Hi everyone. I'm trying to get in this format, as it seems more flavorful than Standard and Modern, and it's always great to get back that casual feeling while still playing great cards.
I've always been a Black guy, specially combined with Blue and Red, so Grixis. For my first deck I was decided to do a monoblack deck. I still haven't decided if going towards a vampire sort-of-tribal deck with Drana 1.0 or Kalitas 2.0 (or even Anowon -though all these are pretty new so I'd like to pic Crovax better for instance) or a zombie reanimator deck with Lim-Dûl, who is one of my favorite MtG characters ever.
My big question is: are monocolored decks flawed against two-color or any multicolored deck? I don't want to buil a Top Tier deck who wins everything, I want to have fun playing a deck I like, but if being monoblack means I'll have my butt kicked all the time I will definitely change to at least a two-color deck.
And there lies my other problem: I want to have a commander I like, if possible, a commander from my old times playing this game. I mean, I started with Fourth Edition, so I'm talking Dominaria. And there are not many UB, RB or Grixis commanders from Dominaria, with a meaningful story.
UB
Dralnu seems to risky for me, at least now. There are no more UB legends apart from the Legends ones, and well, I never liked Legends too much.
RB
Kaervek is kind of cruel, isn't it? I read somewhere that I wouldn't keep many friend playing with a Commander like him.
Tsabo Tavoc is fine from a flavor point of vue, I take it.
Grixis:
Mishra: while he's one of my all-time favorites, and I love artifact decks, it's not the kind of deck I'm willing to build right now.
Lord of Tresserhorn: brings back many memories, but it's just a Lord, has no name. I'd love picking another one.
Garza Zol: she would be the perfect choice but for two reasons: her art, and the fact that prior to Coldsnap no one ever has heard of her.
So, after all this, can someone tell me if taking the monoblack route is something I shouldn't do at this point? Or "yeah, take UB/RB/UBR, monocolored are hard to play in this format". Any advice on choosing one of the commanders above will be welcome as well: I read a lot of threads here looking for ideas and advice, but many decklists for these commanders are more than three years old.
Thanks for the help!
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Before the glory of Yawgmoth, yes, even this makes sense.
My wife runs Vampire Tribal with Mirri the Cursed for the lulz and it does fairly well. It doesn't pack infinite combos although it does have those synergies with looping Reassembling Skeleton and Bloodghast alongside various death triggers. It's a solid, versatile deck and while Sword of Feast and Famine or Worship can prove a little vexing to her she wins more than her fair share of games.
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Sufferer of EDHD
Commander - Currently Playing: RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G) RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B) WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy isn't much of a choice in EDH. You're aware it's a singleton format, correct?
(not being condescending; I just get the impression you may have missed that aspect from the way you mentioned Mishra.)
I feel like Kaervek is pretty much in the same boat as Kokusho, the Evening Star; he was abusive and unfun once upon a time, but then people figured out how the format works and he's not really that scary anymore. I'd much rather face Kaervek than, say, Ghave, Guru of Spores due to Ghave's drastically higher combo potential, and Ghave isn't even the worst of them. Kaervek costs a lot of mana and doesn't give card advantage beyond removing some creatures (and maybe planeswalkers) for you, and without any removal protection he's pretty easy to deal with (though in black he's also pretty easy to recur).
As a Black-aficionado, you may want to become more familiar with the specific rules for how a commander 'dies'...
"If a Commander would be put into a library, hand, graveyard or exile from anywhere, its owner may choose to move it to the command zone instead."
This is a replacement effect, which means a commander sent to the command zone does not actually "die" in game terms. Child of Alara won't explode everything if you send it to your command zone, for example, and Toshiro Umezawa doesn't trigger if an opponent's commander goes to the command zone. Also, since it specified "from anywhere", you can fairly safely put your commander in your graveyard if you play a lot of creature recursion and not worry about effects like Bojuka Bog or Rest in Peace (though the latter may still be fairly disruptive when enchantment removal is at a premium in your colors). This gives black a pretty good way to dodge the commander tax.
If you're going to go through that much trouble though then you might as well take the extra step and go with Phage the Untouchable
Those sorts of decks can be fun, but that doesn't mean they aren't flawed. In fact, they're fun because they are flawed. I assumed the OP didn't care for those because he voiced concerns about mono-colored decks being flawed.
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy isn't much of a choice in EDH. You're aware it's a singleton format, correct?
(not being condescending; I just get the impression you may have missed that aspect from the way you mentioned Mishra.)
Mishra surprising does have a use in a singleton format, if you stack the triggers right you can use it to get around things like Blood Funnel, Nether Void, and Planar Chaos. By having the trigger countering the artifact happen first, and then use Mishra's trigger to search it out of your graveyard. Possibility Storm also lets you get 2 artifacts for the price of one. The deck ends up being a little Stax like due to some of the enchantments you are using Mishra to get around though.
For your question, mono coloured decks (black included) have alot of support in colourless spells and permanents. I try to put Warping Wail in any non blue deck.
From old school Nevinyrral's Disk to Oblivion Stone and even Spine of Ish Sah. There are options to shore up the colours weaknesses.
There are a ton of great, fun generals to pick from. This is entirely a personal preference, for fun games whatever general you like the most works just fine. The only time you will get "blown out" is from tuned competitive edh decks. So long as you ask before hand what kind of decks your opponents are playing this should not be an issue.
Personal favourite mono black is Chainer, Dementia Master, powerful fun reanimation.
As for old school legends in grixis, Sol'kanar the Swamp King is fun vanilla-ish, that lets you build a deck without going all in theme with the commander. Personally, I try to keep commanders as cheap as possible cmc wise.
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy isn't much of a choice in EDH. You're aware it's a singleton format, correct?
(not being condescending; I just get the impression you may have missed that aspect from the way you mentioned Mishra.)
No problem Yes, I wondered about the utility of Mishra, but as others pointed, I found some decks that managed to use him. So maybe in the future I'll try a deck with Urza's little brother.
As for the commander, I think I'll choose either a Zendikar vampire (Drana 1.0, Kalitas 2.0 or Anowon) for a more aggro style or something like Greel or Lim-Dûl (even as the CMC for this one is pretty dauting). I loved Greel back in the dreaded Masques block, so I might give it a try.
Btw, I don't know if I'd have the heart to play evil Mirri
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Before the glory of Yawgmoth, yes, even this makes sense.
As for the commander, I think I'll choose either a Zendikar vampire (Drana 1.0, Kalitas 2.0 or Anowon) for a more aggro style or something like Greel or Lim-Dûl (even as the CMC for this one is pretty dauting). I loved Greel back in the dreaded Masques block, so I might give it a try.
Kalitas 2.0 is very solid. Graveyard recursion and creatures which do something when they die (sad robot, Ashen Rider, Wurmcoil Engine, Mindslicer, Marchesa, the Black Rose and on and on...) are extremely common in commander and Kalitas just says no; similarly he shuts down creature-based infinites without being overly oppressive or unfun to play against. Wrath effects are also extremely worthwhile to play even without him and are available in mono-B and synergize with Kalitas by giving you a massive zombie army ready to swing the moment the smoke clears. I would say he's the strongest of the ones you've listed by a significant margin.
Yeah, I'll second the new Kalitas. He's really annoying to play against as so many EDH decks are either built heavily around recursion or at the least have some tools to take advantage of the graveyard. Stopping your opponents having access to much of that capability while simultaneously creating tokens for yourself is a strong ability, especially when it's sitting in your command zone.
Oh, there's also Crosis, the Purger. He's in Grixis colors, is playable without excessive gimmicks, and is a notable story character from Dominaria. Not a bad choice if you just want your commander to be a scary beater who is more or less independent of the rest of your deck.
EDIT: And you could always play good 'ol Nicol Bolas himself. He's basically the only original elder dragon who is actually playable, but he's probably slightly better than Crosis and is also from Dominaria.
Oh, there's also Crosis, the Purger. He's in Grixis colors, is playable without excessive gimmicks, and is a notable story character from Dominaria. Not a bad choice if you just want your commander to be a scary beater who is more or less independent of the rest of your deck.
EDIT: And you could always play good 'ol Nicol Bolas himself. He's basically the only original elder dragon who is actually playable, but he's probably slightly better than Crosis and is also from Dominaria.
I thought about using Crosis, but well, I will stick with monoblack for now. Kalitas 2.0 really is great.
I had my first EDH games yesterday, and I had a lot of fun. I might say there were the most fun Magic games I've had in a long time! I even played a multiplayer game of four and it was amazing. Really love the format, guys! Thanks for all the tips and help!
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Before the glory of Yawgmoth, yes, even this makes sense.
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I've always been a Black guy, specially combined with Blue and Red, so Grixis. For my first deck I was decided to do a monoblack deck. I still haven't decided if going towards a vampire sort-of-tribal deck with Drana 1.0 or Kalitas 2.0 (or even Anowon -though all these are pretty new so I'd like to pic Crovax better for instance) or a zombie reanimator deck with Lim-Dûl, who is one of my favorite MtG characters ever.
My big question is: are monocolored decks flawed against two-color or any multicolored deck? I don't want to buil a Top Tier deck who wins everything, I want to have fun playing a deck I like, but if being monoblack means I'll have my butt kicked all the time I will definitely change to at least a two-color deck.
And there lies my other problem: I want to have a commander I like, if possible, a commander from my old times playing this game. I mean, I started with Fourth Edition, so I'm talking Dominaria. And there are not many UB, RB or Grixis commanders from Dominaria, with a meaningful story.
UB
Dralnu seems to risky for me, at least now. There are no more UB legends apart from the Legends ones, and well, I never liked Legends too much.
RB
Kaervek is kind of cruel, isn't it? I read somewhere that I wouldn't keep many friend playing with a Commander like him.
Tsabo Tavoc is fine from a flavor point of vue, I take it.
Grixis:
Mishra: while he's one of my all-time favorites, and I love artifact decks, it's not the kind of deck I'm willing to build right now.
Lord of Tresserhorn: brings back many memories, but it's just a Lord, has no name. I'd love picking another one.
Garza Zol: she would be the perfect choice but for two reasons: her art, and the fact that prior to Coldsnap no one ever has heard of her.
So, after all this, can someone tell me if taking the monoblack route is something I shouldn't do at this point? Or "yeah, take UB/RB/UBR, monocolored are hard to play in this format". Any advice on choosing one of the commanders above will be welcome as well: I read a lot of threads here looking for ideas and advice, but many decklists for these commanders are more than three years old.
Thanks for the help!
Before the glory of Yawgmoth, yes, even this makes sense.
My wife runs Vampire Tribal with Mirri the Cursed for the lulz and it does fairly well. It doesn't pack infinite combos although it does have those synergies with looping Reassembling Skeleton and Bloodghast alongside various death triggers. It's a solid, versatile deck and while Sword of Feast and Famine or Worship can prove a little vexing to her she wins more than her fair share of games.
RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR
WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG
GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG
GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G)
RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW
UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B)
WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
(not being condescending; I just get the impression you may have missed that aspect from the way you mentioned Mishra.)
I feel like Kaervek is pretty much in the same boat as Kokusho, the Evening Star; he was abusive and unfun once upon a time, but then people figured out how the format works and he's not really that scary anymore. I'd much rather face Kaervek than, say, Ghave, Guru of Spores due to Ghave's drastically higher combo potential, and Ghave isn't even the worst of them. Kaervek costs a lot of mana and doesn't give card advantage beyond removing some creatures (and maybe planeswalkers) for you, and without any removal protection he's pretty easy to deal with (though in black he's also pretty easy to recur).
As a Black-aficionado, you may want to become more familiar with the specific rules for how a commander 'dies'...
"If a Commander would be put into a library, hand, graveyard or exile from anywhere, its owner may choose to move it to the command zone instead."
This is a replacement effect, which means a commander sent to the command zone does not actually "die" in game terms. Child of Alara won't explode everything if you send it to your command zone, for example, and Toshiro Umezawa doesn't trigger if an opponent's commander goes to the command zone. Also, since it specified "from anywhere", you can fairly safely put your commander in your graveyard if you play a lot of creature recursion and not worry about effects like Bojuka Bog or Rest in Peace (though the latter may still be fairly disruptive when enchantment removal is at a premium in your colors). This gives black a pretty good way to dodge the commander tax.
As far as Black legends, Geth, Lord of the Vault is pretty spiffy if Mirroden is 'old' enough for you. Volrath the Fallen and Greel, Mind Raker are even more oldschool, and not bad.
- Rabid Wombat
Those sorts of decks can be fun, but that doesn't mean they aren't flawed. In fact, they're fun because they are flawed. I assumed the OP didn't care for those because he voiced concerns about mono-colored decks being flawed.
There's also Chainer, Dementia Master and Cabal Patriarch now that I think about it. The Cabal were on Domineria, right?
- Rabid Wombat
Mishra surprising does have a use in a singleton format, if you stack the triggers right you can use it to get around things like Blood Funnel, Nether Void, and Planar Chaos. By having the trigger countering the artifact happen first, and then use Mishra's trigger to search it out of your graveyard. Possibility Storm also lets you get 2 artifacts for the price of one. The deck ends up being a little Stax like due to some of the enchantments you are using Mishra to get around though.
GRUAnimar, Soul of CreaturesGRU
GWGW Tokens: Rhys,Tolsimir, or Trostani GW
BMarrow-GnawerB
BGSkullbriar, All's fun in the GraveBG
RWBAlesha, Who Smiles at DeathRWB
From old school Nevinyrral's Disk to Oblivion Stone and even Spine of Ish Sah. There are options to shore up the colours weaknesses.
There are a ton of great, fun generals to pick from. This is entirely a personal preference, for fun games whatever general you like the most works just fine. The only time you will get "blown out" is from tuned competitive edh decks. So long as you ask before hand what kind of decks your opponents are playing this should not be an issue.
Personal favourite mono black is Chainer, Dementia Master, powerful fun reanimation.
As for old school legends in grixis, Sol'kanar the Swamp King is fun vanilla-ish, that lets you build a deck without going all in theme with the commander. Personally, I try to keep commanders as cheap as possible cmc wise.
I play Ugin, The Spirit Dragon, nevinyrral's disk and Coercive Portal. There are the two Ulamogs, There are plenty of colorless options, they just cost more mana than usual. Not a big problem when Crypt Ghast is around.
Other options are Boompile, Lux Cannon, Oblivion Stone, Ratchet Bomb, Spine of Ish Sah, Steel Hellkite, Unstable Obelisk, Perilous Vault....
I personally like a control deck for mono-black. Damnation, etc, can keep opponents at bay while you build your mana and wreak havoc.
Of the generals you mentioned, I like Kalitas 2.0. It hates on graveyard decks. Drana 1.0 is a good mana-sink.
I like Erebos, God of the Dead.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
BWREDGAR MARKOV VAMPIRESBWR
Now I'm sure I'll run monoblack
No problem Yes, I wondered about the utility of Mishra, but as others pointed, I found some decks that managed to use him. So maybe in the future I'll try a deck with Urza's little brother.
As for the commander, I think I'll choose either a Zendikar vampire (Drana 1.0, Kalitas 2.0 or Anowon) for a more aggro style or something like Greel or Lim-Dûl (even as the CMC for this one is pretty dauting). I loved Greel back in the dreaded Masques block, so I might give it a try.
Btw, I don't know if I'd have the heart to play evil Mirri
Before the glory of Yawgmoth, yes, even this makes sense.
Kalitas 2.0 is very solid. Graveyard recursion and creatures which do something when they die (sad robot, Ashen Rider, Wurmcoil Engine, Mindslicer, Marchesa, the Black Rose and on and on...) are extremely common in commander and Kalitas just says no; similarly he shuts down creature-based infinites without being overly oppressive or unfun to play against. Wrath effects are also extremely worthwhile to play even without him and are available in mono-B and synergize with Kalitas by giving you a massive zombie army ready to swing the moment the smoke clears. I would say he's the strongest of the ones you've listed by a significant margin.
- Rabid Wombat
EDIT: And you could always play good 'ol Nicol Bolas himself. He's basically the only original elder dragon who is actually playable, but he's probably slightly better than Crosis and is also from Dominaria.
- Rabid Wombat
I thought about using Crosis, but well, I will stick with monoblack for now. Kalitas 2.0 really is great.
I had my first EDH games yesterday, and I had a lot of fun. I might say there were the most fun Magic games I've had in a long time! I even played a multiplayer game of four and it was amazing. Really love the format, guys! Thanks for all the tips and help!
Before the glory of Yawgmoth, yes, even this makes sense.