I have a deck that i have been starting to tinker with. Its in full effect and i have every card for it already. Its not working the way it should.
I'm hoping to get some guidance on what i might be able to do to make it work better, or more efficiently.
Currently as it sits, there is no combo's or anything super amazing for a win condition and that's what's hurting me. The deck has seen about 25 games, and has only won once. Basically its set up around control, artifact and enchantment revival, and most of the creatures being legendary ones. There's no real reason as to why i went this way, i just thought it would be a cool idea to mash up some legendary creatures and this is what became of it. The main idea was to use Venser, the Sojourner with his ultimate emblem in sequence with Narset Transcendent emblem as well. This was really tough to mash together so i used a way to repeat spells, re-use items in the graveyard and toss together the idea to get these two to work with each other.
The most important thing you need to ask is "what do I want my win condition to be?"
Are you going to win through the combat step, some convoluted combo, milling, force them to draw their deck? Answer this question first then we can provide you more answers.
Ultimating Planeswalkers without some type of support cards in a multiplayer format is very difficult. I speak from experience running both a 5c Superfriends deck for quite some time and now a Brago Superfriends deck. This win condition is very difficult to force through without a lot of focus on it.
As it stands now your list is pretty much all over the place - I love the legendary theme, but the fact that all those legends don't compliment each other is one of the major reasons you're 1 and 24.
Most of them also have activated abilities and won't be used until the table comes round back to you, being in WU doesn't aid in the haste issue.
Maybe make Brago you general and try to stretch your planeswalker value a bit further?
[EDH] It's built to be a casual format and to a specific vision, and if you don't like the vision, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not going to change to accommodate everyone. Big tent is not a goal.
The most important thing you need to ask is "what do I want my win condition to be?"
Are you going to win through the combat step, some convoluted combo, milling, force them to draw their deck? Answer this question first then we can provide you more answers.
Ultimating Planeswalkers without some type of support cards in a multiplayer format is very difficult. I speak from experience running both a 5c Superfriends deck for quite some time and now a Brago Superfriends deck. This win condition is very difficult to force through without a lot of focus on it.
As it stands now your list is pretty much all over the place - I love the legendary theme, but the fact that all those legends don't compliment each other is one of the major reasons you're 1 and 24.
Most of them also have activated abilities and won't be used until the table comes round back to you, being in WU doesn't aid in the haste issue.
Maybe make Brago you general and try to stretch your planeswalker value a bit further?
Think on the bolded question and come back to us
well, based on the bold text, i would like the win condition to be what i have seen before. All out board control. Killing off just about anything by casting anything with those emblems out in play is just plain nasty. Nobody likes it, and its normally guaranteed a game win. That being said, i'm normally playing multiplayer games with 4+ people all the time. As much as it is fun, as soon as they notice what i'm doing, i'm normally sitting out the rest of the game cause they have killed me. There's no defensive control, and there's even less ways to deal with anything.
As for the creature base, i do realize its a little off the normal. Any suggestions what i could do to improve it to aide in this win condition?
You want to be able to exert control over the board and you're in the best colors to do so. I'll assume you have a fairly large budget or access to a deep card pool because there's a lot of great cards in this deck already. If you can hold off the onslaught for a few turns while you assemble some mana rocks and your walkers, you can do well.
[EDH] It's built to be a casual format and to a specific vision, and if you don't like the vision, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not going to change to accommodate everyone. Big tent is not a goal.
I'm also looking at dropping the useless legendary cards. I'll be putting in ones that can function well with Brago, King Eternal
Also curious, What do you think about Alhammarret's Archive? Ive considered putting this card in, its a huge ramp in all directions, but i'm ultimatly scared of having too much in my hand. I have a Reliquary Tower on the way as well to remedy that situation (assuming draw and fetch works like it should)
They are non-essential to the deck and are being replaced by other creatures. The only real question is.. which ones. Ive been doing some looking around and i'm not finding a heck of a lot in relation to this kind of deck. Lots of decks are suggesting higher casing creatures.
I believe this will help the overall of the deck, especially with the Æther Vial if i can get more creatures that cast for the same or around the same cost.
[EDH] It's built to be a casual format and to a specific vision, and if you don't like the vision, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not going to change to accommodate everyone. Big tent is not a goal.
5 mana for something that doesn't have an immediate impact requires a careful look at the rest of the deck.
Life gain is fairly useless in a format where 21 is the magic number unless you're going to pay for things with that life.
Drawing extra cards is great, but do you have the engines for card draw to trigger the archive more than once before it eats removal.
As for creatures, you'll want ones that can protect your walkers until you've got them to their ultimate and then can close out the game.
Walls are good for that as are Sun Titan and Frost Titan. If you can blink either of them you'll be well on your way to holding down the fort.
Maybe get a walker in that generates tokens as their +X ability, like Elspeth.
That's actually hilarious that you mention Elspeth. I'm actually going to be getting both versions of her for this. Her Ultimate emblem would just add to the douche-baggery of the deck. As for creature base, I think ive come to see a few creatures that would highly benefit from Brago.
You seem to have a handful of Crusade-effects but very few white creatures. Even with a healthy amount of creatures, anthems don't contribute anything to your plan of "control the board." Also, glad to see you've cut Daybreak Coronet since it was literally uncastable in your original list.
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You would never guess, at the terrifying sight of the man, that Hunding was as charming a companion as one could wish for.
You seem to have a handful of Crusade-effects but very few white creatures. Even with a healthy amount of creatures, anthems don't contribute anything to your plan of "control the board." Also, glad to see you've cut Daybreak Coronet since it was literally uncastable in your original list.
Great point. I think that will be cut for more creatures that will be proc-able with Brago, King Eternal. Wall of Denial has also made the list. Can't believe i forgot that.
Ive started looking into more creatures. Will hopefully have an update late tonight
edit: I dont mean to pry, but why was this put into multiplayer specific?
The list you have is a bit all over the place in terms of what each thing is doing. I think what you want is a UW control deck that uses Planeswalkers and Legendaries. I got bored today and built my own and play tested it a bit. Here's what I got...
I figured the best tactic was to first pick about 10 planeswalkers and add in proliferate and time walk effects to increase counters. The best Commander for planeswalkers I felt was Brago, King Eternal as he can flicker them and let them use 2 abilities per turn and refresh ones below their starting loyalty. Added some control card including some board wipes that miss planeswalkers as a good way of making it a 1-sided wipe. For Legendary creatures I added control creatures that benefited from flickers or were just solid control. Lastly the mana base needs lots of ramp because your best stuff is on 4cc and getting brago out early means you can establish presence faster, also you can flicker them back untapped with Brago. I tried to keep it in the spirit of what you were going for
[edit] Just realized you had mind sculptor...that totally should be in here.
Well, I'm not entirely sure how to take the post above.
It went from improving the current deck, to changing out nearly 75% of the cards. You're right about it being a little out of place, but for the most part after a few smaller things are adjusted i think the deck will work fine. You bring up some nice points on some of these cards, having board wipes with planeswalkers getting destroyed would not be a good idea. Adding in a Wrath of god, and removing the Planar Cleansing would be a good idea. I'm not quite sold on the rest of it though. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV is a must!
Well there wasn't a lot to go by in the description...and once again I was bored at work so I put a bit more shine into things. But with any EDH deck you need to build with a few questions in mind:
What is the strategy I want to aim for?
How will I stop opponents from establishing their own presence and protect mine?
How will my mana curve play out? Will I need fast mana ramp or low casting spells?
How relevant is each card with the rest of the deck? Are they always good or require another card or situation to be effective?
How will I achieve consistency of my plan? Draw, tutor, redundancy, multipurpose synergy?
What ways do I have to win?
What do I lose to and how can I stop it?
Take the elements you like from your deck and ask yourself those questions as you build it. It feels like you grabbed UW cards you owned that are fairly recent (which is fine) and put them together, but beyond "tons of legendaries" a plan wasn't put in to motion in what the deck does. I say pick a few legendaries you like for flavor and look around for cards that work with them. Synergy is very important. You can draw tons of cards, but they don't work together, that card advantage isn't helping. Also while card advantage is awesome, they're only good if you can cast them. That said, I would highly recommend looking at the mana base in my list. Artifact ramp is very powerful for both speed and making better use of draws (drawing a land and ramp is better than drawing multiple lands in a turn).
Check out a few staple lists for blue and white and any specific categories of cards like counters, removal, wipes, etc... There's a bunch of super cheap staples you could toss in here that are more efficient than cards you're currently using. Rhystic Study and Fact or Fiction are probably a lot stronger than some of the current draw spells for example.
I have a deck that i have been starting to tinker with. Its in full effect and i have every card for it already. Its not working the way it should.
I'm hoping to get some guidance on what i might be able to do to make it work better, or more efficiently.
Currently as it sits, there is no combo's or anything super amazing for a win condition and that's what's hurting me. The deck has seen about 25 games, and has only won once. Basically its set up around control, artifact and enchantment revival, and most of the creatures being legendary ones. There's no real reason as to why i went this way, i just thought it would be a cool idea to mash up some legendary creatures and this is what became of it. The main idea was to use Venser, the Sojourner with his ultimate emblem in sequence with Narset Transcendent emblem as well. This was really tough to mash together so i used a way to repeat spells, re-use items in the graveyard and toss together the idea to get these two to work with each other.
All the Jace planeswalkers are being used as draw methods or sacrificial lambs in order to make the board work in my favor. ( tags for Jace's so nobody tries to give me another warning... Jace, Architect of Thought Jace Beleren Jace, Memory Adept Jace, the Living Guildpact Jace, the Mind Sculptor )
If anyone has any idea what may be able to help, please let me know!
Thanks a bunch!
On to the decklist
1 Hanna, Ship's Navigator
Creature (21)
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1 Brago, King Eternal
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Ephara, God of the Polis
1 Ertai, Wizard Adept
1 Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer
1 Heap Doll
1 Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon"
1 Lavinia of the Tenth
1 Linessa, Zephyr Mage
1 Lu Xun, Scholar General
1 Masako the Humorless
1 Medomai the Ageless
1 Meletis Charlatan
1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
1 Odric, Master Tactician
1 Pristine Skywise
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
1 Crusade
1 Daybreak Coronet
1 Detention Sphere
1 Journey to Nowhere
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Teferi's Moat
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Erase
1 Icy Blast
1 Jace's Ingenuity
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Quicken
1 Radiant Purge
1 Spell Pierce
1 Unsummon
1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
1 Gideon Jura
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Jace Beleren
1 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Jace, the Living Guildpact
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Narset Transcendent
1 Venser, the Sojourner
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Expedition Map
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Pearl Medallion
1 Sapphire Medallion
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 The Chain Veil
1 Whispersilk Cloak
1 Drifting Meadow
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Flood Plain
1 Flooded Strand
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Fortress
15 Island
14 Plains
1 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Terramorphic Expanse
Sorcery (8)
1 Bribery
1 Mass Calcify
1 Planar Cleansing
1 Ponder
1 Profound Journey
1 Serum Visions
1 Time Spiral
1 Time Warp
Thanks to Mcheif111 for the Sig banner!
Are you going to win through the combat step, some convoluted combo, milling, force them to draw their deck? Answer this question first then we can provide you more answers.
Ultimating Planeswalkers without some type of support cards in a multiplayer format is very difficult. I speak from experience running both a 5c Superfriends deck for quite some time and now a Brago Superfriends deck. This win condition is very difficult to force through without a lot of focus on it.
As it stands now your list is pretty much all over the place - I love the legendary theme, but the fact that all those legends don't compliment each other is one of the major reasons you're 1 and 24.
Most of them also have activated abilities and won't be used until the table comes round back to you, being in WU doesn't aid in the haste issue.
Maybe make Brago you general and try to stretch your planeswalker value a bit further?
Think on the bolded question and come back to us
well, based on the bold text, i would like the win condition to be what i have seen before. All out board control. Killing off just about anything by casting anything with those emblems out in play is just plain nasty. Nobody likes it, and its normally guaranteed a game win. That being said, i'm normally playing multiplayer games with 4+ people all the time. As much as it is fun, as soon as they notice what i'm doing, i'm normally sitting out the rest of the game cause they have killed me. There's no defensive control, and there's even less ways to deal with anything.
As for the creature base, i do realize its a little off the normal. Any suggestions what i could do to improve it to aide in this win condition?
Thanks to Mcheif111 for the Sig banner!
Next drop Erase, Icy Blast, Jace's Ingenuity, Radiant Purge, Spell Pierce and Unsummon.
You want to be able to exert control over the board and you're in the best colors to do so. I'll assume you have a fairly large budget or access to a deep card pool because there's a lot of great cards in this deck already. If you can hold off the onslaught for a few turns while you assemble some mana rocks and your walkers, you can do well.
Something like this:
Norn's Annex
Copy Enchantment
Sphere of Safety
Path to Exile
Swords to Plowshares
Oblation
Arcane Denial
Remand
Act of Authority
Return to Dust
Grand Abolisher
Magus of the Moat
Deep Analysis
Wall of Omens
Win Condition:
Enchanted Evening
Aura Thief (need some way to kill him, maybe Ashnod's Altar or some other sac outlet...High Market?)
Win Condition 2:
Tezzeret the seeker - Him + the chain veil and infinite mana can make you ultimate any of your walkers and with JTMS that's gg
Everflowing Chalice
The Chain Veil (you have already in there :))
Stroke of Genius or Blue Sun's Zenith
Reading all the stuff here and I'm also considering on putting in Sphinx's Tutelage along with the draw power. Already, i know i have the enchanted evening, Tezzeret the seeker Remand Path to Exile Swords to plowshare and a few others.
I'm also looking at dropping the useless legendary cards. I'll be putting in ones that can function well with Brago, King Eternal
Also curious, What do you think about Alhammarret's Archive? Ive considered putting this card in, its a huge ramp in all directions, but i'm ultimatly scared of having too much in my hand. I have a Reliquary Tower on the way as well to remedy that situation (assuming draw and fetch works like it should)
EDIT:
After looking at the deck a bit more tonight, ive decided on pulling
Mikaeus, the lunarch
Meletis Charlatan
Odric, Master Tactician
Gwafa Hanid, Profiteer
They are non-essential to the deck and are being replaced by other creatures. The only real question is.. which ones. Ive been doing some looking around and i'm not finding a heck of a lot in relation to this kind of deck. Lots of decks are suggesting higher casing creatures.
Also - Ive taken out the following
they have been replaced with these SO FAR.
I believe this will help the overall of the deck, especially with the Æther Vial if i can get more creatures that cast for the same or around the same cost.
Thanks to Mcheif111 for the Sig banner!
5 mana for something that doesn't have an immediate impact requires a careful look at the rest of the deck.
Life gain is fairly useless in a format where 21 is the magic number unless you're going to pay for things with that life.
Drawing extra cards is great, but do you have the engines for card draw to trigger the archive more than once before it eats removal.
As for creatures, you'll want ones that can protect your walkers until you've got them to their ultimate and then can close out the game.
Walls are good for that as are Sun Titan and Frost Titan. If you can blink either of them you'll be well on your way to holding down the fort.
Maybe get a walker in that generates tokens as their +X ability, like Elspeth.
That's actually hilarious that you mention Elspeth. I'm actually going to be getting both versions of her for this. Her Ultimate emblem would just add to the douche-baggery of the deck. As for creature base, I think ive come to see a few creatures that would highly benefit from Brago.
In light of both Elspeth planeswalkers, i would be pulling a Jace (not sure which one) and something else.
Thanks a bunch, i really appreciate your help!
Thanks to Mcheif111 for the Sig banner!
Great point. I think that will be cut for more creatures that will be proc-able with Brago, King Eternal. Wall of Denial has also made the list. Can't believe i forgot that.
Ive started looking into more creatures. Will hopefully have an update late tonight
edit: I dont mean to pry, but why was this put into multiplayer specific?
Thanks to Mcheif111 for the Sig banner!
I figured the best tactic was to first pick about 10 planeswalkers and add in proliferate and time walk effects to increase counters. The best Commander for planeswalkers I felt was Brago, King Eternal as he can flicker them and let them use 2 abilities per turn and refresh ones below their starting loyalty. Added some control card including some board wipes that miss planeswalkers as a good way of making it a 1-sided wipe. For Legendary creatures I added control creatures that benefited from flickers or were just solid control. Lastly the mana base needs lots of ramp because your best stuff is on 4cc and getting brago out early means you can establish presence faster, also you can flicker them back untapped with Brago. I tried to keep it in the spirit of what you were going for
[edit] Just realized you had mind sculptor...that totally should be in here.
1 Brago, King Eternal
//Artifact (12)
1 Azorius Signet
1 Contagion Clasp
1 Contagion Engine
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Grim Monolith
1 Mana Vault
1 Mind Stone
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Prismatic Lens
1 Sol Ring
1 Talisman of Progress
1 The Chain Veil
//Artifact Creature (1)
1 Solemn Simulacrum
//Creature (12)
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
1 Lavinia of the Tenth
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Medomai the Ageless
1 Nevermaker
1 Sakashima the Impostor
1 Thrummingbird
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Viral Drake
//Enchantment (7)
1 Aura of Silence
1 Detention Sphere
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Propaganda
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Arcane Denial
1 Counterspell
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Disenchant
1 Fuel for the Cause
1 Pact of Negation
1 Path to Exile
1 Steady Progress
1 Swan Song
1 Swords to Plowshares
//Enchantment Creature (1)
1 Ephara, God of the Polis
//Planeswalker (11)
1 Ajani Steadfast
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Jace Beleren
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Jace, the Living Guildpact
1 Karn Liberated
1 Narset Transcendent
1 Teferi, Temporal Archmage
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Venser, the Sojourner
//Sorcery (10)
1 Akroma's Vengeance
1 Austere Command
1 Cataclysm
1 Savor the Moment
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Temporal Mastery
1 Temporal Trespass
1 Tezzeret's Gambit
1 Time Warp
1 Wrath of God
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Arid Mesa
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Calciform Pools
1 Command Tower
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Flooded Strand
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Hallowed Fountain
9 Island
1 Kor Haven
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mystic Gate
1 Nimbus Maze
9 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Windswept Heath
It went from improving the current deck, to changing out nearly 75% of the cards. You're right about it being a little out of place, but for the most part after a few smaller things are adjusted i think the deck will work fine. You bring up some nice points on some of these cards, having board wipes with planeswalkers getting destroyed would not be a good idea. Adding in a Wrath of god, and removing the Planar Cleansing would be a good idea. I'm not quite sold on the rest of it though. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV is a must!
Thanks to Mcheif111 for the Sig banner!
Take the elements you like from your deck and ask yourself those questions as you build it. It feels like you grabbed UW cards you owned that are fairly recent (which is fine) and put them together, but beyond "tons of legendaries" a plan wasn't put in to motion in what the deck does. I say pick a few legendaries you like for flavor and look around for cards that work with them. Synergy is very important. You can draw tons of cards, but they don't work together, that card advantage isn't helping. Also while card advantage is awesome, they're only good if you can cast them. That said, I would highly recommend looking at the mana base in my list. Artifact ramp is very powerful for both speed and making better use of draws (drawing a land and ramp is better than drawing multiple lands in a turn).
Check out a few staple lists for blue and white and any specific categories of cards like counters, removal, wipes, etc... There's a bunch of super cheap staples you could toss in here that are more efficient than cards you're currently using. Rhystic Study and Fact or Fiction are probably a lot stronger than some of the current draw spells for example.