Hello, all. I'm providing this post as a convenient way to access all 7 parts of my Innistrad EDH Set Review.
- Part 1: White
- Part 2: Blue
- Part 3: Black
- Part 4: Red
- Part 5: Green
- Part 6: Other
- Part 7: Double-faced Cards
Enjoy!
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Hello, all. I'm providing this post as a convenient way to access all 7 parts of my Innistrad EDH Set Review.
Enjoy!
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I pretty much agree with all of your assessments except for Geist of Saint Traft.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what you see in him, he is almost strictly worse than Kaalia except that he has protection and as you said can be played with Finest Hour. Though Kaalia can be played with Relentless Assault and friends so I figure protection is the only thing really going for him.
I do understand that he costs 3 mana and swings for 6 but no evasion is the deal breaker for me. I find it weird that all of the other spirits have flying yet the spirit legend does not...wtf?
Hmm, you raise some good points, and I do think you may prove to be right... but for now I still have to give the edge to Traft.
ReplyDeleteKaalia has two huge weaknesses - running out of gas, and dying before she can do anything. Traft has neither of those weaknesses.
I've yet to see a Kaalia deck win without Kaalia - she requires you load your deck with big, expensive creatures of a specific type... and when you can't rely on Kaalia to cheat them into play, the deck is simply to slow. You basically can't win without Kaalia, but on the other hand, if you have her in play and start dumping your hand you run the risk of over-extending and/or running out of gas.
Traft doesn't make any requirements about what you put in your deck or what you put in your hand. He simply does his thing independent of what you might have in hand, and he's just in a better color-scheme. Blue-white control with Geist at the helm should make his lack of evasion irrelevant - you should be killing or countering anything that might get in his way. Or you can just put any number of equipments or auras on him. Protection Swords and Steel of the Godhead all seem like wonderful options. Or the good ol' Whispersilk Cloak, maybe?
I still think a Kaalia deck is just more fun and interesting - blue-white control decks aren't fun to play against and they're only fun to play WITH if you don't mind that your opponents will hate you.
But Geist just allows you to make a better deck, overall, and doesn't necessarily henge on you being able to A) keep your general alive and safely attacking and B)having relevant stuff in your hand.
I definitely hope Kaalia remains the more popular general, because I'd rather play against her than Traft any day.
Hmm, you raise some good points too. I suppose they both have their merits.
ReplyDeleteGeist may yet prove to be an interesting general though I guess I just don't see myself playing with him, especially seeing as how I'm not really a fan of Kaalia either. I started building a Kaalia deck and gave up halfway through...I guess it was too "Timmy" for me lol.
I have to agree with Jammin here, he drops for 3 and hits for six which is nice, but 4 of that six aren't even general damage. While the hexproof is nice, he lacks any amount of evasion to get through on his own. You could certainly voltron him up but for only 6 dmg I'd assume there are better alternatives.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you weren't more excited for grimgrin, seems very much up your alley as he just screams graveyard shenanigans. Although his ability targets unlike Thraximundar, so thats a bit of a situational drawback.
Yeah, I'm not quite 'Johnny' enough for Grimgrin, I guess. He's definitely powerful, if you build around him right, but I'm not quite sold on him yet... He reminds me of Glissa the Traitor in that he provides an interesting puzzle to solve - i.e. how do you make him work?
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is, solving that puzzle is fun for me but the decks rarely provide much fun in playing them - their kinda like combo decks in that regard: once I've demonstrated that my solutuion to the puzzle works, I lose interest.
It's not fun to solve the same riddle over and over - once you know the answer, the mystery is lost. And once I've "solved" a build-around-me general like Glissa the Traitor, or Grimgrin, I quickly tire of playing the deck.
Jor Kadeen is also a build-around general that requires some puzzle-solving, but he's still much more open-ended. You know you want enough artifacts to activate his metalcraft ability reliably and consistently, and you want dudes to swing with to take advantage of the pump he gives... beyond that he's pretty open-ended.
I just feel like Grimgrin is one of those Generals where the solutions will largely wind up the same in most of his decks. In other words, I have seen a number of Jor Kadeen decks and they tend to be pretty varied and unique in their approach, but I think Grimgrin decks will be much more homogenous and will play a lot of the same cards regardless of who built the deck.
I may be wrong, but that's just what I expect to see.
Not related to this post (which I thought was great btw) but DT I was wondering if you post your decklists on Tappedout.net or anything because I'd like to follow you there if you do. lmk
ReplyDeleteHa ha, no I selfishly hoard my decklists for blog content.
ReplyDeleteKidding... I do often post most of my decks on the official EDH forums (see my link sidebar). Not every one of them, but most. That's about it.
Thanks for the compliments, btw!