With the combo commander at such a low cm and half the mana dorks producing a single color i'm definitely packing all the color fixing lands including confluence, brass, tower, and reflecting pool. Some of the infinite combo pieces need off green mana, not to mention all of our 1 drop tutors.
Having consistent 1st turn plays is a huge incentive in my mind, our cheap commanders help us stay on curve in the early game for sure. I like the option of swinging in with dorks early game for card advantage.
Still the biggest issue is deciding which infinite mana options to dedicate too.
I'm leaning hard towards Tymna for a couple reasons. W/b allows me to finally play deathrite shaman & noble hierarch in my mana dork suite. The second is he allows a pseudo Edric plan B to draw into combo pieces.
So with the colors decided I'm struggling with do I go elf ball with a priest of Titania infinite mana combo package (always missed beck//call in tasigur's elves) or pursue other infinite mana options such as empower artifact or scepter/reversal.
With the addition of Adament Negation could going Rug instead of American be more beneficial? The logic being Savage Knucklebkade being a 4/4 compared to Mantis Rider's 3/3. The recently spoiled Temur Charm seems like a decent tempo card as well.(though I really like Jeskai Charm too)
Love the Deck. Quick Question. Is this your go to list? Or do you not have specific cards included like Horizon Canopy, Sylvan Library because of the price tag? I see the 3 cards that you are currently missing. But are those all the cards that you would want to include!? What cards would you replace with them? A small section for that would be sick! The only thing that has me a little off edge with this commander.... should I be waiting to play my 1-4 drops and such until after the general is out on the field for the mana? I find testing this deck that I have to do that a lot. I'm not entirely sure if that's the correct way to go about it.
Been playing/changing my build quite a bit lately, I find getting atleast one or two early drops for mana ramp and or chump blocking is pretty essential. I run things like wood elves, farhaven elf, yavimaya dryad etc to make sure I'm hitting the 4th turn Kara. Turn 5 is usually mega ramping so turn 6-7 can drop huge threats.
Game plan is to get a 1, 2 punch with things like avenger of zendikar into craterhoof behemoth(or regal force) my other 2 man teams are khamahl & Elesh norn for the land destruction lock and Avacyn + novablast wurm. This strategy helps exploit tooth and nail and defense of the heart quite effectively and I run quite a few tutors as contingency (ie fauna shaman, b pod, green sun's zenith, eladamari's call etc...)
Touching on the subject of things like sylvan library, my build runs them the card advantage is just too good to ignore and there's no reason not too if you have access to them.
One more tid bit, with the tooth and nail/defense of the heart/genesis wave plan I find haste enabling amazing. It's a bit harder to come by in our colors but I'm currently running Concordant cross roads and Akroma's memorial and they're game ending when you tooth and nail into something like avenger/behemoth, memorial can double as a pseudo shroud for your army against the right meta as well.
I play something similar (which is in pieces ATM in favor of an animar list but I'm toying with building it again) and in my list I played luminate primordial and as long as its a 4 man pod or more the value and ease of tutoring makes it pretty amazing just as you'd think. Haven't got my hands on gaddock yet but I imagine he is great as well, I'm thinking of putting nulstone golem in the next incarnation which should serve as similiar protection. Bane of progress I'm a bit shy about as I run privileged position and acsetetism, not to mention my utility card draw stuff top, sylvan library and the like.
If you're trying to take advantage of her ability a decently large spell density is pretty much required or you'll find yourself often hitting a dud.
A few great spells to win off of are bribery, armor of the dead, fated return, & rise of the dark realms depending on meta and situation.
However I find my most consistant wins come from enter the infinite which you essentially just combo off with. Firestorm, conflagrate, and sickening dreams do well as your post infinite game plan. Sickening dreams especially helps with taking out the entire table in one turn, get everyone as low as you can without killing yourself then firestorm or conflagrate for the win.
It's pretty glass cannon but it's the best spell based win cons I've attempted thus far, oh I also suggest time spiral with the enter the infinite package. If your firestorm gets countered its really nice to be able to restock your library and hand (with 6 or more mana available at that!)
Hope these ideas help you with your win con problem, I've also found success with hatred for winning with commander damage.
If you add knight of the reliquarybow of nylea becomes better with its ability to tuck more lands back into your library (which are then abused more by Kara). dust bowl is even better as a land sac outlet if you go that route as it doesn't become weaker as you re-tuck your yarded lands like the knight does, it's definitely worth adding primeval bounty and rampaging baloth at that point as well since it generates more long term land fall. I'll also note that KotR can continuously fetch up sac'd strip mines (that you're tucking back into your deck)as an alternate abuse method in place of crucible of worlds the redundancy can be handy. Mistveil plains is another yard tucking utility that counts as a plains card and thus is fetchable with Kara.
I'll end by saying outside of limited Cockatrice play I haven't had any real play testing time with this, just ideas I've been working with while deciding what to start trading/buying.
How much different in play style would Intet be from Jeleva? Because the way I built my Jeleva list was mostly topdeck stuff for Galvanoth and maybe Djinn of Wishes.
But if I used Intet I wouldn't be able to use Memory Plunder or Psychic Intrusion, plus Jeleva comes down 2 turns earlier; which I've noticed there is a large window between the two turns a Kaalia comes down and my Rith can't stop her.
I don't know, it seems like Intet has more options and can actually use creatures.
I knid of feel the same way about Jhoira, cheating spells into play without as many limitations as jeleva. Jeleva seems to draw spot removal like no other and is practically useless without haste.
With all the top deck manipulation Jeleva demands it makes me wish there were more useful miracle spells. But what Jeleva does seem to offer that Jhoira and Intet do not is the option to play reincarnation spells like Rise of the dark realms and I like the idea of killing a table with their own baddies.
In my current philosophy on the deck I'm trying to play a bit more controlling, more permission and board resetting seems to lead into huge blow outs with things like spelltwine, rise of the dark realms, army of the damned or rite of replication. Holding off on casting Jeleva until I have manipulated my library and have greaves or some enabler on the table. With Jhoira, Galvanoth, and Djinn as back spell casting.
What I'm trying to work in now is a fabricate package to enable ramping through mana rocks, grabbing haste enablers or oblivion stone. after seeing this thread I'm thinking Runechanter's pike and unscyth can be a nice way to actually add pressure off your swinging commander.
What are thoughts on thieves auction? Since Jeleva doesn't push a lot of permanents it seems like you'd usually come out on top in that exchange.
This strikes me as an odd decision, given how much of the value of throwback drafts is in the commons, and WotC undoubtedly want their throwback drafts to pull in money.
If Daze falls to $5 tomorrow, Masques block drafts would lose as many players as they would if the draft cost an additional dollar.
Totally off topic and I apologies for that, but pertaining to your sig. I agreed when I saw this for voice however when it comes to scy lands, what eternal formats are they played in? I haven't seen them show up in modern, I don't play legacy but it seems like fetches shocks duals etc would push out the chances of anyone using scrylands as an alternative. So the question is why wouldn't they drop after rotation? I mean I could be missing something here I haven't been as active in magic the last 3 months as I normally am.
All the lgs in my area are selling at msrp, one was on preorder only, another was one per person and didn't have mind seize, 3rd shop had no restrictions and I saw 2 of each deck on display. Never bothered with Walmart/etc. also stopped at a 4shop today for a modern tournament, didn't ask about their stock as I already picked up 3 but also didn't see anything displayed.
I hadn't even thought of loam and I run it as a combo in another deck of mine...
Loam is good as even if they counter it, you can get it back and keep using it again and again, while crucible is more easily hated as you said. I'm going to give this a try as well.
I added 2x loam to my sideboard and it's won matches that would have been pretty rough otherwise.
Having consistent 1st turn plays is a huge incentive in my mind, our cheap commanders help us stay on curve in the early game for sure. I like the option of swinging in with dorks early game for card advantage.
Still the biggest issue is deciding which infinite mana options to dedicate too.
So with the colors decided I'm struggling with do I go elf ball with a priest of Titania infinite mana combo package (always missed beck//call in tasigur's elves) or pursue other infinite mana options such as empower artifact or scepter/reversal.
Been playing/changing my build quite a bit lately, I find getting atleast one or two early drops for mana ramp and or chump blocking is pretty essential. I run things like wood elves, farhaven elf, yavimaya dryad etc to make sure I'm hitting the 4th turn Kara. Turn 5 is usually mega ramping so turn 6-7 can drop huge threats.
Game plan is to get a 1, 2 punch with things like avenger of zendikar into craterhoof behemoth(or regal force) my other 2 man teams are khamahl & Elesh norn for the land destruction lock and Avacyn + novablast wurm. This strategy helps exploit tooth and nail and defense of the heart quite effectively and I run quite a few tutors as contingency (ie fauna shaman, b pod, green sun's zenith, eladamari's call etc...)
Touching on the subject of things like sylvan library, my build runs them the card advantage is just too good to ignore and there's no reason not too if you have access to them.
One more tid bit, with the tooth and nail/defense of the heart/genesis wave plan I find haste enabling amazing. It's a bit harder to come by in our colors but I'm currently running Concordant cross roads and Akroma's memorial and they're game ending when you tooth and nail into something like avenger/behemoth, memorial can double as a pseudo shroud for your army against the right meta as well.
My group is also pretty competetive, in my last build I played genesis wave, this time around I'm thinking I'll go for a mostly permanent build and run genesis wave and primal surgeas the only nonpermanents. With grand abolisher and dosan the falling leaf as extra protection and haste enablers like concordant crossroads and akroma's memorial surge instantly ends the game.
A few great spells to win off of are bribery, armor of the dead, fated return, & rise of the dark realms depending on meta and situation.
However I find my most consistant wins come from enter the infinite which you essentially just combo off with. Firestorm, conflagrate, and sickening dreams do well as your post infinite game plan. Sickening dreams especially helps with taking out the entire table in one turn, get everyone as low as you can without killing yourself then firestorm or conflagrate for the win.
empyrial plate and/or Runechanter's pike can be your plan B, of course you'd have to cast one of the firestorm-esque spells before you could make use of the pike.
It's pretty glass cannon but it's the best spell based win cons I've attempted thus far, oh I also suggest time spiral with the enter the infinite package. If your firestorm gets countered its really nice to be able to restock your library and hand (with 6 or more mana available at that!)
Hope these ideas help you with your win con problem, I've also found success with hatred for winning with commander damage.
If you add knight of the reliquary bow of nylea becomes better with its ability to tuck more lands back into your library (which are then abused more by Kara). dust bowl is even better as a land sac outlet if you go that route as it doesn't become weaker as you re-tuck your yarded lands like the knight does, it's definitely worth adding primeval bounty and rampaging baloth at that point as well since it generates more long term land fall. I'll also note that KotR can continuously fetch up sac'd strip mines (that you're tucking back into your deck)as an alternate abuse method in place of crucible of worlds the redundancy can be handy. Mistveil plains is another yard tucking utility that counts as a plains card and thus is fetchable with Kara.
Speaking of utility lands Sapseep forest and Dryad arbor can be fetched with Kara as well.
I'll end by saying outside of limited Cockatrice play I haven't had any real play testing time with this, just ideas I've been working with while deciding what to start trading/buying.
I knid of feel the same way about Jhoira, cheating spells into play without as many limitations as jeleva. Jeleva seems to draw spot removal like no other and is practically useless without haste.
With all the top deck manipulation Jeleva demands it makes me wish there were more useful miracle spells. But what Jeleva does seem to offer that Jhoira and Intet do not is the option to play reincarnation spells like Rise of the dark realms and I like the idea of killing a table with their own baddies.
In my current philosophy on the deck I'm trying to play a bit more controlling, more permission and board resetting seems to lead into huge blow outs with things like spelltwine, rise of the dark realms, army of the damned or rite of replication. Holding off on casting Jeleva until I have manipulated my library and have greaves or some enabler on the table. With Jhoira, Galvanoth, and Djinn as back spell casting.
What I'm trying to work in now is a fabricate package to enable ramping through mana rocks, grabbing haste enablers or oblivion stone. after seeing this thread I'm thinking Runechanter's pike and unscyth can be a nice way to actually add pressure off your swinging commander.
What are thoughts on thieves auction? Since Jeleva doesn't push a lot of permanents it seems like you'd usually come out on top in that exchange.
Totally off topic and I apologies for that, but pertaining to your sig. I agreed when I saw this for voice however when it comes to scy lands, what eternal formats are they played in? I haven't seen them show up in modern, I don't play legacy but it seems like fetches shocks duals etc would push out the chances of anyone using scrylands as an alternative. So the question is why wouldn't they drop after rotation? I mean I could be missing something here I haven't been as active in magic the last 3 months as I normally am.
I added 2x loam to my sideboard and it's won matches that would have been pretty rough otherwise.
I just checked the site you'd be correct, I just kept reading others say towards the end of the month. I'm excited to see its earlier then that!