MTG Salvation

Decided to Simic because black seems detrimental to the Ramp-Draw-Fatties game plan (will build a Mono Black EDH much later).


My deck is far from complete and really needs help. The Goal is the usual draw-ramp-fatties but I need to put an emphasis on strengthening my anti-control and anti-combo. Id rather have a deck weakened against midrange and aggro but I really hate being controlled and comboed.

- Does my ramp need more ramp? What ramp from my ramp list needs to be cut?
- Which counter spells would you recommend to hate control?
- I really really lack good fatties. Would like cards that bypass counterspells lke Genesis Hydra or Flash Creatures.
- Which of green's Naturalize effectswould you reccomend?
- which simic spells would crap over blue super permission decks?
- blue fatties or green fatties?
- is aetherling a good edh card?

A friend plays Zegana, albeit with fewer planeswalkers. His fat comes from choice hydras, often fueled by Kruphix being in play.

Green antienchantments Unravel the Aether and Deglamer get rid of indestructibles, like gods.

Terra Stomper dodges countermagic. Winding Canyons provides flash for all your critters.

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Hall of Gemstone can ruin countermagic.

Draining Whelk plays nice with your general; Voidslime, Stifle, Trickbind, and Krosan Grip can all break combos.

Cheers!

Quote from Forestsguy »

- Does my ramp need more ramp?

I think your amount of ramp (as in the number of deck slots) is good. There's always a balance somewhere of ramp to business spells.

I find the best ramp I play is the two casting cost kind. The'res a huge advantage in going from two lands on turn two, to four (tapped) lands on turn three. It's never bad to have extra lands, but the 6th and 7th lands aren't as critical to me as the first few.

So the green ramp I like to play is

• Farseek
  
• Nature's Lore
  
• Sakura Tribe Elder
  
• Rampant Growth
  
• Into the North
  
• Oracle of Mul Daya

If you're made of money you could also use

Three Visits

If I could afford it it'd be in the mix for sure. Nature's Lore and Three Visits Bring in land type: forest untapped! So you can quickly get to two spells a turn territory

Oracle is so good it's almost broken. An extra land a turn, plus playing them off the top? Absolutely at the top of the power curve. You actually end up praying to top deck a land every turn.

The other thing that'll make a big difference is Sol Ring. Totally the business since the early 90s.

As far as counters go, what I look for is a) cheap to cast, b) low colour requirements, c) tempo advantage

What you ideally like to do is counter a more expensive spell with a cheaper one. Make your opponents invest 2-3 mana on a coounterspell, and then fight back with a 0-1 mana one. You need to keep less mana open, letting you make more plays, then defend your position with cheap counters. The cheap counters I play are

• Dispel
  
• Swan Song

Swan song is the best because it can hit three different types of spell. Dispel is great for instant speed removal, eg Chaos Warp or fighting a counter war.

For spells with low colour requirements, the next two I choose are hard counters.

• Arcane Denial
  
• Memory Lapse

Arcane denial is great as it cantrips you. The downside is less if you are able to play more spells in a turn than your opponent. It's not good them getting two cards if they can only cast 1 a turn. Also if there are more than 2 players the other players are not getting any extra, but you do. Memory Lapse is an all star, which seems a bit counter intuitive. After all you have to deal with the threat again next turn. Don't forget that it costs the opponent their draw as well, effectively Time Walking them as they have to run the turn back. You get a full other turn with the knowledge of what is coming. Both these spells cost blue and one colourless. Great for baiting people in. Often people re looking to see if you have two blue open as a counter. If you have ablue and a green you can catch them by surprise.

Last but not lest are the (expensive) tempo counters.

• Mana Drain
  
• Pact of Negation
  
• Force of Will

All are awesome. Force of will is the best (in my opinion) but all of them will let you counter a spell for no mana, or ramp you on your next turn.

Where is your manabase? Tell us what you're planning on running.

Thanks for all the help guys, i've been building it and trying to solidify it while using your suggestios, but did not want to post until it was semi-complete.



leaving me wit about ten more options. I've been thinking of adding the haste boots, lightning greaves or swiftfoot boots. Also thinking woodfall primus for hate. Also Oracle of Mul Daya i do not own, so i use courser of kruphix as a stand in. Maybe I should add Explore?

edit
Also: Do I need treasure cruise or Dig Through Time? or Maybe Temporal Trespass as I only have 1 delve card.
Also I have Cryptic Command, Brainstorm, Quicken and Thought Scour. In general should I use these cantrips?
Ordering a capsize as well Yeva as well

I have Zegana as my pilot for a Merfolk Tribal deck. It's great fun and usually undervalued in terms of power when being played.

Here's the list for reference: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/571497-zegana-merfolk-tribal

Consider playing a few clone-type cards in your build. They're in mine to either clone one of the many merfolk lords or to clone Zegana herself (and draw me a pile of cards).

I think garruks packleader is a waste here. You need a creature with 3 power or greater to trigger it, and you aren't playing more than like 10? At most, it will draw you a card or two. not really what you want in a 5 drop 4 power creature. Garruk's horde is much the same, though at least he's 7/7 trampler. Indeed, you're in blue, so creature based draw isn't as needed. In it's place I would run the dirt cheap mythic woodland bellower. It finds solutions and quickly. Whether it's a wood elves to fix your mana, an eternal witness to return a counterspell, or a reclamation sage to nuke a problem permanent, it finds them all. If you want creature based stuff, then maybe the oldie but goodie momir vig? If in blue and I wanted a creature to do the flash thing with, I believe I would go with teferi, mage of zhalfir. He has the added advantage of giving counterspell decks and suspend the middle finger. Similarly, if I want to play off the top of my library, future sight or magus of the future do a pretty good job of being useful here.

I just popped in to say that there is a Zegana deck in my signature, so you can also check this out!

Courser is a perfectly good substitute for Oracle if that's what you have. Courser also combos well with Exploration if you come across one in your travels.

As far as Naturalize effects, you've got most of the ones I use. My ranking for those sort of effects is Instant speed, versatility, cost, extra, special bonus effects. First of all in my meta, all the removal needs to be instant speed. If someone is comboing off I want to be able to play an answer to stop them mid combo. As such, although Song of the Dryads is a very strong card, it never makes my lists due to being sorcery speed.

Versatility. Because I have limited slots in my deck for answers I want cards that can hit the largest number of permanent types. Beast Within is the all star here, as it's any permanent type. Combined with instant speed, is almost an auto include in green lists. Other good choices are those that hit both artifact and enchantments. I prefer those over either artifact OR enchantment with upside.

Cost. Nature's claim only costs 1, hits both artifact and enchantments at instant speed, so that is great. Otherwise there are good options at 2 mana. Cost is important as I want to leave the minimum mana open to respond. Three is too much for my taste. However there are exceptions.

Extra special bonus effects. Krosan Grip is the exception. I'm happy to pay the one extra mana for split second. Split second is so good it's busted. A great anti-control card, and punishes people getting cute with their Oblivion Stones and Disks. I will pay the extra mana for such a good effect. The other one I go to is Deglamer. Versatile cheap, and extra effect of shuffling in. It interacts with indestructible artifacts, and can prevent recursion shenanigans with Regrowth and Recall.

As such the ones that have made my decks, in order of preference, are

• Beast Within
  
• Nature's Claim
  
• Krosan Grip
  
• Deglamer
  
• Naturalize
  

I only use Reclamation Sage if the cretureness is important. That's usually if I can search for it with a Green Sun's Zenith or[/card]Chord of Calling[/card], or Survival of the Fittest. Otherwise I prefer my answers at instant speed.

I think it's not so much which Simic spells are hard for permission decks to deal with so much as when you play your spells.

As StonerofKruphix noted, in Simic you get access to a lot of flash options. Playing at instant speed, before your untap phase is the bestway to combat a heavy control deck.

Control decks want to be leaving open mana to respond to your plays on your turn. If you force them to respond end of turn, before you untap you stand a better chance of using up there responses by overwhelming them in a very short time frame.

Cards to consider are

• Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
  
• Alchemist's Refuge
  
• Winding Canyons
  
• Yeva, Nature's Herald
  
• Lure of Prey
  
• Flash
  
• Leyline of Anticipation
  
• Vedalken Orrery

Also as perviously noted, Seedborn Muse is the best creature option in the whole deck. It's beyond busted.

Combine it with Capsize or Alchemist's Refuge for fun and profit.

I also have a semi competitive budget build of Zegana that I am trying to get to the next step . my meta is very competitive , we play at the lgs for packs and hyper combo expensive build like sdisi artifacts, derevi stax, and tasigur control are the norm . its usually just a race to see who can combo off with force back up first . this has forced me to move away form the ramp into fatties plan some as its more ramp into fatties that also have combo or anti combo potential but it still is not quite have the oomph to hang with the uber expensive builds . I am aware that if I had the willingness to just drop the money for cryptic, force , mana drain , and possibly crypt it would be a big help, and I may but part of my fun with this deck is trying to get it there without the expensive and obvious cards, although my main win con right now is drake- dead-eye, I am thinking of adding food chain and mist hollow as that combo synergizes real well with prime speaker . the new selvala from take the crown has also played super busted so I am thinking of adding the intruder alarm to optimize her tap ability and some card s that go well with that

current prime speaker list