I have found the same issue of protection with my Drana deck. Most of the time, people will let me equip/pump her and THEN attempt to remove her or disrupt her in order to get a two for one (or more, most of the time). For this reason, I run Not of This World. It has been absolutely AWESOME in decks that depend on a large general for a win condition.
Hm, not of this world seems nice in certain decks but in rafiq, especially if they remove the general in response to equip, you wont meet the power requirement. A great cards for that in bant colours is Hindering Light. The card I'm currently testing though, is Vines of Vastwood. Giving hexproof in response to removal. And using the +4/+4 to punish whoever tried to remove rafiq seems pretty sweet.
Your deck seems alright, but often times having a fatty that's just a fatty won't affect the game very often. If you use something like the praetors, you'll have an easy time wiping people out. I know the goal is to have the largest creatures possible, but I think that some utility face-beaters seems like a good idea. If you want, you can see my kresh list down below for some ideas.
Thanks for the response! Looking at your deck, it's looks somewhat like a generic jund goodstuff deck. And I already have 1-2 goodstuff decks and there is no point building more. Kresh is a combo deck, and when I don't have combo pieces, beating face with a 20/20 isn't a horrible backup plan. A Malignus on + a kessig wolf run is a board state that demands answer. So I'm not sure what you mean by not affecting the game often. Yes they get removed, but when you play one after another, and fling them at whoever tries to answer them. Things get a little trickier.
If you want to see good stuff builds, check out my riku and karador decks. Thanks!!
I really underestimated aetherling when I first saw it, because I find it's ancestors thornling and morphling to be extremely underwhelming in commander.
However, I've realized that aetherling is a different animal. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as long as you keep some blue mana up, aetherling one of the hardest creatures to kill ever printed in mtg. The only ways I can think of to hate out an aetherling are:
-having more removal spells than the aetherling player has blue mana.
-destroying lands of the aetherling controller, like mentioned earlier in the thread.
-maze of ith and fog varients to stall.
Out of those methods only the third one is relatively feasible. And if you can't hate it out, you're taking 8 a turn, plus w/e equipment or pump spells. I'm going to try it in rafiq of the many and zedruu the greathearted. I'm looking forward to the results.
so ive been spending a good amount of time brainstorming this deck which will probably consist of a good amount of utility creatures, lots of instant speed interaction (flash guys, bounce, removal, counters, draw) and some fat. this brings up another question:
what are the best ways for me to win? we have infinite combos banned in our meta.. so do i just rely on fatties to grind out the game after i draw tons of cards? or try to copy timewarps dozens of times?
So blue green good stuff its looking like. I think we're quite fortunate here because blue green is actually one of the best colour combinations when we're looking for win conditions. Cards like Avenger of Zendikar , combined with Sylvan Primordial wins the game next turn (or this turn if you flash them in EOT) if unanswered. Also Overwhelming Stampede is a great card to use with the fatties.It might not happen too often, but cards like Ulamog and Kozilek can win games on their own, and they have great utility attached too. This is winning with raw power.
You can also win with soft locks/control by using specifically deadeye navigator paired with mystic snake or chancellor of the spires, and slowly beat your opponents down with one flyer or two while preventing them from doing anything. And if your playgroup is not against it, Time Warp is really really powerful especially when you have a lot of mana.
I'm loving the fatty beat down build so far. It's becoming one of my favourite decks of all. The deck being new might be part of the reason, but I think it's mostly because the deck lets me play with all of the awesome green fatties that I've been wanting to play ever since I started magic.
The deck requires a lot of ramp, and ideally will spend the first few turns of the game doing so. After that, nothing can really stop you from powering out those beasts turn after turn. It is quite powerful when it does that.
Here are a few problems that I've noticed with the deck. First of all, it is very light on answers. I don't run counterspells and it also lacks spot removals. I ditched those for all-in raw power. So the deck would almost fold to something like humility. However, that's just my build. And it shouldn't be hard to fix the problem to some extent.
Also, the deck relies heavily on ramp. Personally I'm not a fan of it, because there is no way you can beat those value ramp decks in the mid-late game when they have twice as many lands as you do. The only solutions I can think of are mass LD and infinite combos, both of which are considered to be unfun by most groups. This makes ramp one of the go-to strategies if you want to build a strong mid-range deck. However, as biased as I may be, Zegana is okay. Instead of ramping into seedborn muse, alchemist's refuge, mystic snake, and deadeye navigator, you're playing behemoths, leviathans, elementals and wurms. So that's a lot more interesting.
Overall the deck is doing quite well in my play group. It recovers really fast after board wipes and goes out of hand when the your opponents can't find a wipe in time.
1. UG good stuff. Using value engines (mostly etb) like Deadeye Navigator, Diluvan Primordial, Mystic Snake, Sphinx of Uthuun etc. This is the most obvious and spikiest way to do it. I personally think it's really boring but if this is your first blue deck, and you want a strong one, this will do.
2. Counters matter. This almost feels like a simic theme deck, but is still decently strong at the same time. Zameck Guildmage, Master Biomancer , Fathom Mage with cards like Doubling Season and Gilder Bairn for support. I only listed a few recent cards. There are so many other good cards for this theme and it seems like it can be really fun.
3. Simic Beatdown. Play the most efficient fatty beaters in the colour. Simic Skyswallower, Terra Stomper, Vorapede, Inkwell Leviathan etc. Using fast spells like Sol Ring, Somberwald Sage, Sacellum Godspeaker to power them out. And cast Zegana for hand refill and another fatty. I just built this deck last night. Not sure how it plays but I'm really happy with it because it allows me to play all of those epic fatties that don't generate "value".
Yes, it leads to over-extending, and rapidly depleting your hand. And Kaalia decks don't really run a high number of threats typically (because each individual threat is so massive on it's own).
I'd like to respectfully disagree with your argument against Aurelia there. Just because she allows you to overextend, doesn't mean you have to. Like Gisela, Aurelia turns any board state into a deadly one really fast. With Kaalia, Aurelia and another decent sized creature, you're dealing 20-25 damage a turn. Without the need to drop another creature. Now I realize that Gisela is definitely better since Aurelia suffers from the "flameblast dragon problem". However, at 6 mana, it's relatively easy to hard cast in multiplayer, and the haste is extremely useful when you do.
Nice to see another mill deck. I play one myself and just want to share some of my opinions.
Personally I'm not a fan of one-shot Mill effects. Unless they're crazy efficient like Traumatize or Tunnel Vision. Cards like Mind Sculpt, Mind Funeral and Glimpse the Unthinkable and Memory Sluice may be great in 2-player 60 card formats, but in EDH they are relatively weak. Even an Increasing Confusion won't mill much more than 15-20 cards with flashback included. And it requires you to tap out for two separate turns. Normally no one would pay into Shared Trauma to fuel your deck, so it's just a worse confusion. Also, I'm not too sure about Grindstone , on its own it doesn't seem too strong even if you mill mono coloured decks with it. Since an average mono coloured deck only runs around 40-50 cards of that colour, if not less. Now one exception is Archive Trap. I really like this one because it's extremely easy to cast it for free and you can pull off some instant speed transformation tricks with Lazav. So that's one card I'd keep testing.
For replacements I'd like to recommend you to try out windfall effects. Whispering Madness, Windfall, and Jace's Archivist . Each trigger of those effectively drop at least 15-20 cards into graveyards in a 4 player game. And they also refill your hand when you need to. It does draw your opponents cards, but you decide when to use those spells so you can always use them to benefit yourself the most. They also screw over combo players who spend the game sculpting their hands.
Tunnel Vision is also quite amazing if you know your playgroup. That plus another mill effect allows you to effectively turn Lazav into any creature in any player's deck. Ex. Tunnel Vision the Kaalia player naming Avacyn, Angel of Hope, then mill him a bit more. Woot hexproof Avacyn.
I also noticed that you didn't include Duskmantle Guildmage. That card seems extremely good. Kills a player with cards like Traumatize .
Thats all I can think of right now. Please let me know what you think!
I have a few random thoughts, can't really organize them, so please bear with me here.
Seems to me more like a hate-bear deck than fort.
Some cards that I would like to question are:
Spreading Seas: For soft land removal? For that purpose I find that Vedalken Plotter does a much better job. And he works wonders with your general. For Islandwalk with Thada Adel, Plotter does it almost as well.
Batterskull: Not exactly sure why this is in the deck. Just a solid creature/equipment?
It seems like your deck does a fine job hating on the strategies of other decks. However you lack reliable finishers. The ones I can identify from your list here are Gisela and Akroma, both are relatively easy to answer and I don't think you have any ways to recur them. Sigil of the Empty Throne is okay I guess, but i doubt it'll make more than one angel per turn for you. So it seems like your deck will just lead to an incredibly grindy game state where your opponents are unable to carry out their strategies while you have no reliable ways to finish the game either.
I realize you're trying to be original and avoid some of the popular donate targets. But I find Illusions of Grandeur too good to pass up in a zedruu list. The 40 life swing is enormous and even more devastating when recurred or copied with Copy Enchantment (which is another card you should consider).
Not sure what your opinion is on Cyclonic Rift, but it is one of the best blue cards ever offensively and defensively. The instant speed is delicious.
You don't have lands yet, but when you do add in lands make sure to put in Maze of Ith and Kor Haven. Along with Weathered Wayfarer to fetch for them. I find that 38 lands to be a little bit low in a non-green deck, so I highly recommend running Land Tax.
Thats all I can think of now. Will add in more later! Let me know what you think isb.
Gaddok Teeg: Nice card for the deck, but doesn't really work with loyal retainers because every spell that can reanimate loyal, can also reanimate teeg. The same goes for Saffi Eriksdotter
Avacyn, Angel of Hope: A relatively recent cut, a loyal retainers package might be able to bring her back into the deck.
Xiahou Dun, The One-Eyed: Didn't like this card on it's own, cause it only gets black cards in a tri-colour deck, and he fails both sun titan and reveillark tests, just barely. However a xiahou-dun + loyal retainer + Reveillark/Sun Titan chain might be kinda cool.
Hm, not of this world seems nice in certain decks but in rafiq, especially if they remove the general in response to equip, you wont meet the power requirement. A great cards for that in bant colours is Hindering Light. The card I'm currently testing though, is Vines of Vastwood. Giving hexproof in response to removal. And using the +4/+4 to punish whoever tried to remove rafiq seems pretty sweet.
Thanks for the response! Looking at your deck, it's looks somewhat like a generic jund goodstuff deck. And I already have 1-2 goodstuff decks and there is no point building more. Kresh is a combo deck, and when I don't have combo pieces, beating face with a 20/20 isn't a horrible backup plan. A Malignus on + a kessig wolf run is a board state that demands answer. So I'm not sure what you mean by not affecting the game often. Yes they get removed, but when you play one after another, and fling them at whoever tries to answer them. Things get a little trickier.
If you want to see good stuff builds, check out my riku and karador decks. Thanks!!
However, I've realized that aetherling is a different animal. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as long as you keep some blue mana up, aetherling one of the hardest creatures to kill ever printed in mtg. The only ways I can think of to hate out an aetherling are:
-having more removal spells than the aetherling player has blue mana.
-destroying lands of the aetherling controller, like mentioned earlier in the thread.
-maze of ith and fog varients to stall.
Out of those methods only the third one is relatively feasible. And if you can't hate it out, you're taking 8 a turn, plus w/e equipment or pump spells. I'm going to try it in rafiq of the many and zedruu the greathearted. I'm looking forward to the results.
So blue green good stuff its looking like. I think we're quite fortunate here because blue green is actually one of the best colour combinations when we're looking for win conditions. Cards like Avenger of Zendikar , combined with Sylvan Primordial wins the game next turn (or this turn if you flash them in EOT) if unanswered. Also Overwhelming Stampede is a great card to use with the fatties.It might not happen too often, but cards like Ulamog and Kozilek can win games on their own, and they have great utility attached too. This is winning with raw power.
You can also win with soft locks/control by using specifically deadeye navigator paired with mystic snake or chancellor of the spires, and slowly beat your opponents down with one flyer or two while preventing them from doing anything. And if your playgroup is not against it, Time Warp is really really powerful especially when you have a lot of mana.
Thats all I can think of for now!
The deck requires a lot of ramp, and ideally will spend the first few turns of the game doing so. After that, nothing can really stop you from powering out those beasts turn after turn. It is quite powerful when it does that.
Here are a few problems that I've noticed with the deck. First of all, it is very light on answers. I don't run counterspells and it also lacks spot removals. I ditched those for all-in raw power. So the deck would almost fold to something like humility. However, that's just my build. And it shouldn't be hard to fix the problem to some extent.
Also, the deck relies heavily on ramp. Personally I'm not a fan of it, because there is no way you can beat those value ramp decks in the mid-late game when they have twice as many lands as you do. The only solutions I can think of are mass LD and infinite combos, both of which are considered to be unfun by most groups. This makes ramp one of the go-to strategies if you want to build a strong mid-range deck. However, as biased as I may be, Zegana is okay. Instead of ramping into seedborn muse, alchemist's refuge, mystic snake, and deadeye navigator, you're playing behemoths, leviathans, elementals and wurms. So that's a lot more interesting.
Overall the deck is doing quite well in my play group. It recovers really fast after board wipes and goes out of hand when the your opponents can't find a wipe in time.
1. UG good stuff. Using value engines (mostly etb) like Deadeye Navigator, Diluvan Primordial, Mystic Snake, Sphinx of Uthuun etc. This is the most obvious and spikiest way to do it. I personally think it's really boring but if this is your first blue deck, and you want a strong one, this will do.
2. Counters matter. This almost feels like a simic theme deck, but is still decently strong at the same time. Zameck Guildmage, Master Biomancer , Fathom Mage with cards like Doubling Season and Gilder Bairn for support. I only listed a few recent cards. There are so many other good cards for this theme and it seems like it can be really fun.
3. Simic Beatdown. Play the most efficient fatty beaters in the colour. Simic Skyswallower, Terra Stomper, Vorapede, Inkwell Leviathan etc. Using fast spells like Sol Ring, Somberwald Sage, Sacellum Godspeaker to power them out. And cast Zegana for hand refill and another fatty. I just built this deck last night. Not sure how it plays but I'm really happy with it because it allows me to play all of those epic fatties that don't generate "value".
I'd like to respectfully disagree with your argument against Aurelia there. Just because she allows you to overextend, doesn't mean you have to. Like Gisela, Aurelia turns any board state into a deadly one really fast. With Kaalia, Aurelia and another decent sized creature, you're dealing 20-25 damage a turn. Without the need to drop another creature. Now I realize that Gisela is definitely better since Aurelia suffers from the "flameblast dragon problem". However, at 6 mana, it's relatively easy to hard cast in multiplayer, and the haste is extremely useful when you do.
Personally I'm not a fan of one-shot Mill effects. Unless they're crazy efficient like Traumatize or Tunnel Vision. Cards like Mind Sculpt, Mind Funeral and Glimpse the Unthinkable and Memory Sluice may be great in 2-player 60 card formats, but in EDH they are relatively weak. Even an Increasing Confusion won't mill much more than 15-20 cards with flashback included. And it requires you to tap out for two separate turns. Normally no one would pay into Shared Trauma to fuel your deck, so it's just a worse confusion. Also, I'm not too sure about Grindstone , on its own it doesn't seem too strong even if you mill mono coloured decks with it. Since an average mono coloured deck only runs around 40-50 cards of that colour, if not less. Now one exception is Archive Trap. I really like this one because it's extremely easy to cast it for free and you can pull off some instant speed transformation tricks with Lazav. So that's one card I'd keep testing.
For replacements I'd like to recommend you to try out windfall effects. Whispering Madness, Windfall, and Jace's Archivist . Each trigger of those effectively drop at least 15-20 cards into graveyards in a 4 player game. And they also refill your hand when you need to. It does draw your opponents cards, but you decide when to use those spells so you can always use them to benefit yourself the most. They also screw over combo players who spend the game sculpting their hands.
Tunnel Vision is also quite amazing if you know your playgroup. That plus another mill effect allows you to effectively turn Lazav into any creature in any player's deck. Ex. Tunnel Vision the Kaalia player naming Avacyn, Angel of Hope, then mill him a bit more. Woot hexproof Avacyn.
I also noticed that you didn't include Duskmantle Guildmage. That card seems extremely good. Kills a player with cards like Traumatize .
Thats all I can think of right now. Please let me know what you think!
Seems to me more like a hate-bear deck than fort.
Some cards that I would like to question are:
Spreading Seas: For soft land removal? For that purpose I find that Vedalken Plotter does a much better job. And he works wonders with your general. For Islandwalk with Thada Adel, Plotter does it almost as well.
Batterskull: Not exactly sure why this is in the deck. Just a solid creature/equipment?
Karma and Insight: Meta call?
Open the Vault: Decent card for this deck, but I wouldn't run this over
Replenish.
Razia, Boros Archangel: Can't understand
It seems like your deck does a fine job hating on the strategies of other decks. However you lack reliable finishers. The ones I can identify from your list here are Gisela and Akroma, both are relatively easy to answer and I don't think you have any ways to recur them. Sigil of the Empty Throne is okay I guess, but i doubt it'll make more than one angel per turn for you. So it seems like your deck will just lead to an incredibly grindy game state where your opponents are unable to carry out their strategies while you have no reliable ways to finish the game either.
One of the all star cards in my zedruu deck is Entreat The Angels. It is amazing with Mystical Tutor and Sensei's Divining Top.
I realize you're trying to be original and avoid some of the popular donate targets. But I find Illusions of Grandeur too good to pass up in a zedruu list. The 40 life swing is enormous and even more devastating when recurred or copied with Copy Enchantment (which is another card you should consider).
Not sure what your opinion is on Cyclonic Rift, but it is one of the best blue cards ever offensively and defensively. The instant speed is delicious.
You don't have lands yet, but when you do add in lands make sure to put in Maze of Ith and Kor Haven. Along with Weathered Wayfarer to fetch for them. I find that 38 lands to be a little bit low in a non-green deck, so I highly recommend running Land Tax.
Thats all I can think of now. Will add in more later! Let me know what you think isb.
Currently I'm thinking:
Gaddok Teeg: Nice card for the deck, but doesn't really work with loyal retainers because every spell that can reanimate loyal, can also reanimate teeg. The same goes for Saffi Eriksdotter
Avacyn, Angel of Hope: A relatively recent cut, a loyal retainers package might be able to bring her back into the deck.
Xiahou Dun, The One-Eyed: Didn't like this card on it's own, cause it only gets black cards in a tri-colour deck, and he fails both sun titan and reveillark tests, just barely. However a xiahou-dun + loyal retainer + Reveillark/Sun Titan chain might be kinda cool.
Any thoughts?
Penumbra Wurm might be okay too. Grove of the Guardian definitely should be in.