It was more that she was new, and no one understood what her abilities were. Though you're partially right; of the 3-4 metas I play in (I travel a lot), that one is probably the lowest in power level.
Hahahahahaha. Oh, it's not that they're not bad, they just didn't understand what an elf that taps for mana was, or what destroying artifacts or enchantments was. I swear, if nothing else you've given me comic relief for the night.
Anyway, there's not a deck in the format that can win in 5 turns consistently against every field. So, there's that. But anyway, you win this discussion based on attrition. It's after midnight so I have no more time to argue over Freyalise or Ezuri. Take it easy bud.
After reading everyone's responses, and further contemplating Freyalise, I do believe that she is an excellent card because of the utility that she provides. Her ability to generate creature tokens free of mana and repeatedly is amazingly useful, plus the mana acceleration that they provide cannot be understated. Her ability to have a repeatable naturalize that is free of mana also will be a major deterrent for decks that rely heavily on artifacts and enchantments. Finally, being able to draw cards is always good, and any deck that features her shall likely have many creatures to ensure that her third ability is always produces the best possible result.
She may not be as game-changing as Nicol Bolas or Karn, but she definitely is very useful in a deck that is designed to work around her.
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I really like Patron, it's just unfortunate that I'd like him so much better if he didn't ramp your enemies. I find the splash damage of even cards like Vernal Bloom hard to stomach, so I've never really taken the time to try him out at the helm. If he didn't have a global effect I'd have run him in a heartbeat, though.
It's actually not much of an issue, usually. Most decks, in my experience, don't run enough of a Forest presence to really benefit the way you do from Patron's effect, and many of them don't even have anything to do with it.
With that said, I think he's obviously very powerful. He scales well in multiplayer, should draw minimal hate (at first), and has several cards in-color that synergize well with his abilities.
Exactly. If you can look past the symmetry (which is not as big as you may think on paper) he is absurd.
I also ran Vorinclex for a period of time, which I assume would be somewhat similar. Very awkward in that he doesn't provide any form of CA and the table actively wants to kill him, but he didn't work as badly as one would have expected. The more expensive commanders means your deck functions better without them, as you're not relying on your commanders to do the first leg (of getting to 8 mana).
Vorinclex really suffers from a PR problem. He's just so obviously insane that if you sit down with him as your general, you may get hated off the table before you even get to him. I barely like running him in Patron, much less as my general. It's bold of you, honestly.
It was ultimately my time with Vorinclex that led me to Kamahl, as Kamahl is the ultimate mana sink commander. However, I've found that I'd like to be a little more active at this point, so Freyalise has been nice to have access to a nice set of "spells" that can be cast mid-game (instead of having your general do nothing until you've reached ~15-20 mana).
I do like Freyalise after playing with her, but she's not a big-mana general really. She's a mono-green goodstuff general. She provides removal, dudes, mana, and cards, everything you could ask for in a general, and though she doesn't do anything amazingly, having access to options is nice. She's not an elfball general at all (or shouldn't be, IMO).
And I'm curious to hear about the possible non-linear nature of Ezuri. All the Ezuri builds I've seen have been active attempts to Llanowar Elves/Heritage Druid into G-Waves, Craterhoofs, and Ezuri-Overruns.
I've played solely mono-green since Innistrad, so I consider myself at least somewhat knowledgable in the subject. Ezuri and Patron are two of the few strategies I haven't personally run (for the above reasons), so I'd be curious to hear your takes.
Ok, here's what I've observed over the past two years or so (a little before RTR actually, around Avacyn):
-Ezuri is an Elfball general who has the Kamahl-esque ability to take just a few dudes and go nuts with them. While obviously he can G-Wave/Hoof-it-good with the best of them, that's only one angle of attack. The Ezuri deck I run with has a bunch of solid ways to generate advantage in other areas (like Descendant's Path, Hibernation's End, and Elvish Soultiller) so that he's never really out of gas. He often simply gets a Priest of Titania effect, a few dudes, overruns a few times, and punches people til he gets stopped. Once he is, he likes to switch tactics and play very cautiously, using Ezuri as protection for his elves as he nickel-and-dimes people down, then goes for a big finish. He really put a lot of effort into resource generation and restoration, so he doesn't just get blown out all at once and can recoup through the obvious losses he accrues. He isn't a top tier general, IMO, but he's got things going on for him that actually matter. He's quite similar to Kamahl in a lot of ways, just he wants a specific tribe most of the time (luckily, elves are a solid tribe if you're not a moron about it). Additionally, he's dirt cheap, which is awesome.
-Patron is an entire other story. I run about 5 mana elves (Arbor Elf, Dryad Arbor, Joraga Treespeaker, Fyndhorn Elves [because I own a promo], and like one other), Orochi Sustainer, Sachi, about 15 ramp spells, and like 6 mana doublers. Other than that, the deck is draw and business. The idea is to do things that matter early on, then use Patron in a single major and highly explosive turn to run people over with something nuts. Patron's power is that while he can both go bigger than anything else I've ever encountered (seriously, if you've never used Patron to power a 80-point Genesis Wave, you haven't lived), be can also go wide by just untapping 12 mana every turn and jamming activated token-making abilities every single turn forever. Soul of Zendikar/Nemata, Grove Guardian/Ant Queen/Sprout Swarm/etc are all amazing with Patron. Having credible access to the Helix Pinnacle win is nice too. It's a big mana deck in the extreme, but because Patron costs a billion mana already, the deck naturally configures itself to make lots of mana without him, so you can have hands where you never bother playing him and just use Seedborn Muse/Awakening to sink huge amounts of mana into any repeatable outlet and grind people down under a wave of tokens. Patron loves Kamahl, obviously, and likes fun X spells like Gelatinous Genesis. Tornado goes from a joke to insanely overpowered with Patron (instant-speed Vindicate every turn seems fair). Having access to Snake Offering keeps people honest too, since folks can easily forget it exists and gives Patron flash, letting you flash him in and ruin a combat with his big 7/7 body. Additionally, in a serious bind, Patron does a fine job just beating on folks. The magic 7 power lets him finish people easily if desperate enough. He allows under-appreciated guys like Hydra Broodmaster and Polukranos to go bonkers, acting as an army in a can and a one-sided wrath, respectively. Yeva and Patron are best buddies. Finally, if you are concerned about the symmetry, trust me, it never matters. Only other mono-green decks run enough Forests to matter and Patron is easily capable of out-ramping even a dedicated Omnath deck if you want to, especially because Patron can both tangle with Omnath directly by making a huge pile of mana to sink somewhere *and* presenting varying massive threats that other green ramp decks can't easily match (like Gelatinous Genesis/token makers/Helix Pinnacle), often all at once. The only serious weaknesses the deck seems to have are instant-speed wraths (suuuuck), really seriously dedicated turn 1-4 hatred (like, multiple pieces of LD dedicated), and a counterspell deck who hates Forests (getting Patron countered two+ times is unpleasant; beatable, but not happily).
My list wouldn't be super helpful to you right now sadly, since my meta is unusual in that we have a few players with only one or two decks, several of which are meta-warping (when one guy *only* plays fast Krenko combo, we all kinda work around it). Because of this, I've altered my list considerably, but I could happily sketch out a shell that works if you'd like. I really do hope you give Patron a shake. He is significantly better than he looks and he politics nicely, if that's your bag.
She ramps from 5 to 7 and isn't the point of EDH to ramp? And draw cards? And blow up artifacts/enchantments? She has the whole package. At first glance she seems underwhelming but she is really good. At 3 mana? Busted in half. Ramp, disenchant, card draw at 3 mana and repeatable at that? Legacy playable then I'd say. You could maybe get away with 4 mana but that's a huge upgrade as well. CMC of 4 vs. 5 on walkers is gigantic on the tipping scale as evidenced in the past where most 5 mana walkers are niche at best but at 4 mana if they have good abilities they are very, very good.
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-Patron is an entire other story. I run about 5 mana elves (Arbor Elf, Dryad Arbor, Joraga Treespeaker, Fyndhorn Elves [because I own a promo], and like one other), Orochi Sustainer, Sachi, about 15 ramp spells, and like 6 mana doublers. Other than that, the deck is draw and business. The idea is to do things that matter early on, then use Patron in a single major and highly explosive turn to run people over with something nuts. Patron's power is that while he can both go bigger than anything else I've ever encountered (seriously, if you've never used Patron to power a 80-point Genesis Wave, you haven't lived), be can also go wide by just untapping 12 mana every turn and jamming activated token-making abilities every single turn forever. Soul of Zendikar/Nemata, Grove Guardian/Ant Queen/Sprout Swarm/etc are all amazing with Patron. Having credible access to the Helix Pinnacle win is nice too. It's a big mana deck in the extreme, but because Patron costs a billion mana already, the deck naturally configures itself to make lots of mana without him, so you can have hands where you never bother playing him and just use Seedborn Muse/Awakening to sink huge amounts of mana into any repeatable outlet and grind people down under a wave of tokens. Patron loves Kamahl, obviously, and likes fun X spells like Gelatinous Genesis. Tornado goes from a joke to insanely overpowered with Patron (instant-speed Vindicate every turn seems fair). Having access to Snake Offering keeps people honest too, since folks can easily forget it exists and gives Patron flash, letting you flash him in and ruin a combat with his big 7/7 body. Additionally, in a serious bind, Patron does a fine job just beating on folks. The magic 7 power lets him finish people easily if desperate enough. He allows under-appreciated guys like Hydra Broodmaster and Polukranos to go bonkers, acting as an army in a can and a one-sided wrath, respectively. Yeva and Patron are best buddies. Finally, if you are concerned about the symmetry, trust me, it never matters. Only other mono-green decks run enough Forests to matter and Patron is easily capable of out-ramping even a dedicated Omnath deck if you want to, especially because Patron can both tangle with Omnath directly by making a huge pile of mana to sink somewhere *and* presenting varying massive threats that other green ramp decks can't easily match (like Gelatinous Genesis/token makers/Helix Pinnacle), often all at once. The only serious weaknesses the deck seems to have are instant-speed wraths (suuuuck), really seriously dedicated turn 1-4 hatred (like, multiple pieces of LD dedicated), and a counterspell deck who hates Forests (getting Patron countered two+ times is unpleasant; beatable, but not happily).
My list wouldn't be super helpful to you right now sadly, since my meta is unusual in that we have a few players with only one or two decks, several of which are meta-warping (when one guy *only* plays fast Krenko combo, we all kinda work around it). Because of this, I've altered my list considerably, but I could happily sketch out a shell that works if you'd like. I really do hope you give Patron a shake. He is significantly better than he looks and he politics nicely, if that's your bag.
Thanks for the write-up. While I'm going to be testing Freyalise at the moment (her -6 is really sweet and not that hard to build up to), I'd definitely be up for giving Patron a shot sometime. I've loved tribal snakes since Kamigawa, and he looks pretty fun (however, I've loved Freyalise since I read about her during Time Spiral, and she's also pretty fun).
Freyalise I've found to be a green "big mana commander" in the same vein as Kamahl. While she can't personally ramp you that hard, you can build your deck to ramp hard. My list focuses around popping her ult/some other large draw effect into Earthcraft/Gaea's Cradle into another large draw effect, into more mana, into more draw until you slam your deck on the table. It seems to be pretty decent at doing this T5-7 (either by her own means or via Genesis Wave/Skullclamp/tutoring Regal Force), so it's been pretty good so far.
Out of curiosity, though - could you provide me with a good starting place for Patron? I'd really like to give it a shot sometime, as he looks like a more fun Vorinclex. He's a general I've always wanted to run, but just never found a good excuse to because of the symmetry problem.
I love my Freya deck. In fact, the only problems it has are more with the tuning of the deck itself as opposed to Freya (for example I spent 4 turns digging for an Akroma's Memorial I had never put into the deck). I've noticed that at least in my playgroup, she's not often the target of attack because she doesn't have an overtly powerful or crazy ultimate. Yes, Collective Unconscious is great, especially in a creature heavy deck, but it's hardly a blip compared to other 'Walker ultimates. The -2 is simply fantastic as it stands because always having a naturalize on hand is never bad, even if it's only sorcery speed. The +2 is a mana elf, and I'm willing to bet that in mono green at least one of the words "mana" "elf" or "creature" will be very relevant in some way no matter what kind of deck you're running.
I never said Ezuri was unequivocally bad. I've just said that I've never seen or played against a list that I thought was even average, let alone good.
Again, my problem is that I haven't seen this crazy list that everyone's talking about (and all the Ezuri lists in the decklist database are pretty bad).
You are a such a contradictionist. It's hilarious. "I never said he's bad, just that every list I've seen or played against is bad."
Anyway, I'm not gonna argue with you anymore. BTW, in your write-up you talk about how scared of Freyalise everyone was. That's a clear indication you're in an extremely weak meta. Freyalise is NOT that good. She's a below-average planeswalker, especially compared to any Garruk. I wouldn't even think about countering her. She doesn't do anything unless you're playing her as a 5 mana naturalize.
That's not contradictory at all, you're just failing to grasp what he's saying.
If you are playing in a cut throat competitive meta, then yes she isn't the best General.
However, if you are in a casual meta, the card is insane. Most of all if you and your buddies all bought Commander 2014 precons and a 30 pack of miller lite for a cheap night of fun.
I've played against it and I can tell you it does quite a bit for mono green:
1) Ramps and creates extra bodies for overrun or beastmaster effects
2) Destroys Artifacts and Enchantments, which every deck pretty much has. She can do it every other turn as well.
3) Draws a TON of cards. The biggest issue with green is refilling your hand after you vomit it onto the board, she addresses this nicely.
Every time it hits the board in my group whether I'm playing Prossh or Nahiri, she proves to be a major headache. The Daretti player goes into fits when she is on the board.
I never said Ezuri was unequivocally bad. I've just said that I've never seen or played against a list that I thought was even average, let alone good.
Again, my problem is that I haven't seen this crazy list that everyone's talking about (and all the Ezuri lists in the decklist database are pretty bad).
You are a such a contradictionist. It's hilarious. "I never said he's bad, just that every list I've seen or played against is bad."
Anyway, I'm not gonna argue with you anymore. BTW, in your write-up you talk about how scared of Freyalise everyone was. That's a clear indication you're in an extremely weak meta. Freyalise is NOT that good. She's a below-average planeswalker, especially compared to any Garruk. I wouldn't even think about countering her. She doesn't do anything unless you're playing her as a 5 mana naturalize.
That's not contradictory at all, you're just failing to grasp what he's saying.
Slivortal, your little squabble with coyotemoon was quite a treat.
On-topic: I find Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury to be rather underwhelming compared to what I'm sure all of us were expecting from such an iconic character, but when you cut that facet out of it, she's really just a multi-tool than can also be your commander. I happen to be on the opposite end of Slivortal's setup (that is, my mono-G EDH deck has Freyalise in the 99 and Kamahl, Fist of Krosa at the helm), and I've never really been sad to see Freyalise at any point in the mid- to late-game. Sometimes she's just a 5-mana Naturalize that gains you some life, but that's what a lot of folks do with Acidic Slime, too. Freyalise exchanges the creature type (relevant for tutoring purposes) for the ability to advance your game plan from multiple angles.
Freyalise may not be the flashiest walker, she may not win you the game on the spot, but if you cant get behind extra mana, destroying problematic permanents and reloading your hand, then playing green is probably not for you.
Green has plenty of big creatures and ways to bash someone to death, the utility provided by Freyalise gives you everything you need to get into a position to win.
Well a friend and I got 4/5 of the Commander decks and the PW Commanders all seem to work very well with the rest of their respective decks.
Honestly I found the two most useful to be Teferi and Freyalise to be the most useful.
There were a lot of cards in the Green deck that were made stronger by green permanents or elves.
Her -2 can deal with some of the annoying enchantments and artifacts in the U and W commander decks. Argentum Armor being one of those pesks in the W deck and Infinite Reflection being trouble in the UESPECIALLY when paired with Artisan of Kozilek and a few little creatures.
I didn't really use her Ult, but imagine you'd already played Praetor's Counsel that's just free cards for you to play.
I'm not usually one to like G but she worked very well with her deck, and I really enjoyed it.
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Her -2 can deal with some of the annoying enchantments and artifacts in the U commander deck. Infinite Reflection being trouble in the UESPECIALLY when paired with Artisan of Kozilek and a few little creatures.
I still suppose a colorless 10/9 with Annihilator 2 is troublesome but you are aware that you don't get the cast-trigger?
I still suppose a colorless 10/9 with Annihilator 2 is troublesome but you are aware that you don't get the cast-trigger?
I am and was aware that the cast trigger wasn't duplicated across the copies but this combo won me the match in this instance. I was going up against the W Deck and I had just used Distorting Wake the previous turn to bounce most of the creatures they had back to their hand, of course they had to re-spend the mana to put some of the creatures out. Then with a little creative use of mana accelerants and Teferi's -1, I played Artisan of Kozilek and immediately played Infinite Reflection on him. At the time I had four creatures that were previously on the field, little things of no threat at the time, so when they became duplications of AoK they were able to swing for 40, and the opponent had to sac 8 permanents, which was their creatures, artifacts and even dug into their land a little. He tried playing Comeuppance but I had enough mana left to play a counter. I was so very deeply in the hole in this match and with 2 turns I had climbed out and buried them. I was truly surprised.
Now in this instance Freyalise wouldn't of had the opportunity to use her -2 and get rid of the enchantment but this is just one situation.
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Personally, I think Freyalise is pretty good. She replaced Nissa, Worldwaker in my Omnath EDH due to having a naturalize ability, plus the card advantage.
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I *finally* got to play the precons against each other last night, and I learned a few things:
1- Nahiri's deck and Daretti's deck are noticeably stronger than the other three.
2- Teferi's deck *really* needs Elixir of Immortality or similar, as I almost milled myself to death.
3- Freyalise is actually quite solid and useful, despite my initial impressions.
My wife and I played as a team against another couple.
I was playing Teferi and my wife was playing Freyalise,
which meant I was also playing Freyalise.
Her deck has some *ridiculous* synergies,
and Freyalise was key in getting rid of Nahiri's most obnoxious threats.
The game ended quite amusingly when I dropped Infinite Reflection on her Rampaging Baloths
(with six creatures on my side) and then played and cracked Myriad Landscape
(untapped by Teferi the turn it came into play)
48 6/6 tramplers that double like bacteria every land drop for the win!
Edit: to add a bit more about Freyalise herself-
She was extremely helpful in keeping Nahiri from getting out of control.
She's definitely a better General than I initially gave credit for,
but I was also very much correct that her Naturalize ability was the most important.
Being able to alternate between making a chump blocker/mana dork
and blasting a nasty thing like Argentum Armor is quite powerful.
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Hahahahahaha. Oh, it's not that they're not bad, they just didn't understand what an elf that taps for mana was, or what destroying artifacts or enchantments was. I swear, if nothing else you've given me comic relief for the night.
Anyway, there's not a deck in the format that can win in 5 turns consistently against every field. So, there's that. But anyway, you win this discussion based on attrition. It's after midnight so I have no more time to argue over Freyalise or Ezuri. Take it easy bud.
She may not be as game-changing as Nicol Bolas or Karn, but she definitely is very useful in a deck that is designed to work around her.
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It's actually not much of an issue, usually. Most decks, in my experience, don't run enough of a Forest presence to really benefit the way you do from Patron's effect, and many of them don't even have anything to do with it.
Exactly. If you can look past the symmetry (which is not as big as you may think on paper) he is absurd.
Vorinclex really suffers from a PR problem. He's just so obviously insane that if you sit down with him as your general, you may get hated off the table before you even get to him. I barely like running him in Patron, much less as my general. It's bold of you, honestly.
I do like Freyalise after playing with her, but she's not a big-mana general really. She's a mono-green goodstuff general. She provides removal, dudes, mana, and cards, everything you could ask for in a general, and though she doesn't do anything amazingly, having access to options is nice. She's not an elfball general at all (or shouldn't be, IMO).
Ok, here's what I've observed over the past two years or so (a little before RTR actually, around Avacyn):
-Ezuri is an Elfball general who has the Kamahl-esque ability to take just a few dudes and go nuts with them. While obviously he can G-Wave/Hoof-it-good with the best of them, that's only one angle of attack. The Ezuri deck I run with has a bunch of solid ways to generate advantage in other areas (like Descendant's Path, Hibernation's End, and Elvish Soultiller) so that he's never really out of gas. He often simply gets a Priest of Titania effect, a few dudes, overruns a few times, and punches people til he gets stopped. Once he is, he likes to switch tactics and play very cautiously, using Ezuri as protection for his elves as he nickel-and-dimes people down, then goes for a big finish. He really put a lot of effort into resource generation and restoration, so he doesn't just get blown out all at once and can recoup through the obvious losses he accrues. He isn't a top tier general, IMO, but he's got things going on for him that actually matter. He's quite similar to Kamahl in a lot of ways, just he wants a specific tribe most of the time (luckily, elves are a solid tribe if you're not a moron about it). Additionally, he's dirt cheap, which is awesome.
-Patron is an entire other story. I run about 5 mana elves (Arbor Elf, Dryad Arbor, Joraga Treespeaker, Fyndhorn Elves [because I own a promo], and like one other), Orochi Sustainer, Sachi, about 15 ramp spells, and like 6 mana doublers. Other than that, the deck is draw and business. The idea is to do things that matter early on, then use Patron in a single major and highly explosive turn to run people over with something nuts. Patron's power is that while he can both go bigger than anything else I've ever encountered (seriously, if you've never used Patron to power a 80-point Genesis Wave, you haven't lived), be can also go wide by just untapping 12 mana every turn and jamming activated token-making abilities every single turn forever. Soul of Zendikar/Nemata, Grove Guardian/Ant Queen/Sprout Swarm/etc are all amazing with Patron. Having credible access to the Helix Pinnacle win is nice too. It's a big mana deck in the extreme, but because Patron costs a billion mana already, the deck naturally configures itself to make lots of mana without him, so you can have hands where you never bother playing him and just use Seedborn Muse/Awakening to sink huge amounts of mana into any repeatable outlet and grind people down under a wave of tokens. Patron loves Kamahl, obviously, and likes fun X spells like Gelatinous Genesis. Tornado goes from a joke to insanely overpowered with Patron (instant-speed Vindicate every turn seems fair). Having access to Snake Offering keeps people honest too, since folks can easily forget it exists and gives Patron flash, letting you flash him in and ruin a combat with his big 7/7 body. Additionally, in a serious bind, Patron does a fine job just beating on folks. The magic 7 power lets him finish people easily if desperate enough. He allows under-appreciated guys like Hydra Broodmaster and Polukranos to go bonkers, acting as an army in a can and a one-sided wrath, respectively. Yeva and Patron are best buddies. Finally, if you are concerned about the symmetry, trust me, it never matters. Only other mono-green decks run enough Forests to matter and Patron is easily capable of out-ramping even a dedicated Omnath deck if you want to, especially because Patron can both tangle with Omnath directly by making a huge pile of mana to sink somewhere *and* presenting varying massive threats that other green ramp decks can't easily match (like Gelatinous Genesis/token makers/Helix Pinnacle), often all at once. The only serious weaknesses the deck seems to have are instant-speed wraths (suuuuck), really seriously dedicated turn 1-4 hatred (like, multiple pieces of LD dedicated), and a counterspell deck who hates Forests (getting Patron countered two+ times is unpleasant; beatable, but not happily).
My list wouldn't be super helpful to you right now sadly, since my meta is unusual in that we have a few players with only one or two decks, several of which are meta-warping (when one guy *only* plays fast Krenko combo, we all kinda work around it). Because of this, I've altered my list considerably, but I could happily sketch out a shell that works if you'd like. I really do hope you give Patron a shake. He is significantly better than he looks and he politics nicely, if that's your bag.
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Thanks for the write-up. While I'm going to be testing Freyalise at the moment (her -6 is really sweet and not that hard to build up to), I'd definitely be up for giving Patron a shot sometime. I've loved tribal snakes since Kamigawa, and he looks pretty fun (however, I've loved Freyalise since I read about her during Time Spiral, and she's also pretty fun).
Freyalise I've found to be a green "big mana commander" in the same vein as Kamahl. While she can't personally ramp you that hard, you can build your deck to ramp hard. My list focuses around popping her ult/some other large draw effect into Earthcraft/Gaea's Cradle into another large draw effect, into more mana, into more draw until you slam your deck on the table. It seems to be pretty decent at doing this T5-7 (either by her own means or via Genesis Wave/Skullclamp/tutoring Regal Force), so it's been pretty good so far.
Out of curiosity, though - could you provide me with a good starting place for Patron? I'd really like to give it a shot sometime, as he looks like a more fun Vorinclex. He's a general I've always wanted to run, but just never found a good excuse to because of the symmetry problem.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
a naturalize, on a stick, in commander.... is bad?
that it?
Freya is definitely a ton of fun.
RRRAshling, the PilgrimRRR
UUUThadda Adel, AcquisitorUUU
That's not contradictory at all, you're just failing to grasp what he's saying.
EDH:
Niv-Mizzet
Legacy:
The Rack
Modern
Venser, the Sojourner Control
However, if you are in a casual meta, the card is insane. Most of all if you and your buddies all bought Commander 2014 precons and a 30 pack of miller lite for a cheap night of fun.
I've played against it and I can tell you it does quite a bit for mono green:
1) Ramps and creates extra bodies for overrun or beastmaster effects
2) Destroys Artifacts and Enchantments, which every deck pretty much has. She can do it every other turn as well.
3) Draws a TON of cards. The biggest issue with green is refilling your hand after you vomit it onto the board, she addresses this nicely.
Every time it hits the board in my group whether I'm playing Prossh or Nahiri, she proves to be a major headache. The Daretti player goes into fits when she is on the board.
BUDGET DECK BUILDER SINCE 93'
Modern ------------------------- WU Azorius Titan Midrange
Commander ------------------- WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
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Neat.
On-topic: I find Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury to be rather underwhelming compared to what I'm sure all of us were expecting from such an iconic character, but when you cut that facet out of it, she's really just a multi-tool than can also be your commander. I happen to be on the opposite end of Slivortal's setup (that is, my mono-G EDH deck has Freyalise in the 99 and Kamahl, Fist of Krosa at the helm), and I've never really been sad to see Freyalise at any point in the mid- to late-game. Sometimes she's just a 5-mana Naturalize that gains you some life, but that's what a lot of folks do with Acidic Slime, too. Freyalise exchanges the creature type (relevant for tutoring purposes) for the ability to advance your game plan from multiple angles.
Freyalise may not be the flashiest walker, she may not win you the game on the spot, but if you cant get behind extra mana, destroying problematic permanents and reloading your hand, then playing green is probably not for you.
Green has plenty of big creatures and ways to bash someone to death, the utility provided by Freyalise gives you everything you need to get into a position to win.
Myojin of Life's Web seems just right. Faster mana to get MoLW out. Divinity counter ability works along side with the ultimate.
Honestly I found the two most useful to be Teferi and Freyalise to be the most useful.
There were a lot of cards in the Green deck that were made stronger by green permanents or elves.
Her -2 can deal with some of the annoying enchantments and artifacts in the U and W commander decks. Argentum Armor being one of those pesks in the W deck and Infinite Reflection being trouble in the U ESPECIALLY when paired with Artisan of Kozilek and a few little creatures.
I didn't really use her Ult, but imagine you'd already played Praetor's Counsel that's just free cards for you to play.
I'm not usually one to like G but she worked very well with her deck, and I really enjoyed it.
"Because if I use the same one more than 3 times in a row I get bored. Why DON'T you make more decks?"
"Because I like my deck"
-sigh-
Standard
WWWCure and CompoundWWW
UUUTurn TideUUU
BUDrifting DeathUB
RUGTime StepGUR
Commander
UUUPut That Thing Back Where It Came From or So Help MeUUU
RUXClockworkXUR
BBBPay to PlayBBB
WUBLife ArchitectBUW
Retired
UBMillipedeBU
I still suppose a colorless 10/9 with Annihilator 2 is troublesome but you are aware that you don't get the cast-trigger?
I am and was aware that the cast trigger wasn't duplicated across the copies but this combo won me the match in this instance. I was going up against the W Deck and I had just used Distorting Wake the previous turn to bounce most of the creatures they had back to their hand, of course they had to re-spend the mana to put some of the creatures out. Then with a little creative use of mana accelerants and Teferi's -1, I played Artisan of Kozilek and immediately played Infinite Reflection on him. At the time I had four creatures that were previously on the field, little things of no threat at the time, so when they became duplications of AoK they were able to swing for 40, and the opponent had to sac 8 permanents, which was their creatures, artifacts and even dug into their land a little. He tried playing Comeuppance but I had enough mana left to play a counter. I was so very deeply in the hole in this match and with 2 turns I had climbed out and buried them. I was truly surprised.
Now in this instance Freyalise wouldn't of had the opportunity to use her -2 and get rid of the enchantment but this is just one situation.
"Because if I use the same one more than 3 times in a row I get bored. Why DON'T you make more decks?"
"Because I like my deck"
-sigh-
Standard
WWWCure and CompoundWWW
UUUTurn TideUUU
BUDrifting DeathUB
RUGTime StepGUR
Commander
UUUPut That Thing Back Where It Came From or So Help MeUUU
RUXClockworkXUR
BBBPay to PlayBBB
WUBLife ArchitectBUW
Retired
UBMillipedeBU
U Arcum, Tinker to Victory Competitive EDH
RGB Kresh Sac EDH
RGU Animar Aggro EDH
1- Nahiri's deck and Daretti's deck are noticeably stronger than the other three.
2- Teferi's deck *really* needs Elixir of Immortality or similar, as I almost milled myself to death.
3- Freyalise is actually quite solid and useful, despite my initial impressions.
My wife and I played as a team against another couple.
I was playing Teferi and my wife was playing Freyalise,
which meant I was also playing Freyalise.
Her deck has some *ridiculous* synergies,
and Freyalise was key in getting rid of Nahiri's most obnoxious threats.
The game ended quite amusingly when I dropped Infinite Reflection on her Rampaging Baloths
(with six creatures on my side) and then played and cracked Myriad Landscape
(untapped by Teferi the turn it came into play)
48 6/6 tramplers that double like bacteria every land drop for the win!
Edit: to add a bit more about Freyalise herself-
She was extremely helpful in keeping Nahiri from getting out of control.
She's definitely a better General than I initially gave credit for,
but I was also very much correct that her Naturalize ability was the most important.
Being able to alternate between making a chump blocker/mana dork
and blasting a nasty thing like Argentum Armor is quite powerful.
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW