MTG Salvation

Why play Edric?

Edric has a powerful effect, giving you great card advantage. He also gives you access to a great card pool in green and blue.

Deck History

Previously this was weenies, but I found the weenies lacking and unimpressive, and I just couldn't deal with certain problems.

Card Options

I have a lot of artifact destruction due to the prevalence of Swords and Jitte in my playgroup (which is really a problem, imo - these cards go in every deck and should probably be banned). Things I don't have that would make the deck: Force of Will, Tropical Island, Breeding Pool, Kira, Great Glass-Spinner, Gaea's Cradle, Voidslime. Might add in Venser, Shaper Savant, Squelch. Cards I will be acquiring to add in asap: Kira, Great Glass-Spinner, Sword of Light and Shadow, Cavern of Souls, Boseiju, Who Shelters All.

A lot of lists also seem to not run Garruk, which seems to be a mistake (he wins games on his own sometimes). I found Force Spike disappointing (might need to readd it); readded Daze after needing it quite often.

Strategy

Gameplan is: keep opponent's threats off the board, swing with Edric and others, beatdown due to card advantage, keep Edric on the board so you can close out the game.

Edric is crucial to success - while you can win without him it is far more difficult. Use counters to protect him. Don't play him without protection unless you have creatures out and really need his effect to draw that turn. Wirewood Symbiote and Plaxmanta are also great at protecting him. Sakashima the Imposter can also duplicate his effect forcing two spot removal spells or boardwipe.

In an opening hand, you are looking for mana dorks and cheap counters. Aether Vial is great. You prefer a 3 land hand to any other, 2 can also be ok if you have card draw. Don't keep a 1, don't keep 5+ lands. Counters are good to see early so you can protect Edric and slow your opponent.

Matchups (1v1 only)

Generally, against high-cost generals you will have tons of card advantage before they become an issue - these are the easier matchups. Cheap generals with evasion, strong effects, and control colors tend to do better against Edric.

Geist of Saint Traft - Troublesome cards are Meddling Mage, Grand Abolisher, Jitte, Swords. Keep these off the table and you win, don't and you lose. You can't usually beat Geist at the control game (access to white, runs far less creatures than you), and I think Geist and Edric are generally considered the decks to beat... it's a tough matchup for Edric.
Lyzolda, the Blood Witch -The deck that plays first has won every time vs. my buddy's tuned Lyzolda (actually, finally won a loooong game where he played first because I countered until he ran outta gas). You need cheap counters and blue mana available early, or you will lose to LD - he taps out a lot so daze, mana leak, spell pierce are all super useful.
Animar, Soul of Elements - Tough matchup - I think you need to keep Animar off the board as well as other creatures that are troublesome. I need to play a couple more matchups to really figure it out.
Skithyrix, the Blight Dragon - Watch out for a turn 2/3 unspeakable symbol or Hatred as a 1/1 infect can then kill you, save counters for big threats like Skittles himself, don't waste counters on edict-like effects. Better to have counters available than try to out-aggro him, you should naturally win this matchup.
Rakdos the Defiler - went 2/1, actually a pretty easy matchup imo. Snap or other bounce completely ruins this guy and the guy I played against seemed to really rely on his general. Not much to counter early, but you need counters around turn 4/5 when he can cast his general. The game I lost was due to a huge misplay - I ignored the Lightning Greaves on the board and tapped out... letting him cast his general and swing into me. Woops Protip: don't do that.
Wrexial, the Risen Deep - smashed him so hard he kicked me from the game on cockatrice, countered/bounced everything then stole Wrexial with an Aether Vial'd Sower... was played non-french, 40 life, with his sol ring
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV - went 0/2, but I had to mull each game and just seemed to have the worst draws. White/blue control, like Geist, giving me huge problems. Opponent said he usually loses to Edric, so maybe just bad luck/misplays? Got Terminus'd both games
Mirror - tbd


Changelog

8/29/12: Removed Sylvan Library (great card but cost is so high for 1v1 edh), Erayo, Soratami Ascendant (never flipped), Force Spike (prefer harder counters), Birthing Pod (usually got blown up, rarely could get what I needed), Eladamri, Lord of Leaves, Imperious Perfect (weak), Jace's Phantasm (rarely more than a 1/1), Pygmy Hippo, Harmonize, Elvish Pioneer, Elvish Archdruid, something else (forget what! damn).
Added Foil, Uktabi Orangutan, Trickbind, Gitaxian Probe, Spiketail Hatchling, Delay, Sylvan Safekeeper, Sakashima the Imposter, Opposition, Thada Adel, Aquisitor, Time Warp, Spawnwrithe.
The goal of these changes is to increase the overall power of the deck and give me more answers, removing choices I have found to be weak. Will report on these changes asap.

9/1/12: Removed Thornweald Archer, Foil, Beast Within.
Added: Acidic Slime, Jhessian Infiltrator, Jace's Phantasm.

Ran outta gas a couple times and found myself wanting more evasion; Beast Within might solve one problem but an enemy 3/3 is actually not much better for Edric to deal with than anything else. Acidic Slime can eliminate pretty much any non-creature threat AND kill a creature threat.

9/6/12: Removed Prohibit, Words of Wilding, Jace's Phantasm, Waterfront Bouncer, Yavimaya Elder, Trickbind, Vapor Snag, Dissipate, Deprive, Notorious Throng, Time Warp, Wonder, Acidic Slime. Added Forest, Island, Command Tower, Reliquary Tower, Foil, Daze, Imperious Perfect, Gaea's Skyfolk, Eladamri, Thornweald Archer, Beast Within, Glen Elendra, Archmage, Aether Vial. Found myself needing Beast Within more lately, and Archer's deathtouch and ability to block everything is needed more often. Want to try Aether Vial.

9/8/12: Removed Gaea's Skyfolk, Birds of Paradise, Opposition, Imperious Perfect. Added Umezawa's Jitte, Lotus Cobra, Ancestral Vision, Arbor Elf.

9/13/12: Removed Beastmaster Ascension (win more), Forbid (I wish it cost 2 every time, buyback simply costs too much), Eladamri, 2 forests, condescend, thornweald archer. Added Stifle, Vapor Snag, Miscalculation, Peek, Flooded Grove, Coiling Oracle, Scryb Ranger.

9/15/12: Removed Beast Within, Sylvan Safekeeper, Invisible Stalker, Island, Inkmoth Nexus, Thada Adel, Acquisitor, Krosan Grip. Added Cloud of Faeries, Spellstutter Sprite, Tectonic Edge, City of Brass, Rushing River, Psionic Blast, Phyrexian Revoker.

9/18/12: Removed Jhessian Infiltrator (not very useful), Mystical Tutor (slow), Arbor Elf, Fyndhorn Elves, Llanowar Elves. Added Impulse, Muddle the Mixture, Survival of the Fittest, Sylvan Library, Spell Snare. I removed the Elves because 1) they really weren't ramping me very much, since the deck is mostly 2 drops, 2) they were super vanilla and if I asked "would you rather have this mana dork or any other card in the deck or those I added in your opening hand, they always lost.

Questions / comments / concerns welcome (not so stealthy bump)