Hanna, Ship's Navigator is a commander that has many applications. I just recently came upon a judge foil of her and want to build her into a fun competitive commander. Since she only cares about artifacts and enchantments being in the yard, there is not a build around strategy aside from playing artifacts and enchantments. So I ask, what is the best way to go about this? I have other artifact based decks and that leans me toward wanting to use more enchantments for her with artifacts at a lower ratio. I've seen a few deck lists on here that are quite a bit different from one another, but I want to compile a list that has some good synergies with all the cards together. So here are a few ways I've seen her built. What do you all think is the most effective way? I'm a little torn on what would perform the best with her. These are just a few ways not mentioning here the equipment possibility although it is still an option. Thanks for any and all feedback.
She lets you take all the turns with Second Chance if you can get to 5 or less life.
This is a fun thought, although it would probably be highly unlikely to be consistent. It is definitely an interesting fun way to go about it. I am looking more into doing a control enchantment based build and possibly including much of the first two lists in the OP to help with that.
I played Hanna, Ship's Navigator for quite a while. I didn´t know as much about deckbuilding back in the day and my list was heavily influenced by mmapson125´s list.
Just some thoughts, but I still hope it somehow helped!
Combo is one way I see it being the most successful. Although stax in my playgroup can be easily played around as mana rocks and tokens are pretty prominent. Academy Rector into Omniscience is my gameplan for sure. Mindslaver always feels too dirty to lock only one player out. I'm looking to use Aura Thief and Enchanted Evening for a total lock out, Opalescence / Starfield of Nyx and enchantment beats, and token producers in Luminarch Ascension, Sigil of the Empty Throne, Sacred Mesa, etc. I don't necessarily like the infinite idea too much, although some decks in my play group do have them, although they consist of 4+ cards many times and are not intentional. What would be some other good ways to finish out a game?
I played her as combo and control that utilized Counterbalance to great effect. I found that going the whole prison route did a whole lot of nothing. Here's the list. Sorry if the format is derp cause I'm mobile:
Combo is one way I see it being the most successful. Although stax in my playgroup can be easily played around as mana rocks and tokens are pretty prominent. Academy Rector into Omniscience is my gameplan for sure. Mindslaver always feels too dirty to lock only one player out. I'm looking to use Aura Thief and Enchanted Evening for a total lock out, Opalescence / Starfield of Nyx and enchantment beats, and token producers in Luminarch Ascension, Sigil of the Empty Throne, Sacred Mesa, etc. I don't necessarily like the infinite idea too much, although some decks in my play group do have them, although they consist of 4+ cards many times and are not intentional. What would be some other good ways to finish out a game?
You can go with Aura Thief + Enchanted Evening, but from my own experience, this one isn´t good and didn´t win me the game once in 30+ games. It looks sweet, but it is so obvious to see what is coming for your opponents AND u / w has no way to tutor for Aura Thief (and he is hard to recur in this type of deck), so you need to get lucky and draw into him. I found it to be highly ineffective, but maybe your experience will differ That beeing said, Enchanted Evening + Opalescence is an option for a land lock and Luminarch Ascension with some mana dorks left (or Omniscience) is usually good enough from there on.
The Opalescence + Parallax Wave + Parallax Tide "combo" is pretty slow, but can permanently exile all creatures and lands, is easy to tutor for in u / w and all cards are natural fits.
When I played this deck, it created a pretty boring game state, since all you do is controling the board all the time and it takes for forever to actually win a game. 95% of my wins came from Academy Rector into Omniscience and that felt pretty damn boring after some time. I guess everyone likes different stuff and maybe this is your style, but I would advice you to include atleast one real (infinite) win condition and that is not for power level reasons, but simply as way to finish the game. In my experience, people much rather like to start a fresh game, than wait 2+ hours for a "nice" control deck to finally finish them off with not much else happening.
Just my 2 cents.
Funny enough, the game I played last night ended with Enchanted Evening and Aura Thief. The board was under control with Sphere of Safety out stopping all attacks at me so it ended a few turns later. But I understand exactly what you mean by this being unreliable. I will look at doing at least one infinite combo, cause I know 3 hour games are not what I want to sit through either. I need to rework a few things in how I have it built but I think the control route definitey is the best way to go with it.
I played her as combo and control that utilized Counterbalance to great effect. I found that going the whole prison route did a whole lot of nothing. Here's the list. Sorry if the format is derp cause I'm mobile:
How successful/reliable is the Counterbalance route? It seems like it would be difficult in a singleton format to keep it going especially as you would need Sensei's Divining Top/Scroll Rack for it to work. Soothsaying does work as well as I see that in your list too. Prison is not my cup of tea, but it has been successful in the past. Not making any friends while I'm at it however and the list came apart soon after. I want to believe Hanna can be done in a way that will not promote a grinding to a halt kind of control but enough to pull out a win still, whether it be combo or beat face. Just finding the right balance of the two is difficult and the right finishing plays.
I run her as a sort of combo/control/theft mishmash. I run almost every card in your second and third list, but basically none in your first or fourth list.
My plan A with her is stealing everyone else's best creatures with Control Magic effects. It woks well with her ability because if someone bounces or kills your stolen creature, you can just bring your control magic back to your hands (and Open the Vaults is hilarious when you have three or four control magic effects in your graveyard).
Plan B is basically Eldrazi Conscription with the best enchantment tutors (including Sovereigns of Lost Alara). I've won a surprising number of games with Hanna commander damage.
what kinda of meta do you guys find yourself playing in?
I run mmapson's list for the most part however my LSG has implemented a limit to infinite combos to only run three iterations, games are limited to about an hour. This skews the kind of decks I encounter, there is nearly no representation of storm, control, stax and prison decks are almost never run due to the time limit. There is an over representation of aggro and tempo decks and fast combo.
Thus I am focused on racing to a combo in under an hour, I've found attunement to be very effective but grave-hate is light in my meta due to the relative strength of combo decks.
I think it is important to focus on mulliganning for a hand that starts off with either standstill, rhystic study, mystic remora, attunement, sensei's divining top or luminarch's ascension.
If you draw into a copy enchantment with rhystic study, mystic remora or attunement, you will simply outdraw every other player at the table.
I've switched all the counter magic with cmc > 2 and usually 1U cost now that tucking commanders is no longer a thing.
Also I haven't seen anyone talk about recurring insight or tunnel vision here, if either of these spells resolve the chances of winning usually goes up exponentially. On average, tunnel vision will mill quite a lot of power for you and if you focus enough on initial card draw then you can usually find replenish or open the vaults quite easily. Mystic tutor also allows you to complete the kata if you draw into the tunnel vision first.
I disagree that aura thief+enchanted evening+claw of fix/seal of cleansing/aura of silence is a weak combo, this deck has more than enough card draw. If you draw into enchanted evening without aura thief then you use enlightenment tutor/idyllic tutor to find opalescence for a land-lock, create a board state that benefits you by board wiping followed by a weak replenish for just opalescence + enchanted evening will still win you the game, pretty hard for players to do anything when they can no longer play lands. But more often than not, enchanted evening is a just part of a replenish activator with opalescence after a tunnel vision, it allows you to disenchant any relevant targets and then with your animated enchantments and no longer lands, it's generally a scoop.
Finally, Futuresight - it's a great card, the virtual card advantage is amazing, but in my meta, but the time I hit turn 5, I need to have drawn enough cards already, this is draw-go deck, it's very hard to truly abuse future sight in this regard unless you also have orrery or leylines out. I've tried running it for a few weeks but ended up taking it back out - simply not fast enough.
I also really like font of fortunes and courier's capsule, I tried them in place of attunement, they're strong but it's only +1 card advantage, where as attunement allows you to dig three.
What are people's thoughts on heliod in this list? I find it too slow...
I run her as a sort of combo/control/theft mishmash. I run almost every card in your second and third list, but basically none in your first or fourth list.
My plan A with her is stealing everyone else's best creatures with Control Magic effects. It woks well with her ability because if someone bounces or kills your stolen creature, you can just bring your control magic back to your hands (and Open the Vaults is hilarious when you have three or four control magic effects in your graveyard).
Plan B is basically Eldrazi Conscription with the best enchantment tutors (including Sovereigns of Lost Alara). I've won a surprising number of games with Hanna commander damage.
Regardless of how you assemble it though, Standstill is a must. Possibly the best card in the deck.
The control magic effects do open up a very interesting approach to the enchantment theme. Hanna has the capable resources to pull back as many as we need. Standstill will be in the deck for sure. I'm not sure on the aura route yet but it may be worth testing out to see its viability in my play group. I do like the Cleansing Meditation Idea and will probably try it out as one of the combos to win by.
what kinda of meta do you guys find yourself playing in?
I run mmapson's list for the most part however my LSG has implemented a limit to infinite combos to only run three iterations, games are limited to about an hour. This skews the kind of decks I encounter, there is nearly no representation of storm, control, stax and prison decks are almost never run due to the time limit. There is an over representation of aggro and tempo decks and fast combo.
Thus I am focused on racing to a combo in under an hour, I've found attunement to be very effective but grave-hate is light in my meta due to the relative strength of combo decks.
I think it is important to focus on mulliganning for a hand that starts off with either standstill, rhystic study, mystic remora, attunement, sensei's divining top or luminarch's ascension.
If you draw into a copy enchantment with rhystic study, mystic remora or attunement, you will simply outdraw every other player at the table.
I've switched all the counter magic with cmc > 2 and usually 1U cost now that tucking commanders is no longer a thing.
Also I haven't seen anyone talk about recurring insight or tunnel vision here, if either of these spells resolve the chances of winning usually goes up exponentially. On average, tunnel vision will mill quite a lot of power for you and if you focus enough on initial card draw then you can usually find replenish or open the vaults quite easily. Mystic tutor also allows you to complete the kata if you draw into the tunnel vision first.
I disagree that aura thief+enchanted evening+claw of fix/seal of cleansing/aura of silence is a weak combo, this deck has more than enough card draw. If you draw into enchanted evening without aura thief then you use enlightenment tutor/idyllic tutor to find opalescence for a land-lock, create a board state that benefits you by board wiping followed by a weak replenish for just opalescence + enchanted evening will still win you the game, pretty hard for players to do anything when they can no longer play lands. But more often than not, enchanted evening is a just part of a replenish activator with opalescence after a tunnel vision, it allows you to disenchant any relevant targets and then with your animated enchantments and no longer lands, it's generally a scoop.
Finally, Futuresight - it's a great card, the virtual card advantage is amazing, but in my meta, but the time I hit turn 5, I need to have drawn enough cards already, this is draw-go deck, it's very hard to truly abuse future sight in this regard unless you also have orrery or leylines out. I've tried running it for a few weeks but ended up taking it back out - simply not fast enough.
I also really like font of fortunes and courier's capsule, I tried them in place of attunement, they're strong but it's only +1 card advantage, where as attunement allows you to dig three.
What are people's thoughts on heliod in this list? I find it too slow...
My meta is very midrange with commanders such as Trostani, Selesnya's Voice fog, Titania, Protector of Argoth, Omnath, Locus of Rage, Dragonlord Ojutai voltron etc. I run many control commanders myself but most of the decks are token based as you can see. I want to use control to keep the board state under control but trying to police these decks are difficult with just one of me. I believe Hinder and Spell Crumple still deserve a spot for Tunnel Vision as a one player kill. What other 2 mana counter spells do you recommend besides Arcane Denial and Counterspell. This means I will probably lower some of the control elements down to allow for more draw to combo out with one of the combos below.
Other combos are welcome although the infinite route I'm still hesitant on as all of the combos listed here will end the game on the spot if they resolve. I had Aura Thief, Enchanted Evening, and Claws of Gix out in a game the other day and once I sacrificed the thief, everyone scooped. So assembling the combo isn't necessarily hard with an abundance of draw. I do have to ask, how good is Attunement anyway? I understand it draws 3 multiple times, but is the discard 4 ever a hinderance to playing it?
Future Sight I agree on in this case. Normally it adds a lot of value since many of my games stretch well past turn 5, however, with the card selection in this deck it is rarely needed.
Hanna is pretty amazing in a stax deck. You use sac outlets like Claws of Gix to remove lock pieces on the opponent's end step, recurring them on your turn. She can weld the board shut with Stasis, make you invincible with Energy Field and combo off in a hundred different ways. Lots of innate ramp due to mana rocks with a cheap CMC to boot, has no fear of board wipes or mill. Its quickly become one of my favorite decks, and it wins a disproportionate number of games in my meta.
Hanna is pretty amazing in a stax deck. You use sac outlets like Claws of Gix to remove lock pieces on the opponent's end step, recurring them on your turn. She can weld the board shut with Stasis, make you invincible with Energy Field and combo off in a hundred different ways. Lots of innate ramp due to mana rocks with a cheap CMC to boot, has no fear of board wipes or mill. Its quickly become one of my favorite decks, and it wins a disproportionate number of games in my meta.
I've tried stax builds before with other commanders and in these colors before with Stasis like effects and my playgroup responds well to them being able to work around them to a great degree. So I have diverted this attempt away from this play style. I like a lot of elements in your deck grabbing the combo pieces as you put them into the graveyard. It is almost like tutoring for them with Hanna bringing them into hand.
Hanna is pretty amazing in a stax deck. You use sac outlets like Claws of Gix to remove lock pieces on the opponent's end step, recurring them on your turn. She can weld the board shut with Stasis, make you invincible with Energy Field and combo off in a hundred different ways. Lots of innate ramp due to mana rocks with a cheap CMC to boot, has no fear of board wipes or mill. Its quickly become one of my favorite decks, and it wins a disproportionate number of games in my meta.
[quote from="darthophage »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/727127-hanna-ships-navigator-whats-the-best-way-to?comment=9"]
I disagree that aura thief+enchanted evening+claw of fix/seal of cleansing/aura of silence is a weak combo, this deck has more than enough card draw. If you draw into enchanted evening without aura thief then you use enlightenment tutor/idyllic tutor to find opalescence for a land-lock, create a board state that benefits you by board wiping followed by a weak replenish for just opalescence + enchanted evening will still win you the game, pretty hard for players to do anything when they can no longer play lands. But more often than not, enchanted evening is a just part of a replenish activator with opalescence after a tunnel vision, it allows you to disenchant any relevant targets and then with your animated enchantments and no longer lands, it's generally a scoop.
Well, that is your opinion, man :D. Not to be rude, but it IS slow (that can be fine) and none of your arguments speak for Aura Thief. While I can see Enchanted Evening´s place in this deck, Aura Thief simply is one completly dead card if you can´t combo with it and / or find it. What do you do if Aura Thief somehow lands in your gy? What do you do if you have Enchanted Evening and there is no Aura Thief in sight? The more cards like Aura Thief you add, the less consistent your deck will be. You could also slam Laboratory Maniac into every deck that has somehow access to infinite mana in combination with i.e. Blue Sun's Zenith, but without synergy and or ways to search for it (and you don´t have any for Aura Thief in u / w), this won´t make the "combo" any good. I simply don´t like to live in magical christmas land.
Edit says: That beeing said, I play in a pretty cutthroat meta, mostly fast combo, control and midrange and opinions might differ. Still, I simply can´t see why this card should be considered, even if your playgroups are more on the casual side. Off the top of my head, I could list you dozen of cards I would include over him. Hell, I would even play a basic Island over him...
I am back and forth on the Aura Thief combo. Is it a powerful combo? Yes. Is it reliable? No, not without a lot of draw. However, this can be mitigated in this particular deck as we have access to many great draw spells and enchantment draw spells at that which can be recurred with Hanna. This makes this variance of drawing into Aura Thief a lot less. Of course if he is in our yard due to milling, discarding, or some other means it is near impossible to return him to our hand. We do have other means to win however and this is not the only one. I feel like he doesn't take up needed space in the fact that if we draw him, there are plenty of ways to find the second and third piece to lock the game. What in your opinion would make a better "game winning" choice over him?
Aura Thief simply is one completly dead card if you can´t combo with it and / or find it. What do you do if Aura Thief somehow lands in your gy? What do you do if you have Enchanted Evening and there is no Aura Thief in sight? The more cards like Aura Thief you add, the less consistent your deck will be. You could also slam Laboratory Maniac into every deck that has somehow access to infinite mana in combination with i.e. Blue Sun's Zenith, but without synergy and or ways to search for it (and you don´t have any for Aura Thief in u / w), this won´t make the "combo" any good. I simply don´t like to live in magical christmas land.
hehe, magic christmas land, nice one. All your points are valid, this combo is certainly not tutor-able, and if you lose aura thief to the graveyard then you will permanently lose access to that particular combo, I understand your desire to be able to access the combo at will and you are right, it isn't reliable, I took it out for a while myself because of this exactly line of thought. but allows me to explain why I put it back in and perhaps convince you in the process.
First, consider this - hanna she mainly uses enchantment combos which you can tutor for with enlightenment tutor, idyllic tutor and plea for guidance if you really want to run that card but I find it too slow and your meta sounds like it is faster than mine.
In my opinion, the core combo of hanna is the infinite blink/exile creatures combo:
to support of this core two card combo here is the third card that fits to make players scoop.
parallax tide will enable you to exile all your opponents lands in addition to removing all creatures you don't control. You can also blink all your lands effectively creating infinite mana, all players scoop enchanted evening destroys all lands unless a player have an anthem effect in play, any lands that are played have summoning sickness, so can't be tapped for mana, they are also 0/0 and promptly die. all permanents are also enchantment creatures so you can also exile any permanent with opalwave, all players scoop detention sphere allows you to blink or exile all permanents with opalwave, all players scoop oblivion ring allows you to blink or exile all permanents with opalwave, all players scoop
sun titan allows you to recur all permanents with cmc 3 or less including lands, this is particularly violent after a tunnel vision that digs too deep. This list also runs glacial chasm so you are pretty much invulnerable when it's not your turn, fun fact - solitary confinement can be used to the same effect as well but I could never find a way to cut something to put it in.
so above there are 6 cards that syngergizes with the core combo, if you need to tutor for a combo, go find that. when you only have one of the four support cards, you will need to find opalwave. unless of course you can activate some sort of backup combo - which is where aura thief comes in. with sun titan, that's 8 cards, and add in enlightenment tutor and idyllic, that's 10 cards, 10% of your deck are now combo pieces. I will put up with sun titan and aura thief not being tutor-able for the off chance I will unnaturally draw into them with standstill, rhystic study, mystic remora, recurring insight. three of which can be copy enchantmented for further abuse.
In addition there is also starfield of nyx which is only good for blinking and beating someone to death with your enchantments and provides you with value every turn. I run it but I don't consider it a combo piece.
As well, I would argue that aura thief is not a dead card - enchantments are the hardest permanents to destroy in the current meta. playing aura thief when there are a bunch of enchantments out may not be combo, but you can steal someone's xenagos, god of revels or purphoros, god of the forge or doubling season, that's more than worth it. Ultimately it's about probability, the probability of you drawing into a tutor or a combo piece, sun titan or aura thief. If you find better options for the slots sun titan or aura thief occupy let me know, lord knows I couldn't justify anything else that would perform better in those slots.
This is in my mind hanna's signature kill condition, enough pieces are tutor-able which fulfills your needs for being able to beat fast combo which should be easy because you should be running 9-10 permission spells with this list. I don't think Hanna beats fast combo by combing first, she beats them by dragging out the game with permission and then winning once they've tried and failed to win.
That is also the reason why I prefer 2cmc or lower counters, specifically 1U counters in case I can't find UU within the first two turns. Tunnel visioning one person to death is weaker than exiling all the things, although the tunnel vision might get you nothing, but that's luck for you. Also, tunnel visioning someone won't work if they run an eldrazi, blight/dark steel collosi or guile and friends. I would much prefer to tunnel vision myself into a replenish or open vaults to activate one of the above combos.
memory lapse, delay and ertai's meddling and also remand are very strong multiplayer counterspells because they can be used to slow a threat to render it irrelevant and keeps everyone else's eyes fixed on the player I want the table to focus on. I cannot tell you how many times it has bought me enough time to combo. enter the infinite? delay it for a turn (assuming you prepared to win that counter war which of course you did, right?), now everyone will try to kill or disable that player and completely forget about you. meanwhile, exile all the things.
As for stax, if you want to go there GAAIV is objectively the superior commander for that route.
As for attunement, remember to recite the litany against fear when you use it. you are digging for combo pieces or answers when you use it, you must not be afraid of throwing your hand away in order to win the game. besides, the graveyard it just hanna's other library. attune into a replenish or open the vaults and then you'll have a more difficult decision, do I get greedy and attune another turn or do I cut my loses and replenish/open the vaults now?
The list already runs an austere command, I'm also referencing mmapsons list which I consider to be the most refined list I could find online.
The logic behind aura thief is to be able to have a higher probability of finding a combo, by the same logic that you want to be able to tutor, in a combo deck, enough slots needs to be dedicated to comboing. You won't be able to resolve opal wave every time, after enough games, opalwave is just an auto counter. Going down to 9% may not seem like much but it can make or break you sometimes.
I find this deck has enough counterspells, one more is possible but I would rather have the aura thief, same with the island, there's enough lands. You gotta be patient with Hanna in this regard, don't worry about not being able to play it immediately, you can use it as a answer to other players enchantment, and you are stealing them for tempo to boot. and again, a probability thing, you may draw into austere, you may find aura thief, it's another card capable of helping you deal with enchantments. You can even play it to bluff and draw out an exile spell that you don't want them to use against something else, or as deterrence against attacks when they themselves have some juicy enchantment that they depend on in play.
I tried futuresight, top, some -1 ability cost spells. Helm or that artifact creature was truly dead in this deck and was more often than not a chump block, there aren't enough activated abilities in this deck to synergize with helm. Future sight alone you cant squeeze enough value in a draw go deck. And there isn't enough colorless infinite mana outlets to justify for basalt power artifact, namely none if you don't run awakenedfuturetop.
But Sun Titan could be a dead draw if you have nothing to recur and when he dies he's gone forever, doesn't that put him on the same level as aura thief? Yes recursion every turn, but how often does he last a single turn without you have reached a degenerate board state with opalwave and counters in hand? Sun Titan is another one of those must kill cards, aura thief too if they've seen that and enchanted evening enough times.
Opalescence + Parallax wave is the main combo, and is the main win con, but i have had a few weird games winning with a dovescape in play, returning decree of silence to generate 8 birds per turn, or killing with an obnoxious amount of clerics with Heliod, enchanted evenings and sanctum of serra.
My opinion is that Hanna is as her best in combo, as you can grind out control with the recursion that Hanna gives.
Can you tell me more about how you used Heliod? I'm so torn about him. I hate him but sometimes vigilance is amazing after a replenish when my opponents still have a board state.
Nice list, you use a lot more dig and draw then I expected, I was considering a build like this myself due to my Lgs tournament time limit. I will have to think more about this
Griiverino, sorry for causing you so much angst, if it makes you feel better, I do understand your line of reasoning, you said your list was heavily influenced by mmapson's so out of curiosity, would you be willing to share your list? It is true mmapson's list hasn't been updated in a long time. Could you elaborate on the kind of power creep that has happened that you have needed to respond to and how? I'm and old foggy that came back from the brink only about a year ago, I haven't had the benefit of consistent play to observe the meta transitioning. It sounds like my environment is not nearly as competitive as your and I am interested in seeing how to make hanna stronger.
Magus_Scroll, heliod +opal/starfield has hurt me more than once, I use heliod usually to transition from mid game to late game, in hindsight I force my own transition into opal or starfield, maybe that's the problem, I should let them deal with heliod first before transitioning.
the LGS I play at is limited to an hour a round so time is always my enemy. In order to compensate for that, I've had to aggressively mulligan for early card draw in order to reach hanna's end state, I've tried using compulsion, mental discipline, courier's capsule, font of fortunes to accelerate but they are all lacklustre compared to the draw and dig enchantments above, I've also overkilled the card draw and just durdled so that was no fun, but I had a preference to this spells vs. frantic search, brainstorm etc due to the potential recurability.
She lets you take all the turns with Second Chance if you can get to 5 or less life.
This is a fun thought, although it would probably be highly unlikely to be consistent.
After urza's saga came out (god I loved that set) one of my favorite cards was worship. Whenever I played that I was at 1 life constantly! Its tons of fun living on the edge like that.
Griiverino, sorry for causing you so much angst, if it makes you feel better, I do understand your line of reasoning, you said your list was heavily influenced by mmapson's so out of curiosity, would you be willing to share your list? It is true mmapson's list hasn't been updated in a long time. Could you elaborate on the kind of power creep that has happened that you have needed to respond to and how? I'm and old foggy that came back from the brink only about a year ago, I haven't had the benefit of consistent play to observe the meta transitioning. It sounds like my environment is not nearly as competitive as your and I am interested in seeing how to make hanna stronger.
Np man, like said, I really didn´t want to be rude in any way, I simply have a strong opinion about one special card
I would say I played around 80 % of the cards in mmapson's list (since it was heavily based on it), switching some cards because of personal preference / meta reasons. So the cell was the same: A very grindy and slow control deck. In itself, this is ab****ely ok as it has lots of synergy and answers. Around that time, I mostly played against a 50 - 75 % Animar, Soul of Elements, Daretti, Scrap Savant and 75 % - 80 % Prossh, Skyraider of Kher list and my Hanna could hold its ground. I didn´t decide to disband my deck because of power level reasons, but because our group (me included) found it simply "boring" to play against, since all this deck does is pretty much controling the board and wait to hopefully somehow draw into a win. It was the first "real" control deck in my meta and because of that was seen with mixed feelings (that wouldn´t be a problem nowadays). As far as my decklist goes, I simply can´t find it atm (deckstats doesn´t list it under "fallen decks" and I am at a new computer by now), but I will surely in the future, if you are still interested.
Like I said, this deck is 100 % fine in a 75 % meta, just very slow and grindy. If you want to play Hanna at your head in a cutthroat meta, this simply won´t work. Everything takes to long and is not explosive enough with this approach. I am just gonna quote someone who plays Hanna in such an enviroment (discussion here): "Hanna doesn't contribute enough to working through your own locks like brago does and does not act as a tax piece like GAIVV. She is really just a late game fallback plan to get back any stax pieces and occasionally she shows off if you have the board pretty jamed up and are able to re buy a standstill or tangle wire every other turn.". This would be the "stax" approach, something that 100 % works better with her cometitively (here is his deck, just as an example how it could look like list). Combo / Control should also be possible, dropping that "great enchantment plan" completely, while focussing on broken stuff with artifacts. Hanna would "simply" be another way to recur key pieces. I honestly think this could workt, but I don´t know someone who plays a list like that.
P.S. I really like Argivian Find and played it in my old list! Cost-efficient and relevant "every game".
No offense taken from any of your views. Differing opinions is what makes this game what it is, and play how it does.
Pretty good reasoning on the playstyle and competitiveness of the meta. My meta is more semi-competitive where we don't go for the turn 3 combo sort of thing. But we have had turn 5 and turn 6 combos that end the game. So I feel if I can gear her to be as competitive as Hanna can be without moving to a commander such as GAAIV or Brago, just because they are more cutthroat, I can have fun with the commander I would rather bring to the table. Hanna is great for the fact that I don't need her to win a game. Brago is most likely going to pull all the value for you in any game. Grand Arbiter is not as dependent on but his effect helps. Looking over the list your friend uses, I see where your argument stands. What advice would you give seeing as how stax is pretty easily played around if you know how to do it? Even if my playgroup is semi-competitive, they do not get shut down by stax very often outside of a land wipe which is usually recovered from quickly. I'm up for cutting out enchantments or minimizing them at the least to bring in an artifact based strategy. But I do run a Mishra storm deck and he capitalizes on artifacts as is, and I wanted something not so heavy in that area.
Of course, I will post my decklist in the mulitplayer forum and here is the link to it so you can comb over what I am using. Of course everything in that thread is not set in stone as I want to utilize her to the best of her ability so all cards certainly are up for change.
Of course, I will post my decklist in the mulitplayer forum and here is the link to it so you can comb over what I am using. Of course everything in that thread is not set in stone as I want to utilize her to the best of her ability so all cards certainly are up for change.
Of course, I will post my decklist in the mulitplayer forum and here is the link to it so you can comb over what I am using. Of course everything in that thread is not set in stone as I want to utilize her to the best of her ability so all cards certainly are up for change.
Actually it is in right now until Lunar Force is out. I want to add both if I keep the list as is, but it was a last minute edit I did today. I'll probably use both, but I am getting second opinions on migrating to a stax build but I'm not sold on the idea yet. I want her to be as competitive as she can be so I may reconsider some things in that direction. I'll put together a stax list and add it to my deck list in multiplayer to get ideas on both control and stax within the next day or two.
Pillow Fort with cards like:
Control builds with cards like:
Combo with cards like: Opalescence and the Parallax cards feel dirty
Or aggro with artifact creatures with help from:
WBR Alesha's Death Brigade WBR
WWW Brigid the Battlefield Saboteur WWW
UB Wydwen, the Biting Gale UB
This is a fun thought, although it would probably be highly unlikely to be consistent. It is definitely an interesting fun way to go about it. I am looking more into doing a control enchantment based build and possibly including much of the first two lists in the OP to help with that.
Combo is one way I see it being the most successful. Although stax in my playgroup can be easily played around as mana rocks and tokens are pretty prominent. Academy Rector into Omniscience is my gameplan for sure. Mindslaver always feels too dirty to lock only one player out. I'm looking to use Aura Thief and Enchanted Evening for a total lock out, Opalescence / Starfield of Nyx and enchantment beats, and token producers in Luminarch Ascension, Sigil of the Empty Throne, Sacred Mesa, etc. I don't necessarily like the infinite idea too much, although some decks in my play group do have them, although they consist of 4+ cards many times and are not intentional. What would be some other good ways to finish out a game?
WBR Alesha's Death Brigade WBR
WWW Brigid the Battlefield Saboteur WWW
UB Wydwen, the Biting Gale UB
1x Arcane Lighthouse
1x Azorius Chancery
1x Buried Ruin
1x Celestial Colonnade
1x Command Tower
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Faerie Conclave
1x Flooded Strand
1x Glacial Fortress
1x Hallowed Fountain
7x Island
1x Maze of Ith
1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1x Nimbus Maze
1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
6x Plains
1x Polluted Delta
1x Prairie Stream
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Sejiri Refuge
1x Temple of Enlightenment
1x Temple of the False God
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Tolaria West
1x Windswept Heath
1x Austere Command
1x Entreat the Angels
1x Idyllic Tutor
1x Ponder
1x Preordain
1x Replenish
1x Supreme Verdict
1x Wrath of God
1x Blue Sun's Zenith
1x Brainstorm
1x Capsize
1x Counterspell
1x Cryptic Command
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Dissipate
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Faerie Trickery
1x Faith's Reward
1x Force of Will
1x Hallowed Moonlight
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Path to Exile
1x Render Silent
1x Sphinx's Revelation
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Aura of Silence
1x Counterbalance
1x Decree of Silence
1x Leyline of Anticipation
1x Marshal's Anthem
1x Mind Over Matter
1x Rhystic Study
1x Soothsaying
1x Stasis Snare
//Planeswalker (1)
1x Narset Transcendent
1x Arcanis the Omnipotent
1x Archaeomancer
1x Brine Elemental
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
1x Grand Abolisher
1x Kheru Spellsnatcher
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Stratus Dancer
1x Sun Titan
1x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1x Thassa, God of the Sea
1x Trinket Mage
1x Vedalken AEthermage
1x Vesuvan Shapeshifter
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Mind Stone
1x Mindslaver
1x Scroll Rack
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Temple Bell
1x Unstable Obelisk
RRRAshling, the PilgrimRRR
UUUThadda Adel, AcquisitorUUU
Funny enough, the game I played last night ended with Enchanted Evening and Aura Thief. The board was under control with Sphere of Safety out stopping all attacks at me so it ended a few turns later. But I understand exactly what you mean by this being unreliable. I will look at doing at least one infinite combo, cause I know 3 hour games are not what I want to sit through either. I need to rework a few things in how I have it built but I think the control route definitey is the best way to go with it.
How successful/reliable is the Counterbalance route? It seems like it would be difficult in a singleton format to keep it going especially as you would need Sensei's Divining Top/Scroll Rack for it to work. Soothsaying does work as well as I see that in your list too. Prison is not my cup of tea, but it has been successful in the past. Not making any friends while I'm at it however and the list came apart soon after. I want to believe Hanna can be done in a way that will not promote a grinding to a halt kind of control but enough to pull out a win still, whether it be combo or beat face. Just finding the right balance of the two is difficult and the right finishing plays.
WBR Alesha's Death Brigade WBR
WWW Brigid the Battlefield Saboteur WWW
UB Wydwen, the Biting Gale UB
My plan A with her is stealing everyone else's best creatures with Control Magic effects. It woks well with her ability because if someone bounces or kills your stolen creature, you can just bring your control magic back to your hands (and Open the Vaults is hilarious when you have three or four control magic effects in your graveyard).
Plan B is basically Eldrazi Conscription with the best enchantment tutors (including Sovereigns of Lost Alara). I've won a surprising number of games with Hanna commander damage.
And then, Plan C is one of multiple combos like Aura Thief(or Cleansing Meditation) and Enchanted Evening.
Regardless of how you assemble it though, Standstill is a must. Possibly the best card in the deck.
I run mmapson's list for the most part however my LSG has implemented a limit to infinite combos to only run three iterations, games are limited to about an hour. This skews the kind of decks I encounter, there is nearly no representation of storm, control, stax and prison decks are almost never run due to the time limit. There is an over representation of aggro and tempo decks and fast combo.
Thus I am focused on racing to a combo in under an hour, I've found attunement to be very effective but grave-hate is light in my meta due to the relative strength of combo decks.
I think it is important to focus on mulliganning for a hand that starts off with either standstill, rhystic study, mystic remora, attunement, sensei's divining top or luminarch's ascension.
If you draw into a copy enchantment with rhystic study, mystic remora or attunement, you will simply outdraw every other player at the table.
I've switched all the counter magic with cmc > 2 and usually 1U cost now that tucking commanders is no longer a thing.
Also I haven't seen anyone talk about recurring insight or tunnel vision here, if either of these spells resolve the chances of winning usually goes up exponentially. On average, tunnel vision will mill quite a lot of power for you and if you focus enough on initial card draw then you can usually find replenish or open the vaults quite easily. Mystic tutor also allows you to complete the kata if you draw into the tunnel vision first.
I disagree that aura thief+enchanted evening+claw of fix/seal of cleansing/aura of silence is a weak combo, this deck has more than enough card draw. If you draw into enchanted evening without aura thief then you use enlightenment tutor/idyllic tutor to find opalescence for a land-lock, create a board state that benefits you by board wiping followed by a weak replenish for just opalescence + enchanted evening will still win you the game, pretty hard for players to do anything when they can no longer play lands. But more often than not, enchanted evening is a just part of a replenish activator with opalescence after a tunnel vision, it allows you to disenchant any relevant targets and then with your animated enchantments and no longer lands, it's generally a scoop.
Finally, Futuresight - it's a great card, the virtual card advantage is amazing, but in my meta, but the time I hit turn 5, I need to have drawn enough cards already, this is draw-go deck, it's very hard to truly abuse future sight in this regard unless you also have orrery or leylines out. I've tried running it for a few weeks but ended up taking it back out - simply not fast enough.
I also really like font of fortunes and courier's capsule, I tried them in place of attunement, they're strong but it's only +1 card advantage, where as attunement allows you to dig three.
What are people's thoughts on heliod in this list? I find it too slow...
The control magic effects do open up a very interesting approach to the enchantment theme. Hanna has the capable resources to pull back as many as we need. Standstill will be in the deck for sure. I'm not sure on the aura route yet but it may be worth testing out to see its viability in my play group. I do like the Cleansing Meditation Idea and will probably try it out as one of the combos to win by.
My meta is very midrange with commanders such as Trostani, Selesnya's Voice fog, Titania, Protector of Argoth, Omnath, Locus of Rage, Dragonlord Ojutai voltron etc. I run many control commanders myself but most of the decks are token based as you can see. I want to use control to keep the board state under control but trying to police these decks are difficult with just one of me. I believe Hinder and Spell Crumple still deserve a spot for Tunnel Vision as a one player kill. What other 2 mana counter spells do you recommend besides Arcane Denial and Counterspell. This means I will probably lower some of the control elements down to allow for more draw to combo out with one of the combos below.
Aura Thief + Enchanted Evening + Claws of Gix/Aura of Silence/Seal of Cleansing
Tunnel Vision + Hinder/Spell crumple/Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Tunnel Vision + Open the Vaults/Replenish
Omniscience + Enter the Infinite + Laboratory Maniac
Opalescence + Enchanted Evening
Cleansing Meditation + Enchanted Evening + Threshold
Other combos are welcome although the infinite route I'm still hesitant on as all of the combos listed here will end the game on the spot if they resolve. I had Aura Thief, Enchanted Evening, and Claws of Gix out in a game the other day and once I sacrificed the thief, everyone scooped. So assembling the combo isn't necessarily hard with an abundance of draw. I do have to ask, how good is Attunement anyway? I understand it draws 3 multiple times, but is the discard 4 ever a hinderance to playing it?
Future Sight I agree on in this case. Normally it adds a lot of value since many of my games stretch well past turn 5, however, with the card selection in this deck it is rarely needed.
Heliod, God of the Sun is something I am thinking of removing. I have not needed it once and only in the case of Luminarch Ascension or Sigil of the Empty Throne would it be needed most of the time. Opalescence could benefit from it but not sure how many times it will be assembled without going for a lock.
WBR Alesha's Death Brigade WBR
WWW Brigid the Battlefield Saboteur WWW
UB Wydwen, the Biting Gale UB
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/hannas-heart-attack-stax/
Hanna is pretty amazing in a stax deck. You use sac outlets like Claws of Gix to remove lock pieces on the opponent's end step, recurring them on your turn. She can weld the board shut with Stasis, make you invincible with Energy Field and combo off in a hundred different ways. Lots of innate ramp due to mana rocks with a cheap CMC to boot, has no fear of board wipes or mill. Its quickly become one of my favorite decks, and it wins a disproportionate number of games in my meta.
Nicol Bolas Dragon Dick
Hanna, Ship's Navigator Heart-attack Stax
Oona, Queen of the Fae Fairy Dance
Vhati Il-Dal Tree of Woe
Scion of the Ur-Dragon Durgensturm
Jolrael, Empress of Beasts Jamuraa's Army
Liliana, Heretical Healer Rise from your Graves and Proliferate
Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Angelic Judgment [
I've tried stax builds before with other commanders and in these colors before with Stasis like effects and my playgroup responds well to them being able to work around them to a great degree. So I have diverted this attempt away from this play style. I like a lot of elements in your deck grabbing the combo pieces as you put them into the graveyard. It is almost like tutoring for them with Hanna bringing them into hand.
I am back and forth on the Aura Thief combo. Is it a powerful combo? Yes. Is it reliable? No, not without a lot of draw. However, this can be mitigated in this particular deck as we have access to many great draw spells and enchantment draw spells at that which can be recurred with Hanna. This makes this variance of drawing into Aura Thief a lot less. Of course if he is in our yard due to milling, discarding, or some other means it is near impossible to return him to our hand. We do have other means to win however and this is not the only one. I feel like he doesn't take up needed space in the fact that if we draw him, there are plenty of ways to find the second and third piece to lock the game. What in your opinion would make a better "game winning" choice over him?
WBR Alesha's Death Brigade WBR
WWW Brigid the Battlefield Saboteur WWW
UB Wydwen, the Biting Gale UB
hehe, magic christmas land, nice one. All your points are valid, this combo is certainly not tutor-able, and if you lose aura thief to the graveyard then you will permanently lose access to that particular combo, I understand your desire to be able to access the combo at will and you are right, it isn't reliable, I took it out for a while myself because of this exactly line of thought. but allows me to explain why I put it back in and perhaps convince you in the process.
First, consider this - hanna she mainly uses enchantment combos which you can tutor for with enlightenment tutor, idyllic tutor and plea for guidance if you really want to run that card but I find it too slow and your meta sounds like it is faster than mine.
In my opinion, the core combo of hanna is the infinite blink/exile creatures combo:
parallax wave opalescence. Which I will loving call opalwave.
to support of this core two card combo here is the third card that fits to make players scoop.
parallax tide will enable you to exile all your opponents lands in addition to removing all creatures you don't control. You can also blink all your lands effectively creating infinite mana, all players scoop
enchanted evening destroys all lands unless a player have an anthem effect in play, any lands that are played have summoning sickness, so can't be tapped for mana, they are also 0/0 and promptly die. all permanents are also enchantment creatures so you can also exile any permanent with opalwave, all players scoop
detention sphere allows you to blink or exile all permanents with opalwave, all players scoop
oblivion ring allows you to blink or exile all permanents with opalwave, all players scoop
sun titan allows you to recur all permanents with cmc 3 or less including lands, this is particularly violent after a tunnel vision that digs too deep. This list also runs glacial chasm so you are pretty much invulnerable when it's not your turn, fun fact - solitary confinement can be used to the same effect as well but I could never find a way to cut something to put it in.
so above there are 6 cards that syngergizes with the core combo, if you need to tutor for a combo, go find that. when you only have one of the four support cards, you will need to find opalwave. unless of course you can activate some sort of backup combo - which is where aura thief comes in. with sun titan, that's 8 cards, and add in enlightenment tutor and idyllic, that's 10 cards, 10% of your deck are now combo pieces. I will put up with sun titan and aura thief not being tutor-able for the off chance I will unnaturally draw into them with standstill, rhystic study, mystic remora, recurring insight. three of which can be copy enchantmented for further abuse.
In addition there is also starfield of nyx which is only good for blinking and beating someone to death with your enchantments and provides you with value every turn. I run it but I don't consider it a combo piece.
As well, I would argue that aura thief is not a dead card - enchantments are the hardest permanents to destroy in the current meta. playing aura thief when there are a bunch of enchantments out may not be combo, but you can steal someone's xenagos, god of revels or purphoros, god of the forge or doubling season, that's more than worth it. Ultimately it's about probability, the probability of you drawing into a tutor or a combo piece, sun titan or aura thief. If you find better options for the slots sun titan or aura thief occupy let me know, lord knows I couldn't justify anything else that would perform better in those slots.
This is in my mind hanna's signature kill condition, enough pieces are tutor-able which fulfills your needs for being able to beat fast combo which should be easy because you should be running 9-10 permission spells with this list. I don't think Hanna beats fast combo by combing first, she beats them by dragging out the game with permission and then winning once they've tried and failed to win.
That is also the reason why I prefer 2cmc or lower counters, specifically 1U counters in case I can't find UU within the first two turns. Tunnel visioning one person to death is weaker than exiling all the things, although the tunnel vision might get you nothing, but that's luck for you. Also, tunnel visioning someone won't work if they run an eldrazi, blight/dark steel collosi or guile and friends. I would much prefer to tunnel vision myself into a replenish or open vaults to activate one of the above combos.
blueteam, I run pact of negation, force of will, counterspell, muddle of the mixture, swan song, delay, negate, arcane denial, memory lapse, ertai's meddling. I've removed the almighty cryptic command for speed reasons, despite its flexible but I go back and forth trading its slot with ertai's meddling.
memory lapse, delay and ertai's meddling and also remand are very strong multiplayer counterspells because they can be used to slow a threat to render it irrelevant and keeps everyone else's eyes fixed on the player I want the table to focus on. I cannot tell you how many times it has bought me enough time to combo. enter the infinite? delay it for a turn (assuming you prepared to win that counter war which of course you did, right?), now everyone will try to kill or disable that player and completely forget about you. meanwhile, exile all the things.
on the topic of control magic hanna - I ran her like that for a while, it was super fun. here's what I used - treachery, control magic, corrupted conscience, confiscate, volition reins, take possession. Everything was great until everyone started playing homeward paths and sac outlets in response to my thievery.
As for stax, if you want to go there GAAIV is objectively the superior commander for that route.
As for attunement, remember to recite the litany against fear when you use it. you are digging for combo pieces or answers when you use it, you must not be afraid of throwing your hand away in order to win the game. besides, the graveyard it just hanna's other library. attune into a replenish or open the vaults and then you'll have a more difficult decision, do I get greedy and attune another turn or do I cut my loses and replenish/open the vaults now?
The logic behind aura thief is to be able to have a higher probability of finding a combo, by the same logic that you want to be able to tutor, in a combo deck, enough slots needs to be dedicated to comboing. You won't be able to resolve opal wave every time, after enough games, opalwave is just an auto counter. Going down to 9% may not seem like much but it can make or break you sometimes.
I find this deck has enough counterspells, one more is possible but I would rather have the aura thief, same with the island, there's enough lands. You gotta be patient with Hanna in this regard, don't worry about not being able to play it immediately, you can use it as a answer to other players enchantment, and you are stealing them for tempo to boot. and again, a probability thing, you may draw into austere, you may find aura thief, it's another card capable of helping you deal with enchantments. You can even play it to bluff and draw out an exile spell that you don't want them to use against something else, or as deterrence against attacks when they themselves have some juicy enchantment that they depend on in play.
I tried futuresight, top, some -1 ability cost spells. Helm or that artifact creature was truly dead in this deck and was more often than not a chump block, there aren't enough activated abilities in this deck to synergize with helm. Future sight alone you cant squeeze enough value in a draw go deck. And there isn't enough colorless infinite mana outlets to justify for basalt power artifact, namely none if you don't run awakenedfuturetop.
But Sun Titan could be a dead draw if you have nothing to recur and when he dies he's gone forever, doesn't that put him on the same level as aura thief? Yes recursion every turn, but how often does he last a single turn without you have reached a degenerate board state with opalwave and counters in hand? Sun Titan is another one of those must kill cards, aura thief too if they've seen that and enchanted evening enough times.
Can you tell me more about how you used Heliod? I'm so torn about him. I hate him but sometimes vigilance is amazing after a replenish when my opponents still have a board state.
Nice list, you use a lot more dig and draw then I expected, I was considering a build like this myself due to my Lgs tournament time limit. I will have to think more about this
Magus_Scroll, heliod +opal/starfield has hurt me more than once, I use heliod usually to transition from mid game to late game, in hindsight I force my own transition into opal or starfield, maybe that's the problem, I should let them deal with heliod first before transitioning.
the LGS I play at is limited to an hour a round so time is always my enemy. In order to compensate for that, I've had to aggressively mulligan for early card draw in order to reach hanna's end state, I've tried using compulsion, mental discipline, courier's capsule, font of fortunes to accelerate but they are all lacklustre compared to the draw and dig enchantments above, I've also overkilled the card draw and just durdled so that was no fun, but I had a preference to this spells vs. frantic search, brainstorm etc due to the potential recurability.
also for everyone - argivian find, thoughts?
My G Yisan, the Bard of Death G deck.
My BUGWR Hermit druid BUGWR deck.
No offense taken from any of your views. Differing opinions is what makes this game what it is, and play how it does.
Pretty good reasoning on the playstyle and competitiveness of the meta. My meta is more semi-competitive where we don't go for the turn 3 combo sort of thing. But we have had turn 5 and turn 6 combos that end the game. So I feel if I can gear her to be as competitive as Hanna can be without moving to a commander such as GAAIV or Brago, just because they are more cutthroat, I can have fun with the commander I would rather bring to the table. Hanna is great for the fact that I don't need her to win a game. Brago is most likely going to pull all the value for you in any game. Grand Arbiter is not as dependent on but his effect helps. Looking over the list your friend uses, I see where your argument stands. What advice would you give seeing as how stax is pretty easily played around if you know how to do it? Even if my playgroup is semi-competitive, they do not get shut down by stax very often outside of a land wipe which is usually recovered from quickly. I'm up for cutting out enchantments or minimizing them at the least to bring in an artifact based strategy. But I do run a Mishra storm deck and he capitalizes on artifacts as is, and I wanted something not so heavy in that area.
WBR Alesha's Death Brigade WBR
WWW Brigid the Battlefield Saboteur WWW
UB Wydwen, the Biting Gale UB
WBR Alesha's Death Brigade WBR
WWW Brigid the Battlefield Saboteur WWW
UB Wydwen, the Biting Gale UB
Lunar force but no hesitation?
Actually it is in right now until Lunar Force is out. I want to add both if I keep the list as is, but it was a last minute edit I did today. I'll probably use both, but I am getting second opinions on migrating to a stax build but I'm not sold on the idea yet. I want her to be as competitive as she can be so I may reconsider some things in that direction. I'll put together a stax list and add it to my deck list in multiplayer to get ideas on both control and stax within the next day or two.
Edit: I went ahead and took out Dissipate to add back Hesitation.
WBR Alesha's Death Brigade WBR
WWW Brigid the Battlefield Saboteur WWW
UB Wydwen, the Biting Gale UB