So, by now I'm sure you've all heard the big news. I won't regurgitate here what you can read for yourself, but I thought I would share my two cents. Frankly, I am quite thrilled by the announcement WotC made Thursday. I am super excited to learn more about their MtG: Commander decks and especially the new "wedge" generals. I'm less excited about the name-change to "Commander" but we can all still call it EDH if we like, so it's not a big deal. Further, I can understand why WotC had to do it that way. Putting "Highlander" on their products might have gotten them in trouble with Adrian Paul and Christopher Lambert.
The best news, though, is Wizard's clear statement that they will be leaving the format in the hands of those who know it best: the fans. I'm very surprised that they took this stance, and very pleased. They clearly want to provide support without meddlesome interference, and that's awesome. I've been less than thrilled by a vast number of decisions to come out of WotC the last few years, but this time I think they really hit a home run.
I just don't know if I'll ever stop referring to EDH as EDH. It's way less generic and lame sounding, and it's just an old habit now anyway.
Okay, so my soapbox is now put way. Let's talk EDH. Specifically, decklists. More specifically, Sek'Kuar Deathkeeper. I recently built this deck as an attempt to rejuvenate my interest in the format, after realizing that all of my EDH decks were too similar and were getting kinda boring. I wanted to cut as many of the "pet cards" that I was seeing crop up in all of my decks over and over, and try out some new stuff.
There are some staples, of course, but I definitely went outside my comfort zone on this one. I really like the deck so far, but it's a work in progress. I expect it to evolve a bit, at least until the new Commander product is released, as by then I'll want to experiment with the new hotness. But enough chatter, here's the list.
General: Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper
Creatures:
Fleshbag Marauder
Bone Shredder
Dimir House Guard
Phyrexian Plaguelord
Grave Titan
Geth, Lord of the Vault
Dragonmaster Outcast
Flametongue Kavu
Anger
Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
Conquering Manticore
Homura, Human Ascendant
Crater Hellion
Fauna Shaman
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Eternal Witness
Yavimaya Elder
Indrik Stomphowler
Mitotic Slime
Mycoloth
Ant Queen
Acidic Slime
Rampaging Baloths
Verdeloth the Ancient
Vigor
Avenger of Zendikar
Savra, Queen of the Golgari
Creekwood Liege
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
Dragon Broodmother
Duplicant
Wurmcoil Engine
Spells:
Diabolic Intent
Attrition
Dread Return
Barter in Blood
Reprocess
Grave Pact
Decree of Pain
Hellion Eruption
Vicious Shadows
Kodama's Reach
Harrow
Beastmaster Ascension
Skyshroud Claim
Momentous Fall
Garruk Wildspeaker
Doubling Season
Terminate
Hull Breach
Putrefy
Fires of Yavimaya
Sarkhan Vol
Torrent of Souls
Sarkhan the Mad
Bituminous Blast
Sol Ring
Obelisk of Jund
Coalition Relic
Skullclamp
Lightning Greaves
Deathrender
Eldrazi Monument
Swamp x2
Mountain x2
Forest x2
Bojuka Bog
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
Khalni Garden
Gaea's Cradle
Treetop Village
Llanowar Reborn
Temple of the False God
Yavimaya Hollow
Evolving Wilds
City of Brass
Reflecting Pool
Darigaaz's Caldera
Savage Lands
Bloodstained Mire
Verdant Catacombs
Rakdos Carnarium
Gruul Turf
Golgari Rot Farm
Blood Crypt
Stomping Ground
Overgrown Tomb
Sulfurous Springs
Karplusan Forest
Llanowar Wastes
Graven Cairns
Fire-Lit Thicket
Twilight Mire
Dragonskull Summit
Rootbound Crag
Raging Ravine
That's the list as it stands now. It's a tad short on mana. I'd like to increase the land count by two or add in the three Signets.
It has a strong token theme, with sac effects as the main sub-theme. Those two work well together, as I often have tokens to sac to Barter in Blood, while my opponent has to sac actual creatures. Grave Pact is the MVP of the deck, but I think Vicious Shadows will steal a lot of games.
Anyway, I'm still tinkering with it, so I'll update if I make any major changes.
Showing posts with label spoliers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spoliers. Show all posts
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Yet another new Green Bomb!
Wizards seems to really be trying to give us EDH players a lot of love. Allow me to submit the following as evidence:
Now isn't that a beautiful sight? I never thought they'd actually print Survival of the Fittest on a creature.
Well, technically they didn't, not exactly. Summoning sickness + tap symbol means she isn't quite as broken as the original. Plus a 2/2 creature tends to be more fragile than an Enchantment. So, while she really isn't AS good as the original thing, in the land of singleton decks, she's the closest you'll get to running 2x Survival... and that ain't bad!
So, yeah, she still combos quite well with Squee, Goblin Nabob and all that. She's also quite a bit better if you can cast Lightning Greaves turn 2, and her on Turn 3. Greaves will not only protect her with Shroud, but give you immediate benefit via Haste as well.
How awesome is it that last night I just posted the Vorosh decklist with Genesis, and lamented about how I needed Survival of the Fittest for the deck... the next day Wizards spoils this card. Fauna Shaman is actually better than Survival in that deck, because not only does she help set up the Genesis engine, but she can actually be recurred with Genesis should she eat a removal spell (likely), unlike her enchantment precursor.
I'd still run both, if I could, mind you. Redundancy is good in EDH, so there's no reason why one should have to choose between the two.
And I'm sure that sometimes the fact that she can only activate once per turn will be a bit of a downer, but hey let's be fair here: Getting this ability once per turn is still better than getting it zero times a turn right? Besides, she's the same color as Seedborn Muse... I'm sure you can find a few clever ways to get around this tiny drawback.
I'll be quite anxious to acquire one for Vorosh most of all, but if I can get more than one I'd be more than happy to run her in any of my EDH decks that run Green.
Now isn't that a beautiful sight? I never thought they'd actually print Survival of the Fittest on a creature.
Well, technically they didn't, not exactly. Summoning sickness + tap symbol means she isn't quite as broken as the original. Plus a 2/2 creature tends to be more fragile than an Enchantment. So, while she really isn't AS good as the original thing, in the land of singleton decks, she's the closest you'll get to running 2x Survival... and that ain't bad!
So, yeah, she still combos quite well with Squee, Goblin Nabob and all that. She's also quite a bit better if you can cast Lightning Greaves turn 2, and her on Turn 3. Greaves will not only protect her with Shroud, but give you immediate benefit via Haste as well.
How awesome is it that last night I just posted the Vorosh decklist with Genesis, and lamented about how I needed Survival of the Fittest for the deck... the next day Wizards spoils this card. Fauna Shaman is actually better than Survival in that deck, because not only does she help set up the Genesis engine, but she can actually be recurred with Genesis should she eat a removal spell (likely), unlike her enchantment precursor.
I'd still run both, if I could, mind you. Redundancy is good in EDH, so there's no reason why one should have to choose between the two.
And I'm sure that sometimes the fact that she can only activate once per turn will be a bit of a downer, but hey let's be fair here: Getting this ability once per turn is still better than getting it zero times a turn right? Besides, she's the same color as Seedborn Muse... I'm sure you can find a few clever ways to get around this tiny drawback.
I'll be quite anxious to acquire one for Vorosh most of all, but if I can get more than one I'd be more than happy to run her in any of my EDH decks that run Green.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
New EDH Bomb!!
Okay, I was going to wait until the whole set had spoiled to do an EDH Set Review for M11, and I still intend to do that, but I just had to post something about this card:
Holy shit!
Now, you may not see what all the fuss is, right of the bat, so let's break it down. First, we have a 6/6 for 6 mana - good, but hardly broken in Green. Add Trample, and now were about in line with another Green mythic. Ah, now we're getting somewhere, but the real meat is in the wall of text between the word "Trample" and the flavor text.
Okay, there are two key details you might have overlooked. First, the phrase "or attacks" - so you get the ability right off the bat, just for casting this bad boy... then you get it again if it actually lives to attack. Every time it attacks. Second, the part that really makes this a bomb - you can get ANY LAND!! That's right, not just basic lands - boring old Forest, Plains, etc... You can get any non-basic land in your deck. Two at a time.
Now, in some decks, this might just be a "good" ability, but in EDH it will be damn near BROKEN. I currently have three EDH decks that can tap for Green mana, and all three are going to want a copy of this card. Let's examine, shall we?
First up is Rafiq of the Many (you can find the decklist conveniently in the post before this one). What can the Primeval Titan bring to my Rafiq deck?
Well, for one thing, a 6/6 trampler is pretty good with Rafiq. Just imagine this guy swinging as a 7/7 Trampling Double-striker... Now imagine this guy swinging with Finest Hour on the table. 4 lands per turn seems pretty good to me, but honestly your opponent might be dead before you get to untap them!
Remember, though, that we're not just dumping mana on the board here. We can get some neat utility lands too! Now here are just a few of the interesting lands you can fetch with this guy:
High Market: Good land to have against Blue mages - good luck casting Treachery now, punk!
Kor Haven: Great utility land against certain decks (I'm looking at you, Thraximundar!), makes it kinda hard for them to win through General damage.
New Benalia: Scry 1, anybody?
Vesuva: Take out an opposing legendary land, like Volrath's Stronghold or Minamo, School at Water's Edge.Or just copy one of your more useful lands.
Yavimaya Hollow: A great little utility land to help protect Rafiq, or the Titan for that matter.
And finally, here's one that I'm not currently running, but I can guarantee you it will be going in right along with the Titan:
Oh yeah, baby! Anywho, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Moving on, then...
Another deck I'm running is Uril, the Mistwalker. This is a deck that likes to have lots of mana, so the mana acceleration helps tremendously here, more-so than in Rafiq. Many of the same utility lands apply here as well, though, given the two-color overlap. But a few new lands present themselves, but the most notable one here is Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion. This is a card that I love, and have kept in the deck out of hope that it will win me the game some day, but alas, the activation is a bit steep and I've never got to use it. Ironically the one time I could have activated it and had it be relevant, I top-decked Runes of the Deus, the one card in the deck that absolutely trumped Sunhome in that instance. However, if the Primeval Titan lives long enough to attack once or twice, you should have no trouble not only finding Sunhome, but paying for it too!
The Titan plays very well with Landfall, of course, and I'm already running the Rampaging Baloths, so those two will make quite the pair, should I ever get them both out. Just imagine Tooth-and-Nail-ing for these two guys: you get two 6/6 tramplers, two lands and two 4/4 beast tokens right of the bat. Add to that one of many ways to give them haste: Lightning Greaves, Fires of Yavimaya, Sarkhan Vol, and Anger - all of which are in my deck already - then you immediately get two more lands, and thus two more 4/4 tokens, ready to block (too late to declare them as attackers by this stage).
The one bad thing about this guy is that the lands do come into play tapped. Oh well, but if it's too much of a drawback for you, might is suggest Bear Umbra, or Garruk Wildspeaker to make use of your newly fetched lands right away.
And so we now come to Vorosh the Hunter. My Vorosh deck is a very Control-oriented build, and the one thing I have been needing to do is squeeze in just a bit more mana acceleration and another good finisher or two. Well, folks, the Primeval Titan just happens to fit both into one efficient package!
Here are just a few of the useful lands it can fetch: Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Volrath's Stronghold, Phyrexian Tower, Temple of the False God, Gargoyle Castle, and the list goes on. Another neat trick is to grab a Ravnica bounce-land with the Titan and bounce a Cycling land that you played early on and no longer need. Return it to your hand and cycle it away!
Aside from being a competent finsher, the Titan plays well with certain other cards in the Vorosh deck.
Obviously, copying the Titan with Vesuvan Shapeshifter is good. Or use Body Double if your oppoent has removal handy for the first one. But this is EDH, the format of big dumb plays - so lets think bigger, shall we? How about a fully-kicked Rite of Replication? Five 6/6 tramplers and TEN LANDS?!?! Sure, I'll take that! If you manage not to win the game after that play, you are almost certainly doing something very wrong.
Another cute little trick is to use the Titan to fetch Urborg while you have a Nirkana Revenant out. What are you going to do with 50 black mana? What, you mean besides playing Rite of Replication with Kicker? I don't know but I'm sure you'll... think... of... something...
I recently cut the Revenant because it was too hard to get Urborg out if I drew her. I didn't want to run Expedition Map or Sylvan Scrying just to get Urborg because if I drew them WITHOUT drawing the Nirkana Revenant they'd be all but dead cards. But the Titan is unlikely to be a dead card even without the revenant, or if I have already drawn Urborg. So I can put the Revenant back in along with the Titan, and guess what? Both are good threat creatures, AND they both help increase my mana production. Win-Win!
So yeah, if you have an EDH that taps for Green, I strongly suggest you play this guy. I know I will be!
Holy shit!
Now, you may not see what all the fuss is, right of the bat, so let's break it down. First, we have a 6/6 for 6 mana - good, but hardly broken in Green. Add Trample, and now were about in line with another Green mythic. Ah, now we're getting somewhere, but the real meat is in the wall of text between the word "Trample" and the flavor text.
Whenever Primeval Titan enters the battlefield or attacks,
you may search your library for up to two land cards, put
them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library.
Okay, there are two key details you might have overlooked. First, the phrase "or attacks" - so you get the ability right off the bat, just for casting this bad boy... then you get it again if it actually lives to attack. Every time it attacks. Second, the part that really makes this a bomb - you can get ANY LAND!! That's right, not just basic lands - boring old Forest, Plains, etc... You can get any non-basic land in your deck. Two at a time.
Now, in some decks, this might just be a "good" ability, but in EDH it will be damn near BROKEN. I currently have three EDH decks that can tap for Green mana, and all three are going to want a copy of this card. Let's examine, shall we?
First up is Rafiq of the Many (you can find the decklist conveniently in the post before this one). What can the Primeval Titan bring to my Rafiq deck?
Well, for one thing, a 6/6 trampler is pretty good with Rafiq. Just imagine this guy swinging as a 7/7 Trampling Double-striker... Now imagine this guy swinging with Finest Hour on the table. 4 lands per turn seems pretty good to me, but honestly your opponent might be dead before you get to untap them!
Remember, though, that we're not just dumping mana on the board here. We can get some neat utility lands too! Now here are just a few of the interesting lands you can fetch with this guy:
High Market: Good land to have against Blue mages - good luck casting Treachery now, punk!
Kor Haven: Great utility land against certain decks (I'm looking at you, Thraximundar!), makes it kinda hard for them to win through General damage.
New Benalia: Scry 1, anybody?
Vesuva: Take out an opposing legendary land, like Volrath's Stronghold or Minamo, School at Water's Edge.Or just copy one of your more useful lands.
Yavimaya Hollow: A great little utility land to help protect Rafiq, or the Titan for that matter.
And finally, here's one that I'm not currently running, but I can guarantee you it will be going in right along with the Titan:
Oh yeah, baby! Anywho, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Moving on, then...
Another deck I'm running is Uril, the Mistwalker. This is a deck that likes to have lots of mana, so the mana acceleration helps tremendously here, more-so than in Rafiq. Many of the same utility lands apply here as well, though, given the two-color overlap. But a few new lands present themselves, but the most notable one here is Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion. This is a card that I love, and have kept in the deck out of hope that it will win me the game some day, but alas, the activation is a bit steep and I've never got to use it. Ironically the one time I could have activated it and had it be relevant, I top-decked Runes of the Deus, the one card in the deck that absolutely trumped Sunhome in that instance. However, if the Primeval Titan lives long enough to attack once or twice, you should have no trouble not only finding Sunhome, but paying for it too!
The Titan plays very well with Landfall, of course, and I'm already running the Rampaging Baloths, so those two will make quite the pair, should I ever get them both out. Just imagine Tooth-and-Nail-ing for these two guys: you get two 6/6 tramplers, two lands and two 4/4 beast tokens right of the bat. Add to that one of many ways to give them haste: Lightning Greaves, Fires of Yavimaya, Sarkhan Vol, and Anger - all of which are in my deck already - then you immediately get two more lands, and thus two more 4/4 tokens, ready to block (too late to declare them as attackers by this stage).
The one bad thing about this guy is that the lands do come into play tapped. Oh well, but if it's too much of a drawback for you, might is suggest Bear Umbra, or Garruk Wildspeaker to make use of your newly fetched lands right away.
And so we now come to Vorosh the Hunter. My Vorosh deck is a very Control-oriented build, and the one thing I have been needing to do is squeeze in just a bit more mana acceleration and another good finisher or two. Well, folks, the Primeval Titan just happens to fit both into one efficient package!
Here are just a few of the useful lands it can fetch: Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Volrath's Stronghold, Phyrexian Tower, Temple of the False God, Gargoyle Castle, and the list goes on. Another neat trick is to grab a Ravnica bounce-land with the Titan and bounce a Cycling land that you played early on and no longer need. Return it to your hand and cycle it away!
Aside from being a competent finsher, the Titan plays well with certain other cards in the Vorosh deck.
Obviously, copying the Titan with Vesuvan Shapeshifter is good. Or use Body Double if your oppoent has removal handy for the first one. But this is EDH, the format of big dumb plays - so lets think bigger, shall we? How about a fully-kicked Rite of Replication? Five 6/6 tramplers and TEN LANDS?!?! Sure, I'll take that! If you manage not to win the game after that play, you are almost certainly doing something very wrong.
Another cute little trick is to use the Titan to fetch Urborg while you have a Nirkana Revenant out. What are you going to do with 50 black mana? What, you mean besides playing Rite of Replication with Kicker? I don't know but I'm sure you'll... think... of... something...
I recently cut the Revenant because it was too hard to get Urborg out if I drew her. I didn't want to run Expedition Map or Sylvan Scrying just to get Urborg because if I drew them WITHOUT drawing the Nirkana Revenant they'd be all but dead cards. But the Titan is unlikely to be a dead card even without the revenant, or if I have already drawn Urborg. So I can put the Revenant back in along with the Titan, and guess what? Both are good threat creatures, AND they both help increase my mana production. Win-Win!
So yeah, if you have an EDH that taps for Green, I strongly suggest you play this guy. I know I will be!
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