So I do not play EDH/Commander. I have tried it in the past, never really could get into it. However, it is reasonably popular where i live and I often have people trying to pressure me to give it another go. Well, I will soon be finishing my current project (cube) and am looking for something else to do while we play and play test that starting next month. This brings me back to EDH. I want to build a deck, but with a few... requirements, and need some significant guidance since I am not very familiar with the format.
The main thing I want to accomplish is to have a deck that will make people hate me. This may sound weird, and I am not doing this to actively piss everyone off. The play group I would be with are all pretty fun guys and no one holds a grudge. I just want to go that route because it would be funny to me. In making people hate me/my deck I want to be able to do a few things:
Destroy resources
Prevent people from interacting with me (and thereby making it hard to kill me)
The deck does not need to necessarily win. It just needs to do extremely annoying things and not be the first one out.
Within that idea I would prefer to stay within two colors at most to make the land base easier AND would prefer to keep individual card costs under $50 (this is for fun, not to break my bank especially with the cube work I have been doing).
I beg of you, players who know and love the format, guide me in the right (horrible) direction!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
I think Humility seems to be what you are shooting for. Turning all of their creatures into junk and cutting off ETB triggers at the same time is strong. Generally speaking it is used in enchantress decks or token decks. I would usually look at GWX decks given either option.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Ashling 99 Mountains makes everyone hate me.
They thought it was crappy. But it certainly wasn't.
That or Heartless Hidetsugu Big Red Double-Damagey Button.
I understand where you are coming from ISBP. However, I used to play a lot of legacy Enchantress and feel like that would be a bit excessively pillow fort and not enough screw with everyone (please feel free to price me wrong).
Just as a general color combo, WB is something that would definitely work. But what would you suggest for the Commander?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
Well, sounds like you might be interested in a deck style that is sometimes called 'group slug' or 'bear hug'. It is almost always rakdos colors (adding a third is common) and just tried to punish people for playing magic. Look at cards like Manabarbs or Havoc Festival. A common commander for this is Kaervek the Merciless. Recently, a lot of these decks morphed into a Nekusar wheel n deal type build but that is almost more combo than punisher. If you google search 'mtg commander group slug' you'll find a lot of results for this. If you are into podcasts, the old commandercast has at least one episode about this archetype and the new commandercast does as well. I believe the new one is season 11 ep 5 but I might be wrong.
Edit: also, the newest episode of commandercast is about this general idea. You can skip the first hour because it is kind of general talk about villains (I enjoyed it, but it's not pertinent to the topic at hand). After that, they talk about building a deck to be the villain of the table
I think the archetype you want is Stax/Prison. There is a wonderful thread for it over here.
The fun thing about the archetype is that it can be built in almost any color combination. Almost of the mono colors have been printed with some land hate effects at one time or another - red, Blood Moon; blue, Back To Basics; green, Ritual of Subdual; black, Infernal Darkness.
That being said, most of the key Stax cards are in white and blue, with a good deal in black. Red has land destruction but only a few denial cards. Green is probably the weakest Stax color, but its ramp ability and alternate mana sources can help you work around some of the taxing effects you're putting out there. Most effects come from colorless artifacts, though, so there's a lot of options for the archetype.
It's important to remember that EDH is the wussy format, though, so you may get more hate for this strategy than you would in, say, Modern or Legacy. Like, a LOT more hate. I've had people shout at me for playing Infernal Darkness in mono black. If Modern was EDH, all the Twin players would be ostracized and pelted with twenty-sided die. Play any deck, but if you want love in EDH, play goat tribal.
Most of the best Stax cards are fairly cheap, most of them $10-$15 max. The most expensive thing tends to be the mana base and some of the privier mana rocks, but there are lots of cheap substitutions for those.
With all that being said, the commander I'd suggest for you try is Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. He draws hate like no tomorrow, but he has a built-in tax effect and is really, really hated on, which should match your preferred play-style.
I understand where you are coming from ISBP. However, I used to play a lot of legacy Enchantress and feel like that would be a bit excessively pillow fort and not enough screw with everyone (please feel free to price me wrong).
Just as a general color combo, WB is something that would definitely work. But what would you suggest for the Commander?
Well, it depends on how much you want to make everyone mad but you can effectively lock the game up using Humility.
Humility / Dovescape = counter all noncreatures and creatures are 1/1s so no ETB creatures. At this point people really cant resolve things and you just need to live another turn through whatever they have on board.
Then...
Solitary Confinement now you cannot be hurt and just have to have one card in hand.
Then...
Honden of Seeing Winds really anything that gives you at least a card a turn. This counters the downside of the confinement.
At this point it takes something that was already in play or someone specifically casting Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to disrupt you. From here get a token producer and make a bunch of tokens and buff them up with enchantments. It might seem long but really its a two card setup then you just have to last a turn. The epic card can fetch into all of it as well so if you can somehow enable flash you more or less just win by getting the dovescape first. What I outlined here is sort of mean and UW rather than WG as I was talking earlier but it really depends on what it is you want to do with it. Green has a ton of enchantress and Regrowth effects which are nice assuming you want to be more middle of the pack.
I think Humility seems to be what you are shooting for. Turning all of their creatures into junk and cutting off ETB triggers at the same time is strong. Generally speaking it is used in enchantress decks or token decks. I would usually look at GWX decks given either option.
I have a deck that use Humility + Moat. I also run Engineered Plague to make sure the most annoying creature goes to the grave.
I usually receive a lot of hate for it but seriously, isn't it special to send a 1/1 Eldrazis to the grave and see nothing happen when they reach it because they have no ability while going there ?
Narset is the way to go.
Best card draw. Best land destruction. Best lock down. Extra turns. Counters. Removal.
I've played against a few Narset decks that had me out of the game on turn 4 - I could literally not play a land and had 0 mana on board. The only way I could have won was:
Draw a Mana Crypt.
Draw Sol Ring.
Draw Signet.
Draw Return to Dust to nuke Land Equilibrium.
But because He had Jace TMS online I got to do:
dick
RWU are great colors for pissing off the table.... more than any other I can think of. At least with the other colors you get to look like you are trying to win.
If you want to make everyone flip the table, Radiate a Chaos Warp. Your death will be pondered (and perhaps attempted) numerous times as your group spends the next hour shuffling their decks over and over.
If you want to make everyone flip the table, Radiate a Chaos Warp. Your death will be pondered (and perhaps attempted) numerous times as your group spends the next hour shuffling their decks over and over.
You are a sick, sick individual. I think I love you.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
Sounds like your be intersted in my ghave deck located in my signature.
It often wins games where opponents cannot do anything or they have zero cards on board.
The higher value things are good but not mandatory.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Hey guys so I've actually moved on from commander on to 60 card decks so I don't have any commander decks.
Anyway I've started my own gameplay channel in which I play games (Magic also)
It really kind of depends on what you mean by wanting everyone to "hate" you. Do you mean, you want to play as the Archenemy, where everyone tries to attack you/blow up your stuff/kill you? Pretty much any deck would qualify as long as it's really good. Or do you mean, you want everyone to emotionally dislike what you are doing at the table and be like, what a jerk!? I'm assuming it's the latter.
No one likes Kaervek! Black/Red has plenty of cards to infuriate everyone not to mention the fact that if Kaervek is out, they get domed for a bunch whenever they cast anything. I hear the argument for White but Black/Red has enough irritating MLD for you to use in some games. Also, MLD will just make everyone throw their hands up in the air. It'll also end things quick. If you really want to get under people's skin in the games you aren't just blowing up the world, I would run Kaervek.
I also don't recommend a Stax/Prison deck for trolling purposes. Sure, these decks annoy people - a lot - but they are a little bit too good. It'll make people either stop wanting to play with you, or it'll start an arms race to beat you. It's not like you can't beat these decks. I think you want a troll deck that trolls people by being really obnoxious rather than a troll deck that trolls by winning.
Good to find someone else who wants to make this kind of a deck. I've built a B/R misery style deck lots of double damage like Furnace of Rath, Havoc Festival and Wound Reflection. Whilst i didnt include LD in my build you do have access to it from red and Grave Pact type things from black which will really annihilate the board.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
EDH BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern: RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
If you want to make everyone flip the table, Radiate a Chaos Warp. Your death will be pondered (and perhaps attempted) numerous times as your group spends the next hour shuffling their decks over and over.
I've radiated a Chaos Warp in a 6 player game before - it's a mess. You need to do the shuffle and reveal one card at a time.
I've built a number of decks like this before, and one constant is that people learn what it does - and they'll all turn on you ASAP. We've got a local that plays an awful Grand Arbiter Stax deck in multiplayer - and as long as she's in the game, people throw every single attack and bit of removal and disruption her way until she's out of the game.
One thing that seems to upset people more than anything else in EDH is preventing them from being able to do what their deck is supposed to do. To that end, I'll say that considering a focus on sorceries and instants that wreck the game might buy you a little bit more time than problematic enchantments.
Meh Cataclsym isn't that good in Derevi. But otherwise I agree with your assessment!
Personally though I would rather have people want to keep playing against my odious deck than rage scoop. So I wouldn't play a deck that is too strong. Otherwise you might as well just play 5c Hermit Druid or Ad Nauseam.
Personally though I would rather have people want to keep playing against my odious deck than rage scoop. So I wouldn't play a deck that is too strong. Otherwise you might as well just play 5c Hermit Druid or Ad Nauseam.
Basically this. At best, this is a gimmick deck that people learn how to play against it and they *let* you play it every once in a while. Worst case scenario, they figure out this deck ruins the kind of games they want to play and you find yourself alone at a table watching other EDH players enjoying themselves.
If you want to make everyone flip the table, Radiate a Chaos Warp. Your death will be pondered (and perhaps attempted) numerous times as your group spends the next hour shuffling their decks over and over.
It has happend to me
It was annoying although it led directly to me winning.
I play Dragonlord NOjutai deck... filled with 2 cmc hate enchantments Rest in peace, stony silence etc. You just play nothing but cards that prevent people from doing anything... including yourself (for example blind obedience, mana maze, damping matrix, torpor orb, hushwing gryf, aven mindcensor, rule of law). I have a had hundreds of different configurations of the deck trying to make it work. One version was DIsperia, supreme judge, the frustration when people can't attack you even though you are so annoying because you'll draw more ways to be annoying.
1)Build an Ad Nauseam deck with Oloro as commander (to gain more life, but just go mono-black) or the tutor-Sidisi as Commander (to get the Ad Nauseam) then fill with infinite 0 cost artifacts and creatures and mana producers, dump your deck into a Sickening Dreams or a Skirge Familiar/Exsanguinate.
Your friends will hate you, but mostly because you will spend 5-10 minutes drawing cards and counting black mana before they die.
2)Build a deck that just slows down their options, but that is otehrwise fair. Examples include Grand Arbiter Augustin IV or Gaddock Teeg. They both slow down or cripple their options while you advance your own win conditions.
Or you can build a chaos red deck with that stupid enchantment that randomly reassigns targets. God I hate that card. So. Much.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The main thing I want to accomplish is to have a deck that will make people hate me. This may sound weird, and I am not doing this to actively piss everyone off. The play group I would be with are all pretty fun guys and no one holds a grudge. I just want to go that route because it would be funny to me. In making people hate me/my deck I want to be able to do a few things:
Destroy resources
Prevent people from interacting with me (and thereby making it hard to kill me)
The deck does not need to necessarily win. It just needs to do extremely annoying things and not be the first one out.
Within that idea I would prefer to stay within two colors at most to make the land base easier AND would prefer to keep individual card costs under $50 (this is for fun, not to break my bank especially with the cube work I have been doing).
I beg of you, players who know and love the format, guide me in the right (horrible) direction!
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
They thought it was crappy. But it certainly wasn't.
That or Heartless Hidetsugu Big Red Double-Damagey Button.
Just as a general color combo, WB is something that would definitely work. But what would you suggest for the Commander?
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
Edit: also, the newest episode of commandercast is about this general idea. You can skip the first hour because it is kind of general talk about villains (I enjoyed it, but it's not pertinent to the topic at hand). After that, they talk about building a deck to be the villain of the table
Marath, Will of the Wild Tokens!! / Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund Dragons! / Muzzio, Visionary Architect / Brago, King Eternal / Daretti, Scrap Savant / Narset, Enlightened Master / Alesha, Who Smiles at Death / Bruna, Light of Alabaster / Marchesa, the Black Rose / Iroas, God of Victory / Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury / Omnath, Locus of rage / Titania, Protector of Argoth / Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Modern
Elves / Titanshift / Merfolk
I think the archetype you want is Stax/Prison. There is a wonderful thread for it over here.
The fun thing about the archetype is that it can be built in almost any color combination. Almost of the mono colors have been printed with some land hate effects at one time or another - red, Blood Moon; blue, Back To Basics; green, Ritual of Subdual; black, Infernal Darkness.
That being said, most of the key Stax cards are in white and blue, with a good deal in black. Red has land destruction but only a few denial cards. Green is probably the weakest Stax color, but its ramp ability and alternate mana sources can help you work around some of the taxing effects you're putting out there. Most effects come from colorless artifacts, though, so there's a lot of options for the archetype.
It's important to remember that EDH is the wussy format, though, so you may get more hate for this strategy than you would in, say, Modern or Legacy. Like, a LOT more hate. I've had people shout at me for playing Infernal Darkness in mono black. If Modern was EDH, all the Twin players would be ostracized and pelted with twenty-sided die. Play any deck, but if you want love in EDH, play goat tribal.
Most of the best Stax cards are fairly cheap, most of them $10-$15 max. The most expensive thing tends to be the mana base and some of the privier mana rocks, but there are lots of cheap substitutions for those.
With all that being said, the commander I'd suggest for you try is Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. He draws hate like no tomorrow, but he has a built-in tax effect and is really, really hated on, which should match your preferred play-style.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
Mizzix Of The Izmagnus : wheels on fire... rolling down the road...
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
Well, it depends on how much you want to make everyone mad but you can effectively lock the game up using Humility.
Enduring Ideal retriving:
Humility / Dovescape = counter all noncreatures and creatures are 1/1s so no ETB creatures. At this point people really cant resolve things and you just need to live another turn through whatever they have on board.
Then...
Solitary Confinement now you cannot be hurt and just have to have one card in hand.
Then...
Honden of Seeing Winds really anything that gives you at least a card a turn. This counters the downside of the confinement.
At this point it takes something that was already in play or someone specifically casting Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to disrupt you. From here get a token producer and make a bunch of tokens and buff them up with enchantments. It might seem long but really its a two card setup then you just have to last a turn. The epic card can fetch into all of it as well so if you can somehow enable flash you more or less just win by getting the dovescape first. What I outlined here is sort of mean and UW rather than WG as I was talking earlier but it really depends on what it is you want to do with it. Green has a ton of enchantress and Regrowth effects which are nice assuming you want to be more middle of the pack.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
I have a deck that use Humility + Moat. I also run Engineered Plague to make sure the most annoying creature goes to the grave.
I usually receive a lot of hate for it but seriously, isn't it special to send a 1/1 Eldrazis to the grave and see nothing happen when they reach it because they have no ability while going there ?
There is also the random-and-flip-fun deck based on Mana Clash , Karplusan Minotaur, Game of Chaos, Confusion in the ranks combined with Krark's Thumb. For some reason, many players seem to hate flipping!
Best card draw. Best land destruction. Best lock down. Extra turns. Counters. Removal.
I've played against a few Narset decks that had me out of the game on turn 4 - I could literally not play a land and had 0 mana on board. The only way I could have won was:
Draw a Mana Crypt.
Draw Sol Ring.
Draw Signet.
Draw Return to Dust to nuke Land Equilibrium.
But because He had Jace TMS online I got to do:
RWU are great colors for pissing off the table.... more than any other I can think of. At least with the other colors you get to look like you are trying to win.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
There will be NO creatures.
It wasn't my style, so it didn't last long. But it was pretty effective.
You are a sick, sick individual. I think I love you.
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
It often wins games where opponents cannot do anything or they have zero cards on board.
The higher value things are good but not mandatory.
Anyway I've started my own gameplay channel in which I play games (Magic also)
Twitch:
https://www.twitch.tv/dies_to_doom_blade
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/UpsidedownHandshake
Black is the color that you really need for this type of deck. Black has the most "do something harmful to everyone" type of cards. My recommendation would be to play a Kaervek the Merciless deck. I would run irritating cards like Grip of Chaos and Possibility Storm. Also, group slug effects like Polluted Bonds, Painful Quandary, Bottomless Pit, and Havoc Festival. Play spells that mess with everyone else's stuff and/or try to run as much sadistic, damaging stuff as possible. Cards like Infernal Darkness, Contamination, and Mindcrank/Bloodchief Ascension are also worth considering.
No one likes Kaervek! Black/Red has plenty of cards to infuriate everyone not to mention the fact that if Kaervek is out, they get domed for a bunch whenever they cast anything. I hear the argument for White but Black/Red has enough irritating MLD for you to use in some games. Also, MLD will just make everyone throw their hands up in the air. It'll also end things quick. If you really want to get under people's skin in the games you aren't just blowing up the world, I would run Kaervek.
I also don't recommend a Stax/Prison deck for trolling purposes. Sure, these decks annoy people - a lot - but they are a little bit too good. It'll make people either stop wanting to play with you, or it'll start an arms race to beat you. It's not like you can't beat these decks. I think you want a troll deck that trolls people by being really obnoxious rather than a troll deck that trolls by winning.
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern:
RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
This is hilarious. I want to see this happen.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
Mizzix Of The Izmagnus : wheels on fire... rolling down the road...
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
I've built a number of decks like this before, and one constant is that people learn what it does - and they'll all turn on you ASAP. We've got a local that plays an awful Grand Arbiter Stax deck in multiplayer - and as long as she's in the game, people throw every single attack and bit of removal and disruption her way until she's out of the game.
One thing that seems to upset people more than anything else in EDH is preventing them from being able to do what their deck is supposed to do. To that end, I'll say that considering a focus on sorceries and instants that wreck the game might buy you a little bit more time than problematic enchantments.
Consider these:
Super strong, utterly unfair, make no friends.
Meh Cataclsym isn't that good in Derevi. But otherwise I agree with your assessment!
Personally though I would rather have people want to keep playing against my odious deck than rage scoop. So I wouldn't play a deck that is too strong. Otherwise you might as well just play 5c Hermit Druid or Ad Nauseam.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
Basically this. At best, this is a gimmick deck that people learn how to play against it and they *let* you play it every once in a while. Worst case scenario, they figure out this deck ruins the kind of games they want to play and you find yourself alone at a table watching other EDH players enjoying themselves.
It has happend to me
It was annoying although it led directly to me winning.
I play Dragonlord NOjutai deck... filled with 2 cmc hate enchantments Rest in peace, stony silence etc. You just play nothing but cards that prevent people from doing anything... including yourself (for example blind obedience, mana maze, damping matrix, torpor orb, hushwing gryf, aven mindcensor, rule of law). I have a had hundreds of different configurations of the deck trying to make it work. One version was DIsperia, supreme judge, the frustration when people can't attack you even though you are so annoying because you'll draw more ways to be annoying.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
1)Build an Ad Nauseam deck with Oloro as commander (to gain more life, but just go mono-black) or the tutor-Sidisi as Commander (to get the Ad Nauseam) then fill with infinite 0 cost artifacts and creatures and mana producers, dump your deck into a Sickening Dreams or a Skirge Familiar/Exsanguinate.
Your friends will hate you, but mostly because you will spend 5-10 minutes drawing cards and counting black mana before they die.
2)Build a deck that just slows down their options, but that is otehrwise fair. Examples include Grand Arbiter Augustin IV or Gaddock Teeg. They both slow down or cripple their options while you advance your own win conditions.
Or you can build a chaos red deck with that stupid enchantment that randomly reassigns targets. God I hate that card. So. Much.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.