My usual store plays edh on Fridays. It's a heck of a lot more fun then standard and generally brings in plenty of people. However... most of them play combo-ish or at least slower decks.
And today I ran into two fast aggro decks from new players. I was going to build a sideboard (we are allowed but most don't right now) or just mod mine a bit to better handle Kalia the Vast on speed type decks .
I'm drawing a blank here though. There is Ghostly prison and other moats... but what can black do? I don't want too much targeted removal since most of the combo type players use fewer critters in general.
Legacy/Vintage GWREnchanted Eve (building) ~ BPoxy Pox
Standard WUMeow-Go~BU Infection
Casual BWAngel Doom ~ GRWWarpride ~ WGUStoic Control (ARG)
EDH BRGWUScion of the Ur-Dragon ~ BSiezan, The Perverter of Truth ~ W 8.5 Tails (needs work) All my Decks.
Wraths work pretty well, and you've got the colors for them. Crawlspace is nice too.
On the other hand, you could run stuff like Dread, No Mercy and Aurification to dissuade people from swinging your way.
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EDH FTW
Currently running:
BRG Xira Arien BRG UR Melek, Izzet Paragon UR WUG Jenara, Asura of War WUG WRG Mayael the Anima WRG WB Triad of Fates WB BG Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG BR Rakdos, Lord of Riots BR WR Aurelia the Warleader WR WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores WBG WUBRG Horde of Notions WUBRG
Beyond the numerous Wrath effects available to both black and white, I've found Dread and No Mercy tend to do a good job discouraging attacks. But really if you're running enough Wraths, aggro won't really even have a chance. Here's a quick list to get started. Keep in mind that there are also cards in both colors that do similar things without actually 'destroy'ing anything (Final Judgement, Black Sun's Zenith).
Maybe try some of the Vows? They may seem rather average on a whole, but given your description of the meta you play in, shipping Kaalia and her minions to these combo-heavy players sounds like a pretty sweet deal. If they waste removal on the vow'ed kaalia, that's still good for you because its less removal they will have when its your turn to send guys into the red zone.
Other than that, the only thing I can think of are edict effects (though I would assume you are already packing fleshbag marauder in your w/b deck). The combo decks won't have many creatures out, so you'll probably get high priority targets from them, and an early edict against voltron general decks and kaalia can stall them for a few turns at least, enough for you to build up a decent defense in preparation.
If you don't mind a small handsize Ensnaring Bridge is an amusing answer to big creature attacks. As for Kaalia specifically pack some kills spells for her. Go for the Throat, Unmake, and Vindicate all come to mind in your colors.
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Through me the way to the suffering city; Through me the everlasting pain; Through me the way that runs among the Lost. Justice urged on my exalted Creator: Divine Power made me, The Supreme Wisdom and the Primal Love. Nothing was made before me but eternal things And I endure eternally. Abandon all hope - You Who Enter Here.
I should have been more clear. I'm already running wraths, BSZ and that ilk. I also have cards like innocent blood (mostly for anti-general use). I think I even have No Mercy in the mono black deck. It's just not enough, fast enough.
I do like crawlspace and Aurification. That's fun and different.
Legacy/Vintage GWREnchanted Eve (building) ~ BPoxy Pox
Standard WUMeow-Go~BU Infection
Casual BWAngel Doom ~ GRWWarpride ~ WGUStoic Control (ARG)
EDH BRGWUScion of the Ur-Dragon ~ BSiezan, The Perverter of Truth ~ W 8.5 Tails (needs work) All my Decks.
One option that hasn't been mentioned is to run some small, efficient creatures of your own. I'm rarely sad to see Vampire Nighthawk come off the top in mono black, and it's not a bad deterrent. Reassembling Skeleton gives you repeat blocks and as much sac fodder as you have mana. There are plenty of creatures out there that come down early that don't make for terrible late game cards either.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
By vows, I meant the new auras that were printed with the commander set. In your colors, there is vow of duty and vow of malice. Duty isn't the best because it helps your opponent defend, but if you slap it on Kaalia, as long as she isn't pumped she wouldn't be blocking anyway due to her small body. The intimidate from Malice won't really help you much because Green and Blue aren't exactly known for their awesome flying fatties (though it is considerably more awesome on, say, omnath, locust of mana and can really make the rest of the table panic in short order).
M12 gave you a good tool to work with, if you're constantly facing down large creatures from Kaalia: Vengeful Pharaoh. Should be pretty cheap around the shop too.
Koskun Falls is probably hard to come by, but it functions as a kind of prison-like effect that you could also run. Norn's Annex is more recent and might steer some of that aggro away from you, although Kaalia will have the right type of mana to pay the cost. Windborn Muse works here as well.
Blazing Archon might be your best bet in white, if you can keep him from getting blown out of the sky.
Edit: Oh snap, Solitary Confinement. Pity you can't play it in Seizan... it would work SO WELL.
Edit 2: Oh, hey, did a search on gatherer because I was thinking about this and found Halls of Mist and Glacial Chasm as well. Granted, they're not good or even permanent solutions, but it might slow down those aggro dudes enough to stabilize and start fighting back.
I don't see too many aggro decks in my area, but may I suggest taxing effects? Sphere of Resistance and Lodestone Golem for example, will slow down aggro players from castin their stuff, though these ideas are difficult to play around if you don't build your deck to handle it. Ghostly Prison is excellent to provoke players away from you.
Wrath effects are always loved, and I won't go too indepth with those. Don't be too afraid of running spot removal either.
This might be odd, but a small discard kit would be cute too. Slow down your opponents and deminishing their resources is VERY fun.
And if you manage to survive long enough to have a stable position, a few geddons or two is backbreaking.
So basically I'm suggesting running Death Cloud, Pox and friends.
Beyond the aforementioned wrath variants(Damnation etc.), In mono black Tendrils of Corruption is a useful anti aggro peace of pinpoint removal which gains some life. Similarly Consuming Vapors kills 2 creatures and can gain you a fair bit of life.
There's also the Exsanguinate option, with other similar cards including Blood Tithe, Chancellor of the Dross(if you have it in the opening hand), Subversion and Syphon Soul. This gains you a fairly decent amount of life but has the drawback of potentially annoying the entire table.
Tainted Aether is a very strong card that really puts the brakes on a lot of swarm strategies. It's less effective against decks like Kaalia that rely on dropping in a small number of giant beaters, but still stunts their development pretty badly. The unfortunate thing about it is pretty much EVERYONE at the table will hate it. Even non-swarm decks like playing their utility guys and the constant reminders to sacrifice things make the card have a higher profile than you necessarily want at a multiplayer table like this article talks about.
Otherwise, though, I'm curious about why the aggro players are attacking you in particular? While aggro decks aren't as horrid as some like to say in Commander, they do have a problem in that they often ruin one or two people and then flame out to the slower combo/control player. The best way to handle these decks is to make sure their aggression is properly funneled away from you, and black has a lot of great attack deterrents people have already listed. But I'm just wondering why they're going after you in the first place instead of dedicated combo players.
First, thanks for the suggestions! I now have a list to try out/find as needed.
GhoooSTS, it's one on one tournament style. The store plays commander/EDH on Fridays instead of standard because no one wanted to have to deal with standard's costs, short time frame and all that crap. They were having trouble bringing in players and sometimes there was just one or two people (or just myself and the BF or no one).. now we always have a tourney. And, we always have people for casual later on too... so it works. And in free for all I get pretty much left alone.
Legacy/Vintage GWREnchanted Eve (building) ~ BPoxy Pox
Standard WUMeow-Go~BU Infection
Casual BWAngel Doom ~ GRWWarpride ~ WGUStoic Control (ARG)
EDH BRGWUScion of the Ur-Dragon ~ BSiezan, The Perverter of Truth ~ W 8.5 Tails (needs work) All my Decks.
Choice of Damnations seems juicy against Kaalia, who'll usually be dropping creatures left and right. If they want to keep things on the field, they have to pick a higher number. If they pick a higher number, they risk dying easily.
Beyond the numerous Wrath effects available to both black and white, I've found Dread and No Mercy tend to do a good job discouraging attacks. But really if you're running enough Wraths, aggro won't really even have a chance. Here's a quick list to get started. Keep in mind that there are also cards in both colors that do similar things without actually 'destroy'ing anything (Final Judgement, Black Sun's Zenith).
Good luck
Don't listen to this guy. Aggro is good in EDH you just gotta do it right.
The problem with Kaliaa is that she comes out fast and she gets the speed of over-extending without actually having to over-extended.
Tips against it?
Just look unasuming, don't draw hate. Then when the time is right take control.
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Modern (I collect the format):
WURDelver
[/MANA]MANA]R[/MANA]GTron WDeath and Taxes WSoul Sisters RWG Pod Combo URSplinter Twin URStorm RBurn
My usual store plays edh on Fridays. It's a heck of a lot more fun then standard and generally brings in plenty of people. However... most of them play combo-ish or at least slower decks.
And today I ran into two fast aggro decks from new players. I was going to build a sideboard (we are allowed but most don't right now) or just mod mine a bit to better handle Kalia the Vast on speed type decks .
I'm drawing a blank here though. There is Ghostly prison and other moats... but what can black do? I don't want too much targeted removal since most of the combo type players use fewer critters in general.
If it helps, I play mono black Seizan, Perverter of Truth (focus on draw/discard lifeloss) and white/black Ghost Council of Orzhova focused on graveyard comes into play/leaves play effects.
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GWREnchanted Eve (building) ~ BPoxy Pox
Standard
WUMeow-Go~BU Infection
Casual
BWAngel Doom ~ GRWWarpride ~ WGUStoic Control (ARG)
EDH
BRGWUScion of the Ur-Dragon ~ BSiezan, The Perverter of Truth ~ W 8.5 Tails (needs work)
All my Decks.
On the other hand, you could run stuff like Dread, No Mercy and Aurification to dissuade people from swinging your way.
Currently running:
BRG Xira Arien BRG
UR Melek, Izzet Paragon UR
WUG Jenara, Asura of War WUG
WRG Mayael the Anima WRG
WB Triad of Fates WB
BG Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG
BR Rakdos, Lord of Riots BR
WR Aurelia the Warleader WR
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores WBG
WUBRG Horde of Notions WUBRG
Good luck
Other than that, the only thing I can think of are edict effects (though I would assume you are already packing fleshbag marauder in your w/b deck). The combo decks won't have many creatures out, so you'll probably get high priority targets from them, and an early edict against voltron general decks and kaalia can stall them for a few turns at least, enough for you to build up a decent defense in preparation.
Some targeted removal IS good though. Just don't' over do it.
I do like crawlspace and Aurification. That's fun and different.
What are the Vow cards?
Flavour-Deckbuilder of the Flittering Clique
The [Pack] My Trade List
Cardshark IS AWESOME!
Trade me Crusaders?
GWREnchanted Eve (building) ~ BPoxy Pox
Standard
WUMeow-Go~BU Infection
Casual
BWAngel Doom ~ GRWWarpride ~ WGUStoic Control (ARG)
EDH
BRGWUScion of the Ur-Dragon ~ BSiezan, The Perverter of Truth ~ W 8.5 Tails (needs work)
All my Decks.
Exsanguinate[card/], silent arbiter, divinity of pride
M12 gave you a good tool to work with, if you're constantly facing down large creatures from Kaalia: Vengeful Pharaoh. Should be pretty cheap around the shop too.
Koskun Falls is probably hard to come by, but it functions as a kind of prison-like effect that you could also run. Norn's Annex is more recent and might steer some of that aggro away from you, although Kaalia will have the right type of mana to pay the cost. Windborn Muse works here as well.
Blazing Archon might be your best bet in white, if you can keep him from getting blown out of the sky.
Edit: Oh snap, Solitary Confinement. Pity you can't play it in Seizan... it would work SO WELL.
Edit 2: Oh, hey, did a search on gatherer because I was thinking about this and found Halls of Mist and Glacial Chasm as well. Granted, they're not good or even permanent solutions, but it might slow down those aggro dudes enough to stabilize and start fighting back.
RRRHeartless Hidetsugu: The Ogre for TrollsRRR
BBBSeizan's Perverted VicesBBB
Wrath effects are always loved, and I won't go too indepth with those. Don't be too afraid of running spot removal either.
This might be odd, but a small discard kit would be cute too. Slow down your opponents and deminishing their resources is VERY fun.
And if you manage to survive long enough to have a stable position, a few geddons or two is backbreaking.
So basically I'm suggesting running Death Cloud, Pox and friends.
Much thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the siggy!
[EDH Decks]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WBG ~Teneb, the Harvester; Boardwipes FTW~ GBW
WUR ~Numot, the Devestator; Mid-Range Stax~ RUW
[EDH in Progress]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
URG ~Riku of Two Reflections; Clones and Copies~ GRU
WUB ~Sharuum, the Hegemon; Stax Control~ BUW
Generation 14: The first time you see this, add it to your sig, but add 1 to the number. Call it a social experiment.
RRRHeartless Hidetsugu: The Ogre for TrollsRRR
BBBSeizan's Perverted VicesBBB
There's also the Exsanguinate option, with other similar cards including Blood Tithe, Chancellor of the Dross(if you have it in the opening hand), Subversion and Syphon Soul. This gains you a fairly decent amount of life but has the drawback of potentially annoying the entire table.
Machius proudly supports R_E's right to Rumour!
Tainted Aether is a very strong card that really puts the brakes on a lot of swarm strategies. It's less effective against decks like Kaalia that rely on dropping in a small number of giant beaters, but still stunts their development pretty badly. The unfortunate thing about it is pretty much EVERYONE at the table will hate it. Even non-swarm decks like playing their utility guys and the constant reminders to sacrifice things make the card have a higher profile than you necessarily want at a multiplayer table like this article talks about.
Otherwise, though, I'm curious about why the aggro players are attacking you in particular? While aggro decks aren't as horrid as some like to say in Commander, they do have a problem in that they often ruin one or two people and then flame out to the slower combo/control player. The best way to handle these decks is to make sure their aggression is properly funneled away from you, and black has a lot of great attack deterrents people have already listed. But I'm just wondering why they're going after you in the first place instead of dedicated combo players.
GhoooSTS, it's one on one tournament style. The store plays commander/EDH on Fridays instead of standard because no one wanted to have to deal with standard's costs, short time frame and all that crap. They were having trouble bringing in players and sometimes there was just one or two people (or just myself and the BF or no one).. now we always have a tourney. And, we always have people for casual later on too... so it works. And in free for all I get pretty much left alone.
Flavour-Deckbuilder of the Flittering Clique
The [Pack] My Trade List
Cardshark IS AWESOME!
Trade me Crusaders?
GWREnchanted Eve (building) ~ BPoxy Pox
Standard
WUMeow-Go~BU Infection
Casual
BWAngel Doom ~ GRWWarpride ~ WGUStoic Control (ARG)
EDH
BRGWUScion of the Ur-Dragon ~ BSiezan, The Perverter of Truth ~ W 8.5 Tails (needs work)
All my Decks.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
The problem with Kaliaa is that she comes out fast and she gets the speed of over-extending without actually having to over-extended.
Tips against it?
Just look unasuming, don't draw hate. Then when the time is right take control.
WURDelver
[/MANA]MANA]R[/MANA]GTron
WDeath and Taxes
WSoul Sisters
RWG Pod Combo
URSplinter Twin
URStorm
RBurn
I collect pre-release Stone-Tongue Basilisk