MTG Salvation

Hey guys. Occasionally me and a bunch of my friends get together and play commander. For these instances, I have a janky as hell but fun Teysa, Orzhov Scion deck with 35 Shadowborn Apostles. However, often I'm just hanging out with one of my friends. Random matches with people at FNM aside, I mainly only play 1v1 with two people. One is a hardcore Johnny, and is always brewing hilarious but awful edh decks. The other, however, harnesses the power of Domia, Sage of Stone. His goal is to either get the Triskelion-Mikaes combo, or the Pengrine Drake-Deadeye Navigator combo out, but even when I make him remove the combos, he still beats me, as while my EDH is pretty mediocre in general, it sucks even more in 1v1. I would like this deck to be fairly budget, good not JUST against Domia (but mainly against her), and preferably good in multiplayer as well. Does anyone have any tips? Could I Titania, Protector of Argoth deck do it? (she looks like a fun, competitive general). Thanks.

Or just remove his Damia everytime he's out to resupply.

Okay thanks guys. Though for the record, the problem isn't with Domia herself -- it's with the very powerful deck.

The problem is that by now, good EDH cards are already discovered and the prices adjusted to match their new status. If you want to beat a good BUG deck, you're going to need some pretty expensive cards for a good deck that can consistently beat a good BUG deck.

Or you could do one off cheese decks like G or G/W combo elves. That is a relatively inexpensive deck to make.

If you're thinking about monogreen, then consider cards like Hall of Gemstone that can stop them from casting Damia and other multicolor bombs.

Mike+Trike and DEN+Untapper can be countered by cards like Pithing Needle, Cursed Totem, Damping Matrix, and Linvala, Keeper of Silence.

I think if you're playing a lot of 1v1, you may want to encourage the people you play with to use the French banlist, which is designed for 1v1 commander. Many cards that are considered fair in multiplayer, due to having multiple opponents can be overwhelming in games where only one player pitted against you. It also unbans some flashy high manacost cards that are unlikely to be as impactful in 1v1 as they are in multiplayer games.

if hes using damia donating gibbering descent after he empties his hand is a way to keep him down.

alternatively if hes combo based consider going for a hate deck like teeg with a bunch of hatebears.

Quote from gma »

Titania is by no means competitive

I disagree. Titania can be quite competitive, but many of the key pieces are quite expensive (Gaea's Cradle, Wasteland, Crucible of Worlds, green fetches, Azusa, Dark Depths, etc.), making her a poor choice for OP.

Edric is probably the best cheaply competitive deck - 30 or so of the creatures cost a quarter or less, and most of the key counterspells are very cheap as well. Cradle is not required.

Best part: It's so good it was banned in 1v1

You use any blunt object near by
Joking of course BUG is notorious for being realy good in commander. Mass enchantments would do well however you would need to watch out for bane of progress like cards

I agree if he's mainly combo the best way would be inturupting or preventing him from playing the combo

BTW a my vote for cheese is Jalira, Master Polymorphist with blightsteel colossus + 98 legendary creatures and spells
As low as a 30 dollar deck

I'm gonna second Edric. You play a bunch of time warps and dorks. It's pretty damn cheap, and good, too.

I'd stay really far away from building stupid gimmick decks, honestly. They're just not fun.

Edric in my opinion hits the sweet spot for:
* Cost effective (can be done around 200 bucks)
* Fast enough to win multiplayer or single player

I sometimes regret taking the deck apart honestly. I've never played a deck that compares for the combination of single and multiplayer capability and budget.

Most of the comparable decks require a lot of 10-20 dollar goodstuff cards that drive the price of the deck up a lot.

This is the issue I see with Titania, Protector of Argoth. Green is a very, very popular color in EDH and as such almost all of the green staples are expensive. Likewise, artifacts staples are never cheap, and monocolored decks want a lot of those. You're going to average 5-10 bucks a card and have a very expensive deck if it's going to be competitive.

If it can even be competitive at the level of a tuned Damia deck, which I doubt.

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The best part is the look on someone's face when you Delay their removal spell and then take infinite turns

Both combos mentioned can be stopped with instant-speed creature removal. Mike-Trike can be stopped by instant-speed grave hate, as well.

My friend Robert had a super tuned Damia deck that essentially went into T&N combo or DEN combo. I crushed it fairly regularly with my Thrun deck. Turn 2 Ice Storm, Turn 3 Thermokarst, Turn 4 Strip Mine/other land d, land Thrun and start beating. Use extremely low-mana artifact kill like Nature's Claim, Oxidize, Deglamer, etc. etc.

The solution to these "big spell" decks is almost always Strip Mine + Crucible or even better Azusa + Strip Mine + Crucible. No lands = no play!

There's a reason crucible and strip mine are both banned in 1v1 duel rules

Spirit of the Labyrinth is an inexpensive card. Damia is good because she draws so many cards. You can't let a player untap with her and fill their hand.

You can try be a faster deck, or you can play hate cards.

Okay cool, thanks guys.

Yeah it sounds like either Edric or hatebears (with Gaddock) would be the deck to play. Could someone link me to competitive lists for them? Thanks. Alternately, could MBC with the blight dragon guy work? I play tested it and it worked like a charm, disrupting the opponent and then bashing with infect for the win.

Skithryx requires a lot of expensive black staples, but it is a very strong 1v1 deck. Not so much from a table perspective.

This Edric deck is pretty close to what I ran (with a lot of budget concessions);
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/511075-competitive-edric-spymaster-of-trest

I'd just go for something like ruric thar, the unbowed with a lot of hasty green and red beats. I've seen that commander throw a lot of BUG decks out of whack. Blow up lands to keep the pressure going and any removal spell or tutor for a removal spell comes with a 6 life price tag. He's not hard to ramp into and really does pack a punch. Supplement with land destruction for added pain.

Hey guys,
It looks like I may be able to get my hands on a Mayeal, the Anima edh. Thoughts on that in 1v1 and its Domia matchup?

Decks that require casting your commander and activating (or protecting it for a turn) it are not things I would bet on vs. Damia myself.

Mayael suffers from serious problems with counterspells and needing a haste or protection enabler.