After a bit of a delay, I'm finally ready to dig into the next Commander 2013 deck. This time out, we're going to be taking a look at the Bant deck, Evasive Maneuvers, led by the wonderful new Legendary Bird Wizard, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician.
Derevi is deceptively awesome. Well, maybe not so deceptively. Maybe the fact that she is a Bird Wizard tipped you off. But I was initially skeptical of her power-level due to her small stats. She had a cool set of abilities, but I figured once she was on the battlefield she'd be less than stellar.
Basically, I thought she was a legendary Pestermite with a gimmicky Command Zone ability to justify her Legendy-ness. Boy was I wrong.
I still haven't completely solved the puzzle that this deck presents, and I will continue to tweak and improve it as I play, but the list I'm using is definitely beyond the rough draft stage now, and is performing quite well so far.
But before we get to my updated list, let's start at the beginning, with the unmodified list.
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Acidic Slime
Aerie Mystics
Angel of Finality
Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Bane of Progress
Deceiver Exarch
Diviner Spirit
Djinn of Infinite Deceits
Dungeon Geists
Farhaven Elf
Fiend Hunter
Flickerwisp
Hada Spy Patrol
Karmic Guide
Kazandu Tuskcaller
Lu Xun, Scholar General
Mirror Entity
Mistmeadow Witch
Murkfiend Liege
Phantom Nantuko
Pilgrim's Eye
Roon of the Hidden Realm
Rubinia Soulsinger
Selesnya Guildmage
Skyward Eye Prophets
Stonecloaker
Thornwind Faeries
Winged Coatl
Wonder
Aethermage's Touch
Arcane Denial
Azorius Keyrune
Basalt Monolith
Blue Sun's Zenith
Borrowing 100,000 Arrows
Conjurer's Closet
Control Magic
Curse of Inertia
Curse of Predation
Curse of the Forsaken
Darksteel Ingot
Darksteel Mutation
Flickerform
Kirtar's Wrath
Krosan Grip
Leafdrake Roost
Leonin Bladetrap
Presence of Gond
Restore
Selesnya Charm
Selesnya Signet
Simic Signet
Sol Ring
Surveyor's Scope
Swiftfoot Boots
Sword of the Paruns
Tempt with Glory
Thousand-Year Elixir
Thunderstaff
Unexpectedly Absent
Wash Out
Azorius Chancery
Azorius Guildgate
Bant Panorama
Command Tower
Evolving Wilds
Faerie Conclave
Forest x6
Island x7
Opal Palace
Plains x7
Rupture Spire
Saltcrusted Steppe
Seaside Citadel
Secluded Steppe
Sejiri Refuge
Selesnya Guildgate
Selesnya Sanctuary
Simic Guildgate
Temple of the False God
Terramorphic Expanse
Transguild Promenade
This list is, like all preconstructed decks, a little rough around the edges. But, it does play surprisingly well. Better, at least, than it looks on paper. That's because Derevi opens up a lot of cute little interactions and synergies that aren't apparent until you play the deck and discover them through gameplay.
There is some synergy between Derevi's tap/untap theme and the alternate new Legend, Roon of the Hidden Realm, who inspires more of a flicker/blink theme. But, ultimately I found that trying to cater to both themes was too divisive and unstable, despite the seeming overlap in synergy. Since I wanted to focus on Derevi and not Roon (for now), I decided to mostly sideline the blink subtheme, save for a few key cards.
Once again, before making any changes, I'm going to rate all the cards in the stock list, giving each a grade of either PASS, FAIL, or NEEDS IMPROVEMENT. If you read the last two Updating... articles, you'll know the drill.
There are a few cards that turn out to be quite strong. The following cards get the grade of PASS and are worth keeping around as you spruce up the list:
Acidic Slime
Angel of Finality
Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Dungeon Geists
Fiend Hunter
Karmic Guide
Mirror Entity
Mistmeadow Witch
Murkfiend Liege
Stonecloaker
Winged Coatl
Curse of Predation
Darksteel Ingot
Krosan Grip
Sol Ring
Unexpectedly Absent
This next batch of cards have been graded NEEDS IMPROVEMENT. They're not outright bad, and could stay in the deck, but have more powerful or reliable alternatives that are generally better. Or, they are solid cards, but just don't fit the deck's overall strategy well enough and dilute the theme despite being good.
Bane of Progress
Deceiver Exarch
Farhaven Elf
Flickerwisp
Roon of the Hidden Realm
Rubinia Soulsinger
Selesnya Guildmage
Wonder
Arcane Denial
Blue Sun's Zenith
Conjurer's Closet
Darksteel Mutation
Kirtar's Wrath
Swiftfoot Boots
Basalt Monolith
Signets/Keyrunes
And the final batch of cards is, of course, the group labelled as FAIL - cards that are just plain bad and you should be very eager to replace as soon as possible.
Aerie Mystics
Diviner Spirit
Djinn of Infinite Deceits
Hada Spy Patrol
Kazandu Tuskcaller
Lu Xun, Scholar General
Phantom Nantuko
Pilgrim's Eye
Skyward Eye Prophets
Thornwind Fairies
Aethermage's Touch
Borrowing 100,000 Arrows
Control Magic
Curse of Intertia
Curse of the Forsaken
Flickerform
Leafdrake Roost
Leonin Bladetrap
Presence of Gond
Restore
Selesnya Charm
Surveyor's Scope
Sword of the Paruns
Tempt with Glory
Thousand-Year Elixer
Thunderstaff
Washout
So there's the rundown on the deck's starting lineup. Before we start with the changes, I want to outline my overall vision for the deck. After playing the deck unmodified a few times, the direction I decided was most natural for us to go, was to push for more small, cheap evasive attackers to maximize on Derevi's combat damage trigger. Using cards like Edric or Coastal Piracy to refill our hands was also critical.
The ideal average turn for the Derevi deck I wanted was something like this: Tap out to play a couple dudes; Swing with some guys; use Derevi triggers to untap a bunch of lands, and draw a bunch of cards off Edric/Piracy/Bident; use the newly untapped lands to play MORE guys. Next turn would be: Attack with even more guys, getting even more untap and draw triggers, casting even more guys post-combat, etc.
I also wanted to work in a lot of synergies and cute tricks. For example, cast a T2 Bloom Tender, cast T3 Derevi, target Bloom Tender with the untap trigger, tap BT in response for GWU, untap BT, tap BT again for GWU and have a GGWWUU floating on Turn 3, AFTER casting our General!
In short, the deck is just full of little tricks of synergy, many of which make board states far more complicated and tricky to play around for your opponents. You will almost always have multiple lines of play with this deck, which makes it fairly complicated and tricky for you to play as well. But that's a big part of the appeal and fun!
So we'll start, as usual, but addressing the straight-up 1-for-1 card swaps, where we replace a mediocre card with another card that is generally just a better version of the card we're replacing.
Conjurer's Closet --> Venser the Sojourner
This was a versatility upgrade. Venser can do pretty much the exact same job as the Closet for the same converted mana cost. However he can do a whole lot of extra things that Closet can't, for zero extra mana. He can return stolen permanent back to your control. He can protect your MVP creature from a Wrath (your own, at least). And the one thing that really makes him special here is making your whole army unblockable for a turn.
Skyward Eye Prophets --> Arcanis, the Omnipotent
I had a lot more fun than I'd ever have expected spamming the Skyward Eye with a bunch of Derevi's untap triggers all at once for massive value and card advantage. But as nice as the putting-a-land-into-play bonus was, every time I did this trick, I was really just wanted to draw an ass load of cards. Well, Arcanis is a thing. And he does draw an ass load of cards.
Basalt Monolith --> Chromatic Lantern
One thing I realized was that making colored mana was generally far, far more valuable than making a whole ton of colorless mana. It was cute, with the Monolith, but I almost never had a use for all that colorless. So the ultimate color-fixer comes in to ensure I always have the right mana for the job.
Flickerwisp --> Restoration Angel
For one more mana you get Flash and +0/+3, both tremendous upsides. The downside is that you can't flicker an opponent's blocker or anything like that, but I found that 9 times out of 10 I was using Flickerwisp on my own guys, so that downside seems minimal compared to the upside Flash brings.
Wash Out --> Cyclonic Rift
This was actually earmarked for Aetherize, a more closely comparable card. But due to some sort of miscalculation or mixup on my end, it wound up with Rift in the slot instead. This is what Bob Ross would call "a happy accident". Rift is really, reallly good so I haven't "corrected" this "error". But I do still want Aetherize in here somewhere...
Control Magic --> Treachery
What's that you say? Need a steal-your-guy effect that actually fits the tap/untap theme? Well, our judges would accept Volition Reins, but the #1 answer is of course, Treachery.
Hada Spy Patrol --> Invisible Stalker
LOL, I guess I could pay upwards of a hundred mana to get a unblockable Shroud guy... or I could pay two mana and get an unblockable Hexproof guy. You do the math.
Selesnya Charm, Darksteel Mutation --> Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile
The "versatility" of the Charm is a trap: it's only ever worth casting for the removal mode, but the removal mode doesn't hit Consecrated Sphinx (or a lot of other really scary things that don't have 5 power. Seriously, you'd be surprised how often that matters!). Mutation is cute for negating a scary general, but an opponent casting an Akroma's Vengeance or similar at the right time = an empty board except for the scary thing you tried to get rid of via the Mutation.
Blue Sun's Zenith --> Sphinx's Revelation
They're almost the same card, but one gains you a bunch of life. The shuffle-back-in effect is nice on the Zenith, of course, but I'd rather have it in the 'yard where I can E. Witness it anyways.
Kirtar's Wrath --> Elspeth Sun's Champion
Elspeth's -3 ability is damn near a Plague Wind in this deck. And making soliders en masse every turn is also pretty relevant.
That's about it for the 1-for-1 upgrades. There are more, but some of them make more sense if I address them in packages, so you can see the synergies I'm trying to build towards.
As usual, one of the first things I like to do is optimize my mana base, and ramp strategy. I won't talk about individual land choices until the end, but I knew from experience with my Edric deck, which has a similar approach to this deck, that we were going to want to "ramp" primarily by drawing extra lands, and making extra land drops via Exploration type effects.
So in a fit of contrarian experimentalism, I decided to up the land count to 40, cut all the mana rocks except Sol Ring and Chromatic Lantern, and most of the other ramp as well. I then added in Exploration, and Oracle of Mul Daya for starters. This wasn't quite reliable enough, so I threw in a Coiling Oracle (value snake!) as well. Then I broke another rule of mine: I normally hate "mana dorks" in EDH, but there were two cards that seemed like the reward would be worth the risk. Noble Hierarch is always solid, even without a real Exalted theme. But the real prize is Bloom Tender, which as I described above, can be pretty explosive.
OUT: Azorius Keyrune, Selesnya Signet, Simic Signet, Farhaven Elf, Restore, Explorer's Scope, Darksteel Ingot
IN: 2x Lands, Exploration, Oracle of Mul Daya, Coiling Oracle, Noble Hierarch, Bloom Tender
Next up, I wanted all of the Coastal Piracy-like effects I could find... turns out there aren't too many of them. Three bad cards come out for three good cards that draw us more cards!
OUT: Diviner Spirit, Thousand Year Elixir, Sword of the Paruns
IN: Edric, Spymaster of Trest; Coastal Piracy; Bident of Thassa
I can't always have an Edric effect in play every game, so I needed a bit of supplemental card draw.
OUT: Borrowing 100,000 Arrows; Lu Xun, Scholar General; Curse of the Forsaken
IN: Deep Analysis, Cold-Eyed Selkie, Mentor of the Meek
Borrowing 100k was never reliable and was basically EXACTLY Divination. I never could draw more than 2 cards off it. Deep Analysis is a boring old standby, but it's GOOD and has served me well in many decks in the past. Lu Xun is fine, but Selkie is cheaper, has almost as good an evasion ability, and can potentially draw more than one card at a time (Exatled, +1/+1 counters, etc.). And Curse was a do-nothing waste of a slot, while Mentor is a subtle but potented card advantage machine. He's almost never going to be the scariest thing on the board, but if unanswered he will draw tons of cards.
Rhystic Study has a very serious shot at being slotted in as well, but I never could find room for it.
Next up, I knew right away this deck was going to want Opposition and probably Glare of Subdual as well. I managed not to fit Glare in, sadly, but Opposition is front and center.
OUT: Thunderstaff
IN: Opposition
I really liked Azami in this deck already, and wanted to make her even more useful. Plus with Opposition now involved, I wanted to explore some of the "tap for value" cards from Lorwyn. In the end I only found two that I really wanted to play, but both are pretty freakin' awesome.
OUT: Presence of Gond, Thornwind Faeries
IN: Stonybrook Schoolmaster, Surgespanner
Props to my buddy Chad for suggesting the Surgespanner. I'm pretty sure he expected me to laugh at him and call him a scrub and mock his newbish deckbuilding skills... but I pretty much fell in love with the idea right off the bat. This also led me to the Schoolmaster, which also makes me cackle with glee when it works. Both cards work with Azami by virtue of being Wizards, so they let me draw cards WHILE DOING OTHER THINGS! Schoolmaster just churns out more Wizards, which in turn lets me draw more or tap more things, while the 'spanner lets me bounce permanents while drawing or tapping things! Either of these two cards combined with either Azami or Opposition gives me a serious value-boner.
There are a few more merfolk with the "whenever this beomes tapped" technology - Fallowsage draws more cards, and Grimoire Thief exiles your opponent's library 3 cards at a time, but neither felt strictly worth it to me.
I've seen Derevi lists that go hard with stuff like Winter Orb. That's powerful, I agree, but I didn't want to be quite that mean. I did, however, make the slightest nod to that strategy.
OUT: Roon of the Hidden Realm, Leonin Bladetrap
IN: Imposing Sovereign, Stoic Angel
Both of these cards are fairly critical in slowing down other aggressive decks, and making your Opposition locks even easier to keep pinned down. I also want to include Blind Obedience, but I couldn't find room, but I also have it in a bunch of decks already, too.
I have a few other cards in mind to help abuse the hell out of Opposition...
OUT: Selesnya Guildmage, Murkfiend Liege, Leafdrake Roost
IN: Emeria Angel, Prophet of Kruphix, Nature's Will
Nature's Will came about because I kept getting into situations where, after attacking with Derevi and a bunch of guys, I had to choose between untapping all my guys so they'd be ready to Opposition down some enemy threats, OR untapping my lands to cast more guys. I often felt like I needed to do both, but had to chose. Nature's Will eliminates that choice. (Sword of Feast and Famine will do much the same, of course). I've only stuck the Will once so far, but it was everything I dreamed it could be and more. Emeria Angel is just an "army in a can" but has synergy with our Exploration/Oracle of Mul Daya plan. Propeht of Krupix is, well... probably the single most scary card in the deck. It enables so much more than just Opposition. Wow.
Now we need a few more evasive beats.
OUT: Aerie Mystics, Kazandu Tuskcaller, Phantom Nantuko, Pilgrim's Eye
IN: Soltari Visionary, Jhessian Infiltrator, Daxos of Meletis, True-Name Nemesis
Visionary and Daxos have extra value in their combat-damage abilities, while Infiltrator and Visionary are just all but guaranteed to connect reliably and often.
Next up are a trio of cards that help our guys get through the red zone unscathed.
OUT: Arcane Denial, Curse of Inertia, Tempt with Glory
IN: Frontline Medic, Champion of Lambholt, Bow of Nylea
Champion can easily just make your whole team unblockable, but requires you to build up to that point. Frontline Medic doesn't add any evasion, but helps the team survive by making them Indestructible - so if you just have more guys than an opponent, you can bum rush him without suffering attrition. And Bow of Nylea just makes it so your opponents really don't want to block most of the time, and if they do, you're probably secretly happy with whatever trades they wind up making.
Now I have three more non-Creature spells to add. Mirari's Wake is obviously impressive, but the +1/+1 bonus is more relevant here than usual because of the small default size of our creatures. Spear of Heliod comes in for the same reason - an Anthem with an Upside is welcome, and we already had two of the three God-Weapons so why not complete the cycle? Finally, Primeval Bounty is an experimental pick that, in theory, applies a free value-added bonus to nearly every play we make.
OUT: Flickerform, Swiftfoot Boots, Aethermage's Touch
IN: Mirari's Wake, Spear of Heliod, Primeval Bounty
That leaves us with five more creature cards to include.
OUT: Wonder, Rubinia Soulsinger, Deceiver Exarch, Djinn of Infinite Deceits, Bane of Progress,
IN: Eternal Witness, Azorius Justiciar, Reveillark, Master Biomancer, Fauna Shaman
Eternal Witness is "duh good stuff", but really good with Venser. Similarly Azorius Justiciar is imminently blink-able, but also fine as a one-shot. Reveillark is a necessary concession to the fact that this deck HATES Wrath effects, but my group eschews countermagic, so I needed some other countermeasure. Fauna Shaman is primarily to find Edric first, then whatever utility dude I need afterwards. And finally, Master Biomancer - aka Bill Nye the Science Guy - is a fun way to turn my weenie army into a more formidable fighting force.
That's it for the main deck, but we still need to retool the mana base.
This is the one deck where I felt the colored mana requirements were stringent enough that I needed to break out the big guns. I included the three ABUR Duals in my build, as well as the Shadowmoor filter lands, along with the usual suspects. If you don't have them, no worries.
The more "techy" lands I included are: Gavony Township, Alchemist's Refuge, Reliquary Tower and Thawing Glaciers. Nothing to revelatory or ingenious here. Flash is good. Pumping my army is good. not discarding all those cards I draw off Coastal Piracy is good. The cutest bit is Thawing Glaciers. Once you've gotten a good attack set up, you can have all your Derevi triggers target the Glaciers and just use it multiple times in one turn. It can easily put you 3 or 4 lands ahead with one good attack, but once you get the engine going it's hard to stop. Just make sure to keep your basic land count fairly high, so you can exploit this properly.
Defensive lands like Maze of Ith and Kor Haven are also really good here, but I didn't have any available copies to include. Plus, too many colorless lands can really hurt.
The Worldwake manlands were also strong contenders, losing out only because I wanted to keep my Basic count high for the Thawing Glaciers trick, but more bodies is always welcome in this deck, which lives or dies on being able to quickly amass attackers.
Putting all this together, we arrive at the following list:
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Imposing Sovereign
Mentor of the Meek
Stonybook Schoolmaster
Frontline Medic
Stonecloaker
Mirror Entity
Soltari Visionary
Fiend Hunter
Angel of Finality
Restoration Angel
Emeria Angel
Azorius Justiciar
Reveillark
Karmic Guide
Invisible Stalker
True-Name Nemesis
Surgespanner
Dungeon Geists
Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Arcanis, the Omnipotent
Noble Hierarch
Fauna Shaman
Bloom Tender
Eternal Witness
Champion of Lambholt
Oracle of Mul Daya
Acidic Slime
Mistmeadow Witch
Coiling Oracle
Jhessian Infiltrator
Daxos of Meletis
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Winged Coatl
Cold-Eyed Selkie
Master Biomancer
Stoic Angel
Prophet of Kruphix
Swords to Plowshares
Path to Exile
Unexpectedly Absent
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Cyclonic Rift
Deep Analysis
Opposition
Coastal Piracy
Bident of Thassa
Treachery
Exploration
Curse of Predation
Krosan Grip
Bow of Nylea
Nature's Will
Primeval Bounty
Mirari's Wake
Venser, the Sojourner
Sphinx's Revelation
Sol Ring
Spear of Heliod
Chromatic Lantern
Tundra
Savannah
Tropical Island
Hallowed Fountain
Temple Garden
Breeding Pool
Glacial Fortress
Sunpetal Grove
Hinterland Harbor
Mystic Gate
Wooded Bastion
Flooded Grove
Misty Rainforest
Azorius Chancery
Selesnya Sanctuary
Simic Growth Chamber
Reflecting Pool
Command Tower
Seaside Citadel
Evolving WildsTemple of the False God
Gavony Township
Alchemist's Refuge
Thawing Glaciers
Reliquary Tower
Faerie Conclave
Plains x5
Island x5
Forest x4
Now, this is the list I'm currently running. It's very good and very fun, but it's far from ideal. Let me talk about some the of the issues you might experience.
First off, the deck relies heavily on sticking an persistent card-drawing engine early; be it Edric, Piracy, Bident, Mentor, Azami or Arcanis, if you don't get one of these online and start stocking up on cards before the first Wrath happens, you'll be in trouble. So, finding these cards is a priority. I really only have Fauna Shaman as a way to get Edric, but that's not enough, really. Some things I've considered to help out are:
Survival of the Fittest
Birthing Pod
Wargate
Eladamri's Call
Worldly Tutor
Enlightened Tutor
Speaking of Wrath effects, those are one of the biggest banes of this deck. There are a LOT of cards in this deck that are good because they have really great synergy, but are TERRIBLE to top-deck into with an empty board and empty hand. If you have a board of Lands and nothing in hand, and draw Stonybrook Schoolmaster, you'll be sad. Now, my group doesn't sanction countermagic, so I have to look elsewhere for anti-Wrath measures. Some options I need to consider but haven't yet tried are:
Dauntless Escort
Rootborn Defenses
Ghostway
Faith's Reward
Eldrazi Monument
Sun Titan
Marshal's Anthem
Still speaking of sweepers, I don't have any, save Elspeth. One card I would absolutely be running, if I owned a copy is Retribution of the Meek, which is the card Elpleth's -3 ability is based on. In this deck it would b damn near a 3-mana Plague Wind!
Also, Curse of the Swine is really, really tempting here, as another potential one-sided sweeper of sorts. Austere Command is a possibility as well, but I'm not sold on it yet.
Another thing that just makes life absolutely miserable for this deck is the Propaganda effect. One of these hitting the board slows us down to a crawl, but seeing multiple effects stack up makes winning impossible without an answer. If you see these types of "pillow fort" cards in your group, BE PREPARED TO DEAL WITH THEM. Krosan Grip and Soltari Visionary are there already, but I also might want:
Qasali Pridemage
Return to Dust
Trygon Pedator
Aura Shards
Calming Verse
(I really like Calming Verse! Secret tech!)
Aggro decks that are fast, but have bigger average creature sizes than you could be a problem. You really need Opposition to win this race, so adding Glare of Subdual will help, and you might also consider Sleep and similar effects as well.
Blinding Angel is also super awesome against Aggro. And I already mentiond Blind Obedience, but that's still something I would love to include.
One other issue, not as bad as the previous concerns, but still worth noting, is that sometimes this deck can take over a game and dominate the board... with tiny creatures. This means it often takes several turns to win once you've established your dominance, which of course gives your opponents all the more time to draw an out. The deck needs more decisive ways to just pack the game up once you start to pull ahead.
A lot of people like Derevi as a Voltron General, which makes sense, but isn't right for my build. However, I would definitely condone using Sword of Feast and Famine, either way.
I also like Beastmaster Ascension a lot, but haven't bothered slotting it in. Basically anything that mass-pumps your army is golden. I kept Mirror Entity for this reason (plus he is tech with Azami - turn your whole team to 1/1 Wizards to draw a ton!), but Biomass Mutation is another solid possible choice. It's a one-shot version of Mirror Entity, but it's an Instant so has surprise on it's side.
Finally, the last thing I want to bring up is my mana strategy. I am absolutely certain that the Exploration/Oracle package is great, and I want those two cards in the deck no matter what. But I'm not sure 40 lands and no mana rocks is right or not. I have been screwed by mana flood a few times, and I'm looking to minimize this impact. I have a few ways I could go.
One, I could cut two lands and something else and add back in the three Signets. Signets are great, and undervalued, I feel. Of course, if your playgroup loves talking about how Vandalblast and Bane of Progress are the best cards ever, you might want to avoid these. But my group is pretty gentlemanly about going after mana. We avoid it where possible, and try not to cripple players outright when we do pop mana rocks or lands.
Another option is to just add a Trade Routes and/or Scroll Rack to cycle away excess lands. I like this route, but if I go this way I really want BOTH cards, and I don't think I have an available Scroll Rack right now. I'd have to cannibalize it from another deck.
I also probably should look into adding an Azusa, Lost but Seeking. But, I'm pretty sure I only own one copy, which is in my Edric deck, and there's no way in hell it's coming out of that deck. I'll have to track one down, because I don't get an early Oracle/Exploration nearly often as I'd like to.
I could also just cut two lands and something else for the boring but proven package of Sakura-Tribe Elder, Wood Elves and Kodama's Reach (or Cultivate). I'm not a fan of this route even though it's probably the most reliably consistent way to go, and it has the benefit of upping my creature count slightly.
Maintaining a high creature count in this deck is of paramount importance, by the way. I would absolutely NOT go below 36 creatures, and striving to hit 40 is advisable.
My buddy Chad uses Looter il-Kor in his Derevi deck, and that seems like a good option too. It's a small, cheap, evasive attacker, which this deck already wants, and it can loot away excess lands if we draw too many. I've long been a fan of Looter il-Kor but he fell of my radar at some point. I should look into reintroducing him to my repertoire.
Closing thoughts
So, as you can see, I've built a deck with a really strong proactive game plan, but in interest of trying as many new and cool things as possible I have skimped somewhat on the reactionary capabilities and this has left some glaring weaknesses. I think those weaknesses are easily addressed, though, once you get past wanting to use all the cooler, more proactive cards you can cram in.
I mentioned earlier how Prophet of Kruphix is one of the most powerful cards in the deck, and aside from Derevi herself, it might actually be the single best thing this deck can do. To that end, adding Leyline of Anticipation and Seedborn Muse may well be worth looking into.
By the way, everyone knows Seedborn Muse by now, but remember that Awakening and Quest for Renewal also exist (Quest only untaps creatures, but it's close enough). And remember, that these effects stack, so each one you cast gives you more and more use out of your Opposition.
You're probably tired of me putting it into every single deck, but I really need a damn Mulldrifter in here. Perhaps I can cut Deep Analysis for it? Dunno. Value Fish just HAS to come in somewhere.
Finally, I just wanted to highlight two more cards my friend Chad picked for his Derevi build that I wish I had thought of first: Aven Mindcensor, and Sun Quan, Lord of Wu. I don't think my build could support another six-drop, but Sun Quan has wrecked my shit a couple of times already so I know he's legit. And Aven Mindcensor is well-known and respected already, but in this deck, he's especially fun because HE'S A BIRD WIZARD! Tribal theme, GO!
As always, I highly encourage you to leave your own suggestions and tech choices in the comments below, and if you have some creative solutions to the deck's weaknesses I've laid out, I definitely want to hear those!
Enjoy!
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Updating Eternal Bargain
Welcome, readers, to the second article in my series of updates to the Commander 2013 preconstructed decks. This time we're going to be working on the Esper deck, Eternal Bargan, helmed by Oloro, Ageless Ascetic.
This deck is really good, and fun to play. Oloro seems to be quite a strong General, but doesn't reach the same levels of degeneracy that Prossh does if pushed too hard. Then again, maybe I'm just not pushing in the right directions.
Anyway, for now, I am content to build to the obvious strengths of the new Generals, rather than looking for the most esoteric possible way to build these decks. I encourage exploration and experimentation, and creativity above all, but these articles are meant to be an entry point, not the definitive end point.
So what does the deck do? Take a look at the decklist:
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Ajani's Pridemate
Augury Adept
Azorius Herald
Disciple of Griselbrand
Diviner Spirit
Divinity of Pride
Filigree Angel
Hooded Horror
Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon"
Marrow Bats
Myr Battlesphere
Phyrexian Delver
Phyrexian Gargantua
Raven Familiar
Razor Hippogriff
Serene Master
Serra Avatar
Sharding Sphinx
Sharuum the Hegemon
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Stormscape Battlemage
Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Tidal Force
Tidehollow Strix
Tower Gargoyle
Vizkopa Guildmage
Wall of Reverence
Act of Authority
Brilliant Plan
Cradle of Vitality
Crawlspace
Curse of Inertia
Curse of Shallow Graves
Curse of the Forsaken
Darksteel Mutation
Death Grasp
Deep Analysis
Dromar's Charm
Famine
Greed
Lim-Dûl's Vault
Nevinyrral's Disk
Nihil Spellbomb
Obelisk of Esper
Order of Succession
Phyrexian Reclamation
Pristine Talisman
Reckless Spite
Sanguine Bond
Sol Ring
Spinal Embrace
Sun Droplet
Survival Cache
Swiftfoot Boots
Tempt with Immortality
Thopter Foundry
Toxic Deluge
Well of Lost Dreams
Arcane Sanctum
Azorius Chancery
Azorius Guildgate
Barren Moor
Command Tower
Dimir Guildgate
Esper Panorama
Evolving Wilds
Island
Jwar Isle Refuge
Lonely Sandbar
Opal Palace
Orzhov Basilica
Orzhov Guildgate
Plains
Rupture Spire
Springjack Pasture
Swamp
Temple of the False God
Transguild Promenade
Unlike some of WotC's other premade decks, including a couple of the C13 decks, the intent and purpose of this deck should be readily apparent just from looking at this list. Oloro gains life and, when in play, turns that life into life-drain and card draw. Other cards in the deck clearly play off this and turn the incidental life gain into other forms of value, such as life loss, +1/+1 counters, more card draw, etc. There's also a small theme of paying life for stuff, like Toxic Deluge or Phyrexian Reclamation.
Then there's the artifact theme that was clearly forced in to make Sydri less of a dud in this deck. She's cool, but making her work distracts too much from what Oloro wants to do. The tension between these two themes pulls the deck too strongly in differing directions.
But what's not apparent until you play the deck is how well the synergies work. Even the silly-looking Sun Droplet is actually a good deal more playable than you'd think. And Pristine Talisman? Laughably bad, until you realize that, with Oloro in play it's actually a 3-mana Artifact that reads: "Tap: Gain 1 life, each opponent loses one life, and you draw a card." That's actually insanely good value.
And that's what Oloro is all about: turning an incidental and normally irrelevant thing like gaining a point or two of life here and there into value, card advantage and even a win condition outright. And it's great because you are slowly, subtly winning the game or at least taking control of it in such small increments, it tends to fly well under your opponent's threat-detection radar until it's too late.
This is what I mostly tried to keep in mind as I tuned up this deck. Of course a few no-so-subtle blunt instruments of doom made it in as welll...
As with the last update article, I'll start by dissecting the starting decklist, and categorizing all the cards into three classes. Once again, those are PASS, FAIL and NEEDS IMPROVEMENT.
Cards that fall into the PASS category are those that I highly recommend keeping in the deck. For this deck, the following cards get a grade of PASS:
Augury Adept
Divinity of Pride
Serra Avatar
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Vizkopa Guildmage
Wall of Reverance
Cradle of Vitality
Crawlspace
Death Grasp
Deep Analysis
Lim-Dul's Vault
Phyrexian Reclamation
Pristine Talisman
Reckless Spite
Sanguine Bond
Sol Ring
Sun Droplet
Swiftfoot Boots
Toxic Deluge
Well of Lost Dreams
The NEEDS IMPROVEMENT category contains those cards that are acceptable but not ideal; you won't mind playing them if you must, but there are generally better options available. For this deck, those cards are:
Ajani's Pridemate
Azorius Herald
Disciple of Griselbrand
Myr Battlesphere
Phyrexian Delver
Phyrexian Gargantua
Raven Familiar
Razor Hippogriff
Sharuum the Hegemon
Tidehollow Strix
Curse of the Forsaken
Darksteel Mutation
Greed
Nihil Spellbomb
Obelisk of Esper
Spinal Embrace
Survival Cache
Swiftfoot Boots
And finally, we have the cards that receive a FAIL mark for being terrible or in some cases just unfortunately non-synergistic enough to just be a dud. Those cards are:
Diviner Spirit
Filigree Angel
Hooded Horror
Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon"
Marrow Bats
Serene Master
Sharding Sphinx
Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Tidal Force
Tower Gargoyle
Act of Authority
Brilliant Plan
Curse of Shallow Graves
Curse of Inertia
Dromar's Charm
Famine
Nevinyrral's Disk
Order of Succession
Tempt with Immortality
Thopter Foundry
The number of cards in this deck that at least hit the not-completely-garbage mark is actually quite impressive. It's a well-thought-out deck for a precon. And a few of the FAIL cards, like Tempt with Immortality and Sydri, Galvanic Genius are actually pretty good cards overall, they just don't fit well enough into THIS deck to be worth keeping.
Unlike with Prossh, there weren't very many really obvious direct upgrades, but there were a few. We'll get those out of the way first.
Greed --> Erebos
This one is simple enough. Erebos is an indestructible Greed that ultimately draws you more cards for the same amount of mana and half as much life. And every once in a while (but probably not super-often in this deck), he becomes a 5/7 beatstick too. That's a shitload of upside for only one more mana in the casting cost.
Tidehollow Strix --> Baleful Strix
What's better? +1/+0 or Draw a card?
Raven Familiar --> Mulldrifter
Honestly, I'd run both but my General is a card-drawing engine too, so I don't want to overdo it. Really this one is just a matter of preference, but I think Drifty McMulls is just slightly better value overall. It could go either way, really.
Brilliant Plan --> Sphinx's Revelation
This should require little explanation. Kind of a big "duh", really.
Tempt with Immortality --> Beacon of Unrest
Same CMC, but way more versatile and open-ended. Just all around more reliable and powerful
Phyrexian Delver --> Obzedat's Aid
Turns out recurring artifacts is actually a little more desirable than just recurring creatures, for this deck. Also, any planeswalkers you might add get value from this upgrade.
Act of Authority --> Return to Dust
The problem with Act of Authority in this deck is that we're always going to have more juicy targets than our opponents, and while we might really, really want to get rid of that Doubling Season, we can guarantee that our Well of Lost Dreams is going to be toast shortly thereafter.
Now that we've gotten the 1 for 1 upgrades covered, one of the first things I'll address is the ramp package. Probably, this is no surprise. Standard MO for EDH improvments is to make sure you can reliably cast your spells. Otherwise, what's the point?
OUT: 1x Land, Thopter Foundry, Tower Gargoyle
IN: Solemn Simulacrum, Land Tax, Orzhov Keyrune
40 Lands still seems to high, but we need to hit those land drops, so for now it'll do. Land Tax is super obvious, and Orzhov Keyrune might be overly cute, but Solemn Simulacrum is so undeniably perfect for this deck... meanwhile Tower Gargoyle is a 4 CMC dude that does literally nothing. Thopter Foundry is cool for a more Artifact-centric build, but we don't have enough expendable Artifacts right now.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we want to explore the decks main themes a bit and add a sampling of cards that either gain us life, or turn that life gain into a resource we can use, or add more value to the life gain. Bonus points for finding cards that do both!
OUT: Azorius Herald, Diviner Spirit, Hooded Horror, Marrow Bats, Tidal Force, Sharding Sphinx
IN: Serra Ascendant, Rhox Faithmender, Archangel of Thune, Vampire Nighthawk, Drogskol Reaver, Wurmcoil Engine
Out come six relatively terrible cards, and in come 6 rather more useful ones. Archangel of Thune hit that sweet spot of being life gain cards, but also do something super in addition to gaining life. And their synergy with Oloro is gravy. Faithmender just doubles down on the lifegain, which is cute but not exactly necessary. I like it. And Nighthawk just makes a more convincing blocker than Marrow Bats. Wurmcoil Engine is obviously good, but also plays really well with the Trading Post we're about to add... Oh, we're not done yet...
OUT: Disciple of Griselbrand, Kongming, Curse of the Forsaken, Swiftfoot Boots, Order of Succession
IN: Blood Artist, Obzedat Ghost Council, Chalice of Life, Sword of Light and Shadow, Trading Post
Blood Artist and Obzedat are on-theme ways to kill our opponents by slowly bleeding them dry. Chalice of Life is hilariously techy and surprisingly effective, and bleeds opponents dry rather less slowly. Sword is pretty obvious good stuff, but happens to be on-theme and quite useful. Trading Post is in because, well, it makes Goats, gains life and recurs artifacts. All of which are useful to varying degrees. It's a surprisingly versatile engine of value and cute tricks.
Another thing Oloro seems to be clamoring for is an Extort package. I was disappointed in the offerings we had - there were some gems, but not as many as I'd hoped. Here's the scoop:
OUT: Curse of Shallow Graves, Serene Master, Phyrexian Gargantua
IN: Blind Obedience, Tithe Drinker, Treasury Thrull
More useless junk gone. Blind Obedience and the Thrull were the first and most obvious choices for Extort. I wanted Pontiff of Blight but didn't feel he'd actually work for my build all that well and was a bit too expensive besides. Crypt Ghast is awesome, but not so much in a three-color deck. I'd have to shoehorn in an Urborg+Expedition Map package to suppport it. Finally I wanted one cheap, expendable Extort dork and Tithe Drinker beat Kingpin's Pet on grounds of being 1 mana cheaper and having WAY sexier art (a subjective statement, I know, but if you happen to disagree, please keep it to yourself!).
WotC, please print more Extort cards, ASAP!
Next we need to bolster our staying-alive powers. Gaining all the life ever won't save us from dying to General Damage for one thing. I want this deck to feel fairly control-ish, so the removal suite is going to be pretty extensive. Actually I want it to be even bigger, but for now I have too many ideas competing for space. First I want some utility creatures to take advantage of our Phyrexian Reclamation tech.
OUT: Razor Hippogriff, Spinal Embrace, Stormscape Battlemage, Sydri Galvanic Genius, Famine
IN: Windborn Muse, Duplicant, Shriekmaw, Fleshbag Marauder, Kagemaro
We have three black creatures that scale upward in devastation. Shriekmaw for precision, Fleshbag for the 3-for-1 value play, and Kagemaro for a "nuke from orbit" option. Muse takes a more political tack, which can be valuable, and Duplicant shuts down recursion on problematic creatures while being highly recurrable himself.
I like Spinal Embrace a lot, and it's certainly worth keeping if you have room. I just had to cut it, but it kind of hurt to do so. The other stuff was definitely not hard to cut.
But we're not done with the control elements. We've got more removal on the way.
OUT: Darksteel Mutation, Dromar's Charm, Deep Analysis, Nevinyrral's Disk, Myr Battlesphere
IN: Swords to Plowshares, Vindicate, Curse of Swine, Merciless Eviction, Spine of Ish Sah
A few things... first I picked Swords over Path mainly because their may come a time when I want to Swords my own Serra Avatar with Sanguine Bond on the battlefield. You know, for the lulz. Second, I love Deep Analysis, but I feel card draw is well covered, and "Hamnation" is just way too good to pass up. Third, I know I don't have enough ways to sacrific Artifacts to make Spine really good, but getting a loop going via Trading Post isn't that hard to do. Still it's an area of improvement for me to look into. Anyway, Vindicate and Merciless Eviction are generic, but amazing at what they do.
That gets us down to the last three changes I want to make before we overhaul the Lands.
OUT: Survival Cache, Curse of Inertia, Filigree Angel
IN: Demonic Tutor, Phyrexian Metamorph, Magister Sphinx
Cache is cute, but Tutor just cuts to the chase. I'm getting Trading Post quite often, but there are truthfully a ton of good targets for this. Metamorph's ability to copy Artifacts as well as Creatures will be far more useful and relevant here than normal, making him much more techy than his usual generic good stuff status. Magister Sphix is another ubiquitous staple folks get tired of seeing, but he's here for a very specific reason. It's actually kind of hard to Extort someone to death from 30 or 40 life... Magister Sphinx makes their slow, painful bleed-out less slow but more painful. It's a dick move in some circles, but with this deck, you're rarely ever going to play the Sphinx and then one-shot them the same or next turn.
We're almost through, now; we just have to spruce up the mana base a bit.
Mostly this involves the usual suspects: Better dual lands, etc. But there are a few utility lands that we want to include.
The Springjack Pasture included is a little slow and clunky, but I've found it to be useful in a pinch and it has good synergy with the Trading Post we added. I've actually played a game where my opponent and I had fought for control of goat-based resources for several turns and my managing to untap with more goats than him was a critical turning point in the game. It was quite hilarious.
Anyway, I'd keep it, but your mileage may vary.
The one land that jumped out at me as being the most urgent to add ASAP while playing the deck was Academy Ruins. Even though we have shied away from an "Artifacts matter" theme, we still managed to actually increase the number of high-profile Artifacts in the deck. Sharuum is a great one-shot way to recur them when they get blown up, but we want the Ruins as a persistent and repeatable way to keep our Trading Posts and Wells of Lost Dreams coming back for more value. And, as a Land with a cheap activation the opportunity cost is extremely low, which is a huge benefit.
Two other important lands I have added are: Vault of the Archangel and Ancient Tomb. I like the Ancient Tomb here because we have a high density of colorless cards so it shouldn't color-screw us like it might in some decks, and the 2 damage it deals is practically meaningless with Oloro doing his thing. It's basically another copy of Temple of the False God, but doesn't suck to drop on Turn 2.
Vault of the Archangel might seem a bit redundant or pointless. After all, this deck isn't really that concerned with creatures and beating down, and a lot of the creatures we DO have already have lifelink. And, sometimes it will sit there all game and never do anything besides tapping for 1. But this deck is highly defensive and Vault can be a really potent "Rattlesnake" with just a few expendable creatures out. Just threatening the Deathtouch + Lifelink combination for your blockers is often enough to ward off attackers. I also like it as a way to give Serra Avatar Lifelink, which gets out of hand REAL fast.
One thing I have not yet been able to do, but will be doing soon enough, and I definitely recommend, is adding a High Market. It's a small bit of utility but saving your guys from Control Magic effects, while possibly triggering Oloro is solid. I recommend cutting the Opal Palace for it, as the Palace just doesn't do much here. Making Oloro bigger is sometimes useful, but we have Cradle of Vitality for that. In general, though, I almost never want to spend the extra mana on the Palace to get a few counters for Oloro. There are just more important ways to spend that mana most of the time.
Finally, the Guildgates are a bit of a liability in this deck. It's a slow deck that likes to take it's time, so they aren't a huge weakness, but they can be a bit of a stumbling block now and then. I'd recommend swapping those out too, but I haven't gotten around to that either. The old Core Set painlands (Adarkar Wastes and the like) are a good pick as the damage they inflict will hardly be felt in this deck. The Shadowmoor/Eventide filter lands are always great, but are less great if you have a bunch of colorless-only lands. The Odyssey filter lands are a fine option as well.
And that about wraps it up for now. The decklist I'm currently working with after all the above changes looks like this:
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Serra Ascendant
Ajani's Pridemate
Wall of Reverance
Rhox Faithmender
Windborn Muse
Archangel of Thune
Serra Avatar
Phyrexian Metamorph
Mulldrifter
Blood Artist
Fleshbag Marauder
Vampire Nighthawk
Erebos, God of the Dead
Shriekmaw
Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Baleful Strix
Vizkopa Guildmage
Tithe Drinker
Augury Adept
Obzedat, Ghost Council
Divinity of Pride
Treasury Thrull
Sharuum the Hegemon
Drogskol Reaver
Magister Sphinx
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Solemn Simulacrum
Duplicant
Wurmcoil Engine
Swords to Plowshares
Land Tax
Blind Obedience
Cradle of Vitality
Return to Dust
Curse of the Swine
Phyrexian Reclamation
Demonic Tutor
Toxic Deluge
Reckless Spite
Beacon of Unrest
Sanguine Bond
Lim-Dul's Vault
Vindicate
Obzedat's Aid
Merciless Eviction
Death Grasp
Sphinx's Revelation
Sol Ring
Nihil Spellbomb
Sun Droplet
Pristine Talisman
Obelisk of Esper
Crawlspace
Orzhov Keyrune
Chalice of Life
Sword of Light and Shadow
Trading Post
Well of Lost Dreams
Spine of Ish Sah
Hallowed Fountain
Watery Grave
Godless Shrine
Glacial Fortress
Drowned Catacomb
Isolated Chapel
Sejiri Refuge
Jwar Isle Refuge
Azorius Chancery
Dimir Aqueduct
Orzhov Basilica
Azorius Guildgate
Dimir Guildgate
Orzhov Guildgate
Command Tower
Arcane Sanctum
Opal Palace
Evolving Wilds
Academy Ruins
Vault of the Archangel
Ancient Tomb
Temple of the False God
Springjack Pasture
Secluded Steppe
Lonely Sandbar
Barren Moor
Plains x 5
Island x4
Swamp x5
So that's the deck. There are many ways to focus the build, and I didn't want to be too narrow with mine. Instead of going full-bore on any one theme, I wanted to include a little of everything. You could push it further in whichever direction suits you, be it Pillow Fort or heavy Control, or even more Aggro. You could let the life cushion from Oloro be your primary defense, and just beat down with Archangel of Thune and an army of pumped-up guys.
I always like to include a list of alternate suggestions, and things I considered but couldn't fit in. So here are some of those ideas:
Angelic Accord
Necropotence
Ghostly Prison/Propaganda
Pontiff of Blight
Scholar of Athreos
Open the Vaults
Exsanguinate/Debt to the Deathless
Bloodchief Ascension
Etherwrought Page
Suture Priest
Circle of Affliction
Hatred
Moonlight Bargain
Righteous Aura
Luminarch Ascension
Dread
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter
Miren, the Moaning Well
Hopefully this article will give you some ideas and help get you started on your own Oloro, Ageless Ascetic deck. Let me know in the comments if you have any secret tech to share, or if I just missed something really obvious.
Enjoy!
This deck is really good, and fun to play. Oloro seems to be quite a strong General, but doesn't reach the same levels of degeneracy that Prossh does if pushed too hard. Then again, maybe I'm just not pushing in the right directions.
Anyway, for now, I am content to build to the obvious strengths of the new Generals, rather than looking for the most esoteric possible way to build these decks. I encourage exploration and experimentation, and creativity above all, but these articles are meant to be an entry point, not the definitive end point.
So what does the deck do? Take a look at the decklist:
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Ajani's Pridemate
Augury Adept
Azorius Herald
Disciple of Griselbrand
Diviner Spirit
Divinity of Pride
Filigree Angel
Hooded Horror
Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon"
Marrow Bats
Myr Battlesphere
Phyrexian Delver
Phyrexian Gargantua
Raven Familiar
Razor Hippogriff
Serene Master
Serra Avatar
Sharding Sphinx
Sharuum the Hegemon
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Stormscape Battlemage
Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Tidal Force
Tidehollow Strix
Tower Gargoyle
Vizkopa Guildmage
Wall of Reverence
Act of Authority
Brilliant Plan
Cradle of Vitality
Crawlspace
Curse of Inertia
Curse of Shallow Graves
Curse of the Forsaken
Darksteel Mutation
Death Grasp
Deep Analysis
Dromar's Charm
Famine
Greed
Lim-Dûl's Vault
Nevinyrral's Disk
Nihil Spellbomb
Obelisk of Esper
Order of Succession
Phyrexian Reclamation
Pristine Talisman
Reckless Spite
Sanguine Bond
Sol Ring
Spinal Embrace
Sun Droplet
Survival Cache
Swiftfoot Boots
Tempt with Immortality
Thopter Foundry
Toxic Deluge
Well of Lost Dreams
Arcane Sanctum
Azorius Chancery
Azorius Guildgate
Barren Moor
Command Tower
Dimir Guildgate
Esper Panorama
Evolving Wilds
Island
Jwar Isle Refuge
Lonely Sandbar
Opal Palace
Orzhov Basilica
Orzhov Guildgate
Plains
Rupture Spire
Springjack Pasture
Swamp
Temple of the False God
Transguild Promenade
Unlike some of WotC's other premade decks, including a couple of the C13 decks, the intent and purpose of this deck should be readily apparent just from looking at this list. Oloro gains life and, when in play, turns that life into life-drain and card draw. Other cards in the deck clearly play off this and turn the incidental life gain into other forms of value, such as life loss, +1/+1 counters, more card draw, etc. There's also a small theme of paying life for stuff, like Toxic Deluge or Phyrexian Reclamation.
Then there's the artifact theme that was clearly forced in to make Sydri less of a dud in this deck. She's cool, but making her work distracts too much from what Oloro wants to do. The tension between these two themes pulls the deck too strongly in differing directions.
But what's not apparent until you play the deck is how well the synergies work. Even the silly-looking Sun Droplet is actually a good deal more playable than you'd think. And Pristine Talisman? Laughably bad, until you realize that, with Oloro in play it's actually a 3-mana Artifact that reads: "Tap: Gain 1 life, each opponent loses one life, and you draw a card." That's actually insanely good value.
And that's what Oloro is all about: turning an incidental and normally irrelevant thing like gaining a point or two of life here and there into value, card advantage and even a win condition outright. And it's great because you are slowly, subtly winning the game or at least taking control of it in such small increments, it tends to fly well under your opponent's threat-detection radar until it's too late.
This is what I mostly tried to keep in mind as I tuned up this deck. Of course a few no-so-subtle blunt instruments of doom made it in as welll...
As with the last update article, I'll start by dissecting the starting decklist, and categorizing all the cards into three classes. Once again, those are PASS, FAIL and NEEDS IMPROVEMENT.
Cards that fall into the PASS category are those that I highly recommend keeping in the deck. For this deck, the following cards get a grade of PASS:
Augury Adept
Divinity of Pride
Serra Avatar
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Vizkopa Guildmage
Wall of Reverance
Cradle of Vitality
Crawlspace
Death Grasp
Deep Analysis
Lim-Dul's Vault
Phyrexian Reclamation
Pristine Talisman
Reckless Spite
Sanguine Bond
Sol Ring
Sun Droplet
Swiftfoot Boots
Toxic Deluge
Well of Lost Dreams
The NEEDS IMPROVEMENT category contains those cards that are acceptable but not ideal; you won't mind playing them if you must, but there are generally better options available. For this deck, those cards are:
Ajani's Pridemate
Azorius Herald
Disciple of Griselbrand
Myr Battlesphere
Phyrexian Delver
Phyrexian Gargantua
Raven Familiar
Razor Hippogriff
Sharuum the Hegemon
Tidehollow Strix
Curse of the Forsaken
Darksteel Mutation
Greed
Nihil Spellbomb
Obelisk of Esper
Spinal Embrace
Survival Cache
Swiftfoot Boots
And finally, we have the cards that receive a FAIL mark for being terrible or in some cases just unfortunately non-synergistic enough to just be a dud. Those cards are:
Diviner Spirit
Filigree Angel
Hooded Horror
Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon"
Marrow Bats
Serene Master
Sharding Sphinx
Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Tidal Force
Tower Gargoyle
Act of Authority
Brilliant Plan
Curse of Shallow Graves
Curse of Inertia
Dromar's Charm
Famine
Nevinyrral's Disk
Order of Succession
Tempt with Immortality
Thopter Foundry
The number of cards in this deck that at least hit the not-completely-garbage mark is actually quite impressive. It's a well-thought-out deck for a precon. And a few of the FAIL cards, like Tempt with Immortality and Sydri, Galvanic Genius are actually pretty good cards overall, they just don't fit well enough into THIS deck to be worth keeping.
Unlike with Prossh, there weren't very many really obvious direct upgrades, but there were a few. We'll get those out of the way first.
Greed --> Erebos
This one is simple enough. Erebos is an indestructible Greed that ultimately draws you more cards for the same amount of mana and half as much life. And every once in a while (but probably not super-often in this deck), he becomes a 5/7 beatstick too. That's a shitload of upside for only one more mana in the casting cost.
Tidehollow Strix --> Baleful Strix
What's better? +1/+0 or Draw a card?
Raven Familiar --> Mulldrifter
Honestly, I'd run both but my General is a card-drawing engine too, so I don't want to overdo it. Really this one is just a matter of preference, but I think Drifty McMulls is just slightly better value overall. It could go either way, really.
Brilliant Plan --> Sphinx's Revelation
This should require little explanation. Kind of a big "duh", really.
Tempt with Immortality --> Beacon of Unrest
Same CMC, but way more versatile and open-ended. Just all around more reliable and powerful
Phyrexian Delver --> Obzedat's Aid
Turns out recurring artifacts is actually a little more desirable than just recurring creatures, for this deck. Also, any planeswalkers you might add get value from this upgrade.
Act of Authority --> Return to Dust
The problem with Act of Authority in this deck is that we're always going to have more juicy targets than our opponents, and while we might really, really want to get rid of that Doubling Season, we can guarantee that our Well of Lost Dreams is going to be toast shortly thereafter.
Now that we've gotten the 1 for 1 upgrades covered, one of the first things I'll address is the ramp package. Probably, this is no surprise. Standard MO for EDH improvments is to make sure you can reliably cast your spells. Otherwise, what's the point?
OUT: 1x Land, Thopter Foundry, Tower Gargoyle
IN: Solemn Simulacrum, Land Tax, Orzhov Keyrune
40 Lands still seems to high, but we need to hit those land drops, so for now it'll do. Land Tax is super obvious, and Orzhov Keyrune might be overly cute, but Solemn Simulacrum is so undeniably perfect for this deck... meanwhile Tower Gargoyle is a 4 CMC dude that does literally nothing. Thopter Foundry is cool for a more Artifact-centric build, but we don't have enough expendable Artifacts right now.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we want to explore the decks main themes a bit and add a sampling of cards that either gain us life, or turn that life gain into a resource we can use, or add more value to the life gain. Bonus points for finding cards that do both!
OUT: Azorius Herald, Diviner Spirit, Hooded Horror, Marrow Bats, Tidal Force, Sharding Sphinx
IN: Serra Ascendant, Rhox Faithmender, Archangel of Thune, Vampire Nighthawk, Drogskol Reaver, Wurmcoil Engine
Out come six relatively terrible cards, and in come 6 rather more useful ones. Archangel of Thune hit that sweet spot of being life gain cards, but also do something super in addition to gaining life. And their synergy with Oloro is gravy. Faithmender just doubles down on the lifegain, which is cute but not exactly necessary. I like it. And Nighthawk just makes a more convincing blocker than Marrow Bats. Wurmcoil Engine is obviously good, but also plays really well with the Trading Post we're about to add... Oh, we're not done yet...
OUT: Disciple of Griselbrand, Kongming, Curse of the Forsaken, Swiftfoot Boots, Order of Succession
IN: Blood Artist, Obzedat Ghost Council, Chalice of Life, Sword of Light and Shadow, Trading Post
Blood Artist and Obzedat are on-theme ways to kill our opponents by slowly bleeding them dry. Chalice of Life is hilariously techy and surprisingly effective, and bleeds opponents dry rather less slowly. Sword is pretty obvious good stuff, but happens to be on-theme and quite useful. Trading Post is in because, well, it makes Goats, gains life and recurs artifacts. All of which are useful to varying degrees. It's a surprisingly versatile engine of value and cute tricks.
Another thing Oloro seems to be clamoring for is an Extort package. I was disappointed in the offerings we had - there were some gems, but not as many as I'd hoped. Here's the scoop:
OUT: Curse of Shallow Graves, Serene Master, Phyrexian Gargantua
IN: Blind Obedience, Tithe Drinker, Treasury Thrull
More useless junk gone. Blind Obedience and the Thrull were the first and most obvious choices for Extort. I wanted Pontiff of Blight but didn't feel he'd actually work for my build all that well and was a bit too expensive besides. Crypt Ghast is awesome, but not so much in a three-color deck. I'd have to shoehorn in an Urborg+Expedition Map package to suppport it. Finally I wanted one cheap, expendable Extort dork and Tithe Drinker beat Kingpin's Pet on grounds of being 1 mana cheaper and having WAY sexier art (a subjective statement, I know, but if you happen to disagree, please keep it to yourself!).
WotC, please print more Extort cards, ASAP!
Next we need to bolster our staying-alive powers. Gaining all the life ever won't save us from dying to General Damage for one thing. I want this deck to feel fairly control-ish, so the removal suite is going to be pretty extensive. Actually I want it to be even bigger, but for now I have too many ideas competing for space. First I want some utility creatures to take advantage of our Phyrexian Reclamation tech.
OUT: Razor Hippogriff, Spinal Embrace, Stormscape Battlemage, Sydri Galvanic Genius, Famine
IN: Windborn Muse, Duplicant, Shriekmaw, Fleshbag Marauder, Kagemaro
We have three black creatures that scale upward in devastation. Shriekmaw for precision, Fleshbag for the 3-for-1 value play, and Kagemaro for a "nuke from orbit" option. Muse takes a more political tack, which can be valuable, and Duplicant shuts down recursion on problematic creatures while being highly recurrable himself.
I like Spinal Embrace a lot, and it's certainly worth keeping if you have room. I just had to cut it, but it kind of hurt to do so. The other stuff was definitely not hard to cut.
But we're not done with the control elements. We've got more removal on the way.
OUT: Darksteel Mutation, Dromar's Charm, Deep Analysis, Nevinyrral's Disk, Myr Battlesphere
IN: Swords to Plowshares, Vindicate, Curse of Swine, Merciless Eviction, Spine of Ish Sah
A few things... first I picked Swords over Path mainly because their may come a time when I want to Swords my own Serra Avatar with Sanguine Bond on the battlefield. You know, for the lulz. Second, I love Deep Analysis, but I feel card draw is well covered, and "Hamnation" is just way too good to pass up. Third, I know I don't have enough ways to sacrific Artifacts to make Spine really good, but getting a loop going via Trading Post isn't that hard to do. Still it's an area of improvement for me to look into. Anyway, Vindicate and Merciless Eviction are generic, but amazing at what they do.
That gets us down to the last three changes I want to make before we overhaul the Lands.
OUT: Survival Cache, Curse of Inertia, Filigree Angel
IN: Demonic Tutor, Phyrexian Metamorph, Magister Sphinx
Cache is cute, but Tutor just cuts to the chase. I'm getting Trading Post quite often, but there are truthfully a ton of good targets for this. Metamorph's ability to copy Artifacts as well as Creatures will be far more useful and relevant here than normal, making him much more techy than his usual generic good stuff status. Magister Sphix is another ubiquitous staple folks get tired of seeing, but he's here for a very specific reason. It's actually kind of hard to Extort someone to death from 30 or 40 life... Magister Sphinx makes their slow, painful bleed-out less slow but more painful. It's a dick move in some circles, but with this deck, you're rarely ever going to play the Sphinx and then one-shot them the same or next turn.
We're almost through, now; we just have to spruce up the mana base a bit.
Mostly this involves the usual suspects: Better dual lands, etc. But there are a few utility lands that we want to include.
The Springjack Pasture included is a little slow and clunky, but I've found it to be useful in a pinch and it has good synergy with the Trading Post we added. I've actually played a game where my opponent and I had fought for control of goat-based resources for several turns and my managing to untap with more goats than him was a critical turning point in the game. It was quite hilarious.
Anyway, I'd keep it, but your mileage may vary.
The one land that jumped out at me as being the most urgent to add ASAP while playing the deck was Academy Ruins. Even though we have shied away from an "Artifacts matter" theme, we still managed to actually increase the number of high-profile Artifacts in the deck. Sharuum is a great one-shot way to recur them when they get blown up, but we want the Ruins as a persistent and repeatable way to keep our Trading Posts and Wells of Lost Dreams coming back for more value. And, as a Land with a cheap activation the opportunity cost is extremely low, which is a huge benefit.
Two other important lands I have added are: Vault of the Archangel and Ancient Tomb. I like the Ancient Tomb here because we have a high density of colorless cards so it shouldn't color-screw us like it might in some decks, and the 2 damage it deals is practically meaningless with Oloro doing his thing. It's basically another copy of Temple of the False God, but doesn't suck to drop on Turn 2.
Vault of the Archangel might seem a bit redundant or pointless. After all, this deck isn't really that concerned with creatures and beating down, and a lot of the creatures we DO have already have lifelink. And, sometimes it will sit there all game and never do anything besides tapping for 1. But this deck is highly defensive and Vault can be a really potent "Rattlesnake" with just a few expendable creatures out. Just threatening the Deathtouch + Lifelink combination for your blockers is often enough to ward off attackers. I also like it as a way to give Serra Avatar Lifelink, which gets out of hand REAL fast.
One thing I have not yet been able to do, but will be doing soon enough, and I definitely recommend, is adding a High Market. It's a small bit of utility but saving your guys from Control Magic effects, while possibly triggering Oloro is solid. I recommend cutting the Opal Palace for it, as the Palace just doesn't do much here. Making Oloro bigger is sometimes useful, but we have Cradle of Vitality for that. In general, though, I almost never want to spend the extra mana on the Palace to get a few counters for Oloro. There are just more important ways to spend that mana most of the time.
Finally, the Guildgates are a bit of a liability in this deck. It's a slow deck that likes to take it's time, so they aren't a huge weakness, but they can be a bit of a stumbling block now and then. I'd recommend swapping those out too, but I haven't gotten around to that either. The old Core Set painlands (Adarkar Wastes and the like) are a good pick as the damage they inflict will hardly be felt in this deck. The Shadowmoor/Eventide filter lands are always great, but are less great if you have a bunch of colorless-only lands. The Odyssey filter lands are a fine option as well.
And that about wraps it up for now. The decklist I'm currently working with after all the above changes looks like this:
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Serra Ascendant
Ajani's Pridemate
Wall of Reverance
Rhox Faithmender
Windborn Muse
Archangel of Thune
Serra Avatar
Phyrexian Metamorph
Mulldrifter
Blood Artist
Fleshbag Marauder
Vampire Nighthawk
Erebos, God of the Dead
Shriekmaw
Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Baleful Strix
Vizkopa Guildmage
Tithe Drinker
Augury Adept
Obzedat, Ghost Council
Divinity of Pride
Treasury Thrull
Sharuum the Hegemon
Drogskol Reaver
Magister Sphinx
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Solemn Simulacrum
Duplicant
Wurmcoil Engine
Swords to Plowshares
Land Tax
Blind Obedience
Cradle of Vitality
Return to Dust
Curse of the Swine
Phyrexian Reclamation
Demonic Tutor
Toxic Deluge
Reckless Spite
Beacon of Unrest
Sanguine Bond
Lim-Dul's Vault
Vindicate
Obzedat's Aid
Merciless Eviction
Death Grasp
Sphinx's Revelation
Sol Ring
Nihil Spellbomb
Sun Droplet
Pristine Talisman
Obelisk of Esper
Crawlspace
Orzhov Keyrune
Chalice of Life
Sword of Light and Shadow
Trading Post
Well of Lost Dreams
Spine of Ish Sah
Hallowed Fountain
Watery Grave
Godless Shrine
Glacial Fortress
Drowned Catacomb
Isolated Chapel
Sejiri Refuge
Jwar Isle Refuge
Azorius Chancery
Dimir Aqueduct
Orzhov Basilica
Azorius Guildgate
Dimir Guildgate
Orzhov Guildgate
Command Tower
Arcane Sanctum
Opal Palace
Evolving Wilds
Academy Ruins
Vault of the Archangel
Ancient Tomb
Temple of the False God
Springjack Pasture
Secluded Steppe
Lonely Sandbar
Barren Moor
Plains x 5
Island x4
Swamp x5
So that's the deck. There are many ways to focus the build, and I didn't want to be too narrow with mine. Instead of going full-bore on any one theme, I wanted to include a little of everything. You could push it further in whichever direction suits you, be it Pillow Fort or heavy Control, or even more Aggro. You could let the life cushion from Oloro be your primary defense, and just beat down with Archangel of Thune and an army of pumped-up guys.
I always like to include a list of alternate suggestions, and things I considered but couldn't fit in. So here are some of those ideas:
Angelic Accord
Necropotence
Ghostly Prison/Propaganda
Pontiff of Blight
Scholar of Athreos
Open the Vaults
Exsanguinate/Debt to the Deathless
Bloodchief Ascension
Etherwrought Page
Suture Priest
Circle of Affliction
Hatred
Moonlight Bargain
Righteous Aura
Luminarch Ascension
Dread
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter
Miren, the Moaning Well
Hopefully this article will give you some ideas and help get you started on your own Oloro, Ageless Ascetic deck. Let me know in the comments if you have any secret tech to share, or if I just missed something really obvious.
Enjoy!
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Updating Power Hungry
Howdy, folks. Today I'm finally getting around to posting my first Commander 2013 improvement article. We are, to my own suprise, going to be starting with Power Hungry, the Jund deck, led by Prossh, Skyraider of Kher. I picked this one to start with because I wanted to share a little anecdote about my playtesting.
So, this is my very first "goldfish" game after sleeving up the changes I will outline below. The following creatures were attacking:
A 74/72 Thromok the Insatiable
A 7/5 Prossh
An 8/6 Reaper from the Abyss
and sixteen 2/1 Kobolds.
This was Turn 7.
And I had misplayed the turn before, wasting some mana. Because of this, Grave Pact was in my hand and not on the Battlefield.
Anyway, for your reference, here's the original decklist prior to any changes:
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
Brooding Saurian
Capricious Efreet
Charnelhoard Wurm
Deathbringer Thoctar
Deepfire Elemental
Elvish Skysweeper
Endless Cockroaches
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
Fell Shepherd
Goblin Sharpshooter
Golgari Guildmage
Hooded Horror
Hua Tuo, Honored Physician
Hunted Troll
Inferno Titan
Jade Mage
Ophiomancer
Quagmire Druid
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Scarland Thrinax
Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper
Shattergang Brothers
Silklash Spider
Sprouting Thrinax
Stalking Vengeance
Stronghold Assassin
Terra Ravager
Viscera Seer
Walker of the Grove
Wight of Precinct Six
Armillary Sphere
Blood Rites
Carnage Altar
Curse of Chaos
Curse of Predation
Curse of Shallow Graves
Dirge of Dread
Fecundity
Foster
Furnace Celebration
Goblin Bombardment
Jar of Eyeballs
Jund Charm
Mass Mutiny
Night Soil
Obelisk of Jund
Plague Boiler
Primal Vigor
Reincarnation
Restore
Rough // Tumble
Sol Ring
Spine of Ish Sah
Spoils of Victory
Sudden Demise
Swiftfoot Boots
Tempt with Vengeance
Tooth and Claw
Vile Requiem
Widespread Panic
Akoum Refuge
Command Tower
Evolving Wilds
Forest x7
Golgari Guildgate
Golgari Rot Farm
Grim Backwoods
Gruul Guildgate
Jund Panorama
Kazandu Refuge
Khalni Garden
Kher Keep
Llanowar Reborn
Mountain x7
Opal Palace
Rakdos Guildgate
Rupture Spire
Savage Lands
Swamp x6
Temple of the False God
Terramorphic Expanse
Vivid Grove
Okay, before we get into the changes I made to my own version, I'm going to run down the list and group all of the cards into three categories: PASS, FAIL and NEEDS IMPROVEMENT. Those titles should be pretty self-explanatory, but I'll explain a bit more below.
PASS - These cards are good enough to keep in the deck more or less unconditionally. Obviously going with some really outside-the-box theme might alter the usefulness, but in a general sense these cards should provide power or utility on par with "constructed" EDH decks. The following cards receive a grade of PASS for this deck:
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
Shattergang Brothers
Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper
Deathbringer Thoctar
Goblin Bombardment
Sudden Demise
Fecundity
Reincarnation
Foster
Sol Ring
Kher Keep
NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - This category represents the selection of cards that are perhaps not the best possible option but are servicable enough that you could keep them if you don't have better options, or if you just like the card a lot. They won't noticably weaken your deck unless your deck is just filled with these. I'm a big fan of running some subpar options in almost any deck, because beating someone with a card that isn't the most obvious card ever is fun! But if your entire deck is middle-tier, then you probably won't get that chance very often.
Charnelhoard Wurm
Fell Shepherd
Goblin Sharpshooter
Hua Tuo, Honored Physician
Inferno Titan
Ophiomancer
Sprouting Thrinax
Scarland Thrinax
Silklash Spider
Stalking Vengeance
Viscera Seer
Furnace Celebration
Mass Mutiny
Night Soil
Obelisk of Jund
Primal Vigor
Restore
Spoils of Victory
Swiftfoot Boots
Tempt with Vengeance
Tooth and Claw
FAIL - These are the cards that just plain suck and will almost always serve to dilute the power of your deck, rarely justifying their inclusion, if ever. They usually lack any synergy with your overall deck, or provide such a weak effect that they will just never pull their weight. This list is where you should start first, when making improvements.
Brooding Saurian
Capricious Efreet
Deepfire Elemental
Elvish Skysweeper
Endless Cockroaches
Golgari Guildmage
Hooded Horror
Hunted Troll
Jade Mage
Quagmire Druid
Stalking Vengeance
Stronghold Assassin
Terra Ravager
Walker of the Grove
Wight of Precinct Six
Armillary Sphere
Blood Rites
Carnage Altar
Curse of Chaos
Curse of Predation
Curse of Shallow Graves
Dirge of Dread
Jar of Eyeballs
Jund Charm
Plague Boiler
Rough // Tumble
Spine of Ish Sah
Vile Requiem
Widespread Panic
Now, some of these cards on the FAIL list, you might be saying "But, wait, this card is playable in EDH!". That might be true. Many of these cards I do see played in the format. Brooding Saurion, for example, is a fine EDH card. It's just a little too conditional in this deck, and often times it will just be a generic 4/4 for four mana, which is just flat-out something this deck doesn't care about. Then we have stuff like Armillary Sphere, which I'm fine playing in Grixis, but in a color scheme that involves green? Green has access to SO many ramp spells, there is just NO justification for resorting to such a mediocre card.
In short, about half of the cards on the FAIL list would be upgraded to NEEDS IMPROVEMENT or maybe even PASS if we were in different colors, or there wasn't a variety of cards that all severely outclass the card in question.
So, now we can get to the actual changes.
My first thought for Power Hungry, based on the name of the deck and the mechanical themes contained within, I really thought this deck wanted a Devour theme (as in the Jund keyword mechanic). However, once I got started on the changes, I discovered two things: One, there was a distinct lack of Devour cards that were really worth playing, and two, that approach required even more deck space for Devour enablers and jamming all of those things in just took up too much room.
In the end, a few Devour cards made it in, as well as a fair number of ways to enable the mechanic, but only because sacrificing tokens for value was a strong enough theme even before we got to the Devour cards.
Anyway, the easiest first place to start fixing the deck up is to look for cards where we can just do a straight "upgrade" - putting in a card that fulfills the same basic purpose, but is just a better overall card to do it. Occasionally we might even get the coveted "strictly better", but most of the time these will just be "almost always better".
Golgari Guildmage --> Korozda Guildmage - Here's a good example. GG is expensive and clunky to use, and doesn't really line up with the mechanical themes of the deck. KG on the other hand is slightly cheaper to use, and his abilities have better synergy. His second ability is the one we usually want, but the first can help Prossh get through blockers for a lethal strike.
Jade Mage --> Skirsdag High Priest - This one is a bit unintuitive at first glance, but I knew I wanted a really cheap token producer like Jade Mage, but one that was less mana-intensive. In playtesting the deck before changes, I could just NEVER afford to make tokens with the Mage, and if I was making tokens that always meant my hand was utterly terrible and I was desperate. Not a good sign for a card. SHP comes in at the same CMC, makes much bigger tokens, and requires no additional mana investment. You'll be surprised how easy it is to activate this guy with Prossh at your General.
Viscera Seer --> Reaper of the Wilds - Yes, it's a pretty steep jump in mana cost, but the benefits are worth it. First, the Seer requires you to choose between sac-ing to Scry or sac-ing to pump Prossh or get some other value. You almost always have a more powerful sac-for-value effect on the table meaning you never want to use the Seer. Reaper on the other hand, just adds the Scry value to your other sac effects. So you can sac to Prossh and still get the Srcy bonus tacked on.
Fell Shepherd --> Phyrexian Plaguelord - A painful change, I admit. I really wanted the Shepherd to be good, and perhaps he will be, but not in this deck. Plaguelord does much of the same job but at a much more efficient price. True he doesn't have the recursion aspect to offer, but I was never once able to trigger Fell Shepherd's recursion ability so I don't see that as a real loss.
Carnage Altar -- > Greater Good - Much less mana, draws way more cards. Yeah, you don't get anywhere sacrificing tokens to Greater Good, but it's still a huge improvement regardless.
Stronghold Assassin --> Attrition - Bascially, Attrition offers two things the Assassin doesn't: survives Wrath of God, and can be activated several times a turn rather than just once.
Plague Boiler --> Gaze of Granite - This should actually be Pernicious Deed, but even I don't have enough of those lying around so Gaze of Granite it is. Yes, it's more mana, but it is still less clunky to use.
Primal Vigor --> Doubling Season - Some of you will run both. If your the only token deck, that's fine, go for it. But I see things like Ghave or Rite of Replication far to often for me to feel safe using Primal Vigor.
Wight of Precinct Six --> Blood Artist - Wight gets value from dead creatures. Blood Artist gets value from dying creatues. And the life drain aspect seems way more valuable than just a generically large guy with no evasion or abilities.
Jar of Eyeballs --> Skullclamp - The designers of these decks sure had some funny notions about card advantage. At least they got Fecundity right, but still...
Deepfire Elemental --> Reaper from the Abyss - I mentioned earlier about triggering Morbid really easily in this deck... Reaper will kill a LOT of shit for you. Sometimes he'll kill your own guys, as he doesn't have the word "may" anywhere in his text. That's okay, though. You've got plenty of fodder.
Vicious Shadows --> Stalking Vengeance - I really wanted to have both in the deck, but the mana curve just wouldn't support it. Of the two, the Enchantment is by far the more explosive of the two and will just win out of nowhere quite easily. The main argument for running Vengeance instead is that Shadows might be TOO good and too easy.
Rough//Tumble --> Chain Reaction - This was going to be Scourge of Kher Ridge for obvious reasons of both mechanical and flavor varieties. But again I had mana concerns and when I remembered Chain Reaction existed, I had to give it a shot.
Okay, that's about it for the 1-for-1 upgrades. Let's get to the bulk fixes now. We'll start with the Ramp as that's one of the most critical aspects of this deck. It is quite mana hungry, as you'll find out playing it. The ramp included just doesn't cut it.
We'll be keeping Sakura-Tribe Elder and Sol Ring for sure, but gutting the rest.
OUT: 1 land, Spoils of Victory, Restore, Obelisk of Jund, Armillary Sphere
IN: Wood Elves, Yavimaya Elder, Awakening Zone, Coalition Relic, Skyshroud Claim
We want to cut some of the spell-based ramp for creature-based ramp because, duh. You can't sac Spoils of Victory to Prossh can you? Yavimaya Elder is such a perfect fit it's a wonder they didn't include it to begin with. I like Coalition Relic over Obelisk of Jund because, well, it is strictly better, but in a more specific sense it can enable a turn-four Prossh if you hit that 4th land.
I would also consider Seedguide Ash, especially if you're playing all the ABUR duals and RAV shocklands. I didn't add him myself mainly because I was getting stuck on 4 mana most of the time and didn't want to rely on a 5-drop to solve that problem.
I also want to find two things to cut for Ashnod's Altar and Pawn of Ulamog. Both provide some huge mana bonuses but I don't necessarily count them as "ramp" for the fact that they are incredibly difficult to rely on in the early game. They both work best later on, after you've already built up a considerable board presence, but have the potential to propel you for the mid-game phase to the rain-doom-upon-thine-enemies phase in a single turn.
OUT: Endless Cockroaches, Swiftfoot Boots
IN: Pawn of Ulamog, Ashnod's Altar
Next up, we've got the Devour Package.
OUT: Capricious Efreet, Hooded Horror, Inferno Titan, Hunted Troll
IN: Mycoloth, Dragon Broodmother, Thromok the Insatiable, Preyseizer Dragon
These were the four best Devour cards in my opinion. So I just cut generic dorks that were in the same CMC range and viola! Instant Devour subtheme. Sure, it's little more than a cursory nod to the mechanic but each of these four cards can have tremendous impact on the game so not much more is needed, I feel.
Now we need a few more cards to enable Devour and other sacrifice mechanics.
OUT: Brooding Saurion, Terra Ravager, Silklash Spider, Walker of the Grove, Charnelhoard Wurm, Spine of Ish Sah
IN: Creekwood Liege, Mitotic Slime, Sporemound, Chancellor of the Forge, Symbiotic Wurm, Artifact Mutation
As much as I like Charnelhoard Wurm, I want tokens, not a regrowth effect. Walker makes one big token, which is less valuable than the many small tokens approach. Brooding Suarion and Terra Raveger lack any kind of synergy and while I am a big fan of Silklash Spider it too doesn't really do what this particular deck asks of it.
I also considered Deranged Hermit, and a few others. Also, shoehorning in a Krenko-fueled goblin subtheme would not be out of the question.
Next up, we need some more ways to make creating lots of tokens and/or sacrificing lots of tokens do something valuable for us. If there is one thing Magic players love it's "value". #value #twoforone #yolo #swag #420
OUT: Vile Requiem, Tooth and Claw, Tempt with Vengeance, Mass Mutiny, Widespread Panic, Blood Rites, Dirge of Dread
IN: Grave Pact, Black Market, Sadistic Hypnotist, Xenagos the Reveler, Ogre Battledriver, Furystoke Giant, Purphoros God of the Forge
This is mostly just some generic stuff that wasn't good enough, replaced by some stuff that is downright amazing. Purphoros, Grave Pact and Xenagos are particularly nasty. Ogre Battledriver is there becuase once in a while "getting value" from your tokens just means smashing face, and we needed something to make 0/1 Koblods at least a little deadly. Black Market might be one "massive mana engine" too many but this was the first deck I've had where it was appropriate so I wanted to try it out. Furystoke Giant is subtly better than he appears. You're never going to have enough tokens to just dome 3 opponents and win, but you can usually kill every creature that isn't yours.
And, finally, we get to the generic utility and "good stuff" section.
OUT: Jund Charm, All 3 Curses, Quagmire Druid, Ophiomancer, Elvish Skysweeper
IN: Diabolic Intent, Demonic Tutor, Eternal Witness, Fires of Yavimaya, Dread Return, Torrent of Souls, Maelstrom Pulse
Sure, Demonic Tutor and Eternal Witness are boring picks, but they're really really good, which is why they are in almost every deck, which is why their boring. So as yawn-worthy as they may be they are still absolutely worth having. Period. Fires is another haste enabler which is quite relevant in this deck. Diabolic Intent is just another Demonic Tutor but cutely on-them with the sacrifice part. Dread Return and Torrent of Souls are probably the two best possible options for our reanimation needs. Torrent also has the benefit of turning our 1/1 and 0/1 tokens into semi-capable attackers. Maelstrom Pulse is just our one-stop shop for all our spot removal needs.
The Mana Base
The last step is overhauling the mana base for the deck. It's not terrible as-is, but stuff like Rupture Spire and Jund Panorama just have to go. The Guildgates are pretty terrible here, too. They are fine in slower decks, but here they slow us down too much. And we have some demanding mana requirements, like the trip-B's on Grave Pact and such, so we really want a robust mana base for this deck.
First, add as many duals as you can, starting with the Shocklands and ABUR duals. If you add those, then you obviously want the Core/INN "checklands". I would also VERY highly prioritize the Shadowmoor/Eventide filter lands, because those will really help you hit those Grave Pact type of stringent color requirements. The more the better, but make sure you have enough basics that all your ramp spells will work!
Obviously, you want to keep Kher Keep. It even says so right in the name. You won't use it that often, but it's best to have just in case.
Gaea's Cradle should be a no-brainer if you have one. If not see if you can pick up a gold-border one for cheap. Yes it IS a real Magic card. It's just not tournament legal, but since when do EDH players play tournaments?
Reflecting Pool (or City of Brass for a cheaper alternative), Reliquary Tower and Bojuka Bog round out my land package. Tower is a must because Greater Good, Fecundity and Skullclamp will get out of hand wildly in some games.
Putting it all together, we get the following final (for now) list:
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
Skirsdag High Priest
Blood Artist
Pawn of Ulamog
Disciple of Bolas
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
Sadistic Hypnotist
Phyrexian Plaguelord
Reaper from the Abyss
Goblin Sharpshooter
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Ogre Battledriver
Furystoke Giant
Preyseizer Dragon
Chancellor of the Forge
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Wood Elves
Eternal Witness
Yavimaya Elder
Mitotic Slime
Mycoloth
Sporemound
Symbiotic Wurm
Korozda Guildmage
Sprouting Thrinax
Scarland Thrinax
Creekwood Liege
Reaper of the Wilds
Shattergang Brothers
Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper
Thromok the Insatiable
Deathbringer Thoctar
Dragon Broodmother
Diabolic Intent
Demonic Tutor
Attrition
Dread Return
Grave Pact
Black Market
Goblin Bombardment
Furnace Celebration
Chain Reaction
Vicious Shadows
Sudden Demise
Night Soil
Fecundity
Awakening Zone
Reincarnation
Skyshroud Claim
Greater Good
Foster
Doubling Season
Artifact Mutation
Fires of Yavimaya
Maelstrom Pulse
Xenagos, the Reveler
Torrent of Souls
Gaze of Granite
Skullclamp
Sol Ring
Coalition Relic
Ashnod's Altar
Blood Crypt
Stomping Ground
Overgrown Tomb
Dragonskull Summit
Rootbound Crag
Woodland Cemetery
Graven Cairns
Fire-Lit Thicket
Twilight Mire
Akoum Refuge
Kazandu Refuge
Rakdos Carnarium
Gruul Turf
Golgari Rot Farm
Savage Lands
Command Tower
Reflecting Pool
Bojuka Bog
Terramorphic Expanse
Evolving Wilds
Gaea's Cradle
Kher Keep
Temple of the False God
Reliquary Tower
Swamp x4
Mountain x5
Forest x5
And, that's the list I'm rolling with currently. Still haven't been able to get any real multiplayer testing done, but 1v1 results show the deck to be... well I'm trying to think of a word with more positive connotations, but "oppressive" keeps coming to mind. I actually think Prossh will be a lot like Maelstrom Wanderer - the format as a whole can handle him, but he's going to be a real problem for some groups.
Astute readers will likely have noticed that, cumulatively, my changes have increased the average mana cost by some margin, and that is true. But even with that slight upward trend in the mana curve, I still get mana-screwed far less often than I did with the stock list, and the lower-cost spells that I CAN play at 4 or less mana are much more impactful, making the occasional mana-screw a little less of a disaster. But overall the ramp is much more robust and reliable, which definitely helps support the top-end stuff we want to be doing.
Some cards I considered but didn't find room for:
Dark Prophecy
Beastmaster Ascension
Grim Feast
Decree of Pain
Parallel Lives
Deranged Hermit
Avenger of Zendikar
Blasphemous Act
Survival of the Fittest
Phyrexian Reclamation
Barter in Blood
Acidic Slime
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
Scavenging Ooze
Anger
Genesis
And, really that's just scratching the surfact. The card pool for this kind of build is actually very deep and there is a lot of room for personal touches and pet cards. Even I managed to find room for some janky stuff like Sporemound and Korozda Guildmage, knowing uber-powerful stuff like Purphoros and Grave Pact will pick up the slack.
The good thing about Prossh is, unlike something like Maelstrom Wanderer, his inherent power level can be reigned in somewhat by nixing the most powerful and abusive support spells. If I were to depower the above list a bit to make it a little more casual, I'd cut Purphoros, Sadistic Hypnotist and Vicious Shadows for sure, and depending on the metagame, maybe Grave Pact as well. Those seem to be the 4 main "back breaker" spells, and without them the deck would still be really good but not quite as scary.
One last note: I put Furnace Celebration on the NEEDS IMPROVEMENT list, but if you happen to add Ashnod's Alter as I have done (another one you might trim if the deck proves too overwhelming for you individual playgroup), then Furnace Celebration gets upgraded to PASS, as the synergy between those two cards is quite delightful. The Alter both triggers AND pays for the Celebration turning every token you make into a free shock. Quite nifty indeed.
Leave your suggestions in the comments below! I'm especially interested in any "secret tech" ideas that have good synergy with the deck themes, or even random "good stuff" that is more on-theme in this deck than it might be in other decks (like Decree of Pain, for instance).
Enjoy!
So, this is my very first "goldfish" game after sleeving up the changes I will outline below. The following creatures were attacking:
A 74/72 Thromok the Insatiable
A 7/5 Prossh
An 8/6 Reaper from the Abyss
and sixteen 2/1 Kobolds.
This was Turn 7.
And I had misplayed the turn before, wasting some mana. Because of this, Grave Pact was in my hand and not on the Battlefield.
Anyway, for your reference, here's the original decklist prior to any changes:
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
Brooding Saurian
Capricious Efreet
Charnelhoard Wurm
Deathbringer Thoctar
Deepfire Elemental
Elvish Skysweeper
Endless Cockroaches
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
Fell Shepherd
Goblin Sharpshooter
Golgari Guildmage
Hooded Horror
Hua Tuo, Honored Physician
Hunted Troll
Inferno Titan
Jade Mage
Ophiomancer
Quagmire Druid
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Scarland Thrinax
Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper
Shattergang Brothers
Silklash Spider
Sprouting Thrinax
Stalking Vengeance
Stronghold Assassin
Terra Ravager
Viscera Seer
Walker of the Grove
Wight of Precinct Six
Armillary Sphere
Blood Rites
Carnage Altar
Curse of Chaos
Curse of Predation
Curse of Shallow Graves
Dirge of Dread
Fecundity
Foster
Furnace Celebration
Goblin Bombardment
Jar of Eyeballs
Jund Charm
Mass Mutiny
Night Soil
Obelisk of Jund
Plague Boiler
Primal Vigor
Reincarnation
Restore
Rough // Tumble
Sol Ring
Spine of Ish Sah
Spoils of Victory
Sudden Demise
Swiftfoot Boots
Tempt with Vengeance
Tooth and Claw
Vile Requiem
Widespread Panic
Akoum Refuge
Command Tower
Evolving Wilds
Forest x7
Golgari Guildgate
Golgari Rot Farm
Grim Backwoods
Gruul Guildgate
Jund Panorama
Kazandu Refuge
Khalni Garden
Kher Keep
Llanowar Reborn
Mountain x7
Opal Palace
Rakdos Guildgate
Rupture Spire
Savage Lands
Swamp x6
Temple of the False God
Terramorphic Expanse
Vivid Grove
Okay, before we get into the changes I made to my own version, I'm going to run down the list and group all of the cards into three categories: PASS, FAIL and NEEDS IMPROVEMENT. Those titles should be pretty self-explanatory, but I'll explain a bit more below.
PASS - These cards are good enough to keep in the deck more or less unconditionally. Obviously going with some really outside-the-box theme might alter the usefulness, but in a general sense these cards should provide power or utility on par with "constructed" EDH decks. The following cards receive a grade of PASS for this deck:
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
Shattergang Brothers
Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper
Deathbringer Thoctar
Goblin Bombardment
Sudden Demise
Fecundity
Reincarnation
Foster
Sol Ring
Kher Keep
NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - This category represents the selection of cards that are perhaps not the best possible option but are servicable enough that you could keep them if you don't have better options, or if you just like the card a lot. They won't noticably weaken your deck unless your deck is just filled with these. I'm a big fan of running some subpar options in almost any deck, because beating someone with a card that isn't the most obvious card ever is fun! But if your entire deck is middle-tier, then you probably won't get that chance very often.
Charnelhoard Wurm
Fell Shepherd
Goblin Sharpshooter
Hua Tuo, Honored Physician
Inferno Titan
Ophiomancer
Sprouting Thrinax
Scarland Thrinax
Silklash Spider
Stalking Vengeance
Viscera Seer
Furnace Celebration
Mass Mutiny
Night Soil
Obelisk of Jund
Primal Vigor
Restore
Spoils of Victory
Swiftfoot Boots
Tempt with Vengeance
Tooth and Claw
FAIL - These are the cards that just plain suck and will almost always serve to dilute the power of your deck, rarely justifying their inclusion, if ever. They usually lack any synergy with your overall deck, or provide such a weak effect that they will just never pull their weight. This list is where you should start first, when making improvements.
Brooding Saurian
Capricious Efreet
Deepfire Elemental
Elvish Skysweeper
Endless Cockroaches
Golgari Guildmage
Hooded Horror
Hunted Troll
Jade Mage
Quagmire Druid
Stalking Vengeance
Stronghold Assassin
Terra Ravager
Walker of the Grove
Wight of Precinct Six
Armillary Sphere
Blood Rites
Carnage Altar
Curse of Chaos
Curse of Predation
Curse of Shallow Graves
Dirge of Dread
Jar of Eyeballs
Jund Charm
Plague Boiler
Rough // Tumble
Spine of Ish Sah
Vile Requiem
Widespread Panic
Now, some of these cards on the FAIL list, you might be saying "But, wait, this card is playable in EDH!". That might be true. Many of these cards I do see played in the format. Brooding Saurion, for example, is a fine EDH card. It's just a little too conditional in this deck, and often times it will just be a generic 4/4 for four mana, which is just flat-out something this deck doesn't care about. Then we have stuff like Armillary Sphere, which I'm fine playing in Grixis, but in a color scheme that involves green? Green has access to SO many ramp spells, there is just NO justification for resorting to such a mediocre card.
In short, about half of the cards on the FAIL list would be upgraded to NEEDS IMPROVEMENT or maybe even PASS if we were in different colors, or there wasn't a variety of cards that all severely outclass the card in question.
So, now we can get to the actual changes.
My first thought for Power Hungry, based on the name of the deck and the mechanical themes contained within, I really thought this deck wanted a Devour theme (as in the Jund keyword mechanic). However, once I got started on the changes, I discovered two things: One, there was a distinct lack of Devour cards that were really worth playing, and two, that approach required even more deck space for Devour enablers and jamming all of those things in just took up too much room.
In the end, a few Devour cards made it in, as well as a fair number of ways to enable the mechanic, but only because sacrificing tokens for value was a strong enough theme even before we got to the Devour cards.
Anyway, the easiest first place to start fixing the deck up is to look for cards where we can just do a straight "upgrade" - putting in a card that fulfills the same basic purpose, but is just a better overall card to do it. Occasionally we might even get the coveted "strictly better", but most of the time these will just be "almost always better".
Golgari Guildmage --> Korozda Guildmage - Here's a good example. GG is expensive and clunky to use, and doesn't really line up with the mechanical themes of the deck. KG on the other hand is slightly cheaper to use, and his abilities have better synergy. His second ability is the one we usually want, but the first can help Prossh get through blockers for a lethal strike.
Jade Mage --> Skirsdag High Priest - This one is a bit unintuitive at first glance, but I knew I wanted a really cheap token producer like Jade Mage, but one that was less mana-intensive. In playtesting the deck before changes, I could just NEVER afford to make tokens with the Mage, and if I was making tokens that always meant my hand was utterly terrible and I was desperate. Not a good sign for a card. SHP comes in at the same CMC, makes much bigger tokens, and requires no additional mana investment. You'll be surprised how easy it is to activate this guy with Prossh at your General.
Viscera Seer --> Reaper of the Wilds - Yes, it's a pretty steep jump in mana cost, but the benefits are worth it. First, the Seer requires you to choose between sac-ing to Scry or sac-ing to pump Prossh or get some other value. You almost always have a more powerful sac-for-value effect on the table meaning you never want to use the Seer. Reaper on the other hand, just adds the Scry value to your other sac effects. So you can sac to Prossh and still get the Srcy bonus tacked on.
Fell Shepherd --> Phyrexian Plaguelord - A painful change, I admit. I really wanted the Shepherd to be good, and perhaps he will be, but not in this deck. Plaguelord does much of the same job but at a much more efficient price. True he doesn't have the recursion aspect to offer, but I was never once able to trigger Fell Shepherd's recursion ability so I don't see that as a real loss.
Carnage Altar -- > Greater Good - Much less mana, draws way more cards. Yeah, you don't get anywhere sacrificing tokens to Greater Good, but it's still a huge improvement regardless.
Stronghold Assassin --> Attrition - Bascially, Attrition offers two things the Assassin doesn't: survives Wrath of God, and can be activated several times a turn rather than just once.
Plague Boiler --> Gaze of Granite - This should actually be Pernicious Deed, but even I don't have enough of those lying around so Gaze of Granite it is. Yes, it's more mana, but it is still less clunky to use.
Primal Vigor --> Doubling Season - Some of you will run both. If your the only token deck, that's fine, go for it. But I see things like Ghave or Rite of Replication far to often for me to feel safe using Primal Vigor.
Wight of Precinct Six --> Blood Artist - Wight gets value from dead creatures. Blood Artist gets value from dying creatues. And the life drain aspect seems way more valuable than just a generically large guy with no evasion or abilities.
Jar of Eyeballs --> Skullclamp - The designers of these decks sure had some funny notions about card advantage. At least they got Fecundity right, but still...
Deepfire Elemental --> Reaper from the Abyss - I mentioned earlier about triggering Morbid really easily in this deck... Reaper will kill a LOT of shit for you. Sometimes he'll kill your own guys, as he doesn't have the word "may" anywhere in his text. That's okay, though. You've got plenty of fodder.
Vicious Shadows --> Stalking Vengeance - I really wanted to have both in the deck, but the mana curve just wouldn't support it. Of the two, the Enchantment is by far the more explosive of the two and will just win out of nowhere quite easily. The main argument for running Vengeance instead is that Shadows might be TOO good and too easy.
Rough//Tumble --> Chain Reaction - This was going to be Scourge of Kher Ridge for obvious reasons of both mechanical and flavor varieties. But again I had mana concerns and when I remembered Chain Reaction existed, I had to give it a shot.
Okay, that's about it for the 1-for-1 upgrades. Let's get to the bulk fixes now. We'll start with the Ramp as that's one of the most critical aspects of this deck. It is quite mana hungry, as you'll find out playing it. The ramp included just doesn't cut it.
We'll be keeping Sakura-Tribe Elder and Sol Ring for sure, but gutting the rest.
OUT: 1 land, Spoils of Victory, Restore, Obelisk of Jund, Armillary Sphere
IN: Wood Elves, Yavimaya Elder, Awakening Zone, Coalition Relic, Skyshroud Claim
We want to cut some of the spell-based ramp for creature-based ramp because, duh. You can't sac Spoils of Victory to Prossh can you? Yavimaya Elder is such a perfect fit it's a wonder they didn't include it to begin with. I like Coalition Relic over Obelisk of Jund because, well, it is strictly better, but in a more specific sense it can enable a turn-four Prossh if you hit that 4th land.
I would also consider Seedguide Ash, especially if you're playing all the ABUR duals and RAV shocklands. I didn't add him myself mainly because I was getting stuck on 4 mana most of the time and didn't want to rely on a 5-drop to solve that problem.
I also want to find two things to cut for Ashnod's Altar and Pawn of Ulamog. Both provide some huge mana bonuses but I don't necessarily count them as "ramp" for the fact that they are incredibly difficult to rely on in the early game. They both work best later on, after you've already built up a considerable board presence, but have the potential to propel you for the mid-game phase to the rain-doom-upon-thine-enemies phase in a single turn.
OUT: Endless Cockroaches, Swiftfoot Boots
IN: Pawn of Ulamog, Ashnod's Altar
Next up, we've got the Devour Package.
OUT: Capricious Efreet, Hooded Horror, Inferno Titan, Hunted Troll
IN: Mycoloth, Dragon Broodmother, Thromok the Insatiable, Preyseizer Dragon
These were the four best Devour cards in my opinion. So I just cut generic dorks that were in the same CMC range and viola! Instant Devour subtheme. Sure, it's little more than a cursory nod to the mechanic but each of these four cards can have tremendous impact on the game so not much more is needed, I feel.
Now we need a few more cards to enable Devour and other sacrifice mechanics.
OUT: Brooding Saurion, Terra Ravager, Silklash Spider, Walker of the Grove, Charnelhoard Wurm, Spine of Ish Sah
IN: Creekwood Liege, Mitotic Slime, Sporemound, Chancellor of the Forge, Symbiotic Wurm, Artifact Mutation
As much as I like Charnelhoard Wurm, I want tokens, not a regrowth effect. Walker makes one big token, which is less valuable than the many small tokens approach. Brooding Suarion and Terra Raveger lack any kind of synergy and while I am a big fan of Silklash Spider it too doesn't really do what this particular deck asks of it.
I also considered Deranged Hermit, and a few others. Also, shoehorning in a Krenko-fueled goblin subtheme would not be out of the question.
Next up, we need some more ways to make creating lots of tokens and/or sacrificing lots of tokens do something valuable for us. If there is one thing Magic players love it's "value". #value #twoforone #yolo #swag #420
OUT: Vile Requiem, Tooth and Claw, Tempt with Vengeance, Mass Mutiny, Widespread Panic, Blood Rites, Dirge of Dread
IN: Grave Pact, Black Market, Sadistic Hypnotist, Xenagos the Reveler, Ogre Battledriver, Furystoke Giant, Purphoros God of the Forge
This is mostly just some generic stuff that wasn't good enough, replaced by some stuff that is downright amazing. Purphoros, Grave Pact and Xenagos are particularly nasty. Ogre Battledriver is there becuase once in a while "getting value" from your tokens just means smashing face, and we needed something to make 0/1 Koblods at least a little deadly. Black Market might be one "massive mana engine" too many but this was the first deck I've had where it was appropriate so I wanted to try it out. Furystoke Giant is subtly better than he appears. You're never going to have enough tokens to just dome 3 opponents and win, but you can usually kill every creature that isn't yours.
And, finally, we get to the generic utility and "good stuff" section.
OUT: Jund Charm, All 3 Curses, Quagmire Druid, Ophiomancer, Elvish Skysweeper
IN: Diabolic Intent, Demonic Tutor, Eternal Witness, Fires of Yavimaya, Dread Return, Torrent of Souls, Maelstrom Pulse
Sure, Demonic Tutor and Eternal Witness are boring picks, but they're really really good, which is why they are in almost every deck, which is why their boring. So as yawn-worthy as they may be they are still absolutely worth having. Period. Fires is another haste enabler which is quite relevant in this deck. Diabolic Intent is just another Demonic Tutor but cutely on-them with the sacrifice part. Dread Return and Torrent of Souls are probably the two best possible options for our reanimation needs. Torrent also has the benefit of turning our 1/1 and 0/1 tokens into semi-capable attackers. Maelstrom Pulse is just our one-stop shop for all our spot removal needs.
The Mana Base
The last step is overhauling the mana base for the deck. It's not terrible as-is, but stuff like Rupture Spire and Jund Panorama just have to go. The Guildgates are pretty terrible here, too. They are fine in slower decks, but here they slow us down too much. And we have some demanding mana requirements, like the trip-B's on Grave Pact and such, so we really want a robust mana base for this deck.
First, add as many duals as you can, starting with the Shocklands and ABUR duals. If you add those, then you obviously want the Core/INN "checklands". I would also VERY highly prioritize the Shadowmoor/Eventide filter lands, because those will really help you hit those Grave Pact type of stringent color requirements. The more the better, but make sure you have enough basics that all your ramp spells will work!
Obviously, you want to keep Kher Keep. It even says so right in the name. You won't use it that often, but it's best to have just in case.
Gaea's Cradle should be a no-brainer if you have one. If not see if you can pick up a gold-border one for cheap. Yes it IS a real Magic card. It's just not tournament legal, but since when do EDH players play tournaments?
Reflecting Pool (or City of Brass for a cheaper alternative), Reliquary Tower and Bojuka Bog round out my land package. Tower is a must because Greater Good, Fecundity and Skullclamp will get out of hand wildly in some games.
Putting it all together, we get the following final (for now) list:
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
Skirsdag High Priest
Blood Artist
Pawn of Ulamog
Disciple of Bolas
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
Sadistic Hypnotist
Phyrexian Plaguelord
Reaper from the Abyss
Goblin Sharpshooter
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Ogre Battledriver
Furystoke Giant
Preyseizer Dragon
Chancellor of the Forge
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Wood Elves
Eternal Witness
Yavimaya Elder
Mitotic Slime
Mycoloth
Sporemound
Symbiotic Wurm
Korozda Guildmage
Sprouting Thrinax
Scarland Thrinax
Creekwood Liege
Reaper of the Wilds
Shattergang Brothers
Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper
Thromok the Insatiable
Deathbringer Thoctar
Dragon Broodmother
Diabolic Intent
Demonic Tutor
Attrition
Dread Return
Grave Pact
Black Market
Goblin Bombardment
Furnace Celebration
Chain Reaction
Vicious Shadows
Sudden Demise
Night Soil
Fecundity
Awakening Zone
Reincarnation
Skyshroud Claim
Greater Good
Foster
Doubling Season
Artifact Mutation
Fires of Yavimaya
Maelstrom Pulse
Xenagos, the Reveler
Torrent of Souls
Gaze of Granite
Skullclamp
Sol Ring
Coalition Relic
Ashnod's Altar
Blood Crypt
Stomping Ground
Overgrown Tomb
Dragonskull Summit
Rootbound Crag
Woodland Cemetery
Graven Cairns
Fire-Lit Thicket
Twilight Mire
Akoum Refuge
Kazandu Refuge
Rakdos Carnarium
Gruul Turf
Golgari Rot Farm
Savage Lands
Command Tower
Reflecting Pool
Bojuka Bog
Terramorphic Expanse
Evolving Wilds
Gaea's Cradle
Kher Keep
Temple of the False God
Reliquary Tower
Swamp x4
Mountain x5
Forest x5
And, that's the list I'm rolling with currently. Still haven't been able to get any real multiplayer testing done, but 1v1 results show the deck to be... well I'm trying to think of a word with more positive connotations, but "oppressive" keeps coming to mind. I actually think Prossh will be a lot like Maelstrom Wanderer - the format as a whole can handle him, but he's going to be a real problem for some groups.
Astute readers will likely have noticed that, cumulatively, my changes have increased the average mana cost by some margin, and that is true. But even with that slight upward trend in the mana curve, I still get mana-screwed far less often than I did with the stock list, and the lower-cost spells that I CAN play at 4 or less mana are much more impactful, making the occasional mana-screw a little less of a disaster. But overall the ramp is much more robust and reliable, which definitely helps support the top-end stuff we want to be doing.
Some cards I considered but didn't find room for:
Dark Prophecy
Beastmaster Ascension
Grim Feast
Decree of Pain
Parallel Lives
Deranged Hermit
Avenger of Zendikar
Blasphemous Act
Survival of the Fittest
Phyrexian Reclamation
Barter in Blood
Acidic Slime
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
Scavenging Ooze
Anger
Genesis
And, really that's just scratching the surfact. The card pool for this kind of build is actually very deep and there is a lot of room for personal touches and pet cards. Even I managed to find room for some janky stuff like Sporemound and Korozda Guildmage, knowing uber-powerful stuff like Purphoros and Grave Pact will pick up the slack.
The good thing about Prossh is, unlike something like Maelstrom Wanderer, his inherent power level can be reigned in somewhat by nixing the most powerful and abusive support spells. If I were to depower the above list a bit to make it a little more casual, I'd cut Purphoros, Sadistic Hypnotist and Vicious Shadows for sure, and depending on the metagame, maybe Grave Pact as well. Those seem to be the 4 main "back breaker" spells, and without them the deck would still be really good but not quite as scary.
One last note: I put Furnace Celebration on the NEEDS IMPROVEMENT list, but if you happen to add Ashnod's Alter as I have done (another one you might trim if the deck proves too overwhelming for you individual playgroup), then Furnace Celebration gets upgraded to PASS, as the synergy between those two cards is quite delightful. The Alter both triggers AND pays for the Celebration turning every token you make into a free shock. Quite nifty indeed.
Leave your suggestions in the comments below! I'm especially interested in any "secret tech" ideas that have good synergy with the deck themes, or even random "good stuff" that is more on-theme in this deck than it might be in other decks (like Decree of Pain, for instance).
Enjoy!
Sunday, November 3, 2013
C13 Card Swaps
Before I dig in and really start changing the new Commander decks, I thought I'd try to make some improvements without dipping into my own card pool, by just swapping some of the cards in the decks around, from one deck to another. And I won't be using on deck as a dumping ground for the bad cards - all the trades will have to make sense for both decks.
One of the things I was inspired by was the card Surveyor's Scope. This is a cute little ramp Artifact that is in the Bant deck. Which, if you read my previous article, you'll see that of all 5 decks, the Bant deck is the only one where I do NOT cite "lack of ramp" as being a major flaw of that deck. The Band deck has the MOST ramp, with three other mana rocks besides Sol Ring, and Pilgrims Eye, and whatever else I'm overlooking, yet the other 4 decks all need ramp FAR more badly than this one.
So I decided to move the scope over to Oloro. Why? Because it's an Artifact, and Oloro has a bit of an Artifact theme. More importantly it's the one deck that can potentially make use of the Scope multiple times with a few cards that recur Artifacts.
Now that you can see where I'm coming from with this little project, let's get to work:
Swap #1 - Surveyor's Scope (Derevi) for Kongming, Sleeping Dragon (Oloro)
As stated above, Derevi needs the Scope the absolute least out of all 5 decks, while Oloro is best positioned to make good use of it. Meanwhile, putting Kongming into a deck that not only lacks a high creature count, and is most likely to cast sweepers doesn't make any sense. Derevi's average creature size is quite small, and it has a lot of creatures, so it will get infinitely more mileage out of Kongming's "anthem" effect.
Swap #2 - Mystic Barrier (Marath) for Serene Master (Oloro)
Serene Master was overwhelmingly a dud in Oloro, while Gahiji might make him at least able to attack once in a while. Meanwhile Oloro will get more use out of Mystic Barrier's pillow fort protection than the more aggressive Marath.
Swap #3 - Grazing Gladehart (Marath) for Farhaven Elf (Derevi)
Again, Derevi is hogging all the ramp, and while I don't want to take all of it's toys away, Marath is another deck that needs it more. Gladehart isn't a card I'd be excited to play in any of the decks, but it's a cheap body and the 2/2 stats make it a slightly better attacker than the 1/1 Elf.
Swap #4 - True Name Nemesis (Jeleva) for Djinn of Infinite Deceits (Derevi)
The Merfolk makes vastly more sense in the Derevi deck, while the Djinn doesn't really play all that well anywhere, but still feels most at home in the slightly chaotic Grixis deck. Jeleva's deck seems slower, and thus better poised to actually want to utilize the ability of the djinn, while Derevi is never going to want to spend 6 mana on a two-power creature.
Swap #5 - Nevinyrral's Disk (Oloro) for Tempt with Reflections (Jeleva)
Notice how Tempt with Reflections says "target creature you control", then notice how the Grixis deck has by far the fewest creatures, and especially few worth copying. Then notice how the Oloro deck basically never wants to activate it's own Disk because it almost always has the most Artifacts, and has quite a few Enchantments too. Now this swap should make sense.
Swap #6 - Vile Requiem (Prossh) for Phyrexian Gargantuan (Oloro)
Oloro has enough card draw already, while Prossh could use a bit of help. Vile Requiem is a slow, deliberate card, but Prossh is not that patient. The Esper deck seems much more capable of playing the long game while waiting for the Requiem to amass counters.
Swap #7 - Wayfarer's Bauble (Jeleva) for Widespread Panic (Prossh)
Prossh needs more ramp, but Widespread Panic slightly hoses ramp. Meanwhile Jeleva didn't need the ramp quite as much (cheaper general; lots of card draw), and has some neat synergy with Widespread Panic. The swap makes tons of sense in both directions.
Swap #8 - Witch Hunt (Marath) for Starstorm (Jeleva)
Witch Hunt makes more sense with Nekusar than Jeleva, but it's still at least a little closer to fitting in her. Also, X-spells don't quite jell with Jeleva's ability.
Swap #9 - Spine of Ish Sah (Prossh) for Pilgrim's Eye (Derevi)
This is the first part of a two-part trade, so bear with me. Prossh needs more ramp/fixing, and Derevi needs something else from Oloro...
Swap #10 - Spine of Ish Sah (Derevi) for Deep Analysis (Oloro)
Derevi needed the draw way more than the ramp, and Oloro likes artifacts. So with the last two trades, Prossh got another mana-searcher, Derevi got a draw spell, and Oloro got a cool new Artifact.
I couldn't find anything to swap between Prossh and Marath, oddly. They both have the same weaknesses - needing more ramp and ways to draw cards. But beyond their flaws, they don't have that much in common. Marath really wants a Fires of Yavimaya, but Prossh isn't willing to give that up, at least not for anything Marath has to offer him...
Feel free to suggest more swaps in the comments.
One of the things I was inspired by was the card Surveyor's Scope. This is a cute little ramp Artifact that is in the Bant deck. Which, if you read my previous article, you'll see that of all 5 decks, the Bant deck is the only one where I do NOT cite "lack of ramp" as being a major flaw of that deck. The Band deck has the MOST ramp, with three other mana rocks besides Sol Ring, and Pilgrims Eye, and whatever else I'm overlooking, yet the other 4 decks all need ramp FAR more badly than this one.
So I decided to move the scope over to Oloro. Why? Because it's an Artifact, and Oloro has a bit of an Artifact theme. More importantly it's the one deck that can potentially make use of the Scope multiple times with a few cards that recur Artifacts.
Now that you can see where I'm coming from with this little project, let's get to work:
Swap #1 - Surveyor's Scope (Derevi) for Kongming, Sleeping Dragon (Oloro)
As stated above, Derevi needs the Scope the absolute least out of all 5 decks, while Oloro is best positioned to make good use of it. Meanwhile, putting Kongming into a deck that not only lacks a high creature count, and is most likely to cast sweepers doesn't make any sense. Derevi's average creature size is quite small, and it has a lot of creatures, so it will get infinitely more mileage out of Kongming's "anthem" effect.
Swap #2 - Mystic Barrier (Marath) for Serene Master (Oloro)
Serene Master was overwhelmingly a dud in Oloro, while Gahiji might make him at least able to attack once in a while. Meanwhile Oloro will get more use out of Mystic Barrier's pillow fort protection than the more aggressive Marath.
Swap #3 - Grazing Gladehart (Marath) for Farhaven Elf (Derevi)
Again, Derevi is hogging all the ramp, and while I don't want to take all of it's toys away, Marath is another deck that needs it more. Gladehart isn't a card I'd be excited to play in any of the decks, but it's a cheap body and the 2/2 stats make it a slightly better attacker than the 1/1 Elf.
Swap #4 - True Name Nemesis (Jeleva) for Djinn of Infinite Deceits (Derevi)
The Merfolk makes vastly more sense in the Derevi deck, while the Djinn doesn't really play all that well anywhere, but still feels most at home in the slightly chaotic Grixis deck. Jeleva's deck seems slower, and thus better poised to actually want to utilize the ability of the djinn, while Derevi is never going to want to spend 6 mana on a two-power creature.
Swap #5 - Nevinyrral's Disk (Oloro) for Tempt with Reflections (Jeleva)
Notice how Tempt with Reflections says "target creature you control", then notice how the Grixis deck has by far the fewest creatures, and especially few worth copying. Then notice how the Oloro deck basically never wants to activate it's own Disk because it almost always has the most Artifacts, and has quite a few Enchantments too. Now this swap should make sense.
Swap #6 - Vile Requiem (Prossh) for Phyrexian Gargantuan (Oloro)
Oloro has enough card draw already, while Prossh could use a bit of help. Vile Requiem is a slow, deliberate card, but Prossh is not that patient. The Esper deck seems much more capable of playing the long game while waiting for the Requiem to amass counters.
Swap #7 - Wayfarer's Bauble (Jeleva) for Widespread Panic (Prossh)
Prossh needs more ramp, but Widespread Panic slightly hoses ramp. Meanwhile Jeleva didn't need the ramp quite as much (cheaper general; lots of card draw), and has some neat synergy with Widespread Panic. The swap makes tons of sense in both directions.
Swap #8 - Witch Hunt (Marath) for Starstorm (Jeleva)
Witch Hunt makes more sense with Nekusar than Jeleva, but it's still at least a little closer to fitting in her. Also, X-spells don't quite jell with Jeleva's ability.
Swap #9 - Spine of Ish Sah (Prossh) for Pilgrim's Eye (Derevi)
This is the first part of a two-part trade, so bear with me. Prossh needs more ramp/fixing, and Derevi needs something else from Oloro...
Swap #10 - Spine of Ish Sah (Derevi) for Deep Analysis (Oloro)
Derevi needed the draw way more than the ramp, and Oloro likes artifacts. So with the last two trades, Prossh got another mana-searcher, Derevi got a draw spell, and Oloro got a cool new Artifact.
I couldn't find anything to swap between Prossh and Marath, oddly. They both have the same weaknesses - needing more ramp and ways to draw cards. But beyond their flaws, they don't have that much in common. Marath really wants a Fires of Yavimaya, but Prossh isn't willing to give that up, at least not for anything Marath has to offer him...
Feel free to suggest more swaps in the comments.
Commander 2013 First Impressions
Good morning, folks. So the new Commander decks are out and we've all had a chance to play with them right? If not, I feel for you because they appear to be (mostly) much-improved over the 2011 offerings. While I'm sure there will be a lot of aspects that we will look back on and consider "misses" in a year's time, WotC definitely appears to have hit a lot closer to the mark this time out.
A lot of the new cards feel rather weak, but the new Legends, at least have so far proven to be pretty darn good. The decks themselves feel a lot more cohesive and playable (in general, with some caveats).
I got to play a TON this weekend, but only 1v1, unfortunately as half my playgroup stood me up. But even the 1v1 games proved to be invaluable experience for gauging the power level of the decks. The two decks that I think were hurt the most by the 1v1 aspect were the Naya and Grixis decks... but I'll get to that later.
Anyway, my overall impression is that the decks aren't quite grand slam home runs, they are definitely better than the 2011 decks by a significant margin (and I didn't hate those). If you are on the fence about picking these up, I definitely recommend it. Get all 5 if you can!
Here's a quick deck-by-deck breakdown:
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
I was pretty skeptical about this deck, and not super impressed with Derevi. But, boy did I misjudge this one. I still see no reason to claim the sky is falling where Derevi is concerned (I've seen a lot of negativity on the forums - cries of "broken!", "ban her now!", and "WotC negating the commander tax is going to kill the format!". Well, she's definitely a lot more powerful than I thought, I will concede, but more than that, she's interesting and unique, which is frankly a wonderful thing. That she might be a tiny bit overpowered is not really an issue - Edric is still the most broken thing out of the 2011 decks, and he's still not banned.
How the deck plays is the best part. It's made up of a whole bunch of janky and weak-looking cards (with a few exceptions like Karmic Guide), but how they all interact together is what makes it click. While the deck isn't the synergy-driven engine that Oloro's deck is, it is still deceptively, subtly well-designed. The best part is, once it gets going, there are always an impossibly high number of decision trees, making the deck feel like a complicated Sudoko puzzle. Figuring out what to tap and untap with the Derevi triggers, and when, is one thing. Then you start adding some of the "Blink" subtheme cards like Mistmeadow Witch and it gets impossibly complicated.
Which is a good thing! Your opponent can't predict what you're going to do when there are so many little options that even YOU have no idea what you're going to do.
One of the weaknesses of the deck is the lack of card-draw. There are a couple of options, but it is very easy to run out of gas with the deck. It seems particularly weak to mass removal, but even a well-timed Doom Blade on Derevi can turn a solid attack into a tactical disaster. The other biggest weakness is also one of it's strengths - it is ridiculously complicated to pilot, which offers some incredibly rich and rewarding gameplay for hardcore players, but might be a little overwhelming for newer or more casual players. It'd probably still be fun for them, but they likely will drop a lot of games for making misplays, or more likely, failing to make plays they don't even realize they could have made.
The Commander decks are considered Expert-level products, and EDH as a format is decidedly NOT noob-friendly to begin with... but out of all five decks, I think this one is the least suitable as an entry level deck.
The one card this deck wants most: This is a tough one, but it'd be a toss up between Bident of Thassa (needs the draw badly) and Glare of Subdual (or Opposition).
Best New Card: Another tough pick - the best overall is probably Unexpectedly Absent, but it doesn't do much for this deck. I'd say Bane of Progress is more useful in this specific deck, and another solid overall staple-to-be.
Best Reprint: Karmic Guide. This one was not tough at all.
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
I might be biased, but... okay I am... but this is my favorite of the new decks. I also think it's probably the strongest, out of the box. Oloro is good, but the synergies his deck brings to bear are wonderful.
With the right cards, Oloro doesn't even need to be cast to become a tireless machine, and engine of value cranking out card advantage in overwhelming supply, all while your life total skyrockets upward.
But be careful, for the "never-ending value train" line of play is a trap. You need to be able to actually bring all that card advantage to bear, interact with the board and make sure your opponents aren't just building an unstoppable army while you draw cards and gain life.
The only time I saw Oloro lose all weekend was when it had mana issues. So that'd mark the first and most noticeable weakness. Finding some ramp options in these colors would go a long way.
The more critical weakness, though, is the overall lack of board control. The deck feels like it wants to be a grindy control deck, but there aren't that many answers to things, and many of the ones included aren't that great.
Finally, you needs a couple more ways to recur key spells and permanents. Well of Lost Dreams is quickly going to become every Oloro player's favorite card - and their opponent's prime target for Krosan Grip.
The "Artifacts matter" subtheme feels a little phoned in, but it makes sense here - there are a lot of artifacts you will want to play in Oloro, but many of the specific inclusions feel like a half-completed and abandoned Sidri deck. Which I'm sure was intentional to a point, but does give the deck a slight bipolar quality.
The one card this deck wants most: Sphinx's Revelation. (It's actually probably Damnation, but Revelation is more fun).
Best New Card: Toxic Deluge, not even close.
Best Reprint: Lim-Dul's Vault.
Jeleva, Nephala's Scourge
This is the deck I have the least data on. I only played one game with this deck, and two against it. It did not perform well against any of the other decks. I will say in its defense that I think this is the deck most hampered by the 1v1 mode in which we were playing it. Jeleva's ability relies on there being more players, to enable more options. Playing the deck 1v1, it was hardly ever worth it to cast her - often she'd miss completely or just fail to hit anything relevant.
Also, the deck seemed to have more stuff included for Nekusar than for Jeleva herself. The deck does feature a rather weak "Instants and Sorceries matter" theme, but doesn't commit fully enough to compete with the stronger synergies of the other decks.
In other words, Jeleva is the one new Legend whose power level is directly tied to the power level of the deck built around her, and her opponents' decks. So playing her at the helm of a rather weak deck against a bevy of stronger but still relatively underpowered decks is a poor environment for a test drive.
Jeleva herself is the Kaalia of the set. Much like Kaalia, she is a cheap Flying creature with whom you must attack in order to get free stuff. Kaalia gave you free Dragons, Angels and Demons, whereas Jeleva gives you free Instants and Sorceries, which makes her far more open-ended. What's more she can also take advantage of any of your opponents Instants and Sorceries as well, so that's even more flexibility.
But at the end of the day, despite all this apparent flexibility, she's still basically the same card as Kaalia. To me, Nekusar is the more interesting Legend, and I theorize that this is why there are way more cards in the deck that appear to have been included strictly for his benefit.
The one card this deck wants most: Probably Sire of Insanity. Jeleva herself will provide you with gas while everyone else is stuck in top-deck mode.
Best New Card: Illusionist's Gambit.
Best Reprint: Decree of Pain.
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
In one game, I managed to kill my opponent with Prossh in a single hit. Having 16 Kobolds to sac, courtesy of Primal Vigor, made this a fairly easy feat. I'm duly impressed with Prossh himself. The deck, on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired. It's the middle child of the set - while it plays better than the Naya and Grixis deck, it is weaker than the Bant and Esper decks.
But, Prossh himself picks up a lot of that slack. Sek'Kuar and Shattergang Brothers are also a good deal more synergistic with the deck itself and with Prossh and each other than the other decks and Generals. It's the one deck where the design of all three Legends and the deck itself intersect perfectly, and it doesn't feel unnatural or forced to have all three Legends in one deck.
Unfortunately there are some other aspects that don't feel as natural. The lack of ramp being one. It is a very expensive deck to operate, and the lack of ramp hurts badly. It feels more slow and clunky than it should, and while it has some great synergies, it feels like it takes forever and a day to bring them online.
Second, with the way the deck is built, and even the NAME of the deck - it's called Power Hungry! - it really feels like it wants some Devour cards. But not a one to be found. Of course Devour is a high risk mechanic in EDH so I wouldn't over do it, but, c'mon, Not even a Mycoloth?
Regardless, it's a pretty powerful deck if you can hit your land drops.
The one card this deck wants most: You'd think it'd be Mycoloth or Thromok, one of the high-end Devour cards... but no. Play it a few times, and I promise you, you will never want Grave Pact so badly as you do with this deck.
Best New Card: Sudden Demise gets my vote, though it gets better the fewer colors you are playing. Primal Vigor will probably get the most love, though.
Best Reprint: This deck has a lot of contenders. Hua Tuo is the most interesting of the P3K reprints, and Reincarnation a fantastically obscure and wonderful Legends card updated with quirky new art and templating that actually makes sense. I'm also a big fan of Mass Mutiny, a Planechase 2012 reprint that by all right should be seeing a lot more EDH play than it currently is.
Marath, Will of the Wild
I was pretty disappointed with this deck and how it played, but no fault belongs to Marath. I just couldn't get a cohesive game plan going, and game after game I was struggling to make do with a hand full of mediocre at best cards like Street Spasm and Slice and Dice.
But when I was playing against the deck, it seemed to be quite capable of kicking ass.
Of all the decks, this is the one that seems most schizophrenic. It has many different sub-themes, but no main theme. Overall card quality is below average for the set, and it seems to be a bit of a dumping ground for cards R&D wanted to put in the set but didn't know which deck to put them in (Witch Hunt, I'm looking at you). Even with a hand of 5 or 6 cards, you essentially feel like your in top-deck mode all the time.
Fortunatly Marath is so damn good you could almost get there by just casting him over and over and ignoring your hand.
And this is another deck that is just absolutely hamstrung by the lack of proper ramp. It actually calls this deck a "ramp" deck in the writeup, but there is almost NO true ramp - Cultivate, Tempt with Discovery and Sol Ring are the only actual ramp spells - everything else is all Landcycling. Oh and it has 42 lands with virtually no card draw. So you often find yourself badly needing mana, or badly needing anything BUT mana.
Ramp and Draw are the two biggest weaknesses, but overall lack of any cohesive theme or synergy is actually just as big an issue. Address these issues first and regardless of the direction you go in otherwise, it should be a pretty solid deck. Marath himself is quite good.
Gahiji surprised me, too. I didn't think much of him, and he's still a little to vanilla for me to build around him as a General, but as a support card he did fantastic things.
The one card this deck wants most: Doubling Season. Even without much of a token theme, Marath will be NUTS with DS on the board.
Best New Card: Tempt with Discovery.
Best Reprint: Wrath of God, by a mile. But honorable mention for the Archangel with the Quinton Hoover artwork. R.I.P., Quinton.
Well, there's my rundown on my first impressions on the new Commander decks. Let me know how your first experiences are going in the comments.
Enjoy!
A lot of the new cards feel rather weak, but the new Legends, at least have so far proven to be pretty darn good. The decks themselves feel a lot more cohesive and playable (in general, with some caveats).
I got to play a TON this weekend, but only 1v1, unfortunately as half my playgroup stood me up. But even the 1v1 games proved to be invaluable experience for gauging the power level of the decks. The two decks that I think were hurt the most by the 1v1 aspect were the Naya and Grixis decks... but I'll get to that later.
Anyway, my overall impression is that the decks aren't quite grand slam home runs, they are definitely better than the 2011 decks by a significant margin (and I didn't hate those). If you are on the fence about picking these up, I definitely recommend it. Get all 5 if you can!
Here's a quick deck-by-deck breakdown:
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
I was pretty skeptical about this deck, and not super impressed with Derevi. But, boy did I misjudge this one. I still see no reason to claim the sky is falling where Derevi is concerned (I've seen a lot of negativity on the forums - cries of "broken!", "ban her now!", and "WotC negating the commander tax is going to kill the format!". Well, she's definitely a lot more powerful than I thought, I will concede, but more than that, she's interesting and unique, which is frankly a wonderful thing. That she might be a tiny bit overpowered is not really an issue - Edric is still the most broken thing out of the 2011 decks, and he's still not banned.
How the deck plays is the best part. It's made up of a whole bunch of janky and weak-looking cards (with a few exceptions like Karmic Guide), but how they all interact together is what makes it click. While the deck isn't the synergy-driven engine that Oloro's deck is, it is still deceptively, subtly well-designed. The best part is, once it gets going, there are always an impossibly high number of decision trees, making the deck feel like a complicated Sudoko puzzle. Figuring out what to tap and untap with the Derevi triggers, and when, is one thing. Then you start adding some of the "Blink" subtheme cards like Mistmeadow Witch and it gets impossibly complicated.
Which is a good thing! Your opponent can't predict what you're going to do when there are so many little options that even YOU have no idea what you're going to do.
One of the weaknesses of the deck is the lack of card-draw. There are a couple of options, but it is very easy to run out of gas with the deck. It seems particularly weak to mass removal, but even a well-timed Doom Blade on Derevi can turn a solid attack into a tactical disaster. The other biggest weakness is also one of it's strengths - it is ridiculously complicated to pilot, which offers some incredibly rich and rewarding gameplay for hardcore players, but might be a little overwhelming for newer or more casual players. It'd probably still be fun for them, but they likely will drop a lot of games for making misplays, or more likely, failing to make plays they don't even realize they could have made.
The Commander decks are considered Expert-level products, and EDH as a format is decidedly NOT noob-friendly to begin with... but out of all five decks, I think this one is the least suitable as an entry level deck.
The one card this deck wants most: This is a tough one, but it'd be a toss up between Bident of Thassa (needs the draw badly) and Glare of Subdual (or Opposition).
Best New Card: Another tough pick - the best overall is probably Unexpectedly Absent, but it doesn't do much for this deck. I'd say Bane of Progress is more useful in this specific deck, and another solid overall staple-to-be.
Best Reprint: Karmic Guide. This one was not tough at all.
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
I might be biased, but... okay I am... but this is my favorite of the new decks. I also think it's probably the strongest, out of the box. Oloro is good, but the synergies his deck brings to bear are wonderful.
With the right cards, Oloro doesn't even need to be cast to become a tireless machine, and engine of value cranking out card advantage in overwhelming supply, all while your life total skyrockets upward.
But be careful, for the "never-ending value train" line of play is a trap. You need to be able to actually bring all that card advantage to bear, interact with the board and make sure your opponents aren't just building an unstoppable army while you draw cards and gain life.
The only time I saw Oloro lose all weekend was when it had mana issues. So that'd mark the first and most noticeable weakness. Finding some ramp options in these colors would go a long way.
The more critical weakness, though, is the overall lack of board control. The deck feels like it wants to be a grindy control deck, but there aren't that many answers to things, and many of the ones included aren't that great.
Finally, you needs a couple more ways to recur key spells and permanents. Well of Lost Dreams is quickly going to become every Oloro player's favorite card - and their opponent's prime target for Krosan Grip.
The "Artifacts matter" subtheme feels a little phoned in, but it makes sense here - there are a lot of artifacts you will want to play in Oloro, but many of the specific inclusions feel like a half-completed and abandoned Sidri deck. Which I'm sure was intentional to a point, but does give the deck a slight bipolar quality.
The one card this deck wants most: Sphinx's Revelation. (It's actually probably Damnation, but Revelation is more fun).
Best New Card: Toxic Deluge, not even close.
Best Reprint: Lim-Dul's Vault.
Jeleva, Nephala's Scourge
This is the deck I have the least data on. I only played one game with this deck, and two against it. It did not perform well against any of the other decks. I will say in its defense that I think this is the deck most hampered by the 1v1 mode in which we were playing it. Jeleva's ability relies on there being more players, to enable more options. Playing the deck 1v1, it was hardly ever worth it to cast her - often she'd miss completely or just fail to hit anything relevant.
Also, the deck seemed to have more stuff included for Nekusar than for Jeleva herself. The deck does feature a rather weak "Instants and Sorceries matter" theme, but doesn't commit fully enough to compete with the stronger synergies of the other decks.
In other words, Jeleva is the one new Legend whose power level is directly tied to the power level of the deck built around her, and her opponents' decks. So playing her at the helm of a rather weak deck against a bevy of stronger but still relatively underpowered decks is a poor environment for a test drive.
Jeleva herself is the Kaalia of the set. Much like Kaalia, she is a cheap Flying creature with whom you must attack in order to get free stuff. Kaalia gave you free Dragons, Angels and Demons, whereas Jeleva gives you free Instants and Sorceries, which makes her far more open-ended. What's more she can also take advantage of any of your opponents Instants and Sorceries as well, so that's even more flexibility.
But at the end of the day, despite all this apparent flexibility, she's still basically the same card as Kaalia. To me, Nekusar is the more interesting Legend, and I theorize that this is why there are way more cards in the deck that appear to have been included strictly for his benefit.
The one card this deck wants most: Probably Sire of Insanity. Jeleva herself will provide you with gas while everyone else is stuck in top-deck mode.
Best New Card: Illusionist's Gambit.
Best Reprint: Decree of Pain.
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
In one game, I managed to kill my opponent with Prossh in a single hit. Having 16 Kobolds to sac, courtesy of Primal Vigor, made this a fairly easy feat. I'm duly impressed with Prossh himself. The deck, on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired. It's the middle child of the set - while it plays better than the Naya and Grixis deck, it is weaker than the Bant and Esper decks.
But, Prossh himself picks up a lot of that slack. Sek'Kuar and Shattergang Brothers are also a good deal more synergistic with the deck itself and with Prossh and each other than the other decks and Generals. It's the one deck where the design of all three Legends and the deck itself intersect perfectly, and it doesn't feel unnatural or forced to have all three Legends in one deck.
Unfortunately there are some other aspects that don't feel as natural. The lack of ramp being one. It is a very expensive deck to operate, and the lack of ramp hurts badly. It feels more slow and clunky than it should, and while it has some great synergies, it feels like it takes forever and a day to bring them online.
Second, with the way the deck is built, and even the NAME of the deck - it's called Power Hungry! - it really feels like it wants some Devour cards. But not a one to be found. Of course Devour is a high risk mechanic in EDH so I wouldn't over do it, but, c'mon, Not even a Mycoloth?
Regardless, it's a pretty powerful deck if you can hit your land drops.
The one card this deck wants most: You'd think it'd be Mycoloth or Thromok, one of the high-end Devour cards... but no. Play it a few times, and I promise you, you will never want Grave Pact so badly as you do with this deck.
Best New Card: Sudden Demise gets my vote, though it gets better the fewer colors you are playing. Primal Vigor will probably get the most love, though.
Best Reprint: This deck has a lot of contenders. Hua Tuo is the most interesting of the P3K reprints, and Reincarnation a fantastically obscure and wonderful Legends card updated with quirky new art and templating that actually makes sense. I'm also a big fan of Mass Mutiny, a Planechase 2012 reprint that by all right should be seeing a lot more EDH play than it currently is.
Marath, Will of the Wild
I was pretty disappointed with this deck and how it played, but no fault belongs to Marath. I just couldn't get a cohesive game plan going, and game after game I was struggling to make do with a hand full of mediocre at best cards like Street Spasm and Slice and Dice.
But when I was playing against the deck, it seemed to be quite capable of kicking ass.
Of all the decks, this is the one that seems most schizophrenic. It has many different sub-themes, but no main theme. Overall card quality is below average for the set, and it seems to be a bit of a dumping ground for cards R&D wanted to put in the set but didn't know which deck to put them in (Witch Hunt, I'm looking at you). Even with a hand of 5 or 6 cards, you essentially feel like your in top-deck mode all the time.
Fortunatly Marath is so damn good you could almost get there by just casting him over and over and ignoring your hand.
And this is another deck that is just absolutely hamstrung by the lack of proper ramp. It actually calls this deck a "ramp" deck in the writeup, but there is almost NO true ramp - Cultivate, Tempt with Discovery and Sol Ring are the only actual ramp spells - everything else is all Landcycling. Oh and it has 42 lands with virtually no card draw. So you often find yourself badly needing mana, or badly needing anything BUT mana.
Ramp and Draw are the two biggest weaknesses, but overall lack of any cohesive theme or synergy is actually just as big an issue. Address these issues first and regardless of the direction you go in otherwise, it should be a pretty solid deck. Marath himself is quite good.
Gahiji surprised me, too. I didn't think much of him, and he's still a little to vanilla for me to build around him as a General, but as a support card he did fantastic things.
The one card this deck wants most: Doubling Season. Even without much of a token theme, Marath will be NUTS with DS on the board.
Best New Card: Tempt with Discovery.
Best Reprint: Wrath of God, by a mile. But honorable mention for the Archangel with the Quinton Hoover artwork. R.I.P., Quinton.
Well, there's my rundown on my first impressions on the new Commander decks. Let me know how your first experiences are going in the comments.
Enjoy!
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Commander 2013 Review: G/A&L
We have now arrived at the final installment of my Commander 2013 review. Today, we've got Green, and everything else - Artifacts and Lands. There aren't many in the "everything else" category, so it'll be a quick one today.
Kicking things off we've got one hell of a utility dork. Once in play he's painfully vanilla, but that doesn't really matter. As long as you aren't relying to heavily on Artifacts and Enchantments, this should be a must-run staple in virtually any G/x deck.
I initially thought the Red one might be the strongest of these Curses, but while it's probably the most utilitarian, this one is probably just the overall best. Awesome art too. Definitely be playing this one in Edric. Seems like a good Skullbriar inclusion as well.
Ugh. Eight mana for a french vanilla dude that might be huge, or he might be tiny. Seeing a land or two flip over with this guy will seriously sting. If it's not 8/8 at least, it's going to be disappointing, and even that is mediocre. Fine for janky Beast Tribal decks, but I don't foresee this becoming a big hit.
Hey, they made a fixed Dou...
Wait. Where are the words "you control"?
Yeah. It's a nerfed Doubling Season that costs the same as DS but sucks infinitely more. Terrible, except in two cases: Group Hug decks, or if you are the only person in your group that ever plays token decks.
And what's with the art? It looks like an unused Overrun variant, not a DS variant. Shouldn't it show TWO of every creature? This is the biggest failure of the set, and it feels like WotC is intentionally trolling us with this shit.
Well, this is new. Not sure it's actually good or not. Oh sure, it seems like it will be, and I can see a strong case for it to be. But I have this sneaking suspicion it's going to be much worse in most decks than people anticipate.
I'm certainly intrigued to see how this one plays out.
Jeez, does everything in this set cost 8 mana? I jest, but things do seem a little top-heavy. I can't get behind this one at all - unless I have Academy Rector shenanigans, but then again if I'm going that route there are obviously better end games.
But even through my bitter cynicism, I can easily concede that the prospect of churning out an endless stream of 5/5 Beasts will delight some folks enough, they'll find a way to make this work.
DING! DING! DING! We have a winner. This is by far the one Tempting Offer card where you're most likely to get at least one player to buy into the offer every time. Ironically it's probably the biggest trap of the cycle, too. Unlike the other cards, this one will almost always help you more than anyone else, but at the same time, there will almost always be that one person who's a bit behind and just can't refuse - then everyone else will be eager to jump in, not wanting to be left out. I definitely endorse this card, but don't be surprised if eventually your group catches on and just completely stops taking this offer.
Now this should be interesting. It's democratic, yet still gives the caster all the power. If the caster doesn't like the way the other player's vote, he can just sit on this forever. Or, it can just be a good way to even the odds across the board.
But at the same time, casting it when you're ahead won't get you very far - your opponents will all just chose to put their doom counters on your things.
Also you can "abstain" by choosing the Eye itself to receive your doom counter.
Also, doom counters. Neat!
Meh. I mean, I get the design, but I don't really like it. I want ramp that's less situational and more reliable. However, in some colors this will likely be a godsend anyway. I'm thinking Boros and Orzhov decks in particular will happily make use of this, but it's a particularly terrible late-game draw, so beware.
Whoa. That's a doozy of a Land. It's not as universal as Command Tower, obviously, but it's great for a LOT of Generals. Rafiq, Thraxi, Edric, Skullbriar... the list goes on. But some Legends won't particularly care, like Savra, Grand Arbiter, etc... but yeah, it's really good.
Well, that about wraps it up for the new cards. I'm not sure what's next - I don't want to review the decks themselves and start modifying and improving them until I've had time to play all of these decks out-of-the-box a few times. But I might do a thing on the reprints - we're getting some Three Kingdoms goodies, for one thing, which is great.
Anyway, we'll see what comes. In the mean time, enjoy!
Wait. Where are the words "you control"?
Yeah. It's a nerfed Doubling Season that costs the same as DS but sucks infinitely more. Terrible, except in two cases: Group Hug decks, or if you are the only person in your group that ever plays token decks.
And what's with the art? It looks like an unused Overrun variant, not a DS variant. Shouldn't it show TWO of every creature? This is the biggest failure of the set, and it feels like WotC is intentionally trolling us with this shit.
I'm certainly intrigued to see how this one plays out.
But even through my bitter cynicism, I can easily concede that the prospect of churning out an endless stream of 5/5 Beasts will delight some folks enough, they'll find a way to make this work.
But at the same time, casting it when you're ahead won't get you very far - your opponents will all just chose to put their doom counters on your things.
Also you can "abstain" by choosing the Eye itself to receive your doom counter.
Also, doom counters. Neat!
Well, that about wraps it up for the new cards. I'm not sure what's next - I don't want to review the decks themselves and start modifying and improving them until I've had time to play all of these decks out-of-the-box a few times. But I might do a thing on the reprints - we're getting some Three Kingdoms goodies, for one thing, which is great.
Anyway, we'll see what comes. In the mean time, enjoy!
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