I'm relatively new to magic, a little less than a year into it, and I have a decent standard deck, and made a Bladewing the Risen EDH deck a few months ago, and ended up not liking it at all. I'm selling it on ebay, which after deciding I wanted to make a new deck, I realize that was a dumb idea for several reasons, but no going back they met the reserve lol.
Anyway I think there are a lot of cool things I could do with an Anowon, the Ruin Sage deck, though when I told a veteran MTG friend he said it was "boring, and ineffective." That may be true, and I might be leaning towards that because I already have a lot of the vampires, etc that I'd want to run, but still think it would be fun.
A few of the things I'd like to do is obviously run some strong vampires, and get the tribal effect with it. Also run the vampire hexmage / dark depths combo. Run urborg, tomb of yawgmoth in company with tendrils of corruption (I'll already have a lot of swamps if I don't pull it) and sanguine bond. I'm not sure those are just a few ideas.
I guess I'm just looking for a nod that Anowon isn't a completely horrible idea, and a few ideas for win conditions, and some must have cards for it.
Let me know what you think, I'd really appreciate your time, input, and consideration.
You won't really be getting a 'vampire' deck in EDH. There's just not that many good vampires that you can run only one of.
You can do it the way LOTS of people start with EDH: Pick a general you like. Grab cards you own in his colors. Make a deck. As you go along, take out stuff that doesn't work, put in stuff that does. It's really a good way to go about things. Stuff other people swear by might be useless to you; a 'jank' uncommon from 4 sets back might be just what you need. Just throw together a deck, and maybe playtest a few cards you want to try out, if your group is okay with it.
Thanks for the reply, like I said, I think I'm trying to go with him because I already have a lot of vampires etc. Probably aren't enough really good 1 of vamps to make a strong tribal based deck from. I really don't have the cards to start putting one together from my binder, as I'm really running only late Alara block on (75% of my cards are zendikar lol)
Thanks for the reply, like I said, I think I'm trying to go with him because I already have a lot of vampires etc. Probably aren't enough really good 1 of vamps to make a strong tribal based deck from. I really don't have the cards to start putting one together from my binder, as I'm really running only late Alara block on (75% of my cards are zendikar lol)
One of my good friends made his EDH deck out of a whole bunch of green cards he had laying around, mostly from Alara and Zendikar. The majority of them are awful. There are much better cards he could use. But even being a thrown-together pile of 100 cards, it still wins, and it's still fun. That's what I'm saying. Put in all the cards you KNOW you want to run, that you have, then try to get as many of the other ones you want by trading with friends. After that, fill in the slots with other black/artifact/lands you have to make it 100 cards, and swap out 'filler' cards for good ones as you go along. I'd rather have a fully-build, kinda crappy EDH deck so I could get the feel for things than have a half-built awesome one for months before I get to even play it.
wow, thanks a lot for the start. I've got quite a bit of that laying around. I'm going to try and put something together at least to play around with in the next couple of days.
I never liked Vamps. They are...not special for me, however i love Black cards and what it provides...Disruption, card-drawing, best tutors, and yard recursion.
If you say you have a bunch of Vamps to build a good EDH...why not combine it with a very good complementary color like: Green. BG could be one of the most powerfull combination in EDH and they complement each other very well.
Im not a big fun of Monocolor deck because you miss some relevant stuff...for instance...Black has the hardest time to deal with enchanmets/ If they play Humility on you, unless you pull an Oblivion Stone or Nevinyrral's Disk quick, you are in deep do-do.
Anyways, check out some BG generals that work preatty good with your vamps and add some good tutors, card-drawing, disruption, mass/spot removal, graveyard sheenanigans, and some artifact/enchantement removal from G
I like Savra, Queen of the Golgari she could be one of the most fun and focused Generals on her colors. Plus she works very nive with Bloodghast
Cards that you could add:
Also remember changelings are vampires too. Also Conspiracy from mercadian masques helps if you find nice utility creatures that are nonvampire. That way you can also run junk creatures and sac them to your Vampire Aristocrat, Nantuko Husk, and Phyrexian Ghoul which would be vampires thanks to conspiracy and would activate on Butcher of Malakir and Grave Pact all of which can be gotten from recent decks with other goodies with the exception of the nantuko husk. I've been working on an Anowan deck like that.
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You won't really be getting a 'vampire' deck in EDH. There's just not that many good vampires that you can run only one of.
This is completely false as I play this general and I have I think only 2 non-vampires in the entire deck (and at least one of them is likely to get cut when I get my hands on some ROE).
Anyway, I would say decide what you want your theme to be. Using Anowon as your general doesn't necessitate that you are doing a vampire theme anyways. I have fun with it because of that theme. You could also do a theme where you are more of a black control deck. There are a lot of sacrifice abilities, you could perhaps focus on those as well.
Below Biomechanika has a shell, some of that I would recommend for a vampire build, but there are definitely good cards that he's missed and some that he has that you can decide for yourself if you think they're necessary. I personally don't run Sorin, but thats more from not having it. There are a pretty good handful of NON-Zendikar vampires that are solid that aren't listed there such as Mephidross Vampire, Baron Sengir, Sengir Vampire, Soul Collector, Sengir Nosferatu, and Krovikan Vampire. Also, don't dismiss Bloodghast because his power is small, a creature returning to play that way is definitely helpful. There are a handful of others that are decent on their own too albeit smaller creatures.
UWMerfolk (Sygg, River Guide) B Vampires (Anowon the Ruin Sage) BRU Zombies! (Lord of Tresserhorn) WUBRG Allies (Karona, False God) W Soldiers (Darien, King of Kjeldor)
If you're going with a sacrifice theme, you could add Cairn Wanderer as another body, not sure what abilities your other creatures will have to make it useful though....flying mostlikey....maybe fear....
in any case, with the right cards being sacrificed, this guy can get mean.
I'm relatively new to magic, a little less than a year into it, and I have a decent standard deck, and made a Bladewing the Risen EDH deck a few months ago, and ended up not liking it at all. I'm selling it on ebay, which after deciding I wanted to make a new deck, I realize that was a dumb idea for several reasons, but no going back they met the reserve lol.
Anyway I think there are a lot of cool things I could do with an Anowon, the Ruin Sage deck, though when I told a veteran MTG friend he said it was "boring, and ineffective." That may be true, and I might be leaning towards that because I already have a lot of the vampires, etc that I'd want to run, but still think it would be fun.
A few of the things I'd like to do is obviously run some strong vampires, and get the tribal effect with it. Also run the vampire hexmage / dark depths combo. Run urborg, tomb of yawgmoth in company with tendrils of corruption (I'll already have a lot of swamps if I don't pull it) and sanguine bond. I'm not sure those are just a few ideas.
I guess I'm just looking for a nod that Anowon isn't a completely horrible idea, and a few ideas for win conditions, and some must have cards for it.
Let me know what you think, I'd really appreciate your time, input, and consideration.
You can do it the way LOTS of people start with EDH: Pick a general you like. Grab cards you own in his colors. Make a deck. As you go along, take out stuff that doesn't work, put in stuff that does. It's really a good way to go about things. Stuff other people swear by might be useless to you; a 'jank' uncommon from 4 sets back might be just what you need. Just throw together a deck, and maybe playtest a few cards you want to try out, if your group is okay with it.
The latest Comprehensive Rules are also good, and can be found here.
One of my good friends made his EDH deck out of a whole bunch of green cards he had laying around, mostly from Alara and Zendikar. The majority of them are awful. There are much better cards he could use. But even being a thrown-together pile of 100 cards, it still wins, and it's still fun. That's what I'm saying. Put in all the cards you KNOW you want to run, that you have, then try to get as many of the other ones you want by trading with friends. After that, fill in the slots with other black/artifact/lands you have to make it 100 cards, and swap out 'filler' cards for good ones as you go along. I'd rather have a fully-build, kinda crappy EDH deck so I could get the feel for things than have a half-built awesome one for months before I get to even play it.
The latest Comprehensive Rules are also good, and can be found here.
There's enough creatures to start, a sacrifice theme, and a combo. Fill the rest with whatever you like. I'd go the Mono control route, personally.
1 Anowon, the Ruin Sage
Creatures
1 Ascendant Evincar
1 Bloodhusk Ritualist
1 Butcher of Malakir
1 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
1 Gatekeeper of Malakir
1 Guul Draz Assassin
1 Kalastria Highborn
1 Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet
1 Malakir Bloodwitch
1 Nirkana Revenant
1 Vampire Hexmage
1 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Vampire Nocturnus
1 Blood Tribute
Enchantments
1 Sanguine Bond
1 Bloodchief Ascension
Planeswalker
1 Sorin Markov
Land
38 Swamp
He's not horrible. If you build around his sacrifice mechanic, and have a lot of creature kill, he can be a brutal General to play against.
If you say you have a bunch of Vamps to build a good EDH...why not combine it with a very good complementary color like: Green.
BG could be one of the most powerfull combination in EDH and they complement each other very well.
Im not a big fun of Monocolor deck because you miss some relevant stuff...for instance...Black has the hardest time to deal with enchanmets/ If they play Humility on you, unless you pull an Oblivion Stone or Nevinyrral's Disk quick, you are in deep do-do.
Anyways, check out some BG generals that work preatty good with your vamps and add some good tutors, card-drawing, disruption, mass/spot removal, graveyard sheenanigans, and some artifact/enchantement removal from G
I like Savra, Queen of the Golgari she could be one of the most fun and focused Generals on her colors. Plus she works very nive with Bloodghast
Cards that you could add:
Survival of the Fittiest Genesis Contamination works also good with Bloodghast or Nether traitor etc...you got the idea.
WUBSharuum the Hegemon
WUGTreva, the Renewer
This is completely false as I play this general and I have I think only 2 non-vampires in the entire deck (and at least one of them is likely to get cut when I get my hands on some ROE).
Anyway, I would say decide what you want your theme to be. Using Anowon as your general doesn't necessitate that you are doing a vampire theme anyways. I have fun with it because of that theme. You could also do a theme where you are more of a black control deck. There are a lot of sacrifice abilities, you could perhaps focus on those as well.
Below Biomechanika has a shell, some of that I would recommend for a vampire build, but there are definitely good cards that he's missed and some that he has that you can decide for yourself if you think they're necessary. I personally don't run Sorin, but thats more from not having it. There are a pretty good handful of NON-Zendikar vampires that are solid that aren't listed there such as Mephidross Vampire, Baron Sengir, Sengir Vampire, Soul Collector, Sengir Nosferatu, and Krovikan Vampire. Also, don't dismiss Bloodghast because his power is small, a creature returning to play that way is definitely helpful. There are a handful of others that are decent on their own too albeit smaller creatures.
If you want to have people sacrificing creatures don't forget things like...
Diabolic Edict
Chainer's Edict
Innocent Blood
Gravepact
Fleshbag Marauder
Ashling, the Extinguisher
Barter in Blood
UWMerfolk (Sygg, River Guide)
B Vampires (Anowon the Ruin Sage)
BRU Zombies! (Lord of Tresserhorn)
WUBRG Allies (Karona, False God)
W Soldiers (Darien, King of Kjeldor)
in any case, with the right cards being sacrificed, this guy can get mean.
| B Erebos, God of VampiresB | GYeva SmashG | RBosh ArtifactsR | GURAnimar +1 BeatsGUR | RBVial's Secret Hot SauceRB | UBRNekusar, Draw if you DareUBR | RGBDarigaaz'z DragonsRGB | GBSlimeFEETGB | UBOn-Hit LazavUB | URBrudiclad's Artificer InventionsUR | GUBMuldrotha's ElementalsGUB | WUGKestia's EnchantmentsWUG | GUTatyova - Draw, Land, Go!GU | WGArahbo's EquipmentWG | BUWVarina's ZOMBIE HORDESBUW | WLyra's Angelic SalvationW | WBChurch of TeysaWB | UAzami...WizardsU