So, after spending a month trying to figure out what my first EDH deck should be, I've finally settled on Thrun Voltron since beating face with Thrun equipped with a Sword has sort of become my signature this Standard season.
I'm thinking of running the following equipment and auras in the deck:
1. Are there any particularly good equipments or auras that I missed when compiling this list? Before I'm given suggestions like Sword of Feast and Famine, I'm not going to be running cards that give me pro-green as that would lead to extreme anti-synergy with essentially every aura in the deck. Similarly, cards that give Shroud are also not viable choices.
2. Are any of these choices subpar in EDH? My knowledge of EDH is lacking so I'm not exactly certain as to what would be considered good or bad in this format.
3. Am I running enough equips and auras for a Voltron deck?
4. Are there any cards in green that would support a Voltron strategy while not necessarily being an equipment or aura?
Unfortunately, I'm fairly certain the local playgroup decided to house-rule infect and make it 20 poison to kill so as to keep poison in scale with the lifetotal change. As such, there's no reason to play the Infect game as the general damage win-condition would only require 1 additional damage to achieve.
In a hundred card deck the odds of seeing a given card by turn lets say five is 12 percent. (I realize that I'm ball parking the math bear with me.) That's 12 cards seen out of 100. So if you have eight copies of a card you should see said card by turn five. I'm choosing turn five as that's when an un-ramped Thrun will be ready to attack. So your going to want at least eight pieces of gear for your troll to insure he can swing boosted on turn five.
Next look at the power boost each pieces adds, if the average is +2 Thrun will be a 6/6 and kill in four hits, at +3 Thrun will be a 7/7 and kill in three. Although honestly what really maters is evasion, I don't suggest playing any pieces of equipment or any aura that doesn't grant some form of evasion. All the power in the world will not matter if he just gets chumped all day long.
Using that logic I'd say no to basilisk collar, and fire-shrieker as they they don't add evasion of any sort. Blanchwood Armor, Bear Umbra and Strata scythe should likely go for similar reasons. As for inclusions I'd try Gaea's Embrace. The regneration is cheaper but redundant, the +3/+3 and trample makes him a 3 hitter that can't be chumped for long.
In a hundred card deck the odds of seeing a given card by turn lets say five is 12 percent. (I realize that I'm ball parking the math bear with me.) That's 12 cards seen out of 100. So if you have eight copies of a card you should see said card by turn five. I'm choosing turn five as that's when an un-ramped Thrun will be ready to attack. So your going to want at least eight pieces of gear for your troll to insure he can swing boosted on turn five.
Next look at the power boost each pieces adds, if the average is +2 Thrun will be a 6/6 and kill in four hits, at +3 Thrun will be a 7/7 and kill in three. Although honestly what really maters is evasion, I don't suggest playing any pieces of equipment or any aura that doesn't grant some form of evasion. All the power in the world will not matter if he just gets chumped all day long.
Using that logic I'd say no to basilisk collar, and fire-shrieker as they they don't add evasion of any sort. Blanchwood Armor, Bear Umbra and Strata scythe should likely go for similar reasons. As for inclusions I'd try Gaea's Embrace. The regneration is cheaper but redundant, the +3/+3 and trample makes him a 3 hitter that can't be chumped for long.
While you came up with the right number for a single piece of equipment or aura, the odds of seeing one of eight by turn five are actually more like 66% - still good, but not a sure thing. Just glancing at probabilities, it looks like you hit the best chance at that with ~10 pieces, which gives 75% odds of seeing at least one of them (this is all assuming starting with 7, then drawing a single card and not removing anything from the deck. Changing those conditions will obviously affect the numbers). Past 10 pieces, you start to see diminishing returns - obviously better odds, but you have to start weighing it against the cost of taking up those slots in your list. If you're playing cautiously, you're also unlikely to want to run Thrun out before you have mana to regenerate him, as people are likely to have wrath mana available at that point, meaning you have a little extra time to find your equips and auras. I'd probably aim for about 10, give or take a couple.
I mostly agree with what Naga's Shadow said. You want to prioritize power boosts >= 3, because that takes you into three turn clock zone. While it's definitely possible to get Thrun to threaten a two turn kill, the resources it takes to do so aren't really worth the increased speed in my opinion. You also very much want to prioritize evasion, because Thrun isn't going anywhere if every saproling on the board can stop him. Even things like Bladed Pinions and Infiltration Lens aren't awful (though they're not your best options) if you can pair them with some kind of power boost.
From your first list, I really like O-Naginata, Loxodon Warhammer, Rancor, Sword of Light and Shadow, Sword of Fire and Ice, Sword of War and Peace (barely, as the abilities aren't really relevant and the protection colors are generally considered the worst in the format), and Sword of Vengeance. They're inexpensive, provide some kind of power boost, and provide some kind of evasion. Following that, I'd go for (once again, just out of your list) Basilisk Collar (which is evasion of a sort), Eldrazi Conscription, and Mythic Proportions, which all fit 2/3 of what I like in the first group. The others mostly seem like overkill. I'd also reconsider your stance on shroud, if only for Whispersilk Cloak, because that's an absolute beating in a voltron deck. You can always just pop it over to another creature for a moment if you really need to buff Thrun further.
Other cards I'd include in mono-G voltron are Brawn, possibly Bellowing Tanglewurm, Akroma's Memorial if you can afford it, and backup win conditions. Kamahl, Fist of Krosa and Overwhelming Stampede are both excellent cards that can win in a hurry with relatively little board presence. I'd also consider going against the grain of what a lot of edh players recommend and running a heavy contingent of mana dorks, probably alongside some traditional ramp spells. If you're careful with Thrun, there are only a few ways to get rid of him: countermagic, some wraths, and sac effects. Mana dorks help you get him out and able to regenerate (hopefully) before the blue players can get set up to Hinder or something equally unpleasant and give you other options to sac if you get edict'd. There's not much you can do about the wraths, so I wouldn't lose too much sleep there; just ramp like mad and replay him. You are in green, after all.
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@Weebo:
Those are all great ideas. Remember though, Thrun can't be countered. The only "counterspell" they would need to worry about is Mindbreak Trap, which isn't played too often anyhow.
@BaconBehemoth:
Those are two of the very few ways to actually make Thrun killable, and both very bad ideas.
@Weebo:
Those are all great ideas. Remember though, Thrun can't be countered. The only "counterspell" they would need to worry about is Mindbreak Trap, which isn't played too often anyhow.
Shhhh.
It's not like I just had Thrun in play last night or anything. So yeah, disregard the bits where I talked about Thrun being countered. The rest of that post should still be solid.
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@Weebo:
Those are all great ideas. Remember though, Thrun can't be countered. The only "counterspell" they would need to worry about is Mindbreak Trap, which isn't played too often anyhow.
@BaconBehemoth:
Those are two of the very few ways to actually make Thrun killable, and both very bad ideas.
Grafted Wargear can be cast on turn 2, and equipped on turn 3, and gives an excellent bonus, and you're worried about recasting Thrun should someone target the equipment? I wouldn't say it's a very bad idea. It's an idea built for speed. If you want to be aggressive, it's a great piece of gear. Sounds like Grafted Exoskeleton is out for the OP's metagame however.
Grafted Wargear can be cast on turn 2, and equipped on turn 3, and gives an excellent bonus, and you're worried about recasting Thrun should someone target the equipment? I wouldn't say it's a very bad idea. It's an idea built for speed. If you want to be aggressive, it's a great piece of gear. Sounds like Grafted Exoskeleton is out for the OP's metagame however.
Thrun isn't great as fast voltron. No haste, not terribly efficient in terms of CMC to power, no natural evasion. Thrun is very solid as a more inevitable voltron, though, because he basically can't be removed. Taking away his biggest advantage seems like a bad plan. I love Grafted Wargear, but this doesn't seem like the deck for it.
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So, I just went through Gatherer and searched for everything that could met the parameters you defined in your earlier post. I now have the following list:
I'm thinking of running the following equipment and auras in the deck:
I have a few questions:
1. Are there any particularly good equipments or auras that I missed when compiling this list? Before I'm given suggestions like Sword of Feast and Famine, I'm not going to be running cards that give me pro-green as that would lead to extreme anti-synergy with essentially every aura in the deck. Similarly, cards that give Shroud are also not viable choices.
2. Are any of these choices subpar in EDH? My knowledge of EDH is lacking so I'm not exactly certain as to what would be considered good or bad in this format.
3. Am I running enough equips and auras for a Voltron deck?
4. Are there any cards in green that would support a Voltron strategy while not necessarily being an equipment or aura?
Any help would be appreciated.
Check out my expected lands table at:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Airj6A6lYAz_dG05T2JETnVTak1xQ0tqOHNSdEJLWVE&hl=en_US#gid=0
Check out my expected lands table at:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Airj6A6lYAz_dG05T2JETnVTak1xQ0tqOHNSdEJLWVE&hl=en_US#gid=0
Next look at the power boost each pieces adds, if the average is +2 Thrun will be a 6/6 and kill in four hits, at +3 Thrun will be a 7/7 and kill in three. Although honestly what really maters is evasion, I don't suggest playing any pieces of equipment or any aura that doesn't grant some form of evasion. All the power in the world will not matter if he just gets chumped all day long.
Using that logic I'd say no to basilisk collar, and fire-shrieker as they they don't add evasion of any sort. Blanchwood Armor, Bear Umbra and Strata scythe should likely go for similar reasons. As for inclusions I'd try Gaea's Embrace. The regneration is cheaper but redundant, the +3/+3 and trample makes him a 3 hitter that can't be chumped for long.
While you came up with the right number for a single piece of equipment or aura, the odds of seeing one of eight by turn five are actually more like 66% - still good, but not a sure thing. Just glancing at probabilities, it looks like you hit the best chance at that with ~10 pieces, which gives 75% odds of seeing at least one of them (this is all assuming starting with 7, then drawing a single card and not removing anything from the deck. Changing those conditions will obviously affect the numbers). Past 10 pieces, you start to see diminishing returns - obviously better odds, but you have to start weighing it against the cost of taking up those slots in your list. If you're playing cautiously, you're also unlikely to want to run Thrun out before you have mana to regenerate him, as people are likely to have wrath mana available at that point, meaning you have a little extra time to find your equips and auras. I'd probably aim for about 10, give or take a couple.
I mostly agree with what Naga's Shadow said. You want to prioritize power boosts >= 3, because that takes you into three turn clock zone. While it's definitely possible to get Thrun to threaten a two turn kill, the resources it takes to do so aren't really worth the increased speed in my opinion. You also very much want to prioritize evasion, because Thrun isn't going anywhere if every saproling on the board can stop him. Even things like Bladed Pinions and Infiltration Lens aren't awful (though they're not your best options) if you can pair them with some kind of power boost.
From your first list, I really like O-Naginata, Loxodon Warhammer, Rancor, Sword of Light and Shadow, Sword of Fire and Ice, Sword of War and Peace (barely, as the abilities aren't really relevant and the protection colors are generally considered the worst in the format), and Sword of Vengeance. They're inexpensive, provide some kind of power boost, and provide some kind of evasion. Following that, I'd go for (once again, just out of your list) Basilisk Collar (which is evasion of a sort), Eldrazi Conscription, and Mythic Proportions, which all fit 2/3 of what I like in the first group. The others mostly seem like overkill. I'd also reconsider your stance on shroud, if only for Whispersilk Cloak, because that's an absolute beating in a voltron deck. You can always just pop it over to another creature for a moment if you really need to buff Thrun further.
Other cards I'd include in mono-G voltron are Brawn, possibly Bellowing Tanglewurm, Akroma's Memorial if you can afford it, and backup win conditions. Kamahl, Fist of Krosa and Overwhelming Stampede are both excellent cards that can win in a hurry with relatively little board presence. I'd also consider going against the grain of what a lot of edh players recommend and running a heavy contingent of mana dorks, probably alongside some traditional ramp spells. If you're careful with Thrun, there are only a few ways to get rid of him: countermagic, some wraths, and sac effects. Mana dorks help you get him out and able to regenerate (hopefully) before the blue players can get set up to Hinder or something equally unpleasant and give you other options to sac if you get edict'd. There's not much you can do about the wraths, so I wouldn't lose too much sleep there; just ramp like mad and replay him. You are in green, after all.
Those are all great ideas. Remember though, Thrun can't be countered. The only "counterspell" they would need to worry about is Mindbreak Trap, which isn't played too often anyhow.
@BaconBehemoth:
Those are two of the very few ways to actually make Thrun killable, and both very bad ideas.
Shhhh.
It's not like I just had Thrun in play last night or anything. So yeah, disregard the bits where I talked about Thrun being countered. The rest of that post should still be solid.
Check out my expected lands table at:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Airj6A6lYAz_dG05T2JETnVTak1xQ0tqOHNSdEJLWVE&hl=en_US#gid=0
Grafted Wargear can be cast on turn 2, and equipped on turn 3, and gives an excellent bonus, and you're worried about recasting Thrun should someone target the equipment? I wouldn't say it's a very bad idea. It's an idea built for speed. If you want to be aggressive, it's a great piece of gear. Sounds like Grafted Exoskeleton is out for the OP's metagame however.
Thrun isn't great as fast voltron. No haste, not terribly efficient in terms of CMC to power, no natural evasion. Thrun is very solid as a more inevitable voltron, though, because he basically can't be removed. Taking away his biggest advantage seems like a bad plan. I love Grafted Wargear, but this doesn't seem like the deck for it.
Is there anything else I should throw in aura or equipment wise or does this seem to be satisfactory?
Check out my expected lands table at:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Airj6A6lYAz_dG05T2JETnVTak1xQ0tqOHNSdEJLWVE&hl=en_US#gid=0