We are 2 weeks away from the release of Amonkhet. One thing I love about new sets is the chance to make some wonky home-brewed kitchen table decks. Sure, some of the ideas may actually become T1 or T2 ideas, but the strange brew comes from somewhere.
Unfortunately Combat Celebrant can't be exerted twice in the same turn even if it gets untapped. But it can if you blink it. Or copy it (Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker).
It's too early for me. My way of building decks revolves around finding orphaned competitive and semi-competitive rare cards. Orphaned in the sense that they never really find a home in a popular deck and I can pick them up cheaply in multiples. I won't find that out until things shake out and Amonkhet settles into the meta for Standard and Modern.
Unfortunately Combat Celebrant can't be exerted twice in the same turn even if it gets untapped. But it can if you blink it. Or copy it (Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker).
I am not looking to Exert it twice. It has a 1 toughness, so it is frail. I remove it from combat to get that second attack & it lives. And if I have a 2nd, 3rd, (maaayybe 4th) copy on the board, those are even more extra attacks.
Is this thing on? Mic check... check one, check two...
I am surprised no one is adding to this empty list. What, is there something in my teeth? Do I scare off others? Hate to break it to some, I am not the bogeyman.
I have to hold cards in my hands before I can really find inspiration. However, I want to do Esper zombies and something using Ifnir and negative counters
I am not looking to Exert it twice. It has a 1 toughness, so it is frail. I remove it from combat to get that second attack & it lives. And if I have a 2nd, 3rd, (maaayybe 4th) copy on the board, those are even more extra attacks.
I assumed you were using Reconnaissance or Maze of Ith to remove it from combat for free, so being frail doesn't matter. In that case, it would be favorable to exert more than once if you could, getting more and more combat steps for your other creatures.
It could use some tweaking. Christmasland goes
Turn 2 EOT Final Fortune
Turn 3#1 Gideon. Make an emblem. Don't lose the game
Turn 3#2 Play Chandra. +1 her to make RR. Cast Final Fortune again.
Turn 3#3 Play another planeswalker. Tick them all up. Profit.
Archfiend of Ifnir: there is a deck here somewhere, I'm thinking Smuggler's Copter
Trials/Cartouches: I'm wondering what these would look like in R/G/U Enchantress with using the red and green trials and the blue and green cartouches.
Exert: this mechanic works. It isn't something to build an entire deck around, but the better exert cards are very playable. Exert lets you attack into your opponent's board and sets up favorable trades.
B/G -1/-1 counters should be a thing
Embalm is underwhelming
Amonkhet hellbent is better than the original. There might be a deck here.
Exert: this mechanic works. It isn't something to build an entire deck around, but the better exert cards are very playable. Exert lets you attack into your opponent's board and sets up favorable trades.
Embalm is underwhelming
I have to agree with these. I ran an exert deck at prerelease and it was awesome. Went 2-0 off the rip and ended up settling to 3-3 due to bad mulls and one deck with too much removal. However, dust walker is awesome and tah crop elite is my bro. Coupled with Vizir of Many faces copying a red creature of my opponents, I attacked for 24 in the air and 9 on the ground. It was epic.
I also ran embalm in my Esper prerelease deck and I literally only embalmed thrice. Twice on zombie cat and once on another creature. It was kind of sad. Embalm costs are just way too high
I like exert a lot. A 2-3 drop with exert can profitably attack into a wall of blockers and either get through or force a favorable trade.
I had better results from Embalm than you, in one prerelease I ran a U/W deck with a fair amount of Embalm and won with card advantage. It worked in limited ok, not spectacular but effective. I don't see it working as well in constructed.
some of the lower cost embalm creatures may see play. Zombie kitty is good with only one cost on embalm. It gains you two life and you have two chump blockers
Archfiend is kind of the cherry on top. So many discard triggers in this deck, combined with the madness. That Chandra is just bonkers here, though she costs 6 CMC. Running the signets(nice synergy with painlands) to ramp into Archfiend and Chandra, but the Vampires are fairly dangerous on their own. Sadly Archfiend is the only Amonkhet in the deck.
The deck probably wants to be beatdown to take advantage of the Anthem buff. Heliod is another Vigilance enabler that gives you a lategame manasink if you get flooded or Wrathed. Devoted Crop-Mate adds some resilience to removal.
Think about the other new Amonkhet Gideon, the one from the Planeswalker deck: Gideon, Martial Paragon. He's 5 CMC, but I like him a little better than Heliod here. Also, check this guy: Herald of Dromoka. Almost every single exert creature is a warrior, which gives you a backup on Vigilance.
I've been thinking about this concept, and a problem I have with it is that I'm not sure if it wants to be aggro or midrange. I think exert lends itself to a slower, more relentless offense, but at the same time exert creatures are awful blockers and don't hold up to the midrange concept in that regard.
I'm running almost no removal, because I don't care what my opponent plays. The whole point of exert is to attack through your opponent's board. If they block, the trades favor exert. This is why I only use the big exerts here. The Cast Outs are for emergencies, and very quick to be cycled early if a mana is open. I run the Reckoners because they are quality blockers, unlike the exerts. For board wipes, that's what the Boros Charm is for when it isn't granting Double Strike. This deck is slower, so I use a taller curve with Tah-Crop Elite, Glorybringer, and Gideon. Aurelia is where I express my inner Timmy.
I'm running four each of Hapatra and Nest of Scarabs. Hapatra is legendary, but I think I can run 4 easy because I can dump counters on it and kill him when I have another in hand. The deck throws counters around for a bit before setting up the bombs, Black Sun's Zenith and Triumph of the Hordes. With token generators in play, those two should be game overs.
Think about the other new Amonkhet Gideon, the one from the Planeswalker deck: Gideon, Martial Paragon. He's 5 CMC, but I like him a little better than Heliod here.
That ability seems useful. I wonder how big a deal costing 1 more mana is. 5 is a lot for aggro. And since he doesn't provide vigilance, I won't have anything to defend him, so he'll get killed quickly.
I like Heliod because he's also a fantastic out against control if your board gets wiped. But most games he won't be a creature or make any tokens. I wonder if there are any better low cmc vigilance enablers. Maybe just Angel's Trumpet. I like how both Trumpet and Always Watching curve out on turn 3, the turn you start attacking with 2-drop exert creatures.
I've been thinking about this concept, and a problem I have with it is that I'm not sure if it wants to be aggro or midrange. I think exert lends itself to a slower, more relentless offense, but at the same time exert creatures are awful blockers and don't hold up to the midrange concept in that regard.
I think it wants to be aggro. The creatures are underwhelming on defense. They want to be attacking as much as possible to exploit the bonuses. Also anthems like Always Watching are much better in aggro than midrange. They are card disadvantage (bad in slower games) and their impact depends on how many bodies you have in play. Since Always Watching only buffs nontoken creatures, that means you need a few low cmc bodies in play early.
There are some great exert midrange cards (Glorybringer), but I think those would work better with some other kind of enabler (e.g. Maze of Ith) instead of Always Watching.
If you just mean any Exert deck, not one built around this engine, it could go aggro, midrange, or even combo:
The best Vigilance enabler under 3 CMC is Herald of Dromoka, which gives almost every exert creature vigilance.
I'm not so high on exert aggro, because it isn't that fast. In an aggro vs aggro matchup, the faster deck usually wins and I don't think exert is going to win that race. When I was playing exert cards, the strength of exert was being able to profitably attack through my opponent's board. That is beatdown for sure, but not necessarily aggro. Going slower doesn't really solve the aggro problem in and of itself, but certain cards can trip up aggro. The lifelink from our Glory-Bound Initiate, Boros Reckoner by itself, and Boros Charm can be used to trip up aggro.
I posted my more midrange version. I ran some testing, and the lifelink from Glory-Bound Initiate and the general wonderfulness of Boros Reckoner go a long way towards shoring up the blocking. When you attack with a 5/5 lifelink vigilance on turn 3, who needs blockers? A 4/4 vigilance Boros Reckoner causes all sorts of problems.
I prefer Tah-Crop Elite to Trueheart Twins. I find the 1 toughness really matters, unless you were thinking about using both.
As for Archfiend of Ifnir, he requires discard or cycling, and none of Hapatra and friends have any real synergy with those. It makes for a three piece deck, two of the pieces having no synergy with each other. This is why I threw the Archfiend into a B/R Madness deck and used Black Sun's Zenith and Triumph of the Hordes as the bombs in my Hapatra deck.
Decklists posted above in this thread for reference.
I plan on using both Tah-Crop and Trueheart. The reason I went for 24 in the air and 9 on the ground during prerelease was by copying Trueheart Twins and swinging with a ton of exerted creatures. The synergy is brilliant
I will go first, 2 ideas:
White/Black Zombie Token deck
2 Angel of Sanctions
4 Anointer Priest
4 Sacred Cat
3 Trueheart Duelist
3 Unwavering Initiate
3 Army of the Damned
3 Buried Alive
3 Intangible Virtue
3 Anointed Procession
3 Dread Summons
3 Time to Reflect
4 Wayfarer's Bauble
LANDS
23 various b/w lands
Red/White Exert Deck
3 Tah-Crop Elite
4 Glory-Bound Initiate
4 Combat Celebrant
4 Glorybringer
4 Reconnaissance
4 Lightning Helix
ARTIFACTS
4 Wayfarer's Bauble
3 Dolmen Gate
2 Umbral Mantle
3 Maze of Ith
20 other r/w lands
I am not looking to Exert it twice. It has a 1 toughness, so it is frail. I remove it from combat to get that second attack & it lives. And if I have a 2nd, 3rd, (maaayybe 4th) copy on the board, those are even more extra attacks.
I am surprised no one is adding to this empty list. What, is there something in my teeth? Do I scare off others? Hate to break it to some, I am not the bogeyman.
I assumed you were using Reconnaissance or Maze of Ith to remove it from combat for free, so being frail doesn't matter. In that case, it would be favorable to exert more than once if you could, getting more and more combat steps for your other creatures.
Copying it with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Splinter Twin gives you infinite combat steps... Maybe that's too broken for a homebrew.
4 Gideon of the Trials
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Ajani Vengeant
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Chandra Nalaar
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4 Final Fortune
4 Glorious End
//Other Spells: 10
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Call the Gatewatch
2 Angel's Grace
//Lands: 24
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Rugged Prairie
4 Inspiring Vantage
5 Mountain
5 Plains
2 Battlefield Forge
It could use some tweaking. Christmasland goes
Turn 2 EOT Final Fortune
Turn 3#1 Gideon. Make an emblem. Don't lose the game
Turn 3#2 Play Chandra. +1 her to make RR. Cast Final Fortune again.
Turn 3#3 Play another planeswalker. Tick them all up. Profit.
Archfiend of Ifnir: there is a deck here somewhere, I'm thinking Smuggler's Copter
Trials/Cartouches: I'm wondering what these would look like in R/G/U Enchantress with using the red and green trials and the blue and green cartouches.
Exert: this mechanic works. It isn't something to build an entire deck around, but the better exert cards are very playable. Exert lets you attack into your opponent's board and sets up favorable trades.
B/G -1/-1 counters should be a thing
Embalm is underwhelming
Amonkhet hellbent is better than the original. There might be a deck here.
Lots of candy for Zombies
I have to agree with these. I ran an exert deck at prerelease and it was awesome. Went 2-0 off the rip and ended up settling to 3-3 due to bad mulls and one deck with too much removal. However, dust walker is awesome and tah crop elite is my bro. Coupled with Vizir of Many faces copying a red creature of my opponents, I attacked for 24 in the air and 9 on the ground. It was epic.
I also ran embalm in my Esper prerelease deck and I literally only embalmed thrice. Twice on zombie cat and once on another creature. It was kind of sad. Embalm costs are just way too high
I had better results from Embalm than you, in one prerelease I ran a U/W deck with a fair amount of Embalm and won with card advantage. It worked in limited ok, not spectacular but effective. I don't see it working as well in constructed.
(Excuse me for having a pronounced bias towards beatdown)
Vampires of Ifnir
Creatures (21)
- 3 Insolent Neonate
- 4 Falkenrath Gorger
- 2 Asylum Visitor
- 3 Heir of Falkenrath
- 2 Olivia, Mobilized for War
- 3 Stromkirk Captain
- 4 Archfiend of Ifnir
Spells (19)Lands (20)
Archfiend is kind of the cherry on top. So many discard triggers in this deck, combined with the madness. That Chandra is just bonkers here, though she costs 6 CMC. Running the signets(nice synergy with painlands) to ramp into Archfiend and Chandra, but the Vampires are fairly dangerous on their own. Sadly Archfiend is the only Amonkhet in the deck.
I was thinking about a monored Exert deck with Angel's Trumpet to enable Vigilance (or RG with Seedborn Muse), but RW for Always Watching is even better.
The deck probably wants to be beatdown to take advantage of the Anthem buff. Heliod is another Vigilance enabler that gives you a lategame manasink if you get flooded or Wrathed. Devoted Crop-Mate adds some resilience to removal.
4 Goblin Guide
3 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
4 Glory-Bound Initiate
4 Nef-Crop Entangler
2 Battlefield Scavenger
4 Ahn-Crop Crasher
3 Devoted Crop-Mate
4 Always Watching
2 Heliod, God of the Sun
//Spells: 7
4 Path to Exile
3 Cast Out
//Lands: 23
4 Arid Mesa
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Windswept Heath
2 Sacred Foundry
4 Inspiring Vantage
3 Battlefield Forge
3 Mountain
3 Plains
Think about the other new Amonkhet Gideon, the one from the Planeswalker deck: Gideon, Martial Paragon. He's 5 CMC, but I like him a little better than Heliod here. Also, check this guy: Herald of Dromoka. Almost every single exert creature is a warrior, which gives you a backup on Vigilance.
I've been thinking about this concept, and a problem I have with it is that I'm not sure if it wants to be aggro or midrange. I think exert lends itself to a slower, more relentless offense, but at the same time exert creatures are awful blockers and don't hold up to the midrange concept in that regard.
Creatures (24)
- 4 Annointer of Champions
- 2 Herald of Dromoka
- 4 Glory-Bound Initiate
- 4 Nef-Crop Entangler
- 4 Boros Reckoner
- 3 Tah-Crop Elite
- 2 Glorybringer
- 1 Aurelia, the Warleader
Spells (13)Lands (23)
I'm running almost no removal, because I don't care what my opponent plays. The whole point of exert is to attack through your opponent's board. If they block, the trades favor exert. This is why I only use the big exerts here. The Cast Outs are for emergencies, and very quick to be cycled early if a mana is open. I run the Reckoners because they are quality blockers, unlike the exerts. For board wipes, that's what the Boros Charm is for when it isn't granting Double Strike. This deck is slower, so I use a taller curve with Tah-Crop Elite, Glorybringer, and Gideon. Aurelia is where I express my inner Timmy.
Golgari Plague
Creatures (25)
- 3 Festering Mummy
- 4 Channeler Initiate
- 4 Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
- 3 Baleful Ammit
- 4 Defiant Greatmaw
- 4 Plague Belcher
- 3 Soulstinger
Spells (15)- 4 Duress
- 4 Black Sun's Zenith
- 4 Nest of Scarabs
- 3 Triumph of the Hordes
Lands (20)I'm running four each of Hapatra and Nest of Scarabs. Hapatra is legendary, but I think I can run 4 easy because I can dump counters on it and kill him when I have another in hand. The deck throws counters around for a bit before setting up the bombs, Black Sun's Zenith and Triumph of the Hordes. With token generators in play, those two should be game overs.
That ability seems useful. I wonder how big a deal costing 1 more mana is. 5 is a lot for aggro. And since he doesn't provide vigilance, I won't have anything to defend him, so he'll get killed quickly.
I like Heliod because he's also a fantastic out against control if your board gets wiped. But most games he won't be a creature or make any tokens. I wonder if there are any better low cmc vigilance enablers. Maybe just Angel's Trumpet. I like how both Trumpet and Always Watching curve out on turn 3, the turn you start attacking with 2-drop exert creatures.
I think it wants to be aggro. The creatures are underwhelming on defense. They want to be attacking as much as possible to exploit the bonuses. Also anthems like Always Watching are much better in aggro than midrange. They are card disadvantage (bad in slower games) and their impact depends on how many bodies you have in play. Since Always Watching only buffs nontoken creatures, that means you need a few low cmc bodies in play early.
There are some great exert midrange cards (Glorybringer), but I think those would work better with some other kind of enabler (e.g. Maze of Ith) instead of Always Watching.
If you just mean any Exert deck, not one built around this engine, it could go aggro, midrange, or even combo:
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Combat Celebrant
3 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
3 Zealous Conscripts
//Enchantments: 4
4 Splinter Twin
4 Gamble
4 Faithless Looting
4 Magmatic Insight
4 Anger of the Gods
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
3 Defense Grid
//Lands: 20
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Sandstone Needle
12 Mountain
I'm not so high on exert aggro, because it isn't that fast. In an aggro vs aggro matchup, the faster deck usually wins and I don't think exert is going to win that race. When I was playing exert cards, the strength of exert was being able to profitably attack through my opponent's board. That is beatdown for sure, but not necessarily aggro. Going slower doesn't really solve the aggro problem in and of itself, but certain cards can trip up aggro. The lifelink from our Glory-Bound Initiate, Boros Reckoner by itself, and Boros Charm can be used to trip up aggro.
I posted my more midrange version. I ran some testing, and the lifelink from Glory-Bound Initiate and the general wonderfulness of Boros Reckoner go a long way towards shoring up the blocking. When you attack with a 5/5 lifelink vigilance on turn 3, who needs blockers? A 4/4 vigilance Boros Reckoner causes all sorts of problems.
I also want to build a Archfiend of Ifnir deck with hapatra and friends
I prefer Tah-Crop Elite to Trueheart Twins. I find the 1 toughness really matters, unless you were thinking about using both.
As for Archfiend of Ifnir, he requires discard or cycling, and none of Hapatra and friends have any real synergy with those. It makes for a three piece deck, two of the pieces having no synergy with each other. This is why I threw the Archfiend into a B/R Madness deck and used Black Sun's Zenith and Triumph of the Hordes as the bombs in my Hapatra deck.
Decklists posted above in this thread for reference.