MTG Salvation

Recently I decided to take a break for a year from grinding GPs and PPTQs to slow down and play formats with cards I enjoy. I never liked Commander in the past because I only saw Jank local decks but after seeing some real games in action I do think I could come to enjoy the format. For me I'm looking to play with artifacts and play powerful old cards. Above all I want to play Stoneforge Mystic in my Commander deck, Stoneforge Mystic and Deathrite Shaman are my favorite magic cards and I don't think I could play a deck that didn't have at least one of them. If I could play some combination of that partner commanders I think that'd be cool, but im not sure what cards I should partner.

Things i'm looking for in a Commander
-Allows me to play powerful blue cards
-Allows me to generate card advantage
+Bonus Points if it synergies well with artifacts

To further help here are some of my favorite decks
BUG Delver(Current Legacy)
Jeskai Aggro(Theros-KTK)
RW Control(Theros-FTR)
Jund(ISD-GTC)
Tezzert Control(Caw-Blade Format)
Jund (Modern 2012)
Infect (Modern 2015)
Jeskai Stoneblade(Legacy 2013)
Affinity (Pauper)


If I want a competitive deck that doesn't bully the budget players THAT bad at my LGS what cards should I exclude?

Hmm, you want artifacts, and you want Stoneforge Mystic. I think you should go for a WUBR decklist, spearheaded either by Breya, Etherium Shaper or the combination of Silas Renn, Seeker Adept and Akiri, Line-Slinger. The other option would be a Jeskai list, but most generals there don't really synergize with artifacts very well. The one that works best with them is Narset, Enlightened Master and she'll get hated off the table due to having a reputation for being stupidly broken.

Now, as to what to exclude...two things. Lockdown pieces - they tend to hit budget players extremely hard - and instant Iwin buttons. Breya in particular has a few easy infinite combos. If you avoid those (Ergo, don't put Nim Deathmantle in the deck), you should be able to build a powerful but not crazy ha ha I win on turn 4 kind of build.
I think that with your prefered style, the Akiri/Silas combo would work best. You stock your deck with a nice package of equipment (Just go with whatever you think works), use Stoneforge Mystic and Stonehewer Giant to tutor it up, then start to smash face with Akiri. In the event of board wipes you use Silas to recur your artifacts, on top of Red and Blue's artifact recursion cards. Top this off with a smattering of control-style cards of your choice and you should have something that works for you. Black will, in this deck, probably be the least powerful colour, but it should still offer you a few useful pieces.

Welcome to the format! I think you'll enjoy EDH, since you can play with the cards you like and you can tune your deck to be as competitive as you wish.

In terms of your specific wants, you've indicated that you must play with Stoneforge Mystic, Deathrite Shaman, and you must play blue cards. These already put you into at least 4 colors, leaving either paired generals, Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, or a 5-color general. At this point, you have to make a decision - are you picking a general JUST for its colors, so that you can play the specific cards you want? Or are you going to pick a general that will bring a focused game plan? I suggest the latter, since choosing a game plan makes deckbuilding easier, as opposed to just choosing colors, which typically leads to goodstuff-style decks (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but definitely influences how you build your deck).

In terms of avoiding a deck that will be too oppressive to your local budget players, I'd avoid playing quick combo decks or stax-style decks.

For your purposes, I'd suggest Bant or BUG. Either way you won't be able to play all the cards you've mentioned, but both are powerful color combinations that have a lot of different choices at commander, whether you want a more focused game plan or a goodstuff deck. Can you provide more feedback about which route you'd prefer?

@Outcryqq Well I didn't say I had to play both, I just said I like to have one or the other in my deck. What would a Bant list look like? I'd rather not play that Exalted deck, i've seen people play that and it's not my style I think Rafiq was the commander.


@LouCypher I like the Silas and Akiri idea, should I play it like a combo deck or grindy value deck that can go for an all in kill? This got me thinking you could do something like cheerios with this and paradoxical outcome and Monastery Mentor or should the approach be more like a boros beatdown deck with ways to get an edge here and there until you can one shot with Akiri?

If you go with Silas and Akiri, the idea would be to grind out value with your artifacts and equipments, turning Akiri into an unstoppable machine. This ties in to the controlly play by making Akiri one of your few beaters, the rest of the deck consisting of your artifacts and control pieces. The main focus would actually be Izzet due to their artifact synergies, and it'd mostly play as an Izzet deck with a heavy white splash mostly for tutoring purposes and a few specific synergies. With an edge of black mostly for recursion and a few controllish cards.
Generally speaking, I'd think the basic list would look like...
A package of tutor/creatures (Think Treasure Mage, Trinket Mage, Stoneforge Mystic, Stonehewer Giant, Taj-Nar Swordsmith, Solemn Simulacrum, Burnished Hart, Enlightened Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Reshape)
A package of mana rocks (3-mana all-colour rocks are pretty nice here, from Chromatic Lantern and Darksteel Ingot to Coalition Relic and Commander's Sphere, as well as the typical 1-mana rocks like Sol Ring, but also Wayfarer's Bauble)
A package of recursion (Daretti, Scrap Savant, Argivian Restoration, Open the Vaults, Goblin Tinkerer and such)
A package of draw/control spells (Blue Sun's Zenith, Sphinx's Revelation, Dissipate, Counterflux, Supreme Verdict, Damnation, Wrath of God, Wheel of Fortune...really typical control spells, though in EDH, you'll want to rethink your counter suite a bit as not every conventional counterspell is good. Exile is a great clause to have, counters that can exile the full stack are handy, and don't go overboard on the counters. You can't counter it all, just the most important things)
A package of equipments (Sword of Feast and Famine and friends (The UG one is horribad in EDH, the rest are valuable), Darksteel Plate, Batterskull, Umezawa's Jitte, anything that strikes your personal fancy)
Some utility creatures (Puresteel Paladin, Leonin Shikari for your artifact shenanigans, Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall for your control)
And finally some spot removal pieces (Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization and Chaos Warp all stand out as amazing)
And somewhere in the region of 37-40 lands. Season it with some synergies that catch your own fancy (Mycosynth Lattice makes Akiri HUGE, Darksteel Forge makes all your stuff indestructible, I'll leave the addition of a Nevinnyral's Disk to your imagination) and you should get very close to the 99 already.
Keep in mind that artifact lands give a quick boost to Akiri and are very well worth considering, but don't forget that they are pretty frail.
As far as control in EDH goes, keep the simple mantra of "You cannot stop it all. But you can stop the most important pieces" in mind.

Although my new favorite deck is beya... I would stay away from her as a first deck. She is either really... really good... or eh. Hard to find a medium.

Although it's away from some of your list, the number one deck I would recommend to anyone right now is Yidris. It goes off like crazy, you can play big spells into big spells, and you can play him right out of the box.

He's a good mix because if left alone he can do some big "edh" worthy things, but if you win no one is going to hate you, because he isn't evasive or is going to win turn 3-4.

At the very least, build whatever deck you want, but pick up yidris for the thirty bucks, you won't be disappointed

Quote from CmdrSlayer »

should I play it like a combo deck or grindy value deck that can go for an all in kill?

OP, one of the most divisive arguments you will see in the EDH boards if you hang out here long enough is the "casual vs competitive" debate. There is a ton of gray area and arguments on both sides about having fun vs winning. Im not sure where you fall in this spectrum, but being new to the format, I would strongly recommend talking with the regular EDH players at your LGS and see what kind of power level their decks have. Ideally you want to build a deck that more or less matches the power level/accepted playstyles of your opponents. If your opponents dont like combo or mass land destruction, then I would exclude these types of cards from your decks lest you be ostracized from the playgroup.

I'd suggest Dragonlord Ojutai voltron control. Ojutai a couple of swords (or even better batterskull) takes out opponents super quick. Each hit allowing you to anticipate is a great way to stay ahead on card advantage. He plays well in a control/big tempo shell allowing you to control the early game, start the beat down mid game and then control the late game big plays. Unlike the next two suggestions he doesn't have the bad reputation.

If you are looking more compedative there is Derevi, Empyrial Tactician who is pretty OP to be honest, Can do a lot of very powerful things, e.g Stasis, and is always on hand for 4 mana making them good as a contol win condition.

If you like a artifact combo playstyle then Sharuum the Hegemon is one of the stronger commanders available.

To emphasis more on koji's statements, if you're new to the format then I'm assuming you're new to various people's groups you're about to join.

A general tip... is under preform your deck meeting new people and go from there, then stomping them flat out on first meeting. It's a social tip which will benefit you greatly.

Because either
A. People won't like you, sadly many associate people's decks to them, themselves

Or B (less extreme), people will leave you alone more when you play with them often and not realize your creeping more and more into a threat at the table.

EDH is politics. It brings emotions out quickly. Some tables are cool and casual, not caring about anything that happens... and some take things very... very personally.

Play quietly until you find out which kind of group you found. You'll quickly find out if you even want to play with them or not down the road depending on how they handle say... politics.

Here is my first attempt at a deck please critique it I personally think it looks bad, but I'm not sure what to change.

It definitely doesn't look bad, but it does need more land. 37 is the lowest I'd go to begin with. You'll want to cut some of the come-into-play-tapped lands for some basics, never a bad idea to have some of those, which in turn allow you to run Wayfarer's Bauble, Solemn Simulacrum and Burnished Hart, each of which should give you a better early game.
Arcbound Ravager isn't really good in EDH. Noxious Gearhulk is usually worse as Duplicant. Opportunity is usually outclassed by X-Draw spells like Stroke of Genius. Paradoxial Outcome...I don't see the appeal in it. True-Name Nemesis is better in 1v1, Doubling Cube isn't neccesary as you already run a low curve and plenty of mana rocks, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor is another card that isn't all that great in multiplayer compared to his 1v1 pedigree.
With some of those changes, you might want to make a thread over at the Multiplayer Deck List section, where people can help further.

Quote from CmdrSlayer »

Things i'm looking for in a Commander
-Allows me to play powerful blue cards
-Allows me to generate card advantage
+Bonus Points if it synergies well with artifacts

Sharuum the Hegemon and Arcum Dagsson come to mind.

I might go with Roon of the Hidden Realm for a few reasons:

He synergizes very well with artifacts and can be an effective control deck that doesn't become the archenemy. Put a Duplicant or Phyrexian Ingester by his side and that might stir up some trouble though.

Amazing synergy with stoneforge - get boots, and start using the ability much more frequently with more protection.

Enables aggro victories by creating multiple etb triggers for guys like big papa hoof.

Allows card advantage by having the ability to abuse Eternal Witness and the like to recur draw spells regularly, and repeat etb triggers from guys like Mulldrifter and Prime Speaker Zegana

With the cuts Lou suggested, I would think of adding Karn, Silver Golem. Phyrexian Metamorph is another good one. I would run a minimum of 36 lands. I would also play Vindicate over Chaos Warp. Over Rapid Hybridization, I would play Anguished Unmaking or reality shift.

If you want to include Sunforger, you should add Mistveil plains, and maybe work on expanding the package. I see you have a red counterspell. Anguished Unmaking would be good. I'm a fan of Wind Shards. Enlightened Tutor. I don't think this is a sunforger deck though... you can't prioritize spells.

Darksteel plate is not that good. There is a lot of exile in EDH, and a lot of Grave Pacts.

I don't think you need to make all these changes... just some individual thoughts... really, I would suggest sleeving a deck and trying it out. It will give you a better idea of what you should cut.

It strikes me that Odric, Lunarch Marshal is good with your two commanders.

Well, welcome to EDH! Personally, I think it's the funnest format, you can do a lot of cool stuff that normally wouldn't work, and it's nice to play more casually, in your own style. For artifacts, I'd suggest Breya, Sydri, maybe Arcum if you're down for mono. There's plenty of options in artifact commanders

Try checking EDHrec, it's got a decent amount of resources for checking out different commanders. I personally wouldn't use it to full on build a deck, moreso for suggestions. Plus, you can sort by colour combos the different commanders, and see which are most popular (and what people typically do with them).

What about Sharuum? That would seem to fit with your playstyle and wants. You might get targeted, but if they see after a game or two it's not super competitive then you'll be alright.