
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobyte
Fleshbag Marauder
Shriekmaw
Puppeteer Clique
Phyrexian Plaguelord
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Fertilid
Eternal Witness
Forgotten Ancient
Mitotic Slime
Acidic Slime
Primeval Titan
Vigor
Hornet Queen
Avenger of Zendikar
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
Kitchen Finks
Knight of the Reliquary
Juniper Order Ranger
Teneb, the Harvester
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter
Karador, Ghost Chieftan
Mindless Automaton
Spells and Stuff
Ajani Goldmane
Elspeth Tirel
Martyr's Bond
Hour of Reckoning
Storm Herd
Attrition
Vigor Mortis
Barter in Blood
Reprocess
Grave Pact
Awakening Zone
Fecundity
Cultivate
Harmonize
Doubling Season
Aura Mutation
Putrefy
Mortify
Vindicate
Aura Shards
Glare of Subdual
Mirari's Wake
Crime // Punishment
Sol Ring
Selesnaya Signet
Orzhov Signet
Golgari Signet
Darksteel Ingot
Lightning Greaves
Blade of the Bloodchief
Skullclamp
Druidic Satchel
Acorn Catapult
Eldrazi Monument
Lands
38 Lands, including the following:
Gaea's Cradel
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
Volrath's Stronghold
Kor Haven
Ok, first let's get to the elephant in the room, shall we? Doubling Season should have been in this deck. The casual-only Enchantment has seen ZERO competitive play (to the best of my knowledge), but has reached asinine prices due solely to it's huge popularity with the kitchen-table crowd. It's such a damn good card that interacts with a million different things, so it makes sense that it should be one of the most sought-after casual cards in the Ravnica block. But it also would have made sense for WotC to toss us a bone and reprint it in this deck. Alas, they did not, so we must manage on our own. Fortunately I picked up a few when they were about $5 a pop. But, folks, lemme say this: whatever price they command today, if your serious about playing a Ghave deck, PAY IT. It will be worth it.
Moving on, let's talk about parity. Ghave is very cheap and efficient at what he does, but without some outside help, he can't generate a profit of resources. He can turn creatures into counters and counters into creatures, but he needs help to generate more than what he starts with. Doubling Season is just one of the tools that can help Ghave start producing at a profit. For every counter you remove, you get two tokens, one of which you can sac to get two +1/+1 counters. Viola! for 2 colorless mana you just magically gave Ghave an extra +1/+1 counter and made a 1/1 token. Thusly, you can turn every mana you spend into a counter or a token without ever running out of counters or tokens to sacrifice.
Next to Doubling Season, Blade of the Bloodcheif is probably the next best option. Equipping the Guru with this little Blade lets him turn one creature into two +1/+1 counters, but it doesn't work the other way around. Other such cards include: Druidic Satchel, Acorn Catapult, Awakening Zone, Ajani Goldmane, Juniper Order Range, Skullbriar, Vigor, Forgotten Ancient, Emeria Angel, and Twilight Drover. All of these are capable of generating tokens or counters without having to convert one into the other, so combined with Ghave and a sizeable quantity of mana, can generate counters or tokens at a profit. If left unanswered you will continuously generate more and more creatures that will grow and grow.
The real fun is when you get two or three of these incremental-advantage engines going at once - your army will grow exponentially. Some of the options about are a bit slow or unwieldy, but they all have their individual niches where they're quite useful.
Turning those resources into cards is also a neat trick. Reprocess, Skullclamp and Mindless Automaton are good examples of how to achieve this.
Speaking of mana... Gaea's Cradle is easily the second most important card in my list, next to Doubling Season (and not counting Ghave, as he's a gimme). Gaea's Cradle is one of those cards that can single-handedly dominate a game. Well, not single-handedly, I guess - all it does is make mana, so you need something to DO with that mana... but once the Cradle gets rolling it is VERY difficult to stop Ghave from completely dominating the table.
If you're willing to shell out some serious cash to make the deck really sing for you, Gaea's Cradle should be either #1 or #2 on your list, possibly above Doubling Season, but I'm leaning slightly toward the Enchantment, myself.
Academy Rector is pretty clutch, too, since two of the absolute best cards in the deck are Grave Pact and Doubling Season - she'll fetch whichever of those you need most (and, how convenient! Ghave has a built-in sacrifice ability!), and if you're lucky enough to draw both of those targets, she also gets Martyr's Bond or Glare of Subdual.
Phyrexian Plaguelord is a fucking HOUSE. That is all.
Primeval Titan and Knight of the Reliquary... both are such amazing cards in their own right, but here they pretty much exist to find Gaea's Cradle, and once you have the Cradle, their really kinda "meh". Oh, but if you find your Cradle getting popped with Acidic Slimes or Vindicates too often, throw in Mistviel Plains to keep putting Cradle into your library so that KotR or Prime Time can keep digging it back out for you.
Skullbriar is pretty sweet in this deck. I like to use him as a cache for my counters in case of Wrath. Just use all available mana to put as many +1/+1 counters on him as possible, then if you have a reanimation spell or Karador or something, you can bring him back with all of those counters stored safely away with him.
The last card I want to address is Fecundity. I know this effect is "symmetrical" in that your opponents get to draw cards when their dudes bite it. But trust me on this: you will draw 10 times as many cards as any of your opponents ever will. You just wouldn't believe how many times you'll sac a token for some other effect - getting to draw a card on top of that effect is just too damn good. Fecundity might help your opponents out a little here and there - honestly just enough that it might even buy you a little bit of political favor. But by the end of the game, you should be miles ahead in card advantage - enough so that what little help your opponents get off your Fecundity, you will still be so far ahead it won't matter.
Oh, almost forgot - if your group is fine with Infect cards, try Triumph of the Hordes for OMG WIN OUT OF NOWHERE!
Well, that's all for Ghave. Next up I think it'll be Jor Kadeen, but I haven't made my mind up.
Enjoy.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Kaalia of the Vast - Final List
Well, I finally get to a list where I actually used the primary General of the deck. With Animar and Damia, I opted for the alternate Legends. I chose Damia over Mimeoplasm because Damia draws cards, obviously. And I retooled my Riku deck into Animar mainly because one of my regular playgroup members kinda staked his claim to Riku right away and I never actually got to play my Riku deck.
Anyway, Kaalia of the Vast was just far more compelling than Tariel and I already had an Oros deck wherein the Dragon was a big fat do-nothing who prefered to lead from the rear, only stepping onto the battlefield when he could wield his Basilisk Collar to wipe the field.
I had fun playing the deck, but it was remarkably inconsistent and either won fast or lost slowly... oh so very slowly. Anyone who knows me knows how much I detest being in top-deck mode, and this deck was very much a top-deck kind of deck. I crammed in all the questionable card draw I could fit and still frequently ran out of steam before anyone else did.
When the deck didn't choke, though, it was a huge blast to play as their really is something to be said for cheating into play big, expensive Demons, Dragons and of course Angels. So, for all you Timmies out there, here is the Kaalia list I finally settled on.
Creatures
Kaalia of the Vast
Mother of Runes
Wall of Reverence
Academy Rector
Karmic Guide
Baneslayer Angel
Aegis Angel
Deathless Angel
Yosei, the Morning Star
Archangel of Strife
Akroma, Angel of Wrath
Blood Speaker
Seizan, Perverter of Truth
Rune-Scarred Demon
Reiver Demon
Kuro, Pitlord
Anger
Oni of Wild Places
Mana-Charged Dragon
Dragon Mage
Bogardan Hellkite
Dragon Tyrant
Duergar Hedge-Mage
Brion Stoutarm
Basandra, Battle Seraph
Malfegor
Bladewing the Risen
Angel of Despair
Razia, Boros Archangel
Solemn Simulacrum
Spells and Stuff
Land Tax
Path to Exile
Oblation
Orim's Thunder
Congregate
Angelic Benediction
Return to Dust
Akroma's Vengeance
True Conviction
Phyrexian Reclamation
Syphon Mind
Diabolic Tutor
Promise of Power
Decree of Pain
Wheel of Fortune
Sneak Attack
In the Web of War
Warstorm Surge
Earthquake
Terminate
Mortify
Vindicate
Wrecking Ball
Sol Ring
Boros Signet
Orzhov Signet
Rakdos Signet
Darksteel Ingot
Lightning Greaves
Well of Lost Dreams
General's Kabuto
Mind's Eye
Lands
38 Lands, including these key utility lands:
Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
Hall of the Bandit Lord
Kher Keep
Winding Canyons
Well, that's the deck in a nutshell. The first glaring omission is Scroll Rack. The deck badly needs card draw, and the Scroll Rack is just NUTS with Land Tax. If I rebuild this deck, Scroll Rack will be the first thing I add for sure. And since we've mentioned Land Tax, I'll go ahead and say this deck also badly needs a Weathered Wayfarer. WW is pimp in decks that can't run green ramp/fixers.
Hall of the Bandit Lord is just an obvious Haste enabler for Kaalia, or anything else you might want to cast. Getting in with Kaalia on turn 4 instead of turn 5 can make a HUGE difference in how your game plays out, and Hall sticks around to ensure that she gets Haste-ed every time you have to re-cast her.
Sunhome is fun with all the giant threats in the deck.
Winding Canyons... well, Malfegor in response to a massive attack on you is pretty damn awesome. I know from experience. It's a bit costly with so much fat in the deck, but when Kaalia gets too expensive to cast, sneaking out threats at the End of Turn of the player right before you is a good Plan B.
Everything else is just gravy. Congregate is the only card that stands out to me as needing to be replaced. I don't know why I never cut it, except for the popularity of Ghave decks around this time. Still, it's not very relevant to the deck's game plan and I'd rather have a Demonic Tutor or something similar in the slot.
Other odd-looking choices might warrant brief explanation. Starting with the few creatures that don't bear the appropriate creature types.
Mother of Runes is just plain good, but she's particularly useful when you have a very fragile General that needs to be attacking. That's her primary function - keep Kaalia alive.
Wall of Reverence is harder to explain, but it's just good, trust me. It's great at early defense and once you get Kaalia online dropping fat, it can quickly gain massive amounts of life.
Academy Rector is there to help assemple the Sneak Attack/Phyrexian Reclamation combo (not a combo in the infinite sense, but with both enchanments out, you can re-play Bogardan Hellkite or Yosei or whatever every single turn). She also gets True Conviction, and folks, True Conviction is the BOMB when it actually sticks.
Blood Speaker should need no explanation, but in case you didn't know he can repeatedly tutor for Demons. Try adding Conspiracy for extra shenanigans!
Basandra is terrible, but stuck around due to her hot art, and where else was I going to play her?
Oni of Wild Places actually was pretty good, all things considered. 6/5 Haste is actually pretty good and the bounce-a-red-creature-every-turn thing actually worked out great with stuff like Bogardan Hellkite or Duergar Hedge-Mage.
Speaking of... the little dwarf shaman was actually very reliable at blowing up what needed blowing up.
Finally, Solemn Simulacrum was just a necessary bit of utility and is greatly needed here.
Warstorm Surge was a great addition courtesy of M12, along with Rune-Scarred Demon and Aegis Angel.
Sneak Attack and Phyrexian Reclamation, as previously discussed, allow you to recycle and reuse threats over and over, and let you come back from Wrath effects much easier.
Earthquake actually was very good, as the vast majority of our creatures have Flying. It was not hard to turn a 6-point Earthquake into a one-sided Wrath of God with some damage tacked on.
That's about all I can say for the deck. It's fun, it's got huge bombs and sometimes can just blow out a whole table with the right draw. I would definitely try to beef up the draw and tutor package a bit more, and a few more removal spells might not be a bad idea. Debtor's Knell also seems highly playable if you have Academy Rector as a way to fetch it and cheat it into play.
Enjoy.
Anyway, Kaalia of the Vast was just far more compelling than Tariel and I already had an Oros deck wherein the Dragon was a big fat do-nothing who prefered to lead from the rear, only stepping onto the battlefield when he could wield his Basilisk Collar to wipe the field.
I had fun playing the deck, but it was remarkably inconsistent and either won fast or lost slowly... oh so very slowly. Anyone who knows me knows how much I detest being in top-deck mode, and this deck was very much a top-deck kind of deck. I crammed in all the questionable card draw I could fit and still frequently ran out of steam before anyone else did.
When the deck didn't choke, though, it was a huge blast to play as their really is something to be said for cheating into play big, expensive Demons, Dragons and of course Angels. So, for all you Timmies out there, here is the Kaalia list I finally settled on.
Creatures
Kaalia of the Vast
Mother of Runes
Wall of Reverence
Academy Rector
Karmic Guide
Baneslayer Angel
Aegis Angel
Deathless Angel
Yosei, the Morning Star
Archangel of Strife
Akroma, Angel of Wrath
Blood Speaker
Seizan, Perverter of Truth
Rune-Scarred Demon
Reiver Demon
Kuro, Pitlord
Anger
Oni of Wild Places
Mana-Charged Dragon
Dragon Mage
Bogardan Hellkite
Dragon Tyrant
Duergar Hedge-Mage
Brion Stoutarm
Basandra, Battle Seraph
Malfegor
Bladewing the Risen
Angel of Despair
Razia, Boros Archangel
Solemn Simulacrum
Spells and Stuff
Land Tax
Path to Exile
Oblation
Orim's Thunder
Congregate
Angelic Benediction
Return to Dust
Akroma's Vengeance
True Conviction
Phyrexian Reclamation
Syphon Mind
Diabolic Tutor
Promise of Power
Decree of Pain
Wheel of Fortune
Sneak Attack
In the Web of War
Warstorm Surge
Earthquake
Terminate
Mortify
Vindicate
Wrecking Ball
Sol Ring
Boros Signet
Orzhov Signet
Rakdos Signet
Darksteel Ingot
Lightning Greaves
Well of Lost Dreams
General's Kabuto
Mind's Eye
Lands
38 Lands, including these key utility lands:
Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
Hall of the Bandit Lord
Kher Keep
Winding Canyons
Well, that's the deck in a nutshell. The first glaring omission is Scroll Rack. The deck badly needs card draw, and the Scroll Rack is just NUTS with Land Tax. If I rebuild this deck, Scroll Rack will be the first thing I add for sure. And since we've mentioned Land Tax, I'll go ahead and say this deck also badly needs a Weathered Wayfarer. WW is pimp in decks that can't run green ramp/fixers.
Hall of the Bandit Lord is just an obvious Haste enabler for Kaalia, or anything else you might want to cast. Getting in with Kaalia on turn 4 instead of turn 5 can make a HUGE difference in how your game plays out, and Hall sticks around to ensure that she gets Haste-ed every time you have to re-cast her.
Sunhome is fun with all the giant threats in the deck.
Winding Canyons... well, Malfegor in response to a massive attack on you is pretty damn awesome. I know from experience. It's a bit costly with so much fat in the deck, but when Kaalia gets too expensive to cast, sneaking out threats at the End of Turn of the player right before you is a good Plan B.
Everything else is just gravy. Congregate is the only card that stands out to me as needing to be replaced. I don't know why I never cut it, except for the popularity of Ghave decks around this time. Still, it's not very relevant to the deck's game plan and I'd rather have a Demonic Tutor or something similar in the slot.
Other odd-looking choices might warrant brief explanation. Starting with the few creatures that don't bear the appropriate creature types.
Mother of Runes is just plain good, but she's particularly useful when you have a very fragile General that needs to be attacking. That's her primary function - keep Kaalia alive.
Wall of Reverence is harder to explain, but it's just good, trust me. It's great at early defense and once you get Kaalia online dropping fat, it can quickly gain massive amounts of life.
Academy Rector is there to help assemple the Sneak Attack/Phyrexian Reclamation combo (not a combo in the infinite sense, but with both enchanments out, you can re-play Bogardan Hellkite or Yosei or whatever every single turn). She also gets True Conviction, and folks, True Conviction is the BOMB when it actually sticks.
Blood Speaker should need no explanation, but in case you didn't know he can repeatedly tutor for Demons. Try adding Conspiracy for extra shenanigans!
Basandra is terrible, but stuck around due to her hot art, and where else was I going to play her?
Oni of Wild Places actually was pretty good, all things considered. 6/5 Haste is actually pretty good and the bounce-a-red-creature-every-turn thing actually worked out great with stuff like Bogardan Hellkite or Duergar Hedge-Mage.
Speaking of... the little dwarf shaman was actually very reliable at blowing up what needed blowing up.
Finally, Solemn Simulacrum was just a necessary bit of utility and is greatly needed here.
Warstorm Surge was a great addition courtesy of M12, along with Rune-Scarred Demon and Aegis Angel.
Sneak Attack and Phyrexian Reclamation, as previously discussed, allow you to recycle and reuse threats over and over, and let you come back from Wrath effects much easier.
Earthquake actually was very good, as the vast majority of our creatures have Flying. It was not hard to turn a 6-point Earthquake into a one-sided Wrath of God with some damage tacked on.
That's about all I can say for the deck. It's fun, it's got huge bombs and sometimes can just blow out a whole table with the right draw. I would definitely try to beef up the draw and tutor package a bit more, and a few more removal spells might not be a bad idea. Debtor's Knell also seems highly playable if you have Academy Rector as a way to fetch it and cheat it into play.
Enjoy.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Damia, Sage of Stone - Final List
Tonight's list is Damia, a UBG heavy control deck with a strong Graveyard manipulation theme. This deck has performed very well for me, overall, which is no surprise as it heavily resembles my old Vorosh control deck. Basically, I just swapped out the largely irrelevant Vorosh for a more interesting general in the form of Damia. Then I sprinkled in a few cards that were specifically useful in a Damia deck but wouldn't have been very useful in a Vorosh or Mimeplasm deck. Over time, quite a few new cards wormed their way into the deck and the list now looks quite a bit different from the Vorosh list, yet retains the same themes and plays very much like it.
EDIT: Overlooked a couple of cards. Duplicant, Scavenging Ooze and Insidious Dreams have been added.
Creatures
Damia, Sage of Stone
Overtaker
Jace's Archivist
Wonder
Sower of Temptation
Mulldrifter
Body Double
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Shpinx of Uthuun
Coffin Queen
Fleshbag Marauder
Bone Shredder
Undead Gladiator
Dimir House Guard
Shriekmaw
Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Vengeful Pharaoh
Geth, Lord of the Vault
Massacre Wurm
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Fauna Shaman
Scavenging Ooze
Magus of the Library
Eternal Witness
Genesis
Indrik Stomphowler
Acidic Slime
Seedborn Muse
Primeval Titan
Shadowmage Infiltrator
The Mimeoplasm
Psychosis Crawler
Duplicant
Spells and Stuff
Turbulent Dreams
Frantic Search
Rite of Replication
Leyline of Anticipation
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Treachery
Diabolic Intent
Buried Alive
Insidious Dreams
Barter in Blood
Damnation
Living Death
Beacon of Unrest
Profane Command
Nostalgic Dreams
Cultivate
Beast Within
Krosan Grip
Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
Greater Good
Putrefy
Maelstrom Pulse
Sol Ring
Dimir Signet
Golgari Signet
Simic Signet
Coalition Relic
Lightning Greaves
Mimic Vat
Lands
38 Lands including:
Volrath's Stronghold
High Market
Phyrexian Tower
The deck is a lot of fun to play, but Damia is a tricky general to play. Once you have her on the board, you'll want to dump your hand as quickly as possible to maximize Damia's value. It's hardly worth casting a 7-mana Legend if all she's going to do is draw you one extra card a turn. Yet, if you cast a whole bunch of cheap spells and permanents counting on Damia's presence to refill your hand, you might find yourself overextending into a Planar Cleansing or similar, leaving you behind on the board AND without Damia around to refill your now-empty hand. If this happens, you'll probably lose.
That's where the Seedborn Muse + Leyline Anticipation come in. Casting everything at Instant speed helps narrow the window for your opponent to completely blow you out with a Sorcery like Akroma's Vengeance. It also makes the deck a bitch and a half to play against because you can respond to combat by dropping blockers, and almost any other situation gets really tricky when stuff that's supposed to only happen on your turn now suddenly happens any time you feel like it.
The Dreams - Nostalgic, Turbulent and Insidious are all flat-out amazing when combined with Damia and a handful of cards that you don't mind discarding. Incarnations like Wonder or Genesis, for example are cards you want in your graveyard anyway, but the Dreams provide powerful effects in exchange for pitching something you wanted to pitch anyway. Even if you have good stuff like Primeval Titan or Rite of Replication, in this deck you probably won't mind discarding them to a Dreams spell because you'll have plenty of ways to get them back later on.
A few of the cards I selected are just "cute" - like Magus of the Library for example. It's just a terrible card that happens to actually be considerably more playable alongside Damia. With Damia guaranteeing you'll start every turn with a grip of 7, the Magus just guarantees you'll start every turn with 8 instead. I enjoy this interaction, but he's probably not necessary in the long run.
Overtaker was just a neat Spellshaper that doubles as a way to pitch your Genesis or any other unwanted chaff you might draw.
Jace's Archivist and Sphinx of Uthuun are just new hotness that I added because they were new hotness. I'm not 100% sold on either of them, but Sphinx of Uthuun actually has played quite well. It's an easier-to-recur-but-harder-to-cast Fact or Fiction, but in this particular deck having a creature version of a spell is almost always better than it's non-creature equivalent, thanks to Genesis and Geth's importance to the deck.
Anyway, the deck basically just plays a slow, grindy, control gameplan, answering everything possible while building up card advantage and a dominant board position. As with any deck, mass resets like Planar Cleansing are bad news, but with such a prolific graveyard package, it rarely spells doom for the deck. We can get anything we need back, over and over again usually.
Vengeful Pharaoh is an amazing Buried Alive target and happens to be a very cool and flavorful card too. I definitely think he will stay in this deck for a very long time.
As for winning the game, the usual win condition is simply to reanimate an opponent's scariest threats via Geth, Beacon or Coffin Queen. Psychosis Crawler is pretty good with Damia out, though most worthy opponents won't let you stick both at the same time.
Massacre Wurm is metagame tech for me. I have an Edric player whose deck is loaded with 1/1's and 2/2's and there is of course Ghave to contend with as well. A well-timed Massacre Wurm can... well... massacre and opponent with too many tokens on the board.
Maelstrom Pulse is in for the same reason - to deal with token decks - and to deal with Rite of Replication. Rite of Replication is one of the biggest and most popular game-winning spells in my group, and Maelstrom Pulse just laughs at it (as long as they didn't RoR something with Haste!).
Mimic Vat is a big fat "duh!", and fits the theme of "kill opponent's threat, take threat from opponent, kill opponent with their own dude".
Mimeoplasm and Living Death round out the win condition package.
All in all, this is one deck I'm very happy with. There are only a few cards that I would even consider cutting and none that are outright bad choices. It can be an agonizingly frustrating deck to play against, because it usually just tries to kill everything that hits the board, but at least I'm not running countermagic!
Enjoy.
EDIT: Overlooked a couple of cards. Duplicant, Scavenging Ooze and Insidious Dreams have been added.
Creatures
Damia, Sage of Stone
Overtaker
Jace's Archivist
Wonder
Sower of Temptation
Mulldrifter
Body Double
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Shpinx of Uthuun
Coffin Queen
Fleshbag Marauder
Bone Shredder
Undead Gladiator
Dimir House Guard
Shriekmaw
Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Vengeful Pharaoh
Geth, Lord of the Vault
Massacre Wurm
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Fauna Shaman
Scavenging Ooze
Magus of the Library
Eternal Witness
Genesis
Indrik Stomphowler
Acidic Slime
Seedborn Muse
Primeval Titan
Shadowmage Infiltrator
The Mimeoplasm
Psychosis Crawler
Duplicant
Spells and Stuff
Turbulent Dreams
Frantic Search
Rite of Replication
Leyline of Anticipation
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Treachery
Diabolic Intent
Buried Alive
Insidious Dreams
Barter in Blood
Damnation
Living Death
Beacon of Unrest
Profane Command
Nostalgic Dreams
Cultivate
Beast Within
Krosan Grip
Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
Greater Good
Putrefy
Maelstrom Pulse
Sol Ring
Dimir Signet
Golgari Signet
Simic Signet
Coalition Relic
Lightning Greaves
Mimic Vat
Lands
38 Lands including:
Volrath's Stronghold
High Market
Phyrexian Tower
The deck is a lot of fun to play, but Damia is a tricky general to play. Once you have her on the board, you'll want to dump your hand as quickly as possible to maximize Damia's value. It's hardly worth casting a 7-mana Legend if all she's going to do is draw you one extra card a turn. Yet, if you cast a whole bunch of cheap spells and permanents counting on Damia's presence to refill your hand, you might find yourself overextending into a Planar Cleansing or similar, leaving you behind on the board AND without Damia around to refill your now-empty hand. If this happens, you'll probably lose.
That's where the Seedborn Muse + Leyline Anticipation come in. Casting everything at Instant speed helps narrow the window for your opponent to completely blow you out with a Sorcery like Akroma's Vengeance. It also makes the deck a bitch and a half to play against because you can respond to combat by dropping blockers, and almost any other situation gets really tricky when stuff that's supposed to only happen on your turn now suddenly happens any time you feel like it.
The Dreams - Nostalgic, Turbulent and Insidious are all flat-out amazing when combined with Damia and a handful of cards that you don't mind discarding. Incarnations like Wonder or Genesis, for example are cards you want in your graveyard anyway, but the Dreams provide powerful effects in exchange for pitching something you wanted to pitch anyway. Even if you have good stuff like Primeval Titan or Rite of Replication, in this deck you probably won't mind discarding them to a Dreams spell because you'll have plenty of ways to get them back later on.
A few of the cards I selected are just "cute" - like Magus of the Library for example. It's just a terrible card that happens to actually be considerably more playable alongside Damia. With Damia guaranteeing you'll start every turn with a grip of 7, the Magus just guarantees you'll start every turn with 8 instead. I enjoy this interaction, but he's probably not necessary in the long run.
Overtaker was just a neat Spellshaper that doubles as a way to pitch your Genesis or any other unwanted chaff you might draw.
Jace's Archivist and Sphinx of Uthuun are just new hotness that I added because they were new hotness. I'm not 100% sold on either of them, but Sphinx of Uthuun actually has played quite well. It's an easier-to-recur-but-harder-to-cast Fact or Fiction, but in this particular deck having a creature version of a spell is almost always better than it's non-creature equivalent, thanks to Genesis and Geth's importance to the deck.
Anyway, the deck basically just plays a slow, grindy, control gameplan, answering everything possible while building up card advantage and a dominant board position. As with any deck, mass resets like Planar Cleansing are bad news, but with such a prolific graveyard package, it rarely spells doom for the deck. We can get anything we need back, over and over again usually.
Vengeful Pharaoh is an amazing Buried Alive target and happens to be a very cool and flavorful card too. I definitely think he will stay in this deck for a very long time.
As for winning the game, the usual win condition is simply to reanimate an opponent's scariest threats via Geth, Beacon or Coffin Queen. Psychosis Crawler is pretty good with Damia out, though most worthy opponents won't let you stick both at the same time.
Massacre Wurm is metagame tech for me. I have an Edric player whose deck is loaded with 1/1's and 2/2's and there is of course Ghave to contend with as well. A well-timed Massacre Wurm can... well... massacre and opponent with too many tokens on the board.
Maelstrom Pulse is in for the same reason - to deal with token decks - and to deal with Rite of Replication. Rite of Replication is one of the biggest and most popular game-winning spells in my group, and Maelstrom Pulse just laughs at it (as long as they didn't RoR something with Haste!).
Mimic Vat is a big fat "duh!", and fits the theme of "kill opponent's threat, take threat from opponent, kill opponent with their own dude".
Mimeoplasm and Living Death round out the win condition package.
All in all, this is one deck I'm very happy with. There are only a few cards that I would even consider cutting and none that are outright bad choices. It can be an agonizingly frustrating deck to play against, because it usually just tries to kill everything that hits the board, but at least I'm not running countermagic!
Enjoy.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Animar, Soul of Elements - Final List
Ok, if you read my last post, this should need no preamble. Animar came, he saw, he amassed +1/+1 counters and he conquered the shit out of my playgroup and started to annoy them. So, I'll post the final list here, with some additional thoughts on improvement, and let the deck die for the good of my playgroup.
Creatures
Animar, Soul of Elements
Phyrexian Metamorph
Mulldrifter
Aethersnipe
Consecrated Sphinx
Frost Titan
Phyrexian Ingestor
Sphinx of Uthuun
Flametongue Kavu
Spitebellows
Inferno Titan
Bogardan Hellkite
Lotus Cobra
Bloom Tender
Fauna Shaman
Wood Elves
Farhaven Elf
Fierce Empath
Eternal Witness
Forgotten Ancient
Garruk's Packleader
Silverglade Elemental
Hystrodon
Acidic Slime
Silklash Spider
Brutalizer Exarch
Deadwood Treefolk
Primordial Sage
Primeval Titan
Spearbreaker Behemoth
Avenger of Zendikar
Coiling Oracle
Momir Vig
Simic Sky Swallower
Alloy Myr
Solemn Simulacrum
Duplicant
Artisan of Kozilek
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Spells and Stuff
Pongify
Equilibrium
Tezzeret's Gambit
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Rite of Replication
Warstorm Surge
Beast Within
Birthing Pod
Momentous FallPattern of Rebirth
Greater Good
Primal Command
Overwhelming Stampede
Wild Pair
Garruk Wildspeaker
Sarkhan Vol
Izzet Signet
Gruul Signet
Simic Signet
Lightning Greaves
Mimic Vat
Akroma's Memorial
38 Lands including the following:
Llanowar Reborn
Novijen, Heart of Progress
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
These three lands were obviously chosen as ways to "cheat" counters onto Animar, and all three performed. I highly recommend all of them, but Llanowar Reborn was surprisingly the best. You could play it on turn 1 or 2 and still be able to make Animar on turn 3, grafting a counter on him immediately. Novijen and Oran-Rief were kinda expensive and slow, BUT both saved my ass a time or two.
The rest of the mana base was all duals and basics - Novijen was THE only land in the deck that made only colorless mana. Colored mana was too crucial, which is why I cut Sol Ring and Temple of the False God - both were marginally helpful in re-casting Animar but that was about it, and if you ever have to pay more than 5 for your general, you've probably already lost anyway.
Every single creature in the list I stand by 100% but there are too many non-creature spells in the list. I kept drawing creature-light hands despite the fact that this list already has more creatures than any other EDH list I've ever built.
All of the non-creatures spells make sense and are good - there's just too many. I like ALL of the cards in the list, but some just didn't pull their weight like they should have.
Akroma's Memoral was the biggest disappointment, thought it did outright win me one game. It was just too costly most of the time. Usually, if I could afford to cast it, and had creatures out to benefit from it, I was already winning - thus it was just a "win-more" card most of the time.
Same goes for Overwhelming Stampede - it was just win-more 90% of the time, irrelevant the other 10%.
Birthing Pod might be the biggest overall disappointment in New Phyrexia. When the set was spoiled, I really thought Birthing Pod was somewhere between Survival of the Fittest and Fauna Shaman - i.e. better than Shaman, but not as good as Survival. I thought sac'ing a dude and discarding a dude would be roughly the same as a drawback, while putting the guy right into play with the Pod would more than make up for it. Even in this creature-packed deck, though, sac-ing a dude I'd already paid for was just painful. There were times I won because I was able to "silver bullet" a problematic threat with the Pod, but ultimately it was dead in my hand roughly half the time.
The one caveat is when it's paired with Mimic Vat - if those two stay on the board together, unanswered, you better win or you probably are playing the wrong game.
Still, I'd keep the Vat without hesitation, but I think the Pod can go.
Greater Good and Momentous Fall are logical choices as they are draw-spells that depend on creatures. They make good sense here, but ultimately I think the deck only wants one or the other, not both. I'd favor Momentous Fall, oddly enough, but there is very little life-gain in this deck and that's sometimes important.
Primal Command was very powerful, but oddly difficult to cast. I always had plenty of mana, but I also always needed to just cast more creatures, not go tutor one up. Momir Vig was just SO much better at this, I think I'd cut the Command.
Finally, the Signets ended up being "meh" I'd probably cut them for two more Lands to bring us up to 40 land, and add one more Wood Elves variant, perhaps Pilgrim's Eye or something?
Warstorm Surge
Equilibrium
Mimic Vat
and Wild Pair
These 4 are, without question, the best non-creature cards in the deck. They all preformed well above expectations and Wild Pair in particular is probably the single best card in the deck for giving you a shot at winning a game without Animar.
Pongify and Beast Within were critically-needed utility answers, and I'd probably try to supplement those with at least two more non-Creature removal spells, probably Krosan Grip and something that can kill dudes.
Sarkhan Vol, Garuuk and Jace were all terrific, but none of them really seemed necessary for the deck's success. I'd say Jace pulled his weight the most, but Garruk and Sarkhan just rarely showed up for some reason. The few times I drew them I wasn't unhappy to see them, though.
Finally, the deck's biggest weakness was Wrath of God effects, as expected. To a lesser extent, anything that could kill Animar himself was a back-breaker. I dreaded playing against any deck with Red, because Flametongue Kavu and Spitebellows usually showed up before I could get enough counters on Animar for him to survive their damage.
I strongly recommend countermagic as an all-purpose answer to anything that could kill Animar, but I would say that you should never blow a counterspell unless it's to protect Animar or Wild Pair.
Well, that is all. Enjoy!
Creatures
Animar, Soul of Elements
Phyrexian Metamorph
Mulldrifter
Aethersnipe
Consecrated Sphinx
Frost Titan
Phyrexian Ingestor
Sphinx of Uthuun
Flametongue Kavu
Spitebellows
Inferno Titan
Bogardan Hellkite
Lotus Cobra
Bloom Tender
Fauna Shaman
Wood Elves
Farhaven Elf
Fierce Empath
Eternal Witness
Forgotten Ancient
Garruk's Packleader
Silverglade Elemental
Hystrodon
Acidic Slime
Silklash Spider
Brutalizer Exarch
Deadwood Treefolk
Primordial Sage
Primeval Titan
Spearbreaker Behemoth
Avenger of Zendikar
Coiling Oracle
Momir Vig
Simic Sky Swallower
Alloy Myr
Solemn Simulacrum
Duplicant
Artisan of Kozilek
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Spells and Stuff
Pongify
Equilibrium
Tezzeret's Gambit
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Rite of Replication
Warstorm Surge
Beast Within
Birthing Pod
Momentous FallPattern of Rebirth
Greater Good
Primal Command
Overwhelming Stampede
Wild Pair
Garruk Wildspeaker
Sarkhan Vol
Izzet Signet
Gruul Signet
Simic Signet
Lightning Greaves
Mimic Vat
Akroma's Memorial
38 Lands including the following:
Llanowar Reborn
Novijen, Heart of Progress
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
These three lands were obviously chosen as ways to "cheat" counters onto Animar, and all three performed. I highly recommend all of them, but Llanowar Reborn was surprisingly the best. You could play it on turn 1 or 2 and still be able to make Animar on turn 3, grafting a counter on him immediately. Novijen and Oran-Rief were kinda expensive and slow, BUT both saved my ass a time or two.
The rest of the mana base was all duals and basics - Novijen was THE only land in the deck that made only colorless mana. Colored mana was too crucial, which is why I cut Sol Ring and Temple of the False God - both were marginally helpful in re-casting Animar but that was about it, and if you ever have to pay more than 5 for your general, you've probably already lost anyway.
Every single creature in the list I stand by 100% but there are too many non-creature spells in the list. I kept drawing creature-light hands despite the fact that this list already has more creatures than any other EDH list I've ever built.
All of the non-creatures spells make sense and are good - there's just too many. I like ALL of the cards in the list, but some just didn't pull their weight like they should have.
Akroma's Memoral was the biggest disappointment, thought it did outright win me one game. It was just too costly most of the time. Usually, if I could afford to cast it, and had creatures out to benefit from it, I was already winning - thus it was just a "win-more" card most of the time.
Same goes for Overwhelming Stampede - it was just win-more 90% of the time, irrelevant the other 10%.
Birthing Pod might be the biggest overall disappointment in New Phyrexia. When the set was spoiled, I really thought Birthing Pod was somewhere between Survival of the Fittest and Fauna Shaman - i.e. better than Shaman, but not as good as Survival. I thought sac'ing a dude and discarding a dude would be roughly the same as a drawback, while putting the guy right into play with the Pod would more than make up for it. Even in this creature-packed deck, though, sac-ing a dude I'd already paid for was just painful. There were times I won because I was able to "silver bullet" a problematic threat with the Pod, but ultimately it was dead in my hand roughly half the time.
The one caveat is when it's paired with Mimic Vat - if those two stay on the board together, unanswered, you better win or you probably are playing the wrong game.
Still, I'd keep the Vat without hesitation, but I think the Pod can go.
Greater Good and Momentous Fall are logical choices as they are draw-spells that depend on creatures. They make good sense here, but ultimately I think the deck only wants one or the other, not both. I'd favor Momentous Fall, oddly enough, but there is very little life-gain in this deck and that's sometimes important.
Primal Command was very powerful, but oddly difficult to cast. I always had plenty of mana, but I also always needed to just cast more creatures, not go tutor one up. Momir Vig was just SO much better at this, I think I'd cut the Command.
Finally, the Signets ended up being "meh" I'd probably cut them for two more Lands to bring us up to 40 land, and add one more Wood Elves variant, perhaps Pilgrim's Eye or something?
Warstorm Surge
Equilibrium
Mimic Vat
and Wild Pair
These 4 are, without question, the best non-creature cards in the deck. They all preformed well above expectations and Wild Pair in particular is probably the single best card in the deck for giving you a shot at winning a game without Animar.
Pongify and Beast Within were critically-needed utility answers, and I'd probably try to supplement those with at least two more non-Creature removal spells, probably Krosan Grip and something that can kill dudes.
Sarkhan Vol, Garuuk and Jace were all terrific, but none of them really seemed necessary for the deck's success. I'd say Jace pulled his weight the most, but Garruk and Sarkhan just rarely showed up for some reason. The few times I drew them I wasn't unhappy to see them, though.
Finally, the deck's biggest weakness was Wrath of God effects, as expected. To a lesser extent, anything that could kill Animar himself was a back-breaker. I dreaded playing against any deck with Red, because Flametongue Kavu and Spitebellows usually showed up before I could get enough counters on Animar for him to survive their damage.
I strongly recommend countermagic as an all-purpose answer to anything that could kill Animar, but I would say that you should never blow a counterspell unless it's to protect Animar or Wild Pair.
Well, that is all. Enjoy!
Commander Updates
So... I posted a series of articles on each of the Commander preconstructed decks that WotC released earlier this year as this summer's multiplayer product. The idea behind the series was to provide a dumping-ground for potential ideas. For all 5 decks I tried to give each list enough possible ideas that no deck could contain every single one. Rather than just posting the list of 100 cards that I chose to use, and potentially leaving out other good ideas that seemed cool but just didn't make the cut, I decided to leave the finished list out of the article and throw out every possible idea I could come up with.
That seemed to work out great but I still had some people asking me to post my finished lists. Well, while that kinda defeated the purpose of the original article, I still wanted to share my own visions at some point down the line... that point being now.
For one thing, this blog is as much an archive for my own reference. I would like for people to read it, and I am happy to have attained a handful of followers, but even in no one ever read this blog I'd still use it as a dump for all my decklists. Or, at least, the ones that were successful enough that I might revisit them later.
Well, the time has come for a "refresh" of all my decks. I've moved recently, and with the move came a complete overhaul of my storage solution for my Magic collection. Now that I've changed how I'm sorting and storing my massive cardboard collection, I need to dismantle all of my decks to get an idea of what all I have and where some gaps in my collection still exist.
My non-Basic land pool is perhaps the single most important subset of Magic cards I own and it is also the subset that I have the least idea about what I have and what I need... seeing as I have a whopping 9 EDH decks constructed at the moment and a small handful of 60-card decks too, most of my non-Basic lands are in decks. And I've had to swap so many lands between so many decks, I've lost track of what deck is missing which crucial lands...
So, now that we've settled pretty comfortably into our new apartment, and the Magic-storage overhaul is more or less complete, the only thing left to do is deconstruct my decks, sort and organize, find out which various duals and utility lands I need to focus on acquiring and then... rebuild.
A few of the new commander decks I've really enjoyed and one or two have proved less thrilling. A few have been successful while others haven't been quite good enough to get there. At least one has proven to be almost too good. And I still have ideas for other decks I'd like to build. I want to try to use a few of the new two-colored legends like Nin, the Pain Artist or Vish Kal as generals of two-color decks. My Wrexial deck has been good enough and fun enough that I'm no longer racist against two-color decks so I want to explore this archetype some more.
The first deck list I'm going to post will be my Animar, Soul of Elements deck. you have already seen it, but I have made a FEW modifications since the first article and so I'm putting up the final list for posterity's sake. As to why I'm deconstructing this one first... well, I've had my fun with it and it's just time for it to go. Why such a short tenure before retirement?
The answer is two-fold. Against one certain person in my regular group, the deck just performs poorly. This player is both savvy enough to go after Animar at every opportunity and he has the card pool to actually do it. This player has a tendency to pack several Wrath effects into even his most aggro of decks, and simply put, Animar rolls over to Wrath of God. I put in Spearbreaker Behemoth as a foil to Wraths but he's just too slow and unwieldy. I could have used some counterspells to back him up, but that wasn't an appealing idea to me personally - if YOU ever build this deck, I suggest using a few yourself.
So the deck wasn't good enough when THAT player was at the table, but the flip-side to that was, if that player wasn't around, the deck was an unstoppably juggernaut that steamrolled the other two folks I usually play with, because they have a very limited number of Wrath effects and can't afford to run the critical mass of them necessary to stop Animar. Plus, most of their pinpoint removal was, of course, black or white.
So when one player was around I just couldn't play the deck at all, because it didn't stand a chance, and when he wasn't around the other folks in my group hated to see me bring it out because it almost always won by playing a shitload of creatures capping off with 1 to 3 Eldrazi, and more often that not I had Equilibrium out, so I was usually able to play, bounce and recast Ulamog and Kozilek several times each... per turn.
In short it felt almost like a Combo deck. I rarely ever did anything but play utility guys to boost Animar up to where I could start dropping Eldrazi Titans for free. That was honestly a bit unfun for everyone at the table. I personally enjoyed the puzzle-solving aspect of playing the deck - it was a real bitch to learn to pilot correctly and I had to re-learn it every single game, because the key to "solving" the deck depends heavily on playing the right creatures in the right order. But the second I solved the puzzle the game was over, and I'd win every time. It was fun to PLAY the deck, but rarely fun to WIN with it... especially if you were my opponents.
The big problem was that the turn I won on was usually a twenty minute turn consisting of me constantly counting and adding my mana, looking at all my cards and trying to figure out the optimal play. Lemme tell you, when you have 12 creature cards in your hand and you are fairly sure you can play all 12 in one single turn, doing the math three times over to make sure you got it right is fucking CRITICAL to the deck's success. The problem is, it's not fun for my opponents to sit there and watch me solve calculus problems for half an hour then declare "If no one has a counterspell or Instant-speed Wrath I win".
So, I got my rocks off a few times with the deck and had some amazingly epic blow-out wins, but I always felt kinda like a douche afterward, so I decided I'd proven the deck's worth enough that I didn't need to run it into the ground any further. So, my next article will be the Animar list, and following that one, I'll try to post all of my current decklists, except Rafiq cause I just posted that one.
The Wrexial deck is one deck that might not wind up deconstructed... I still haven't won a single 4-way game with it, but it's got something like a 19-2 win record in 1v1, but it's just hella fun to play even when it loses. We'll see...
That seemed to work out great but I still had some people asking me to post my finished lists. Well, while that kinda defeated the purpose of the original article, I still wanted to share my own visions at some point down the line... that point being now.
For one thing, this blog is as much an archive for my own reference. I would like for people to read it, and I am happy to have attained a handful of followers, but even in no one ever read this blog I'd still use it as a dump for all my decklists. Or, at least, the ones that were successful enough that I might revisit them later.
Well, the time has come for a "refresh" of all my decks. I've moved recently, and with the move came a complete overhaul of my storage solution for my Magic collection. Now that I've changed how I'm sorting and storing my massive cardboard collection, I need to dismantle all of my decks to get an idea of what all I have and where some gaps in my collection still exist.
My non-Basic land pool is perhaps the single most important subset of Magic cards I own and it is also the subset that I have the least idea about what I have and what I need... seeing as I have a whopping 9 EDH decks constructed at the moment and a small handful of 60-card decks too, most of my non-Basic lands are in decks. And I've had to swap so many lands between so many decks, I've lost track of what deck is missing which crucial lands...
So, now that we've settled pretty comfortably into our new apartment, and the Magic-storage overhaul is more or less complete, the only thing left to do is deconstruct my decks, sort and organize, find out which various duals and utility lands I need to focus on acquiring and then... rebuild.
A few of the new commander decks I've really enjoyed and one or two have proved less thrilling. A few have been successful while others haven't been quite good enough to get there. At least one has proven to be almost too good. And I still have ideas for other decks I'd like to build. I want to try to use a few of the new two-colored legends like Nin, the Pain Artist or Vish Kal as generals of two-color decks. My Wrexial deck has been good enough and fun enough that I'm no longer racist against two-color decks so I want to explore this archetype some more.
The first deck list I'm going to post will be my Animar, Soul of Elements deck. you have already seen it, but I have made a FEW modifications since the first article and so I'm putting up the final list for posterity's sake. As to why I'm deconstructing this one first... well, I've had my fun with it and it's just time for it to go. Why such a short tenure before retirement?
The answer is two-fold. Against one certain person in my regular group, the deck just performs poorly. This player is both savvy enough to go after Animar at every opportunity and he has the card pool to actually do it. This player has a tendency to pack several Wrath effects into even his most aggro of decks, and simply put, Animar rolls over to Wrath of God. I put in Spearbreaker Behemoth as a foil to Wraths but he's just too slow and unwieldy. I could have used some counterspells to back him up, but that wasn't an appealing idea to me personally - if YOU ever build this deck, I suggest using a few yourself.
So the deck wasn't good enough when THAT player was at the table, but the flip-side to that was, if that player wasn't around, the deck was an unstoppably juggernaut that steamrolled the other two folks I usually play with, because they have a very limited number of Wrath effects and can't afford to run the critical mass of them necessary to stop Animar. Plus, most of their pinpoint removal was, of course, black or white.
So when one player was around I just couldn't play the deck at all, because it didn't stand a chance, and when he wasn't around the other folks in my group hated to see me bring it out because it almost always won by playing a shitload of creatures capping off with 1 to 3 Eldrazi, and more often that not I had Equilibrium out, so I was usually able to play, bounce and recast Ulamog and Kozilek several times each... per turn.
In short it felt almost like a Combo deck. I rarely ever did anything but play utility guys to boost Animar up to where I could start dropping Eldrazi Titans for free. That was honestly a bit unfun for everyone at the table. I personally enjoyed the puzzle-solving aspect of playing the deck - it was a real bitch to learn to pilot correctly and I had to re-learn it every single game, because the key to "solving" the deck depends heavily on playing the right creatures in the right order. But the second I solved the puzzle the game was over, and I'd win every time. It was fun to PLAY the deck, but rarely fun to WIN with it... especially if you were my opponents.
The big problem was that the turn I won on was usually a twenty minute turn consisting of me constantly counting and adding my mana, looking at all my cards and trying to figure out the optimal play. Lemme tell you, when you have 12 creature cards in your hand and you are fairly sure you can play all 12 in one single turn, doing the math three times over to make sure you got it right is fucking CRITICAL to the deck's success. The problem is, it's not fun for my opponents to sit there and watch me solve calculus problems for half an hour then declare "If no one has a counterspell or Instant-speed Wrath I win".
So, I got my rocks off a few times with the deck and had some amazingly epic blow-out wins, but I always felt kinda like a douche afterward, so I decided I'd proven the deck's worth enough that I didn't need to run it into the ground any further. So, my next article will be the Animar list, and following that one, I'll try to post all of my current decklists, except Rafiq cause I just posted that one.
The Wrexial deck is one deck that might not wind up deconstructed... I still haven't won a single 4-way game with it, but it's got something like a 19-2 win record in 1v1, but it's just hella fun to play even when it loses. We'll see...
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Innistrad / FTV: Legends Spoiler
GENTLEMEN! BEHOLD!
Looks like Ghave, Guru of Spores decks have a new auto-include. Doesn't seem too great overall, but his synergy with Ghave cannot be overlooked. Add a healthy dose of Doubling Season, some Persist creatures and Maybe Ajani Goldmane and you can quickly turn an army of 1/1 saprolings or 0/1 plants into a much scarier army of 5/5's.
To bad he's off-color for Animar decks, though... he'd be pretty good there too.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Decklist: Infected Rafiq
Zimagic over at The Crazy 99 asked me for my current Rafiq list. I was attempting to send him a reply with a link to my list here at the blog, but I realized at that point, I hadn't actually posted the complete list, only discussed some of the Infect cards I'd added.
So, to rectify this oversight, I'm going to post the list here, for Zimagic and of course anyone else who might happen to stroll by...
As a quick recap, to start things off, I'll reiterate my intents with this deck. Rafiq has long been one of my all-time favortie generals, and this deck has always been on of my strongest decks for 1v1 play. However, as with many aggro decks, it was not optimal for multiplayer, and I wanted to see if I could improve on it's multiplayer viability without losing its 1v1 power.
Along came Scars of Mirrodin block, and with it came Infect. Infect has been a boon to all aggro fans out there in the EDH world, as it gives an aggro deck the reach necessary to take down multiple opponents instead of just one.
So, to make my Rafiq deck more viable for my 4-way FFA games, I threw in just a dash of Infect cards. I only chose the best and most appropriate - my playgroup is pretty racist against Infect for no good reason - most of them decided they hated Infect before they'd ever played a single game with or against any Infect cards. That kind of knee-jerk reaction is just plain silly, but at the same time I don't want to make my friends hate playing with me, so I kept the Infect to a minimum.
It seems to have worked out really well, so far, but with the release of the new Commander decks and all the shiny new generals to build around, I haven't really played the deck much. But enough preamble, let's talk about the list.
General: Rafiq of the Many
Creatures:
Stoneforge Mystic
Academy Rector
Battlegrace Angel
Akroma Angel of Wrath
Blighted Agent
Cephalid Constable
Mulldrifter
Frost Titan
Noble Heirarch
Sakura Tribe Elder
Fauna Shaman
Wood Elves
Eternal Witness
Indrik Stomphowler
Hystrodon
Putrefax
Acidic Slime
Qasali Pridemage
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Dauntless Escort
Cold-Eyed Selkie
Jenara, Asura of War
Rhox War Monk
Giltspire Avenger
Loxodon Heirarch
Knight of New Alara
Sovereigns of Lost Alara
Simic Sky Swallower
Duplicant
Spells:
Swords to Plowshares
Path to Exile
Elspeth, Knight Errant
Wrath of God
Miraculous Recovery
True Conviction
Martial Coup
Deep Analysis
Foresee
Rite of Replication
Treachery
Corrupted Conscience
Beast Within
Harrow
Skyshroud Claim
Birthing Pod
Pattern of Rebirth
Temporal Spring
Shield of the Oversoul
Steel of the Godhead
Mirari's Wake
Finest Hour
Wargate
Simic Signet
Selesnya Signet
Azorius Signet
Darksteel Ingot
Lightning Greaves
Sword of Fire and Ice
Sword of Light and Shadow
Sword of War and Peace
Eldrazi Conscription
Lands:
Plains x5
Island x5
Forest x5
City of Brass
Seaside Citadel
Reflecting Pool
Vesuva
Stirring Wildwood
Celestial Colonnade
Glacial Fortress
Sunpetal Grove
Brushland
Adarkar Wastes
Yavimaya Coast
Temple Garden
Hallowed Fountain
Breeding Pool
Flooded Grove
Windswept Heath
Misty Rainforest
New Benalia
Llanowar Reborn
Yavimaya Hollow
High Market
Inkmoth Nexus
OK, that's the list as it stands.
Since the presence of Infect is probably the biggest talking point, let's discuss what did and didn't make it into the deck. As stated above, I wanted to keep the number of Infect cards low enough that my playgroup wouldn't shun me, but have enough that their presence would matter and improve my odds of winning.
First up, we'll start with the most recent addition - Blighted Agent. I've had Jhessian Infiltrator in the deck for a long, long time and have always been happy with its performance. In this deck, Blighted Agent is almost strictly better. It is cheap and easy to cast, and when compined with Rafiq it can kill very quickly.
Corrupted Conscience replaced Bribery simply because I needed a slot for the Enchantment, and Bribery was more useful in a different deck. Having the same CMC as well made it an easy swap, despite Bribery being overall the stronger card.
Inkmoth Nexus should be an obvious inclusion as well, but it's basically just another cheap, evasive Infect guy that happens to make mana in its spare time.
Putrefax is just another one-shot enabler, much like Might of Oaks or Sovereigns/Conscription. Saavy opponents should be used to Rafiq decks being able to one-shot them out of nowhere from time to time, so Putrefax should not be all that offensive.
Those are the four that made it in. There are some noteable exclusions that I would like to address as well.
The first and probably most notable exclusion is Blightsteel Colossus. It definitely could find a home here, but I avoided it for a few reasons. First, I don't own one. That's simple enough, but they're not exactly hard to acquire either so if I really wanted to, I could get one. The next reason is that of all the Infect cards it's probably the most likely to get groans and eye-rolls when you cast it. As I've stated, I want my playgroup to accept that I'm using Infect and this card would just make them mad. Perhaps the biggest single factor, for me, is the fact that Blightsteel doesn't NEED Rafiq to be a one-shot. Sure it can potentially take out two players in one turn with Finest Hour, but giving BSC +1/+1 and doublestrike is just win-more. Finally, aside from being too easy, it's also too expensive. My build focuses on a streamlined creature base with as low a curve as I can stand to get it. Akroma is the most expensive creature in the deck and I have trouble casting her sometimes. Adding an 11 mana creature to the mix would necessitate adding some more ramp, which would only dillute the threat-density.
The other big one is Triumph of the Hordes. Of all the Infect cards currently in print, this one has the highest potential for winning out of nowhere. In the right deck. My build, though, is not the right deck. To play this deck correctly, you're often only going to have two creatures on the field at a time, and only want to attack with one of them. Triumph of the Hordes would encourage you to play out as many threats at a time and possibly get blown-out by a Wrath. I feel like 90% of the time, Triumph would effectively just give ONE attacker +1/+1 and Infect. For 4 mana, that's just not appealing.
Spinebiter was an interesting idea, and I almost tried to find a spot for it. But, at six mana, it just sat too high on the curve.
Phyrexian Hydra looks pretty playable here, too, but ultimately seemed a bit underpowered.
Finally, Grafted Exoskeleton was a strong contender that nearly made the cut. It can turn Rafiq or nearly any other creature into a potential one-hit kill. Ultimately, that's the reason I chose not to include it, that potential to just make games revolve around me trying to tutor it up, equip it to something and kill someone with one attack. Also, it does have that potential liability to 2-for-1 you if an opponent blows it up. For any playgroup that is less opposed to Infect cards, I would rate this Equipment as a must-run.
The remaining Infect cards were passed over for being off-color or not good enough to warrant inclusion, but if you wanted to really push the Infect them there are a few others that are worth considering.
Other notable cards that are missing from this list include Jace, the Mind Sculptor (took him out for another deck that needed him more). Jace is not particularly synergystic with the deck, save that he can remove pesky blockers. This is the one deck where I'm more likely to use his Unsummon ability than not. Also, his brainstorm ability lets you put Eldrazi Conscription back into your library should you draw into it. Overall, though, he's just really good, and often fools oppoents into wasting time and resources trying to deal with him, while you set up a Rafiq kill.
Keiga the Tide Star and Yosei the Morning Star both really should be in here somewhere, and both were until recently, but I had to swap them out due to other decks needing them more.
Many players would likely want to add in some countermagic, and that's not really a bad idea. I just don't like counterspells. They're not fun, to me, so I've left them out, but throwing in a Cryptic Command and a few others would certainly not hurt the deck.
One issue with the list I posted above is that I probably have too much card-drawing. With a bunch of combat-damage-triggered draw like Cold-Eyed Selkie (this card is nuts with Rafiq!) and Hystrodon, and some spell-based draw like Foresee, I really probably overdid it there, but I am fine with that. Drawing cards is my favorite thing to do ever, and I hate being in top-deck mode more than anything else in Magic. So I tend to err on the side of abundance when selecting my card-drawers.
Cephalid Constable is one of the newest additions to the deck. I haven't had it in long enough to speak to its reliability or consistency, but the one time I did cast it and connect with an opponent, I bounced four permanents thanks to Rafiq's assistance, and that was early enough in the game that my opponent was so far behind after that one attack he scooped at 36 life.
Sphinx Ambassador was in the deck for a short time, because the thought of getting double-Bribery's off his attack trigger (go doublestrike!) was too hilarious to pass up. However, the big blue Sphinx just costs too damn much, and it NEVER survives long enough to hit anyone. The one and only time I ever successfully attacked into an opponent with the Sphinx while having Rafiq out, my opponent just scooped on the spot.
Wincat, or Felidar Sovereign, was in for a while too, and he's not bad at all, but for a less cheesey Lifelinker, Baneslayer Angel or Exalted Angel are both worthwhile inclusions, and all 3 have been in my deck at some point.
Birthing Pod is a card I fell in love with at first sight, much like Mimic Vat, but unlike Mimic Vat it hasn't panned out to be as universally good as I expected it to be. In the right deck, the Pod is almost BETTER than Survival of the Fittest, but only in the right decks. Here, though, it hasn't proved as useful as I'd hoped. I've flat-out one a game or two because of it (usually it just chains into Sovereigns FTW) but just as often I've been disappointed to draw it. I'm probably going to cut it for Mimic Vat or something else.
Green Sun's Zenith was in this slot before Birthing Pod, and it was just as disappointing. 90% of the time I cast it I desperately needed Sovereigns or Duplicant, but had to settle on Primeval Titan. It sounds weird saying that, but Prime Time just didn't do much for the deck. So he, too, was cut for other decks that needed his help way more than this deck. He's not WRONG to add if you have him, but the deck ran fine way before he was printed and it's working fine without him now, too.
Martial Coup might seem an odd choice... of all the Wrath variant, why that one? Well, simply because of Thraximundar. The deck usually relies on having one or two creatures in play at a time, rarely ever more than two. So, Thraxi was giving me quite a thrashing, forcing me to sac one guy and block with another, then I had to somehow try to cast two more creatures on my next turn or start taking General Damage.
For a while, I had Decree of Justice and Martial Coup as token-producers. Decree was better, because it could make the tokens at Instant Speed, but the Coup was a much-needed sweeper too. I also toyed with adding White Sun's Zenith, but the triple W cost was a bit unweildy. In a Thraximundar-free environment, I think Martial Coup should be swapped for nearly any other sweeper.
Tuck effects like Bant Charm or Spin into Myth probably would be great additions too, if your playgroup is fine with those effects. Mine is not, and that's ok by me.
Well, that's about it, I guess. If you have any questions about other card choices, lemme know in the comments section.
So, to rectify this oversight, I'm going to post the list here, for Zimagic and of course anyone else who might happen to stroll by...
As a quick recap, to start things off, I'll reiterate my intents with this deck. Rafiq has long been one of my all-time favortie generals, and this deck has always been on of my strongest decks for 1v1 play. However, as with many aggro decks, it was not optimal for multiplayer, and I wanted to see if I could improve on it's multiplayer viability without losing its 1v1 power.
Along came Scars of Mirrodin block, and with it came Infect. Infect has been a boon to all aggro fans out there in the EDH world, as it gives an aggro deck the reach necessary to take down multiple opponents instead of just one.
So, to make my Rafiq deck more viable for my 4-way FFA games, I threw in just a dash of Infect cards. I only chose the best and most appropriate - my playgroup is pretty racist against Infect for no good reason - most of them decided they hated Infect before they'd ever played a single game with or against any Infect cards. That kind of knee-jerk reaction is just plain silly, but at the same time I don't want to make my friends hate playing with me, so I kept the Infect to a minimum.
It seems to have worked out really well, so far, but with the release of the new Commander decks and all the shiny new generals to build around, I haven't really played the deck much. But enough preamble, let's talk about the list.
General: Rafiq of the Many
Creatures:
Stoneforge Mystic
Academy Rector
Battlegrace Angel
Akroma Angel of Wrath
Blighted Agent
Cephalid Constable
Mulldrifter
Frost Titan
Noble Heirarch
Sakura Tribe Elder
Fauna Shaman
Wood Elves
Eternal Witness
Indrik Stomphowler
Hystrodon
Putrefax
Acidic Slime
Qasali Pridemage
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Dauntless Escort
Cold-Eyed Selkie
Jenara, Asura of War
Rhox War Monk
Giltspire Avenger
Loxodon Heirarch
Knight of New Alara
Sovereigns of Lost Alara
Simic Sky Swallower
Duplicant
Spells:
Swords to Plowshares
Path to Exile
Elspeth, Knight Errant
Wrath of God
Miraculous Recovery
True Conviction
Martial Coup
Deep Analysis
Foresee
Rite of Replication
Treachery
Corrupted Conscience
Beast Within
Harrow
Skyshroud Claim
Birthing Pod
Pattern of Rebirth
Temporal Spring
Shield of the Oversoul
Steel of the Godhead
Mirari's Wake
Finest Hour
Wargate
Simic Signet
Selesnya Signet
Azorius Signet
Darksteel Ingot
Lightning Greaves
Sword of Fire and Ice
Sword of Light and Shadow
Sword of War and Peace
Eldrazi Conscription
Lands:
Plains x5
Island x5
Forest x5
City of Brass
Seaside Citadel
Reflecting Pool
Vesuva
Stirring Wildwood
Celestial Colonnade
Glacial Fortress
Sunpetal Grove
Brushland
Adarkar Wastes
Yavimaya Coast
Temple Garden
Hallowed Fountain
Breeding Pool
Flooded Grove
Windswept Heath
Misty Rainforest
New Benalia
Llanowar Reborn
Yavimaya Hollow
High Market
Inkmoth Nexus
OK, that's the list as it stands.
Since the presence of Infect is probably the biggest talking point, let's discuss what did and didn't make it into the deck. As stated above, I wanted to keep the number of Infect cards low enough that my playgroup wouldn't shun me, but have enough that their presence would matter and improve my odds of winning.
First up, we'll start with the most recent addition - Blighted Agent. I've had Jhessian Infiltrator in the deck for a long, long time and have always been happy with its performance. In this deck, Blighted Agent is almost strictly better. It is cheap and easy to cast, and when compined with Rafiq it can kill very quickly.
Corrupted Conscience replaced Bribery simply because I needed a slot for the Enchantment, and Bribery was more useful in a different deck. Having the same CMC as well made it an easy swap, despite Bribery being overall the stronger card.
Inkmoth Nexus should be an obvious inclusion as well, but it's basically just another cheap, evasive Infect guy that happens to make mana in its spare time.
Putrefax is just another one-shot enabler, much like Might of Oaks or Sovereigns/Conscription. Saavy opponents should be used to Rafiq decks being able to one-shot them out of nowhere from time to time, so Putrefax should not be all that offensive.
Those are the four that made it in. There are some noteable exclusions that I would like to address as well.
The first and probably most notable exclusion is Blightsteel Colossus. It definitely could find a home here, but I avoided it for a few reasons. First, I don't own one. That's simple enough, but they're not exactly hard to acquire either so if I really wanted to, I could get one. The next reason is that of all the Infect cards it's probably the most likely to get groans and eye-rolls when you cast it. As I've stated, I want my playgroup to accept that I'm using Infect and this card would just make them mad. Perhaps the biggest single factor, for me, is the fact that Blightsteel doesn't NEED Rafiq to be a one-shot. Sure it can potentially take out two players in one turn with Finest Hour, but giving BSC +1/+1 and doublestrike is just win-more. Finally, aside from being too easy, it's also too expensive. My build focuses on a streamlined creature base with as low a curve as I can stand to get it. Akroma is the most expensive creature in the deck and I have trouble casting her sometimes. Adding an 11 mana creature to the mix would necessitate adding some more ramp, which would only dillute the threat-density.
The other big one is Triumph of the Hordes. Of all the Infect cards currently in print, this one has the highest potential for winning out of nowhere. In the right deck. My build, though, is not the right deck. To play this deck correctly, you're often only going to have two creatures on the field at a time, and only want to attack with one of them. Triumph of the Hordes would encourage you to play out as many threats at a time and possibly get blown-out by a Wrath. I feel like 90% of the time, Triumph would effectively just give ONE attacker +1/+1 and Infect. For 4 mana, that's just not appealing.
Spinebiter was an interesting idea, and I almost tried to find a spot for it. But, at six mana, it just sat too high on the curve.
Phyrexian Hydra looks pretty playable here, too, but ultimately seemed a bit underpowered.
Finally, Grafted Exoskeleton was a strong contender that nearly made the cut. It can turn Rafiq or nearly any other creature into a potential one-hit kill. Ultimately, that's the reason I chose not to include it, that potential to just make games revolve around me trying to tutor it up, equip it to something and kill someone with one attack. Also, it does have that potential liability to 2-for-1 you if an opponent blows it up. For any playgroup that is less opposed to Infect cards, I would rate this Equipment as a must-run.
The remaining Infect cards were passed over for being off-color or not good enough to warrant inclusion, but if you wanted to really push the Infect them there are a few others that are worth considering.
Other notable cards that are missing from this list include Jace, the Mind Sculptor (took him out for another deck that needed him more). Jace is not particularly synergystic with the deck, save that he can remove pesky blockers. This is the one deck where I'm more likely to use his Unsummon ability than not. Also, his brainstorm ability lets you put Eldrazi Conscription back into your library should you draw into it. Overall, though, he's just really good, and often fools oppoents into wasting time and resources trying to deal with him, while you set up a Rafiq kill.
Keiga the Tide Star and Yosei the Morning Star both really should be in here somewhere, and both were until recently, but I had to swap them out due to other decks needing them more.
Many players would likely want to add in some countermagic, and that's not really a bad idea. I just don't like counterspells. They're not fun, to me, so I've left them out, but throwing in a Cryptic Command and a few others would certainly not hurt the deck.
One issue with the list I posted above is that I probably have too much card-drawing. With a bunch of combat-damage-triggered draw like Cold-Eyed Selkie (this card is nuts with Rafiq!) and Hystrodon, and some spell-based draw like Foresee, I really probably overdid it there, but I am fine with that. Drawing cards is my favorite thing to do ever, and I hate being in top-deck mode more than anything else in Magic. So I tend to err on the side of abundance when selecting my card-drawers.
Cephalid Constable is one of the newest additions to the deck. I haven't had it in long enough to speak to its reliability or consistency, but the one time I did cast it and connect with an opponent, I bounced four permanents thanks to Rafiq's assistance, and that was early enough in the game that my opponent was so far behind after that one attack he scooped at 36 life.
Sphinx Ambassador was in the deck for a short time, because the thought of getting double-Bribery's off his attack trigger (go doublestrike!) was too hilarious to pass up. However, the big blue Sphinx just costs too damn much, and it NEVER survives long enough to hit anyone. The one and only time I ever successfully attacked into an opponent with the Sphinx while having Rafiq out, my opponent just scooped on the spot.
Wincat, or Felidar Sovereign, was in for a while too, and he's not bad at all, but for a less cheesey Lifelinker, Baneslayer Angel or Exalted Angel are both worthwhile inclusions, and all 3 have been in my deck at some point.
Birthing Pod is a card I fell in love with at first sight, much like Mimic Vat, but unlike Mimic Vat it hasn't panned out to be as universally good as I expected it to be. In the right deck, the Pod is almost BETTER than Survival of the Fittest, but only in the right decks. Here, though, it hasn't proved as useful as I'd hoped. I've flat-out one a game or two because of it (usually it just chains into Sovereigns FTW) but just as often I've been disappointed to draw it. I'm probably going to cut it for Mimic Vat or something else.
Green Sun's Zenith was in this slot before Birthing Pod, and it was just as disappointing. 90% of the time I cast it I desperately needed Sovereigns or Duplicant, but had to settle on Primeval Titan. It sounds weird saying that, but Prime Time just didn't do much for the deck. So he, too, was cut for other decks that needed his help way more than this deck. He's not WRONG to add if you have him, but the deck ran fine way before he was printed and it's working fine without him now, too.
Martial Coup might seem an odd choice... of all the Wrath variant, why that one? Well, simply because of Thraximundar. The deck usually relies on having one or two creatures in play at a time, rarely ever more than two. So, Thraxi was giving me quite a thrashing, forcing me to sac one guy and block with another, then I had to somehow try to cast two more creatures on my next turn or start taking General Damage.
For a while, I had Decree of Justice and Martial Coup as token-producers. Decree was better, because it could make the tokens at Instant Speed, but the Coup was a much-needed sweeper too. I also toyed with adding White Sun's Zenith, but the triple W cost was a bit unweildy. In a Thraximundar-free environment, I think Martial Coup should be swapped for nearly any other sweeper.
Tuck effects like Bant Charm or Spin into Myth probably would be great additions too, if your playgroup is fine with those effects. Mine is not, and that's ok by me.
Well, that's about it, I guess. If you have any questions about other card choices, lemme know in the comments section.
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