It's been a while since I've been excited with a commander as I've been with Rashmi, Eternities Crafter. The last time this happened was with Daretti, Scrap Savant and I've been keeping the topic on that deck updated since then. Rashmi is the real deal. She can win the attrition race with ease and draws you a lot of cards, while dribbling restrictions like Leovold's.
I don't understand why everybody isn't talking about this card advantage monster. I've seen 2 threads about here here, but they're mostly abandoned and their approach (elfball and turboland) is very different from what I build (pure control), so I decided it was best to make a new one. I think it's funny that people think setting up to cast spells with her ability even matters. You don't need to build around that at all, that's just something that happens once in a while and it's great. But that's not how Rashmi battles her pink robots. She does that by drawing you a lot of cards. And I mean A LOT OF FRIGGING CARDS IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY.
I've been tinkering with a list for a couple weeks now, and I just came back from my local FNM Commander tournament with a tournament win (2-0-1 in an 8-man tournament). Funny enough, it was the very same record I had with Daretti in the same situation - brewing a deck, playing with it on a tournament the first night it was possible and winning with a 2-0-1 record :P. Wins against Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon and Karlov of the Ghost Council and a draw against Sidisi, Undead Vizier. Granted, I played a few Tier 2 decks, but the deck felt great, although yet incomplete. I'll show you the list and then discuss card choices and a mini-report on the tournament.
So, just a quick report of the tournament. First match was against Skithiryx. First game I dominated his board, transformed his commander into a forest and controlled the game from there. Second game was more interesting. He resolved an early Dark Confidant, and I resolved Sylvan Library. I was with 5 poison and was able to hold him back with a Constant Mists lock. He eventually discarded it, I Reclaim'ed it, and we went back and forth with this for a while. I went to 3 life with Sylvan Library held back for a while, trying to find Depths but unable to do it in time. Eventually time was called and I just sat back waiting for the 5 turns. I would've eventually won the second game, but won 1-0. It should be noted that my local store has 45 minute-rounds, so it's hard to play hard control and finish in time =/
1-0
Second game was against a black Sidisi. This deck had a lot of weird deck choices (I discovered he played with 36 lands only for example) and so was kinda of an easy match. Funny enough, it contains the only game I lost. First game I dominated completely winning easily in spite of his discard spells. Second game was the funniest story. I resolved Rashmi and he killed her. Having a Noxious Revival in hand, I decided to let her go to the graveyard. On my upkeep I play Noxious targeting her and he plays Imp's Mischief on it! Hahahahahahah omg. I admit the obvious mistake of letting your commander into the graveyard (when we had Dig/Cruise it was easier to do). I conceded the game in response because I figured it would take too much time to win and I'd have better chances game 3. That was a mistake too. I should've let the game go on - I have Snapcaster, Jace, Reclaim and Temporal Tresspass to get Rashmi back and he really doesn't have a competitive deck so I guess I could even stall until time was called with a 1-0 victory again. Anyway we got to game 3 and he got an early Cabal Coffers, which generated a lot of mana and gave a headachw for a few turns. I controlled the game anyway but couldn't seal the deal in time. I tried to find a time walk when we got to 5 turns since I'd win with a Jitte-equipped Rashmi, but couldn't do it.
1-0-1 (morally I consider this a 2-0 hahahaha)
Third game was against Karlov. This deck has been beating a lot of players in our tournaments but I hadn't played against him yet. First game I kept a sketchy hand of 2 lands, Baby Jace, Song of the Dryads and expensive stuff. I figured resolving Song on Karlov, with Jace helping me dig for a 3rd land would be good enough. Even if he removed Jace, it would get him out of the Karlov curve and give me time too. I couldn't find lands for the first few turns, taking 16 commander damage from Karlov by turn 4 (he's can get really big). I then managed to resolve Song on him, hoping not to see a Disenchant. He didn't have it and I managed to come back from there. Without Karlov the deck suffers a lot to be aggressive. A LOT of turns later, Marit Lage beat his face 3 times (yes, 3 times) and I won.
Game 2 was a lot easier to me. I got Song in my hand AGAIN, this time being able to resolve in at the right time, with counter backup. Turn 6 I played a Wash Out, Foil'ed his threat coming back down drawing Parallax Tide with Rashmi. I played Tide on my turn, revealling Intuition and playing it for Trickbind, Stifle, Noxious Revival. Game over.
2-0-1 (1st place with tie breakers)
HOW DOES THE DECK PLAY AND DECKBUILDING THEORY
My impressions with the deck were: it runs really smooth. Plays a lot like Grand Arbiter Augustin, hard control style. It draws a lot more than Arbiter, but suffers more to swarms than Arbiter does. I feel the need for 2 things in the deck: a good finisher to speed up games (I'll talk about that) and 1 more mass removal - Wash Out is great (specially the IDW one I have <3 ), Cyclonic Rift too, but I need 1 more and can't find it.
Protecting Rashmi is also important. This deck plays less cantrips than the average blue (I've been trying to find room for Impulse) because with Rashmi in play you don't need any of that. I'm serious, you have no idea how many cards Rashmi is able to draw you in a few turns. Drawing 1-2 extra cards per turn it just insane.
About the deck itself, I fell in love immediately when Rashmi was spoiled. By that time I was still thinking about Leovold, but I tested it and, just like Tasigur, I never liked playing with it. I have no idea why, but I always hated playing WITH Tasigur, and now with Leovold. Rashmi felt right, so I started brewing. I never thought about abusing her ability to cast spells. I just want to draw cards, eventually, by chance, playing free spells. My first build was an Opposition based, creature heavy deck. I'm bad at brewing those though, and so it didn't feel that great. I switched to a more controlling build, which still had Prophet of Kruphix and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Primeval Titan, Consecrated Sphinx, Hooting Mandrils and more equipment. I started feeling the deck had too many high, costed cards (Mandrils being an exception) and that I didn't need big beaters to win, but had to deal with explosive early starts better. Sure, resolving Primeval can be great against aggro (and it fetches Depths combo too), but tapping out for 6 mana can mean you're open to a lot of nonsense from your opponent. Prophet and Teferi still feel fine, specially because my meta has a few Maelstroms and Teferi breaks that matchup apart. I just fell out of slots.
So I started building a more controllish shell, and without big creatures, I realized I needed a combo win since hitting with Rashmi is hard, even with Swords. My options were Earthcraft/Squirrel Nest, Intruder Alarm/Sprout Swarm and Dark Depths/Thespian's Stage. Intruder Alarm feels nice because it can be used to contain swarms too. If you have counters in hand but don't have how to deal with the table, Alarm can keep your opponents creatures tapped for a few turns. Sprout Swarm is also OK alone, specially with Prophet of Kruphix, so I felt ok with it. Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest also are fine by themselves, although Earthcraft is not at its peak power in this current list. I opted out Alarm/Swarm once I decided I'd play with Intuition. Intuition felt great here since, with 2 regrowth effects and Snapcaster, if can function as a pseudo-tutor for any card. I had Flash of Insight and Think Twice in the deck too, making the Flash/Think/Moment's Peace pile also appealing. So then I decided Loam and Depths would be a more reliable combo to have, since I already played Exploration. Loam is great to draw you card if you need to, because dredging and playing it just to trigger Rashmi is a possible play it you need to dig a little bit more.
So, keeping on land choices, Arcane Lighthouse feels very important here. Can be fetched by Intuition/Loam too and make dealing with Geist, Narset and Thrun a little bit less of a pain, since the deck lacks redundancy of non-targeted removal. It could be cut, but for now feels great. The problem is I can't play Order of Succession optimally here.. can I?
Halimar Depths is also a uncommon choice, and goes against what I said of not building around Rashmi, but I think a few cards nodding to her ability, as long as they're fine on their own too, are OK. Halimar could be cut in the future 20-life meta if I feel tapped lands are too slow. Temple is harder to cut because it adds U and G.
My creature based is the common blue utility creatures. I added True-Name Nemesis as its the best wall in the game. It's there mainly to block, and eventually hit with equipments. Prognostic Sphinx is the real duck out of the water here. So, I'm searching (still am) for a higher costed creature that can take over the game. I tested Primeval and Consecrated Sphinx and, although they're great, tapping out turn 6 is too much, specially if you think about the future meta. So Sphinx met a few requirements I wanted when tapping-out to play a creature: it's hard to remove, has evasion and gives me some kind of card advantage/quality. I thought of her because my thinking was "I really needed a Dragonlord Ojutai here" and Prognostic was the closes I have. Her Scry 3 ability works nice with Rashmi, which is a plus. She feels great, and really helped me win one of my games (I guess it was against Skithyrishxxxx). The only problem she has is that I wish every day she was a 4/5... You can't have it all can you?
CARD CHOICES
I'll comment odd choices on the rest of the list (I don't need to explain FoW or Counterspell): Condescend: I feel the need to explain this one though because it was a Mental Misstep right before the tournament and I changed it. I also thought about Negate, and I'm still on the fence here. It'll probably become Voidslime once I get my hands on it. Voidslime is great because it's a 3rd Stifle for Parallax Tide. But Misstep and Negate help you protect Rashmi... I don't know, I'm really debating this slot.
Umezawa's Jitte
This is the sketchiest slot in the whole list. Don't get me wrong, Jitte is great and is here to deal with creatures for me, but I hardly have anyone to equip it. Rashmi is a small body, and I can't just attack with her to die and put tokens on Jitte (which you can do in creature heavy builds). It happened a few times that I had Rashmi and Jitte and I couldn't attack and the Jitte was there useless. I could play Sword of Feast and Famine or Sword of Fire and Ice here, specially if I add a trampler like Hooting Mandrils or Managorger Hydra. This is an open slot.
Vedalken Shackles
I played with Gilded Drake too, but the 3/3 flyer was getting hard to deal with. Maybe Treachery is a good card to have, and the best way to deal with swarms. Maybe I should just take something like Reality Shift out for Treachery. The real shame is that I can't really play Order of Succession, but I wish I could since it's the best.
Cavern of Souls
I don't have a creature theme, but resolving Rashmi through Cavern is great. It can also name Merfolk for True-Name (important in a few matchups) or Wizards for the rest of the crew. It's a cuttable slot, but for now I feel fine with it.
Planeswalkers
I only play with 2 PWs (both Jaces) but I had more before. I had Nissa, Vastwood Seer and either Garruk Wildspeaker or Kiora, the Crashing Wave. They all feel great, but my instant-based approach made them fall out of grace. Maybe, though, instead of adding a big hitter, I'd be better adding one of them to create tokens. Nissa is specially cool because it costs only 3, can be an early blocker if needed, fetches lands and is an Elf, so works great with Cavern (uncounterable PWs are the best). Garruk costing GG makes it way harder to play turn 4. Kiora is great, and the Exploration effect is much aprecciated (I'll talk about that later), and she's easier to cast than Garruk. But she can't produce creatures outside her hard-to-reach Ultimate, so loses points. I'm still debating what to do.
Reclaim/Noxious Revival
I said I didn't build around Rashmi's trigger, but these 2 cards are the only nods to that. I wanted Regrowth effects because they help with Intuition and with general removal, but I felt Noxious and Reclaim were better than Regrowth and Eternal Witness here. Witness is great, but the GG requirement hurts. The thing is, you can play Noxious in response to Rashmi's trigger to freely play a spell from your graveyard. That means Beast Within can become a Counterspell too, allowing you to cast it in response to a spell from your opponent to use it as a counterspell too. The greatest use of all is doing that with Ancestral Vision, though. It feels amazing to use Reclaim in response to whatever and draw 3. It's a fringe use, you can't count on it, but it helps a lot sometimes because you know your G open can mean any spell on your graveyard (specially with a FoW/Misdirection in hand). I may have to change Reclaim into Pulse of Murasa in the future, as a nod to the 20-life meta.
Constant Mists
This is the deck's real beast. Non-black, non-blue decks can do NOTHING against this. I held a Titania down during tests for turns and turns with this alone. My friend bet me I couldn't keep up playing Fog every turn against his 8 Elementals because I'd eventually run out of land drops. 8 turns later he realized he was wrong. Since every turn I play Mists I draw an extra card, you are never ever missing land drops. If you find Life from the Loam, it's infinite, if you find Exploration, you can start growing your manabase again. The only bad thing to this card is that it doesn't work great as a lock before turn 5-6 (unless you have Exploration). Also, it's very important to note that you CAN use buyback if you play it with Rashmi's trigger or Jace, Telepath Unbound -3. That MATTERS.
Exploration
I won a game against Titania simply by resolving Rashmi turn 2 with this. Other than that, Exploration helps the Constant Mists plan and also the Depths combo. You can hold both pieces in hand and play + activate them the same turn, helping avoid Stifle or Wasteland. Exploration also makes me wanna play Gush and maybe even Thwart. I've been trying to find room for Mox Diamond to help that plan too.
Preemptive Strike/False Summoning
Note I'm only playing Strik and Summoning for style points. You could easily use the easier to find Remove Soul and Essence Scatter here. I think those are important slots, but also fragile. They help against Geist and early beats, but they don't protect Rashmi from removal. So I've been tinkering with the slots, trying to understand is they're the way to go or if I should just play Negate and Dissolve instead. For now they are working, but there have been times I felt vulnerable because I couldn't do anything and had this in hand (on the Imp's Mischief play against Sidisi I had Strike in my hand)
Reality Shift
Is this the best removal spell I could be playing in this slot? Am I missing something? Is Boomerang better? I've been happy with Shift for now, since the manifest token can be blocked by Rashmi (be careful though!). I wonder if it makes the cut, though... is there anything I forgot?
Forbid
This is an "infinite" once-per-turn counterspell with Rashmi on the table. If you have Forbid + 2 cards in hand you can play it with buyback, discard the 2, drawing 1 with Rashmi and restocking Forbid with the draw for the turn. It IS a late game lock depending on game state. But having a counter that costs you basically only 1 card in hand to buyback is awesome.
Foil
Free counters are great here to protect turn 4 Rashmi. Foil saved me MANY times. I prefer it to Pact of Negation because if I play Rashmi turn 4, I can't protect if with Pact. Pact is cool because if can be revealed from the top and played by any spell, but that's actually less important for a counter than costing more. Foil can be played and reveal almost every card in the deck, that's way better. The card disadvantage hurts, but if you protect Rashmi with it, it's worth it.
Time Warp
Maybe there are good reasons to play more of these effects. I'm only at 2 because I own only two, but Temporal Manipulation is "cheap" enough that I could get one. Feels to me in a 20-life meta the Time Walks will get a lot better, so maybe its time.
Hooting Mandrils, Tireless Tracker, Managorger Hydra
I miss a cheap beater in the deck. These 3 are my considerations for now. Do I have better options I'm forgetting (green's card database is not that clear to me as blue's). Meloku the Clouded Mirror is also an option to beat through the air that I like a lot. For now I'd go either Meloku or Tracker. But there's the option of playing Nissa, Garruk or Kiora I mentioned before. I really need to test all of this.
Capsize
This is just bonkers in this deck. I took it out because it's slow as hell, but feels great once it gets going. I don't think it makes the cut, unfortunately. I've been thinking about buyback cards like Sprout Swarm and Wurmcalling though.
Cursed Totem
A great way to stop elfball. It works against a lot of troublesome creatures too. Need to find room for it.
Commandeer
Another free counter. It can steel planeswalkers and redirect spot removal, but the cost is steep it you don't have Rashmi in play. I think it could go into Misdirection's slot, since it has a bit more uses and the card disadvantage can be overcome depending on matchups. It works poorly as a 2nd Force of Will during counter wars, though.
Mox Diamond
A bit of acceleration to get to that Remove Soul mana turn 1 wouldn't hurt... late game it's a card to trigger Rashmi sorcery speed for free too. I wouldn't take out a land for it I guess, so it's again a matter of slots.
Flash of Insight
This is great as an Intuition target or as a double Rashmi trigger. I mentioned Impulse before but this is probably better.
Overall the deck feels great, and I feel fine going into the 20-life meta with it. There are a few changes I can make, mostly adding blockers and maybe going back to Prophet of Kruphix and Teferi, but also a few life-gain utility cards.
NODS TO 20-LIFE META
It's possible in the future I should consider playing any number of these:
I thought about Evacuation. It's probably the best one I can think of. It bounces Rashmi back too, so that's why I didn't play it yet. I thought about that Displacement Wave too but it's a sorcery. Thought about Arboria too as a pseudo-Moat for me to stabilize for a few turns. Thing in the Ice can also be both the beater and the bounce I'm looking for. But timing restrictions with him may screw me over more than I want to. Wow, just remembered Engulf the Shore. That's the one.
Spike Weaver is pretty interesting. I used to play it into Oath of Druids back in the day (Morphling, Spike Feeder and Weaver as only creatures). Problem is decks can deal with her with removal and there's no recursion available for creatures (or at least just a few). For that mana I'd probably be better playing Garruk Wildspeaker.
Although I understand Witness' appeal, I don't think she's right for this build. If I played Edric or Skullclamp, maybe that'd be the case. Also, I wouldn't take Reclaim out for her I guess. She's pretty bonkers though. If I remember right, she's the most played green card in the format after Sylvan Library.
Dark Dephts mostly, and Prognostic Sphinx or TNN beats. I ultimated baby Jace once, but killed with Depths before he ran out of cards.
This is almost an experimental list, trying the full control Rashmi CA route. But I don't think it holds too much with 20-life. Stuff like Hooting Mandrils is probably needed, and a few token-producing PWs.
Just to say I have been testing the deck without Depths combo, freeing up slots for PWs and a few more creatures. The deck feels even better. Depths is too slow.
Yes and no. I'm playing with 30 life but noting every game I go under 10 life. I was building the deck before the announcement so now I need to make it work before making 20 life changes to it. But, in my experience with the deck, just a few changes are already doing great things. Just note the version I posted is NOT thought for 20 life.
EDIT: but Maze, Will of the Naga and Arena of the Ancients are all things I'm thinking with 20 life in my head - they're not needed for 30 life games.
EDIT 2: also, building for 20 life without knowing the banlist is a big hassle. Depending on what they unban the deck may change quite a bit... it was a serious mistake not to give us a banlist.
My .02, try out Polymorph and Emrakul v1. Or even skip the Polymorph and just add Emrakul. It seems way better than the Dark Depths combo.
The sphinx is cute but seems pretty subpar when you have the entire history of blue and green magic cards available to use.
The Time Walks seem like a win-more card; I don't see how they turn a game around for you.
Most of your cards on the list to add seem worse than cards in the deck, so I think you made good decisions thus far. Voidslime is probably a good addition though. And there's also the UUGG Mana Drain which could be a nice way to get something like Jitte or a Sword on the board without over-committing your mana in your main phase.
Oh and Capsize is amazing, I love it in long grindy permission decks. Like Emrakul, access to Exploration makes it even better I think.
I've always hated Polymorph and Emrakul combo. It's too conditional: one of 2 cards must be in your hand and the other must not, so it's a 50/50 condition. Plus you need a creature in play - I don't want to sac Rashmi. Also Emrakul doesn't win the game outright, and can be stolen by Gilded Drake and Order of Succession. I'd stay away from that. Also, Emrakul v1 is pretty much uncastable in this deck so you need the combo. MAYBE v2 has merit, but I wouldn't play it either.
Look, there aren't good or bad cards, just cards that do what you want and cards that don't. I'm not gonna defend Prognostic Sphinx, because I know its' limitations. With 20 life, it may probably be cut for a cheaper creature like Hooting Mandrils or Tireless Tracker. That said, she's really, really good in this deck. She's awesome in grindy matchups, being hard to remove and filtering your draws, and she's good against fast aggro because she blocks everything and they normally need 2 removal spells to tap it. If you say there are better creatures for this slot in the blue/green cardpool, I believe you, but I need names (specially green since I'm not as familiar with green as I am with blue)
The Time Walks are so incredible I'm thinking of adding Temporal Manipulation to the deck for Intuition into 3 Walks (I already do that with Noxious Revival). With Snapcaster, Noxious Revival/Reclaim and Baby Jace, playing 3 turns in a row is a common play. It also makes Dark Depths faster if you manage to activate the combo and Time Warp. They're seriously good, specially because you draw a card off it with Rashmi in play.
I tried Plasm Capture already and it feels very subpar. This deck does not produce GG that easily by turn 4; most of the times I don't have uses for the mana I get; and in general 4 mana counters are bad in my book (specially thinking forward to 20 life). The only ones I play are Cryptic Command (because it's versatile), Foil (because it can be free) and Mystic Confluence (see Cryptic Command), and I wouldn't play any other - maybe Pact of Negation (which I consider a 5 mana counter).
This deck needs to change for 20 life, and I've been tinkering with it in that direction. The best card so far is Retreat to Kazandu. It can turn around games on its own and it's hard to remove. I believe that Retreat, coupled with Tireless Tracker, Courser of Kruphix and Exploration can be very strong. Also, feels good to play a fetch, use it and gain 3 life
I've been thinking a lot about Fact or Fiction. I believe 4 mana draw spells it's not where the deck wants to be. Maybe Thirst for Knowledge, maybe Gush? Gush seems pretty cool, specially if the deck really goes the Landfall route - which makes me think about Meloku the Clouded Mirror again too (in place of Prognostic).
PS: Capsize really is amazing. I feels it's too slow though... but I'll keep testing it.
PS 2: Maybe this isn't clear for people who didn't play the deck yet, but the landfall idea is good here because this deck refuses to miss land drops once Rashmi is in play. It has serious land dropping abilities. If I keep Loam in the deck that makes it even easier.
PS 2: Maybe this isn't clear for people who didn't play the deck yet, but the landfall idea is good here because this deck refuses to miss land drops once Rashmi is in play. It has serious land dropping abilities. If I keep Loam in the deck that makes it even easier.
This was why I suggest Emrakul v1. I would think it would be extremely castable in this deck.
Polymorph/Emrakul is not nearly as bad as you think, in a deck that draws a lot of cards, because it's fairly easy to get to 8 and discard it back into the deck.
Nah, 15 mana is way too much. V2 can cost 8 or 9 mana, which is doable but also pretty expensive. Also, when you're at 15 mana, Annihilator 6 loses a lot of its power.
I feel this deck doesn't need splashy plays. The splashiest it gets is Parallax Tide or chaining Time Warps. Once you untap with Rashmi in play you're pretty much winning anyway. The biggest point in this is that I normally hate having spells in my hand that I can't cast early. If I draw Emrakul in my opening hand it's a free mulligan to 6 for my opponent, which is bad and will be worse when we go to 20 life.
The deck does draw a lot of cards, but it must work when you DON'T have Rashmi online too.
Nah, 15 mana is way too much. V2 can cost 8 or 9 mana, which is doable but also pretty expensive. Also, when you're at 15 mana, Annihilator 6 loses a lot of its power.
This isn't true, speaking from experience. Beyond that, I can't really argue with the rest of what you wrote. Good luck with the deck!
Hello everyone. I want to share my initial thoughts and analysis about Rashmi. I have not yet test played this card but this is how I personally view her.
Rashmi, Eternities Crafter UUUG
Spell Lord ~ All your first spell have a
cantrip effect each turn
2/3
Pros
+4-6CMC Card Engine Commander
+Works well in U contol shell
+Has access to G artifact & enchantment hates
+Can be assigned as a blocker against aggro creatures
+UG/G planeswalkers can be added
Cons
-Vulnerable to blue steal effects
-dies to red, black, white removals
-no evasions, blockable by 3/3 & above creatures
-can be pinged by Marath & Keranos
The question is, can she be stronger than Jori en and Keranos in terms of card advantage? Whats your thoughts?
I still find Keranos a bigger threat than other commanders because he has red cards that can do land wipes and win the game just by himself. I also assume that control players will adjust to the -10 life points by adding sweepers or anti-aggro cards. Aggro, Elfball, Midranges and Combo decks will more likely to dominate the meta.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love, hope, prosperity, abundance and perfect health shall follow me all the rest of my life.
Rashmi and Jori-En are different monsters entirely. Rashmi is a much better control deck, Jori is a better tempo deck I feel. I wouldn't even try to build a control Jori-En, like I did before, now that Rashmi exists, since Rashmi draws a lot more. The only thing I miss is Blood Moon, but Parallax Tide with access to a lot of effects than make it work feels fine (I don't know if you realize this, but Song of the Dryads also works with Parallax Tide, just as bounce effects or Beast Within/Krosan Grip).
Keranos is the better comparison. I find Keranos a very good deck, and maybe it will be better suited than Rashmi in the 20 life meta, we'll wait and see. Having access to a lot of wipes and an indestructible commander is clearly a great thing (I'm also a Keranos player, I love it). Also Wildfire and Jokulhaups can pretty much stall aggro decks. That said, Keranos will NOT draw you as many cards as Rashmi does. Not even close. Not only he's able to draw you only 1 extra card per turn, sometimes he won't draw, but Bolt instead. Granted, that's still card advantage, but sometimes is not what you need. Rashmi also does cost 1 less.
What green has that red doesn't is access to Exploration, life gain, fog effects, top manipulation, Song of the Dryads and Regrowth. Those are certainly advantages that balance the decks.
Exploration makes you able to play a turn 2 Rashmi, which on the play is pretty much a "Did you keep a hand with removal? Do I have Force/Foil/Misdirection?" game winning question.
Life gain and Fog can make you able to stall the game against certain decks. I'm telling you: Green/White aggro CANNOT win through Constant Mists. I'd say red too, but they have direct damage so it depends on your life total. Only black discard and blue counterspells will hurt that plan.
Mirri's Guile and Sylvan Library are card Keranos would simply love to have access to. You have them here. Song of the Dryads is probably one of the best commander removals in the format. It's a great card overall, but can definitely make a Commander go away for good.
Also, being able to gain life is important. I cannot stress how awesome Retreat to Kazandu is here. It does everything you want. Gains life and makes Rashmi bigger so she can attack and block better. Really something great.
The only matchups that worry me are Geist, Narset and Thrun. Hexproof commander are terrible for us and my only answer for now are Wash Out and Arcane Lighthouse. I'd love to play Order of Succession, but it's not possible here... any tips? If this gets worse maybe I'll have to add Expedition Map or Tolaria West to the deck.
I'll play with the deck this friday and post an updated list. Unfortunately still without Mirri's Guile and Voidslime since they're in the mail...
LATE EDIT: Oh, and you're right about her being vulnerable to being stolen. But you can say that for almost every Commander, right? Not Keranos, I know, but Grand Arbiter Augustin IV for example (which is another deck that's similar to Rashmi.
Against control decks like Narset, I would suggest to add more free spells like, commandeer, pact of negation, daze, foil, misdirection and FoW. They fit perfectly well to Rashmi as she will reward you with extra draw you need when you cast these spells.
Popping expedition map for wasteland will disrupt Narset strategy.
Regrowth, Songs of Dryad, Beast within are the card I would like to test first and evaluate.
I don't like Regrowth per se (I'd play Eternal Witness before it). But I'm using Reclaim because of Rashmi interaction and thinking of playing Pulse of Murasa when 20 life hits us.
I thought about Commandeer and Pact a lot. Commandeer I tested instead of Misdirection, but the problem is it won't hit Narset/Geist with their Bolts/Plows like Misdirection does. Of course, it steals PWs and is great when it does. Let's see how the deck develops, but I wouldn't trade Foil or Misdirection for it right now. Pact of Negation is cool, specially if I add Tolaria West, but tapping out the next turn is so bad since this deck isn't combo... Maybe Swan Song is just better.
Just played another 8-man FNM, this time in a different LGS that I never played before - so it was a pretty unknown field. Got a 3-0 solid win and got a Tireless Tracker as part of my prize. So now I'll just need to wait the post office to deliver Voidslime and Mirri's Guile for the deck to be complete (I also got my Botanical Sanctum preorder today)
So, I'll post the list, the changes and the report, in that order.
CHANGES
This changes are complex to evaluate, because they involve both taking Depths combo out and not having all the cards I want. I'm missing Voidslime, Mirri's Guile, Tireless Tracker and maybe Kiora, the Crashing Wave - which will probably substitute Prognostic Sphinx, so my "perfect list" is still a bit far away at the moment (in 10 to 15 days the cards will get here).
But the general thinking behind this changes is that I needed more planeswalkers. They work great in a deck that can stall turns like this, and they produce tokens so I can beat and block faster. Both Nissa and Garruk were on my initial builds, but I cut them for other cards I wanted to test out (things like Preemptive Strike). Their presence also makes Umezawa's Jitte better, and so still in the deck.
A greater number of planeswakers also make Time Warp much better, which is a feature of this deck.
OUT Thespian's Stage Dark Depths Life from the Loam
IN Nissa, Vastwood Seer Garruk Wildspeaker Botanical Sanctum
I decided against the Depths combo. I still don't know if it's the right call (it can be really explosive and is extremely recursive and easily tutorable), but it was taking me 2 slots (Depths and Loam) that I couldn't afford anymore. Maybe in the future, when the list is more streamlined I can come back to this. Anyway, Thespian's Stage was in a land slot, so the trade for Sanctum was easy to think about. Sanctum can be great sometimes, but coming into play tapped mid-late game is really annoying and got in my way at least 1 time during the tournament.
Nissa is an Elf and can enjoy Cavern of Souls benefits for it. She's pretty strong, but can be slow. I'm not afraid to throw her in my opponents face just to fetch a forest and demand an answer.
Garruk suffers the problem of needing GG to cast, which made him not castable turn 2 in one of my games this tournament. Other than that drawback, he's a steady source of creatures and mana, so he's really, really good. Overall the combo change to a more grindy PW one makes the deck a lot more reliable. Imagine yourself drawing Dark Depths turn 4 vs drawing Garruk. Loam and Depths are both bad cards outside of Intuition piles.
OUT Krosan Grip
IN Retreat to Kazandu
This next 2 changes I'm amazingly happy about. Retreat to Kazandu is just awesome. Of course, the life gaining abilities weren't used this tournament (30 life), but the +1/+1 is incredible. It can make dumb creatures like Beast tokens into 7/7s pretty quickly. I won a game on time because I had Kazandu and 2 fetches. It works great with Exploration and also with my new love (next change).
I was never sad to see it, because it always gave me some kind of advantage. I'm pretty sure that when we change to 20 life this will become a staple.
OUT Fact or Fiction
IN Gush
I said before I was unhappy spending 4 mana to draw cards. I was afraid of playing Gush because losing 2 lands can be an unbearable tempo loss. Not if you use Gush to also play spells free for you via Rashmi. Gush has several uses here. It can generate mana if you don't have a land drop, it works great with Retreat to Kazandu (and Tireless Tracker in the future), it's a great combo with Foil (I used it already), making you not needing to hold an Island in your hand, and it's amazing with Sylvan Library, Jace, Mirri's Guile or anything that sets up the top of your library, since 90% os the decks cards cost less than 5. It not unusual to know what's on top and play Rashmi tapping out, just to play a Gush in response to your opponents spell and reveal a counter on top. You should note that this is NOT Gush's optimal use - and everyone should read Stephen Menendian's book on the card, Understanding Gush. It's focused on Vintage, but a cool read anyway.
Overall, Gush's a pretty solid draw card that just gets better because of the deck's interactions. It's so good it makes me want to try retrace cards and Mox Diamond (if Savage Conception costed G less I'd heavily consider playing it).
OUT Spell Pierce
IN Commandeer
This 2 changes are tests. I figured I wanted to try Commandeer since it can protect Rashmi without mana. Commandeer is a pretty underplayed card and gets people by surprise when they're not expecting it. Against decks without counters, it can turn a game around (I stole a Birthing Pod from the Animar player and got Prognostic Sphinx with it, which helped me a lot).
The problem with Commandeer is that the card disadvantage really hurts if Rashmi isn't in play. It's also worse than Misdirection in counter wars. But, it can really take games away. I almost stole a Mystic Confluence with it against Grand Arbiter, which would've won me that game without doubt. I took Spell Pierce out because they target the same kind of spell, so I figured it was a conflicting slot. Maybe that's wrong to do since early game interaction is important and Spell Pierce is good at winning early counter wars - which is crucial against UW decks, for example.
OUT False Summoning
IN Capsize
I also wanted to test Capsize. I felt too slow, but I wanted to try anyway since it can simply lock a player out of the game when the time is right. It happened against Animar one game, but I was already winning that game anyway. I'm not shy of using it as a 3 mana Boomerang. IT also has better timing issues than creature counter. I don't know, though. If I'm in the position of spending 6 mana per turn on Capsize, I'm pretty sure I'm winning. So why not play Boomerang instead? Or maybe this is the slot for Dissolve?
REPORT
Animar, Maelstrom, Grand Arbiter
First match was against Animar. I realized later his list it pretty subpar (he doesn't play all 1 mana elves, for example). Game one I sent his animar to moon prison and he never came back (he tried to Acidic Slime it, but was Trickbind'ed. The deck was slow enough to let me take control with time, although I don't remember the details.
Second game I kept one of those unmulliganable hands with 2 islands, 1 Preordain, 1 Song of the Dryads a FoW and 2 others. I Preordained first turn to see True-Name Nemesis and Miscalculation, binning both and drawing the forest I needed to Song his Animar 3rd turn and take it from there.
1-0 (2-0)
Second match was against Maelstrom. This is a hard matchup because we have no definitive way to deal with Maelstrom himself other than Song and Imprisoned. Stealing him with Vedalken Shackles is barely possible. If fact, I've been wondering if Shackles is better than Treachery in this deck. I'll have to test that. The good thing about Shackles is that it laughs on aggros face, stealing creatures and blocking with them forever if you need to.
So, this games were hard. Game one we both mulligan to 6, and I keep a bad hand of Reality Shift, Gitaxian Probe, Trickbind and 3 lands. I figured with the scry and Probe I have a better chance of drawing business than with another mulligan (I was on the draw). I scry seeing Snapcaster Mage and put him on the bottom. You'll rarely see me complain about mana flood or stuff like that, because good deckbuilding and shuffling reduces that a lot. But in this game I drew 8 lands in a row. EIGHT lands in a row, essentially having only a Reality Shift to kill his Maelstrom. And yet, I can say I played Rashmi turn 4, he played Maelstrom revealing two rocks, and I thought "Well, maybe I can win this". But I figured I should go to game 2 because of time restrictions. So yeah I lost.
Game two I managed to control his board with Constant Mists and a few missed land drops on his side. I countered one of his rocks and that was enough to set him back 1 mana and keep from playing Maelstrom for a few turns. I eventually Prognostic Sphinx, who filtered my way through True-Name Nemesis and then I could stop sacrificing lands.
Third game I played Exploration into turn 2 Rashmi. He managed to ramp quick too but a Brainstorm brought me Parallax Tide. I kept him with 4 lands and nothing to do for 4 turns in a row (I bounced Parallax Tide back at the end of one of his turns just to play it back again) trying to find Stifle, in vain. He eventually got his lands back, but I already had Jace and Garruk on the board, coupled with Exploration. He resolved Maelstrom, but gut his Inferno Titan countered, as was his follow-up Ugin. Garruk tokens held Maelstrom off while I searched for answers. Maelstrom is funny because you don't want to kill or bounce it ever. Time was called and I decided to go all-in. Played the fantastic Retreat to Kazandu revealing Umezawa's Jitte from the top (I set it up with Sylvan Library) and bounced Maelstrom to attack with Rashmi, Vendilion and Ashaya (Nissa's legendary token). I had a bunch of counters in my hand so I didn't care about Maelstrom. I eventually countered everything (Forbid was involved) and attacked with a giant Kazandu'ed Rashmi for the win on turn 3 of time.
2-0 (4-1)
Third game was against Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. I feared this match because I didn't test it enough. I think he really made a lot of mistakes this match. First game he resolved as Jace, Architect of Thought on an empty table and +1 him. I'll never understand why, but that Jace kept +1'ing until he lost the game, instead of drawing a bunch of cards. He also resolved Augustin, and I was locked away from the game. I manage to trick him, though. I had Gitaxian Probe'd him and tried to Misdirection his Swords into Arbiter to make him spend his mana countering it. He had a Complicate, Remand and Pact of Negation. He tried to Remand his own Swords, which I Negated and he cycled Complicate to win the counter war (he was on 5 lands, I was on 4). On my turn I tried to turn his Arbiter into a Waste and he decided to Pact to protect Jace I guess (I had Rashmi on the table). Unfortunately for him, he was on 5 mana and I Wastelanded on of his lands, making him lose on upkeep. That's a free win
Game two I managed to Probe him again and play Song of the Dryad into his Augustin (it was probably a mistake on my part to let Augustin resolve, but well). He had a Cyclonic Rift in hand and I had Misdirection. The problem is I had no permanents on the table so I couldn't Misdirect if he tried. I eventually got his defense down trying to play Nissa (countered) and using Tectonic Edge on one of his 2 blue-producing lands (he probably drew all his basic plains this game. Eventually Ancestral Vision resolved, Rashmi came down and I drew so much I couldn't even keep all the cards in my hand. He was locked out with Forbid and Capsize, so eventually conceded.
3-0 (6-1)
EDIT: I posted the wrong list and forgot 2 important changes in it. Just corrected it.
Forgot to assess my feelings with the deck. I feel it plays very well and gets far ahead when Rashmi is in play and everything is working fine. But I fear it's hard to take over the game after you lose the first attrition battles. It lacks flashy plays. It's also very mana hungry for a deck that has most cards costing 3 or less mana. I feel I won against Grand Arbiter because he played badly. This is aggravated by conditional counters. Negate, Preemptive Strike, False Summoning, Misdirection and Commandeer can be great when you have targets for them. But is hurts when your opponent plays Jace turn 4 and you're sitting on a Preemptive Strike, or if he plays GAAIV and you have Negate. So I wonder if the right path for the deck is to add more hard counters like Dissolve and Dismiss. I really don't like mana heavy counters in this deck, but I'd consider playing Dissolve.
Other than that, the deck feels like it has an answer to almost everything. I didn't face any fast aggro, so I can't understand yet how the deck will do against that.
Congratulations on your win! You did a excellent performance. I consider Rashmi as a card engine so it's ok to discard cards just to play free spells. I would suggest the following cards.
Thanks! I've been really happy with the deck. It stills needs tuning - but I believe by the end of the month I'll have a nice list, when I get my hands on Mirri's Guile, etc.
I prefer Mox Diamond over Gemstone Caverns since Mox can cantrip with Rashmi later in the game and is not useless after turn 1. I've been thinking a lot about Mox Diamond lately, just don't know what to cut for it (I think Exploration is better than Mox). Submerge and Snapback are on my radar. Snapback specially seems pretty good. But I think I'd rather have a Snap instead. And if I'm playing creature removal, why not just play Lignify? Submerge I don't think I'll play because it doesn't work against some decks, and I don't want dead draws. But Snapback is a really interesting card.
About the PWs, I tested a few of them. I don't want another Jace though. I feel having 2 is already too much sometimes.
Teferi is also on my maybeboard, since it could go into Prognostic Sphinx's slot and is an overall great card. The fact it doesn't protect itself is a real problem... I think I'd probably play Consecrated Sphinx first instead of him. Kiora, the Crashing Wave is on and off the list. I haven't tested her too much because I don't have one, but it's already ordered. It helps hold back, and her -1 is really great. She's also easier to cast than Garruk and works great with FoW, Misdirection and Commandeer. I normally test her into Prognostic Sphinx's slot, and she'll probably make her way into the deck sooner or later.
The other Kiora is just bad though.
And Garruk Relentless is BG, so I can't play it (or I would).
Oh. I forgot that Garruk relentless was G/B. Sorry. I'm not sure about the utility land with dethrone ability. Maybe blighted cataract and blighted woodlandis better in late game. I will definitely test mox diamond and lignify. I also notice that the deck needs soft/hard removals.
I am testing Temporal Spring and Karn Liberated. Also, the two kioras does give slight board advantage and needs big fat creatures to protect itself so they are out.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love, hope, prosperity, abundance and perfect health shall follow me all the rest of my life.
Temporal Spring seems interesting. It's a shame it's not an instant, so you can't really gain a turn with it. It works with fine with Jace TMS and can be a good early tempo play, but being a sorcery does screw that up a little.
Karn would be great in the deck. I'm just avoiding big mana cards for now because I don't know how well they work under 20 life and I don't want to build a deck that's completely off for the 20-life meta. I'm slowly adapting it.
Blighted Cataract is too slow (7 mana is way worse than 5). Woodlands can be good, but we don't really need ramp spells in this deck. The thing about Throne is that it shines on grindy matchups. We just have to understand how many of those are going to exist in the 20 life world. Throne is probably going to lose greatness.
I've been trying stuff in the Prognostic Sphinx slot, but for now it seems the best choice. Flying is huge to stop airborne threats, since we have only Clique as a flyer. I'm thinking about: Talrand, Torrential Gearkulk, Kiora and Tireless Tracker for that slot.
I tested Snapback and Temporal Spring for a while. Snapback doesn't make the cut IMO. I never want to exile a card in my hand for that effect, so Echoing Truth/Boomerang/Snap are just better. Boomerang may be the best one for tempo, but Echoing Truth deals well with Titania.
Temporal Spring is interesting and is great when revealed by Rashmi after a 4+ CC trigger. But I can't say it's better than an instant bounce spell, or even better than something like Consign to Dream or Set Adrift. Three mana sorcery speed is not that great as a bounce spell. It can be a tempo boost on certain situations, but bounce is good because it gains you a turn to have open mana to counter what you bounced, not just tempo. Spring seems good to me in a deck that packs tempo threats like Tarmogoyf. I'm not saying Rashmi can't be built that way, but there are probably better tempo commanders than her (Jori-En comes to mind).
Putting something on top is great, though. I wonder if Set Adrift or Consign to Dream have room in the deck.
You are right. Snapback is not a vintage power level card but I find temporal spring a tempo spell at sorcery speed. I am looking for 2-3cc hard removals because I do not want the deck to rely heavily on counter magic. Resolving Temporal Spring can be used on any permanents especially man-lands (which I cannot counter) and prevents them drawing a new card. That will be a tempo gain against mid-range and control decks.
I tested set adrift before. I did not include it in a control shell because I need the delve for Dig thru time and Treasure Cruise. Another problem with Set Adrift is that it can only be played on mid or late game and it cannot hit man-lands. Consign to dream is an R/G hate card and can be also used on Parallax Tide. As a control player, I personally hate man-lands so I will give it a try in my deck.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love, hope, prosperity, abundance and perfect health shall follow me all the rest of my life.
Dig and Cruise are banned, so the delve for Set Adrift is irrelevant. Temporal Spring would be amazing as instant speed. As sorcery speed, all I can say is that it requires a lot of testing to prove better than any other card. Consign to Dream is a bounce spell at 3 mana that, by being instant, can be equivalent tempo-wise to Temporal Spring. It being able to put red/green spells on top is just an extra that can be relevant in a Titania/Zurgo/Anafenza/Marchesa dominated meta. It can even remove Keranos from the table.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
She's a black belt in karate
Working for the city
She has to discipline her body
It's been a while since I've been excited with a commander as I've been with Rashmi, Eternities Crafter. The last time this happened was with Daretti, Scrap Savant and I've been keeping the topic on that deck updated since then. Rashmi is the real deal. She can win the attrition race with ease and draws you a lot of cards, while dribbling restrictions like Leovold's.
I don't understand why everybody isn't talking about this card advantage monster. I've seen 2 threads about here here, but they're mostly abandoned and their approach (elfball and turboland) is very different from what I build (pure control), so I decided it was best to make a new one. I think it's funny that people think setting up to cast spells with her ability even matters. You don't need to build around that at all, that's just something that happens once in a while and it's great. But that's not how Rashmi battles her pink robots. She does that by drawing you a lot of cards. And I mean A LOT OF FRIGGING CARDS IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY.
I've been tinkering with a list for a couple weeks now, and I just came back from my local FNM Commander tournament with a tournament win (2-0-1 in an 8-man tournament). Funny enough, it was the very same record I had with Daretti in the same situation - brewing a deck, playing with it on a tournament the first night it was possible and winning with a 2-0-1 record :P. Wins against Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon and Karlov of the Ghost Council and a draw against Sidisi, Undead Vizier. Granted, I played a few Tier 2 decks, but the deck felt great, although yet incomplete. I'll show you the list and then discuss card choices and a mini-report on the tournament.
17 Island
4 Forest
1 Breeding Pool
1 Tropical Island
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Mana Confluence
1 Command Tower
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Yavimaya Coast
1 Temple of Mystery
1 Halimar Depths
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Wasteland
1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Prognostic Sphinx
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Exploration
1 Sylvan Library
1 Parallax Tide
1 Ancestral Vision
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Peek
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Brainstorm
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Force Spike
1 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
1 Stifle
1 Arcane Denial
1 Negate
1 Counterspell
1 Logic Knot
1 Mana Leak
1 Memory Lapse
1 Miscalculation
1 Preemptive Strike
1 False Summoning
1 Remand
1 Trickbind
1 Unsubstantiate
1 Forbid
1 Cryptic Command
1 Foil
1 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
1 Mystic Confluence
1 Reality Shift
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Beast Within
1 Imprisoned in the Moon
1 Song of the Dryads
1 Krosan Grip
1 Psionic Blast
1 Wash Out
1 Noxious Revival
1 Reclaim
1 Constant Mists
1 Life from the Loam
1 Intuition
1 Time Warp
1 Temporal Trespass
(this deck is 3 cards down from my build right now. I just didn't find them to buy in time: Mirri's Guile, Moment's Peace and Voidslime)
TOURNAMENT REPORT
1-0
Second game was against a black Sidisi. This deck had a lot of weird deck choices (I discovered he played with 36 lands only for example) and so was kinda of an easy match. Funny enough, it contains the only game I lost. First game I dominated completely winning easily in spite of his discard spells. Second game was the funniest story. I resolved Rashmi and he killed her. Having a Noxious Revival in hand, I decided to let her go to the graveyard. On my upkeep I play Noxious targeting her and he plays Imp's Mischief on it! Hahahahahahah omg. I admit the obvious mistake of letting your commander into the graveyard (when we had Dig/Cruise it was easier to do). I conceded the game in response because I figured it would take too much time to win and I'd have better chances game 3. That was a mistake too. I should've let the game go on - I have Snapcaster, Jace, Reclaim and Temporal Tresspass to get Rashmi back and he really doesn't have a competitive deck so I guess I could even stall until time was called with a 1-0 victory again. Anyway we got to game 3 and he got an early Cabal Coffers, which generated a lot of mana and gave a headachw for a few turns. I controlled the game anyway but couldn't seal the deal in time. I tried to find a time walk when we got to 5 turns since I'd win with a Jitte-equipped Rashmi, but couldn't do it.
1-0-1 (morally I consider this a 2-0 hahahaha)
Third game was against Karlov. This deck has been beating a lot of players in our tournaments but I hadn't played against him yet. First game I kept a sketchy hand of 2 lands, Baby Jace, Song of the Dryads and expensive stuff. I figured resolving Song on Karlov, with Jace helping me dig for a 3rd land would be good enough. Even if he removed Jace, it would get him out of the Karlov curve and give me time too. I couldn't find lands for the first few turns, taking 16 commander damage from Karlov by turn 4 (he's can get really big). I then managed to resolve Song on him, hoping not to see a Disenchant. He didn't have it and I managed to come back from there. Without Karlov the deck suffers a lot to be aggressive. A LOT of turns later, Marit Lage beat his face 3 times (yes, 3 times) and I won.
Game 2 was a lot easier to me. I got Song in my hand AGAIN, this time being able to resolve in at the right time, with counter backup. Turn 6 I played a Wash Out, Foil'ed his threat coming back down drawing Parallax Tide with Rashmi. I played Tide on my turn, revealling Intuition and playing it for Trickbind, Stifle, Noxious Revival. Game over.
2-0-1 (1st place with tie breakers)
HOW DOES THE DECK PLAY AND DECKBUILDING THEORY
Protecting Rashmi is also important. This deck plays less cantrips than the average blue (I've been trying to find room for Impulse) because with Rashmi in play you don't need any of that. I'm serious, you have no idea how many cards Rashmi is able to draw you in a few turns. Drawing 1-2 extra cards per turn it just insane.
About the deck itself, I fell in love immediately when Rashmi was spoiled. By that time I was still thinking about Leovold, but I tested it and, just like Tasigur, I never liked playing with it. I have no idea why, but I always hated playing WITH Tasigur, and now with Leovold. Rashmi felt right, so I started brewing. I never thought about abusing her ability to cast spells. I just want to draw cards, eventually, by chance, playing free spells. My first build was an Opposition based, creature heavy deck. I'm bad at brewing those though, and so it didn't feel that great. I switched to a more controlling build, which still had Prophet of Kruphix and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Primeval Titan, Consecrated Sphinx, Hooting Mandrils and more equipment. I started feeling the deck had too many high, costed cards (Mandrils being an exception) and that I didn't need big beaters to win, but had to deal with explosive early starts better. Sure, resolving Primeval can be great against aggro (and it fetches Depths combo too), but tapping out for 6 mana can mean you're open to a lot of nonsense from your opponent. Prophet and Teferi still feel fine, specially because my meta has a few Maelstroms and Teferi breaks that matchup apart. I just fell out of slots.
So I started building a more controllish shell, and without big creatures, I realized I needed a combo win since hitting with Rashmi is hard, even with Swords. My options were Earthcraft/Squirrel Nest, Intruder Alarm/Sprout Swarm and Dark Depths/Thespian's Stage. Intruder Alarm feels nice because it can be used to contain swarms too. If you have counters in hand but don't have how to deal with the table, Alarm can keep your opponents creatures tapped for a few turns. Sprout Swarm is also OK alone, specially with Prophet of Kruphix, so I felt ok with it. Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest also are fine by themselves, although Earthcraft is not at its peak power in this current list. I opted out Alarm/Swarm once I decided I'd play with Intuition. Intuition felt great here since, with 2 regrowth effects and Snapcaster, if can function as a pseudo-tutor for any card. I had Flash of Insight and Think Twice in the deck too, making the Flash/Think/Moment's Peace pile also appealing. So then I decided Loam and Depths would be a more reliable combo to have, since I already played Exploration. Loam is great to draw you card if you need to, because dredging and playing it just to trigger Rashmi is a possible play it you need to dig a little bit more.
So, keeping on land choices, Arcane Lighthouse feels very important here. Can be fetched by Intuition/Loam too and make dealing with Geist, Narset and Thrun a little bit less of a pain, since the deck lacks redundancy of non-targeted removal. It could be cut, but for now feels great. The problem is I can't play Order of Succession optimally here.. can I?
Halimar Depths is also a uncommon choice, and goes against what I said of not building around Rashmi, but I think a few cards nodding to her ability, as long as they're fine on their own too, are OK. Halimar could be cut in the future 20-life meta if I feel tapped lands are too slow. Temple is harder to cut because it adds U and G.
My creature based is the common blue utility creatures. I added True-Name Nemesis as its the best wall in the game. It's there mainly to block, and eventually hit with equipments. Prognostic Sphinx is the real duck out of the water here. So, I'm searching (still am) for a higher costed creature that can take over the game. I tested Primeval and Consecrated Sphinx and, although they're great, tapping out turn 6 is too much, specially if you think about the future meta. So Sphinx met a few requirements I wanted when tapping-out to play a creature: it's hard to remove, has evasion and gives me some kind of card advantage/quality. I thought of her because my thinking was "I really needed a Dragonlord Ojutai here" and Prognostic was the closes I have. Her Scry 3 ability works nice with Rashmi, which is a plus. She feels great, and really helped me win one of my games (I guess it was against Skithyrishxxxx). The only problem she has is that I wish every day she was a 4/5... You can't have it all can you?
CARD CHOICES
Condescend: I feel the need to explain this one though because it was a Mental Misstep right before the tournament and I changed it. I also thought about Negate, and I'm still on the fence here. It'll probably become Voidslime once I get my hands on it. Voidslime is great because it's a 3rd Stifle for Parallax Tide. But Misstep and Negate help you protect Rashmi... I don't know, I'm really debating this slot.
Umezawa's Jitte
This is the sketchiest slot in the whole list. Don't get me wrong, Jitte is great and is here to deal with creatures for me, but I hardly have anyone to equip it. Rashmi is a small body, and I can't just attack with her to die and put tokens on Jitte (which you can do in creature heavy builds). It happened a few times that I had Rashmi and Jitte and I couldn't attack and the Jitte was there useless. I could play Sword of Feast and Famine or Sword of Fire and Ice here, specially if I add a trampler like Hooting Mandrils or Managorger Hydra. This is an open slot.
Vedalken Shackles
I played with Gilded Drake too, but the 3/3 flyer was getting hard to deal with. Maybe Treachery is a good card to have, and the best way to deal with swarms. Maybe I should just take something like Reality Shift out for Treachery. The real shame is that I can't really play Order of Succession, but I wish I could since it's the best.
Cavern of Souls
I don't have a creature theme, but resolving Rashmi through Cavern is great. It can also name Merfolk for True-Name (important in a few matchups) or Wizards for the rest of the crew. It's a cuttable slot, but for now I feel fine with it.
Planeswalkers
I only play with 2 PWs (both Jaces) but I had more before. I had Nissa, Vastwood Seer and either Garruk Wildspeaker or Kiora, the Crashing Wave. They all feel great, but my instant-based approach made them fall out of grace. Maybe, though, instead of adding a big hitter, I'd be better adding one of them to create tokens. Nissa is specially cool because it costs only 3, can be an early blocker if needed, fetches lands and is an Elf, so works great with Cavern (uncounterable PWs are the best). Garruk costing GG makes it way harder to play turn 4. Kiora is great, and the Exploration effect is much aprecciated (I'll talk about that later), and she's easier to cast than Garruk. But she can't produce creatures outside her hard-to-reach Ultimate, so loses points. I'm still debating what to do.
Reclaim/Noxious Revival
I said I didn't build around Rashmi's trigger, but these 2 cards are the only nods to that. I wanted Regrowth effects because they help with Intuition and with general removal, but I felt Noxious and Reclaim were better than Regrowth and Eternal Witness here. Witness is great, but the GG requirement hurts. The thing is, you can play Noxious in response to Rashmi's trigger to freely play a spell from your graveyard. That means Beast Within can become a Counterspell too, allowing you to cast it in response to a spell from your opponent to use it as a counterspell too. The greatest use of all is doing that with Ancestral Vision, though. It feels amazing to use Reclaim in response to whatever and draw 3. It's a fringe use, you can't count on it, but it helps a lot sometimes because you know your G open can mean any spell on your graveyard (specially with a FoW/Misdirection in hand). I may have to change Reclaim into Pulse of Murasa in the future, as a nod to the 20-life meta.
Constant Mists
This is the deck's real beast. Non-black, non-blue decks can do NOTHING against this. I held a Titania down during tests for turns and turns with this alone. My friend bet me I couldn't keep up playing Fog every turn against his 8 Elementals because I'd eventually run out of land drops. 8 turns later he realized he was wrong. Since every turn I play Mists I draw an extra card, you are never ever missing land drops. If you find Life from the Loam, it's infinite, if you find Exploration, you can start growing your manabase again. The only bad thing to this card is that it doesn't work great as a lock before turn 5-6 (unless you have Exploration). Also, it's very important to note that you CAN use buyback if you play it with Rashmi's trigger or Jace, Telepath Unbound -3. That MATTERS.
Exploration
I won a game against Titania simply by resolving Rashmi turn 2 with this. Other than that, Exploration helps the Constant Mists plan and also the Depths combo. You can hold both pieces in hand and play + activate them the same turn, helping avoid Stifle or Wasteland. Exploration also makes me wanna play Gush and maybe even Thwart. I've been trying to find room for Mox Diamond to help that plan too.
Preemptive Strike/False Summoning
Note I'm only playing Strik and Summoning for style points. You could easily use the easier to find Remove Soul and Essence Scatter here. I think those are important slots, but also fragile. They help against Geist and early beats, but they don't protect Rashmi from removal. So I've been tinkering with the slots, trying to understand is they're the way to go or if I should just play Negate and Dissolve instead. For now they are working, but there have been times I felt vulnerable because I couldn't do anything and had this in hand (on the Imp's Mischief play against Sidisi I had Strike in my hand)
Reality Shift
Is this the best removal spell I could be playing in this slot? Am I missing something? Is Boomerang better? I've been happy with Shift for now, since the manifest token can be blocked by Rashmi (be careful though!). I wonder if it makes the cut, though... is there anything I forgot?
Forbid
This is an "infinite" once-per-turn counterspell with Rashmi on the table. If you have Forbid + 2 cards in hand you can play it with buyback, discard the 2, drawing 1 with Rashmi and restocking Forbid with the draw for the turn. It IS a late game lock depending on game state. But having a counter that costs you basically only 1 card in hand to buyback is awesome.
Foil
Free counters are great here to protect turn 4 Rashmi. Foil saved me MANY times. I prefer it to Pact of Negation because if I play Rashmi turn 4, I can't protect if with Pact. Pact is cool because if can be revealed from the top and played by any spell, but that's actually less important for a counter than costing more. Foil can be played and reveal almost every card in the deck, that's way better. The card disadvantage hurts, but if you protect Rashmi with it, it's worth it.
Time Warp
Maybe there are good reasons to play more of these effects. I'm only at 2 because I own only two, but Temporal Manipulation is "cheap" enough that I could get one. Feels to me in a 20-life meta the Time Walks will get a lot better, so maybe its time.
Mirri's Guile, Voidslime, Moment's Peace
These should've been on the initial list, but I don't have the cards yet.
Hooting Mandrils, Tireless Tracker, Managorger Hydra
I miss a cheap beater in the deck. These 3 are my considerations for now. Do I have better options I'm forgetting (green's card database is not that clear to me as blue's). Meloku the Clouded Mirror is also an option to beat through the air that I like a lot. For now I'd go either Meloku or Tracker. But there's the option of playing Nissa, Garruk or Kiora I mentioned before. I really need to test all of this.
Capsize
This is just bonkers in this deck. I took it out because it's slow as hell, but feels great once it gets going. I don't think it makes the cut, unfortunately. I've been thinking about buyback cards like Sprout Swarm and Wurmcalling though.
Cursed Totem
A great way to stop elfball. It works against a lot of troublesome creatures too. Need to find room for it.
Commandeer
Another free counter. It can steel planeswalkers and redirect spot removal, but the cost is steep it you don't have Rashmi in play. I think it could go into Misdirection's slot, since it has a bit more uses and the card disadvantage can be overcome depending on matchups. It works poorly as a 2nd Force of Will during counter wars, though.
Mox Diamond
A bit of acceleration to get to that Remove Soul mana turn 1 wouldn't hurt... late game it's a card to trigger Rashmi sorcery speed for free too. I wouldn't take out a land for it I guess, so it's again a matter of slots.
Glimmer of Genius
Did anyone test this? Feels so powerful...
Flash of Insight
This is great as an Intuition target or as a double Rashmi trigger. I mentioned Impulse before but this is probably better.
Overall the deck feels great, and I feel fine going into the 20-life meta with it. There are a few changes I can make, mostly adding blockers and maybe going back to Prophet of Kruphix and Teferi, but also a few life-gain utility cards.
NODS TO 20-LIFE META
It's possible in the future I should consider playing any number of these:
EDIT: organized original decklist to separate cards by role (counter, removal, etc)
Temporal Mastery is cool, but Temporal Manipulation is better. Depending on top manipulation for it to work feels bad for me.
Spike Weaver is pretty interesting. I used to play it into Oath of Druids back in the day (Morphling, Spike Feeder and Weaver as only creatures). Problem is decks can deal with her with removal and there's no recursion available for creatures (or at least just a few). For that mana I'd probably be better playing Garruk Wildspeaker.
Although I understand Witness' appeal, I don't think she's right for this build. If I played Edric or Skullclamp, maybe that'd be the case. Also, I wouldn't take Reclaim out for her I guess. She's pretty bonkers though. If I remember right, she's the most played green card in the format after Sylvan Library.
This is almost an experimental list, trying the full control Rashmi CA route. But I don't think it holds too much with 20-life. Stuff like Hooting Mandrils is probably needed, and a few token-producing PWs.
Taking Life from the Loam out makes the Arcane Lighthouse plan worse against Geist/Narset. I wonder Expedition Map could work, maybe a Maze of Ith too for other matches. Also thinking about stuff like Arena of the Ancients and Will of the Naga. Torrential Gearhulk may also be a good idea.
Retreat to Kazandu, Pulse of Murasa and Spellskite are all great cards for 20 life.
EDIT: but Maze, Will of the Naga and Arena of the Ancients are all things I'm thinking with 20 life in my head - they're not needed for 30 life games.
EDIT 2: also, building for 20 life without knowing the banlist is a big hassle. Depending on what they unban the deck may change quite a bit... it was a serious mistake not to give us a banlist.
The sphinx is cute but seems pretty subpar when you have the entire history of blue and green magic cards available to use.
The Time Walks seem like a win-more card; I don't see how they turn a game around for you.
Most of your cards on the list to add seem worse than cards in the deck, so I think you made good decisions thus far. Voidslime is probably a good addition though. And there's also the UUGG Mana Drain which could be a nice way to get something like Jitte or a Sword on the board without over-committing your mana in your main phase.
Oh and Capsize is amazing, I love it in long grindy permission decks. Like Emrakul, access to Exploration makes it even better I think.
Look, there aren't good or bad cards, just cards that do what you want and cards that don't. I'm not gonna defend Prognostic Sphinx, because I know its' limitations. With 20 life, it may probably be cut for a cheaper creature like Hooting Mandrils or Tireless Tracker. That said, she's really, really good in this deck. She's awesome in grindy matchups, being hard to remove and filtering your draws, and she's good against fast aggro because she blocks everything and they normally need 2 removal spells to tap it. If you say there are better creatures for this slot in the blue/green cardpool, I believe you, but I need names (specially green since I'm not as familiar with green as I am with blue)
The Time Walks are so incredible I'm thinking of adding Temporal Manipulation to the deck for Intuition into 3 Walks (I already do that with Noxious Revival). With Snapcaster, Noxious Revival/Reclaim and Baby Jace, playing 3 turns in a row is a common play. It also makes Dark Depths faster if you manage to activate the combo and Time Warp. They're seriously good, specially because you draw a card off it with Rashmi in play.
I tried Plasm Capture already and it feels very subpar. This deck does not produce GG that easily by turn 4; most of the times I don't have uses for the mana I get; and in general 4 mana counters are bad in my book (specially thinking forward to 20 life). The only ones I play are Cryptic Command (because it's versatile), Foil (because it can be free) and Mystic Confluence (see Cryptic Command), and I wouldn't play any other - maybe Pact of Negation (which I consider a 5 mana counter).
This deck needs to change for 20 life, and I've been tinkering with it in that direction. The best card so far is Retreat to Kazandu. It can turn around games on its own and it's hard to remove. I believe that Retreat, coupled with Tireless Tracker, Courser of Kruphix and Exploration can be very strong. Also, feels good to play a fetch, use it and gain 3 life
I've been thinking a lot about Fact or Fiction. I believe 4 mana draw spells it's not where the deck wants to be. Maybe Thirst for Knowledge, maybe Gush? Gush seems pretty cool, specially if the deck really goes the Landfall route - which makes me think about Meloku the Clouded Mirror again too (in place of Prognostic).
PS: Capsize really is amazing. I feels it's too slow though... but I'll keep testing it.
PS 2: Maybe this isn't clear for people who didn't play the deck yet, but the landfall idea is good here because this deck refuses to miss land drops once Rashmi is in play. It has serious land dropping abilities. If I keep Loam in the deck that makes it even easier.
This was why I suggest Emrakul v1. I would think it would be extremely castable in this deck.
Polymorph/Emrakul is not nearly as bad as you think, in a deck that draws a lot of cards, because it's fairly easy to get to 8 and discard it back into the deck.
I feel this deck doesn't need splashy plays. The splashiest it gets is Parallax Tide or chaining Time Warps. Once you untap with Rashmi in play you're pretty much winning anyway. The biggest point in this is that I normally hate having spells in my hand that I can't cast early. If I draw Emrakul in my opening hand it's a free mulligan to 6 for my opponent, which is bad and will be worse when we go to 20 life.
The deck does draw a lot of cards, but it must work when you DON'T have Rashmi online too.
Rashmi, Eternities Crafter UUUG
Spell Lord ~ All your first spell have a
cantrip effect each turn
2/3
Pros
+4-6CMC Card Engine Commander
+Works well in U contol shell
+Has access to G artifact & enchantment hates
+Can be assigned as a blocker against aggro creatures
+UG/G planeswalkers can be added
Cons
-Vulnerable to blue steal effects
-dies to red, black, white removals
-no evasions, blockable by 3/3 & above creatures
-can be pinged by Marath & Keranos
The question is, can she be stronger than Jori en and Keranos in terms of card advantage? Whats your thoughts?
Keranos is the better comparison. I find Keranos a very good deck, and maybe it will be better suited than Rashmi in the 20 life meta, we'll wait and see. Having access to a lot of wipes and an indestructible commander is clearly a great thing (I'm also a Keranos player, I love it). Also Wildfire and Jokulhaups can pretty much stall aggro decks. That said, Keranos will NOT draw you as many cards as Rashmi does. Not even close. Not only he's able to draw you only 1 extra card per turn, sometimes he won't draw, but Bolt instead. Granted, that's still card advantage, but sometimes is not what you need. Rashmi also does cost 1 less.
What green has that red doesn't is access to Exploration, life gain, fog effects, top manipulation, Song of the Dryads and Regrowth. Those are certainly advantages that balance the decks.
Exploration makes you able to play a turn 2 Rashmi, which on the play is pretty much a "Did you keep a hand with removal? Do I have Force/Foil/Misdirection?" game winning question.
Life gain and Fog can make you able to stall the game against certain decks. I'm telling you: Green/White aggro CANNOT win through Constant Mists. I'd say red too, but they have direct damage so it depends on your life total. Only black discard and blue counterspells will hurt that plan.
Mirri's Guile and Sylvan Library are card Keranos would simply love to have access to. You have them here.
Song of the Dryads is probably one of the best commander removals in the format. It's a great card overall, but can definitely make a Commander go away for good.
Also, being able to gain life is important. I cannot stress how awesome Retreat to Kazandu is here. It does everything you want. Gains life and makes Rashmi bigger so she can attack and block better. Really something great.
The only matchups that worry me are Geist, Narset and Thrun. Hexproof commander are terrible for us and my only answer for now are Wash Out and Arcane Lighthouse. I'd love to play Order of Succession, but it's not possible here... any tips? If this gets worse maybe I'll have to add Expedition Map or Tolaria West to the deck.
I'll play with the deck this friday and post an updated list. Unfortunately still without Mirri's Guile and Voidslime since they're in the mail...
LATE EDIT: Oh, and you're right about her being vulnerable to being stolen. But you can say that for almost every Commander, right? Not Keranos, I know, but Grand Arbiter Augustin IV for example (which is another deck that's similar to Rashmi.
Popping expedition map for wasteland will disrupt Narset strategy.
Regrowth, Songs of Dryad, Beast within are the card I would like to test first and evaluate.
I thought about Commandeer and Pact a lot. Commandeer I tested instead of Misdirection, but the problem is it won't hit Narset/Geist with their Bolts/Plows like Misdirection does. Of course, it steals PWs and is great when it does. Let's see how the deck develops, but I wouldn't trade Foil or Misdirection for it right now. Pact of Negation is cool, specially if I add Tolaria West, but tapping out the next turn is so bad since this deck isn't combo... Maybe Swan Song is just better.
So, I'll post the list, the changes and the report, in that order.
17 Island
4 Forest
1 Breeding Pool
1 Tropical Island
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Mana Confluence
1 Command Tower
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Yavimaya Coast
1 Temple of Mystery
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Halimar Depths
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Wasteland
1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Prognostic Sphinx
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Exploration
1 Sylvan Library
1 Retreat to Kazandu
1 Parallax Tide
1 Ancestral Vision
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Peek
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Brainstorm
1 Gush
1 Force Spike
1 Spell Snare
1 Stifle
1 Arcane Denial
1 Negate
1 Counterspell
1 Logic Knot
1 Mana Leak
1 Memory Lapse
1 Miscalculation
1 Preemptive Strike
1 Remand
1 Trickbind
1 Unsubstantiate
1 Forbid
1 Cryptic Command
1 Foil
1 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
1 Mystic Confluence
1 Commandeer
1 Reality Shift
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Capsize
1 Beast Within
1 Imprisoned in the Moon
1 Song of the Dryads
1 Psionic Blast
1 Wash Out
1 Noxious Revival
1 Reclaim
1 Constant Mists
1 Intuition
1 Time Warp
1 Temporal Trespass
CHANGES
This changes are complex to evaluate, because they involve both taking Depths combo out and not having all the cards I want. I'm missing Voidslime, Mirri's Guile, Tireless Tracker and maybe Kiora, the Crashing Wave - which will probably substitute Prognostic Sphinx, so my "perfect list" is still a bit far away at the moment (in 10 to 15 days the cards will get here).
But the general thinking behind this changes is that I needed more planeswalkers. They work great in a deck that can stall turns like this, and they produce tokens so I can beat and block faster. Both Nissa and Garruk were on my initial builds, but I cut them for other cards I wanted to test out (things like Preemptive Strike). Their presence also makes Umezawa's Jitte better, and so still in the deck.
A greater number of planeswakers also make Time Warp much better, which is a feature of this deck.
OUT
Thespian's Stage
Dark Depths
Life from the Loam
IN
Nissa, Vastwood Seer
Garruk Wildspeaker
Botanical Sanctum
I decided against the Depths combo. I still don't know if it's the right call (it can be really explosive and is extremely recursive and easily tutorable), but it was taking me 2 slots (Depths and Loam) that I couldn't afford anymore. Maybe in the future, when the list is more streamlined I can come back to this. Anyway, Thespian's Stage was in a land slot, so the trade for Sanctum was easy to think about. Sanctum can be great sometimes, but coming into play tapped mid-late game is really annoying and got in my way at least 1 time during the tournament.
Nissa is an Elf and can enjoy Cavern of Souls benefits for it. She's pretty strong, but can be slow. I'm not afraid to throw her in my opponents face just to fetch a forest and demand an answer.
Garruk suffers the problem of needing GG to cast, which made him not castable turn 2 in one of my games this tournament. Other than that drawback, he's a steady source of creatures and mana, so he's really, really good. Overall the combo change to a more grindy PW one makes the deck a lot more reliable. Imagine yourself drawing Dark Depths turn 4 vs drawing Garruk. Loam and Depths are both bad cards outside of Intuition piles.
OUT
Krosan Grip
IN
Retreat to Kazandu
This next 2 changes I'm amazingly happy about. Retreat to Kazandu is just awesome. Of course, the life gaining abilities weren't used this tournament (30 life), but the +1/+1 is incredible. It can make dumb creatures like Beast tokens into 7/7s pretty quickly. I won a game on time because I had Kazandu and 2 fetches. It works great with Exploration and also with my new love (next change).
I was never sad to see it, because it always gave me some kind of advantage. I'm pretty sure that when we change to 20 life this will become a staple.
OUT
Fact or Fiction
IN
Gush
I said before I was unhappy spending 4 mana to draw cards. I was afraid of playing Gush because losing 2 lands can be an unbearable tempo loss. Not if you use Gush to also play spells free for you via Rashmi. Gush has several uses here. It can generate mana if you don't have a land drop, it works great with Retreat to Kazandu (and Tireless Tracker in the future), it's a great combo with Foil (I used it already), making you not needing to hold an Island in your hand, and it's amazing with Sylvan Library, Jace, Mirri's Guile or anything that sets up the top of your library, since 90% os the decks cards cost less than 5. It not unusual to know what's on top and play Rashmi tapping out, just to play a Gush in response to your opponents spell and reveal a counter on top. You should note that this is NOT Gush's optimal use - and everyone should read Stephen Menendian's book on the card, Understanding Gush. It's focused on Vintage, but a cool read anyway.
Overall, Gush's a pretty solid draw card that just gets better because of the deck's interactions. It's so good it makes me want to try retrace cards and Mox Diamond (if Savage Conception costed G less I'd heavily consider playing it).
OUT
Spell Pierce
IN
Commandeer
This 2 changes are tests. I figured I wanted to try Commandeer since it can protect Rashmi without mana. Commandeer is a pretty underplayed card and gets people by surprise when they're not expecting it. Against decks without counters, it can turn a game around (I stole a Birthing Pod from the Animar player and got Prognostic Sphinx with it, which helped me a lot).
The problem with Commandeer is that the card disadvantage really hurts if Rashmi isn't in play. It's also worse than Misdirection in counter wars. But, it can really take games away. I almost stole a Mystic Confluence with it against Grand Arbiter, which would've won me that game without doubt. I took Spell Pierce out because they target the same kind of spell, so I figured it was a conflicting slot. Maybe that's wrong to do since early game interaction is important and Spell Pierce is good at winning early counter wars - which is crucial against UW decks, for example.
OUT
False Summoning
IN
Capsize
I also wanted to test Capsize. I felt too slow, but I wanted to try anyway since it can simply lock a player out of the game when the time is right. It happened against Animar one game, but I was already winning that game anyway. I'm not shy of using it as a 3 mana Boomerang. IT also has better timing issues than creature counter. I don't know, though. If I'm in the position of spending 6 mana per turn on Capsize, I'm pretty sure I'm winning. So why not play Boomerang instead? Or maybe this is the slot for Dissolve?
REPORT
Animar, Maelstrom, Grand Arbiter
First match was against Animar. I realized later his list it pretty subpar (he doesn't play all 1 mana elves, for example). Game one I sent his animar to moon prison and he never came back (he tried to Acidic Slime it, but was Trickbind'ed. The deck was slow enough to let me take control with time, although I don't remember the details.
Second game I kept one of those unmulliganable hands with 2 islands, 1 Preordain, 1 Song of the Dryads a FoW and 2 others. I Preordained first turn to see True-Name Nemesis and Miscalculation, binning both and drawing the forest I needed to Song his Animar 3rd turn and take it from there.
1-0 (2-0)
Second match was against Maelstrom. This is a hard matchup because we have no definitive way to deal with Maelstrom himself other than Song and Imprisoned. Stealing him with Vedalken Shackles is barely possible. If fact, I've been wondering if Shackles is better than Treachery in this deck. I'll have to test that. The good thing about Shackles is that it laughs on aggros face, stealing creatures and blocking with them forever if you need to.
So, this games were hard. Game one we both mulligan to 6, and I keep a bad hand of Reality Shift, Gitaxian Probe, Trickbind and 3 lands. I figured with the scry and Probe I have a better chance of drawing business than with another mulligan (I was on the draw). I scry seeing Snapcaster Mage and put him on the bottom. You'll rarely see me complain about mana flood or stuff like that, because good deckbuilding and shuffling reduces that a lot. But in this game I drew 8 lands in a row. EIGHT lands in a row, essentially having only a Reality Shift to kill his Maelstrom. And yet, I can say I played Rashmi turn 4, he played Maelstrom revealing two rocks, and I thought "Well, maybe I can win this". But I figured I should go to game 2 because of time restrictions. So yeah I lost.
Game two I managed to control his board with Constant Mists and a few missed land drops on his side. I countered one of his rocks and that was enough to set him back 1 mana and keep from playing Maelstrom for a few turns. I eventually Prognostic Sphinx, who filtered my way through True-Name Nemesis and then I could stop sacrificing lands.
Third game I played Exploration into turn 2 Rashmi. He managed to ramp quick too but a Brainstorm brought me Parallax Tide. I kept him with 4 lands and nothing to do for 4 turns in a row (I bounced Parallax Tide back at the end of one of his turns just to play it back again) trying to find Stifle, in vain. He eventually got his lands back, but I already had Jace and Garruk on the board, coupled with Exploration. He resolved Maelstrom, but gut his Inferno Titan countered, as was his follow-up Ugin. Garruk tokens held Maelstrom off while I searched for answers. Maelstrom is funny because you don't want to kill or bounce it ever. Time was called and I decided to go all-in. Played the fantastic Retreat to Kazandu revealing Umezawa's Jitte from the top (I set it up with Sylvan Library) and bounced Maelstrom to attack with Rashmi, Vendilion and Ashaya (Nissa's legendary token). I had a bunch of counters in my hand so I didn't care about Maelstrom. I eventually countered everything (Forbid was involved) and attacked with a giant Kazandu'ed Rashmi for the win on turn 3 of time.
2-0 (4-1)
Third game was against Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. I feared this match because I didn't test it enough. I think he really made a lot of mistakes this match. First game he resolved as Jace, Architect of Thought on an empty table and +1 him. I'll never understand why, but that Jace kept +1'ing until he lost the game, instead of drawing a bunch of cards. He also resolved Augustin, and I was locked away from the game. I manage to trick him, though. I had Gitaxian Probe'd him and tried to Misdirection his Swords into Arbiter to make him spend his mana countering it. He had a Complicate, Remand and Pact of Negation. He tried to Remand his own Swords, which I Negated and he cycled Complicate to win the counter war (he was on 5 lands, I was on 4). On my turn I tried to turn his Arbiter into a Waste and he decided to Pact to protect Jace I guess (I had Rashmi on the table). Unfortunately for him, he was on 5 mana and I Wastelanded on of his lands, making him lose on upkeep. That's a free win
Game two I managed to Probe him again and play Song of the Dryad into his Augustin (it was probably a mistake on my part to let Augustin resolve, but well). He had a Cyclonic Rift in hand and I had Misdirection. The problem is I had no permanents on the table so I couldn't Misdirect if he tried. I eventually got his defense down trying to play Nissa (countered) and using Tectonic Edge on one of his 2 blue-producing lands (he probably drew all his basic plains this game. Eventually Ancestral Vision resolved, Rashmi came down and I drew so much I couldn't even keep all the cards in my hand. He was locked out with Forbid and Capsize, so eventually conceded.
3-0 (6-1)
EDIT: I posted the wrong list and forgot 2 important changes in it. Just corrected it.
Other than that, the deck feels like it has an answer to almost everything. I didn't face any fast aggro, so I can't understand yet how the deck will do against that.
Counters I should try: Condescend, Pact of Negation, Dispel, Muddle the Mixture (fetches Constant Mists), Summary Dismissal (my meta is infested with Maelstrom), Prohibit, Rites of Refusal.
Gemstone Caverns
Submerge
snapback
Also, there are viable planeswalkers in this deck such as:
Jace, Architect of Thought
Teferi, temporal Archmage
Garruk, Relentless
Kiora, Master of Depth
Kiora, the Crashing Wave
I prefer Mox Diamond over Gemstone Caverns since Mox can cantrip with Rashmi later in the game and is not useless after turn 1. I've been thinking a lot about Mox Diamond lately, just don't know what to cut for it (I think Exploration is better than Mox).
Submerge and Snapback are on my radar. Snapback specially seems pretty good. But I think I'd rather have a Snap instead. And if I'm playing creature removal, why not just play Lignify? Submerge I don't think I'll play because it doesn't work against some decks, and I don't want dead draws. But Snapback is a really interesting card.
About the PWs, I tested a few of them. I don't want another Jace though. I feel having 2 is already too much sometimes.
Teferi is also on my maybeboard, since it could go into Prognostic Sphinx's slot and is an overall great card. The fact it doesn't protect itself is a real problem... I think I'd probably play Consecrated Sphinx first instead of him.
Kiora, the Crashing Wave is on and off the list. I haven't tested her too much because I don't have one, but it's already ordered. It helps hold back, and her -1 is really great. She's also easier to cast than Garruk and works great with FoW, Misdirection and Commandeer. I normally test her into Prognostic Sphinx's slot, and she'll probably make her way into the deck sooner or later.
The other Kiora is just bad though.
And Garruk Relentless is BG, so I can't play it (or I would).
The card I've been testing a lot and loving is Throne of the High City. It's awesome.
edit: Snapback can be used to "protect" Rashmi on turn 4. Maybe that's relevant...
I am testing Temporal Spring and Karn Liberated. Also, the two kioras does give slight board advantage and needs big fat creatures to protect itself so they are out.
Karn would be great in the deck. I'm just avoiding big mana cards for now because I don't know how well they work under 20 life and I don't want to build a deck that's completely off for the 20-life meta. I'm slowly adapting it.
Blighted Cataract is too slow (7 mana is way worse than 5). Woodlands can be good, but we don't really need ramp spells in this deck. The thing about Throne is that it shines on grindy matchups. We just have to understand how many of those are going to exist in the 20 life world. Throne is probably going to lose greatness.
I've been trying stuff in the Prognostic Sphinx slot, but for now it seems the best choice. Flying is huge to stop airborne threats, since we have only Clique as a flyer. I'm thinking about: Talrand, Torrential Gearkulk, Kiora and Tireless Tracker for that slot.
Temporal Spring is interesting and is great when revealed by Rashmi after a 4+ CC trigger. But I can't say it's better than an instant bounce spell, or even better than something like Consign to Dream or Set Adrift. Three mana sorcery speed is not that great as a bounce spell. It can be a tempo boost on certain situations, but bounce is good because it gains you a turn to have open mana to counter what you bounced, not just tempo. Spring seems good to me in a deck that packs tempo threats like Tarmogoyf. I'm not saying Rashmi can't be built that way, but there are probably better tempo commanders than her (Jori-En comes to mind).
Putting something on top is great, though. I wonder if Set Adrift or Consign to Dream have room in the deck.
I tested set adrift before. I did not include it in a control shell because I need the delve for Dig thru time and Treasure Cruise. Another problem with Set Adrift is that it can only be played on mid or late game and it cannot hit man-lands. Consign to dream is an R/G hate card and can be also used on Parallax Tide. As a control player, I personally hate man-lands so I will give it a try in my deck.
Consign to Dream is a bounce spell at 3 mana that, by being instant, can be equivalent tempo-wise to Temporal Spring. It being able to put red/green spells on top is just an extra that can be relevant in a Titania/Zurgo/Anafenza/Marchesa dominated meta. It can even remove Keranos from the table.