MTG Salvation

So I was thinking about this the other day:

Niv-Mizzet the Firemind in play as well as standstill, and Consecrated Sphinx.

I intend to use this in a multi-player situation, but I need more cards to really flesh out this whole deck. What cards out there do similiar things to standstill and consecrated sphinx? or just mass draw in general.

With Isperia would I draw a card for each creature attacking me? or just one whenever creatures are assigned to attack me?

I was wondering what commander was best in Blue/White for a pillowfort deck. The particular deck in question runs many enchantments and token generators and hopes to overwhelm its opponents with sheer creature mass. My current major contendents are:

• Isperia, Supreme Judge
  
• Ith, High Arcanist
  
• Grand Arbiter Augstin IV
  
• Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer
  
• Hanna, Ship's Navigator
  

I was hoping to get some pros and cons of each commander as well as some cards that might pair well with them to give me better overall synergy with my commander.

What are your thoughts on Nomads' Assembly? I personally feel if my deck is token-based enough then this card could be pretty amazing.

I've been looking to run a token-based win con in my UW Pillowfort deck. Some of the cards I'm already running are:

• Sigil of the Empty Throne
  
• Luminarch Ascension
  
• Humility
  
• Marshal's Anthem
  
• Increasing Devotion
  

I know that I need a lot more tokens to be able to consider it my main win con, but that's the direction I'd like to push it in, so my question to you is:

What are the must-haves for any UW token strategy?

I was looking at this last night a little bit and found some fun interactions:

Mycoloth-Gives you a consistent source of saprolings without any need for mana to be spent.

Fertilid- Reuseable mana fixing/ ramp.

^ The above can also be used with Grazing Gladeheart and Ageless Entity to give you a pretty big creature.

Gilder Bairn- Pseudo-Doubling Season. Which does bring up a really good point!

Doubling Season- Double the counters, double the tokens, double the fun!

Champion of Lambholt- Large creature that can quickly become a major threat in a creature-heavy deck (Momir Vig possibly?).

I'm planning to continue looking when I get a chance. I'm finding that the deck is really building itself with Momir Vig at the helm! Btw he combos quite well withLurking Predators and Cream of the Crop!

I'm looking for some combos to put into my Animar, Soul of Elements EDH. Thus far I have a couple of Aluren based combos as well as the Splinter Twin Combo, using Kiki-Jiki for fetch-ability, and an infinite mana combo based on Magus of the Candelabra. Are there any other combos out there that might work? Even if they're not really infinite combos, like perilous forays, rampaging baloths, and amulet of vigor, I would still like to know about them. The more wacky they get, or the more they work with things I already have, the better.

I've been looking at using the card Aluren as a major part of my Animar, Soul of Elements deck and have been looking for combos that can abuse it. I've found some decent creatures to use with it, but I was wondering what everyone else's take on Aluren was. Are there any seriously deranged combos (or powerful synergies!) that use it? Are there any creatures that are "must-haves" with Aluren?

Quote from Wending

A statement without support merits a denial without reason.

You're wrong.

You are my hero.

I've personally been working on a mill/ discard heavy deck for Lazav that has a couple of combo options if they should ever arise.

Quote from Ogrefoot

I see it more like:
"Card X is temporarily unbanned, but before you go and buy it be aware that it could be re-banned in 3, 6, 9, or 12 months from now."

It's not an officially "rotating" banned list, it's experimentation to see if the banned list can be safely reduced in scope.

Then feel free to experiment this way in your own playgroup. I do not think that this should be something that everyone needs to be involved in. Bring the idea to your playgroup and see if they're okay with it. If they are I'd be very interested to see what your findings are.

I like having a consistent ban list because it operates as a very good guideline especially when people from different playgroups intermingle. If there were a rotating ban list like this then some people would choose to be part of the testing while others would desire to stick with the ban list despite what some distant authority may say. This would lead to conflict in a game designed to encourage social interaction which seems to defeat the purpose.

Quote from Kahno

I don't want to be that guy, but how is that any different than any other early game combo (for instance Entomb->Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur->Animate Dead)?

For your play to work, you need Sol Ring (or Mana Crypt/Mana Vault, I'll give you that), Tinker and sufficient in-hand resources to cast Necropotence. You basically described a 3+ card combo that doesn't even win the game.

Both are good, but I think the issue I have with Tinker is the difficulty one would have with hating it out. By putting something in a graveyard, you open it up to graveyard hate which most people pack, but if someone is using tinker then you would need to be packing counterspells, bounce, exile, or extract-esque effects. I normally do pack these sort of answers, but I have friends that run pure aggro decks. For them to be outpaced in such a way by a deck that normally focuses on control would be quite obnoxious.

If we unbanned tinker, then there would be people that would use it in appropriate and fair ways, but there will always be that guy who will use it in a way that makes everyone miserable. As much as I wish I didn't have to say this: I do not trust everyone that I play magic with. They play lock combos on T4, and I do not want to give them the option of forcing me to focus on finding removal for a T2 or 3 kick to the teeth. Right now I feel that commander is quite balanced, which could change with any set release, but unless power level suddenly spikes with gatecrash then I could not imagine this being unbanned.

Artifact lands are a thing. 0-drop artifact creatures are also a thing, so tinker's sacrifice cost is easily payable. Plus, it's quite quite easy for a person to protect their colossus with their own answers. Every once in a while it's going to get through. If I have to play commander knowing that every game I will be facing down a massive artifact creature on turn 2 or 3 that I must bounce or counter the spell that tutors for it then I would probably have to stop playing commander due to it's silliness factor. There's a reason why tinker is banned outright in most formats.

Tinker will never be unbanned in commander. A T2 or T3 Artifact creature of monstrous proportions could not be matched, and it would be a little too easy to build a deck around tinker. I would be interested to see results in a playgroup that allows the use of tinker, but I can't imagine the conclusion being different.

EDIT: Never was a very solid word to use. If the power level of the game goes up signifcantly then I could see it, but power creep is guarded against tremendously.

Quote from sH0opdAwoOp

Wow. I didn't know anyone actually ran SoBaM :p.

The decks I play against are all mono-colored blue or green, so this actually makes perfect sense despite the unliklihood of the situation.