MTG Salvation

Good morning group,

This is my first venture into building an EDH deck. All my prior experiences in the last 2.5 months of playing have been draft(7) builds along with HoD Midnight release event. I have also played a few rounds of EDH at my LGS with my Breya pre-con.

Generally when building sealed, I noticed that I have been going the U/R route more often than not. This is the reason for Talrand.
Being sealed deck, I have been very creature heavy, and this is why I chose Talrand. 1) mono-blue, 2) spell heavy. I can add a list of the current cards I have thus far later this afternoon, but from what I my initial thought is to use the breakdown for card content from as a starting point: https://edhrec.com/commanders/talrand-sky-summoner

I do not want to net deck this build as I feel nothing will be learned or gained; this will not be my deck but another's.


I have my creatures picked out already, (6) various mirfold wizards and my deep sea kraken just for fun "focusing on its suspend".

Spell wise, how do you look for your balance between spell/instant...etc.

Land wise, I am looking to buy cards that will be a good fit in my EDH staples binder, more bounce lands, maybe an original dual land, shock. This is where my inexperience is getting the best of me. I don't mind paying more upfront to have them be added to a staple binder for future builds. Same goes for other card types. I'm looking at you Sensei's Divining Top.

First things first. Card Tags are really useful here (and all over the forum) just use [ c ] to open and [ /c ] to close (no spaces)

Talrand is great with storm. anything with storm.

I have never really paid much attention to the balance of instant and sorceries. I just go with what fits the cure and is a better spell.

Playing blue in EDH means you wantneed LOTS of counter spells. (its just the done thing /s )

Anything that allows you to "cast a copy" is worthwhile as well. ie Swarm Intelligence

Mono colour decks don't need mana-fixing like a 2-5c deck. So your land base can be pretty simple no need for fetches/duals/signets etc.

Mana doublers work incredibly well for mono decks. Extraplanar Lens, Caged Sun, Gauntlet of Power and High Tide

Hope this helps

You hit two cards that are on my wish list Gauntlet of Power and Caged Sun

If you like U/R, why not look at someone like Melek, Izzet Paragon or The Locust God? Both stay in the wheelhouse you seem to like and provide some additional utility and fun things to play with, including more cost reducers for your spells in the form of Goblin Electromancer, more token producers in the form of Young Pyromancer and other fun spells that provide other benefits

It should be pointed out that you actually can't have things like the Ravnica Bounce lands or shocks in your mono-Blue deck. You can have fetches but as was said above you don't need them.

Welcome and good luck with your first deck!

I can understand not wanting to "net deck" your list, but keep in mind that most of the suggestions you'll receive on here are the result of prior "net deck"ing by others. That being said, the more information you can provide us about your end goal for the deck, the better the suggestions we can make.

You asked about a balance between spells/instants, but instants are spells. I think you meant sorcery versus instants. In that case, I'd suggest you go very heavy on instants, because that gives you the very significant advantage of being able to make tokens at instant speed, assuming your commander is out. I suggest reserving your sorceries for those that are very powerful, like Rite of Replication.

In terms of land, since your deck is mono blue, I do not think you need to purchase duals or shocks until you begin building multi-colored decks. Blue staples like Cyclonic Rift and Rhystic Study might be good purchases. Make sure you use Baral, Chief of Compliance.

Krovikan, I was initially going to use jori en, ruin diver, but after playing my Breya, Etherium Shaper deck, I learned I liked token decks so i figured that would be a good transition. Plus, learning to build a mono deck limits my selection and increased what I know about a color I am not familiar with.

Outcry, I guess I am not following what you are getting at with an end goal. Are you referring to Archtype, or how the deck is intended to be played? This concept is new to me.

My end goal is to flood the board with 2/2 drakes and not sure spell wise yet. I'm sure i will get a better picture when I go through my cards a bit closer this next time around.

Gatta say, it was fun to flood the board with myr tokens with myr battlesphere

Quote from zackesch »

Outcry, I guess I am not following what you are getting at with an end goal. Are you referring to Archtype, or how the deck is intended to be played? This concept is new to me.

First, I assume you're wanting a deck that is built to play multiplayer EDH. 1v1 EDH deck are built very differently.

Second, a deck's desired power level directly affects what cards go into it. If you have a very competitive group of people you play with, I'd use some more cutthroat cards. If your group generally plays more friendly, drawn-out games, then I would suggest skipping on some of the meaner cards for a deck.

Finally, do you want suggestions only for competitive versions of the deck? I ask because you indicate you're using some wizards and a kraken "just for fun"...would you prefer fun suggestions, or only competitive ones?

The general feeling I get at my LGS is more of a friendly environment than one that is more fun then competitive. We had one player who went the infinite combo route, but the other games have been more low key.

This deck is not intended for a 1v1 EDH. I didn't know there was a difference for a multiplayer EDH deck compared to one for 1v1.

I haven't actually done it, but if were building Talrand, I'd include Bösium Strip and delver cards like Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time to remove in non-instant/sorcery cards that in up in the yard.

Bösium Strip plus High Tide and/or untap effects like Turnabout and Reset potentially allows for absurd amounts of mana and storm count.

Bösium Strip additionally lets you flash back counterspells from yard, unlike Past in Flames and Yawgmoth's Will, which you can't run in Talrand anyway.

If you do go the High Tide route, make sure to include Thawing Glaciers has it synergizes with untap effects.

Quote from Loki_Lulamen »

Anything that allows you to "cast a copy" is worthwhile as well. ie Swarm Intelligence

A bit late, but this is either misleading, or wrong (uncertain exactly what you are trying to say).

If an effect instructs you to copy an Instant or Sorcery card (Eye of the Storm), it will also have you cast the copy, and will trigger any effects that care about casting a spell.

If an effect instructs you to copy an Instant or Sorcery spell (Swarm Intelligence), it will place the copy on the stack. The copy is not cast, and will not trigger Talrand, Sky Summoner or similar effects.


On a side note, Eye of the Storm is a very fun card, and can be very strong in Talrand. However, it does come with a high mana cost, and a high chance of backfiring spectacularly.

Building Ta;rand, the sky summoner eh? Extra Turn effects are Wonderful in this deck! I also have a love for Mystic Speculation, since it has buyback, and is 1 blue mana that scrys and will make Drake tokens plus dig, that's a win:) Cheap draw spells like Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, cheap, make drake tokens, dig. The aforementioned Dif through Time and Treasure Cruise are absolutely stellar. Bident of Thassa and Coastal Piracy, definitely purchase those for Talrand as well, and good luck!

My bad. I mis-read the card. I thought it said you may "cast a copy" as that would create a second trigger for Talrand.

Oops

One route you could take with Talrand is focusing on Polymorph effects. Put no creatures in the 99 other than a handful of big splashy bombs, play a handful of cards that will allow you to cheat them into play. Useful polymorph effects, aside the aforementioned one, include Proteus Staff (which has the added advantage of allowing you to stack your deck however you want it if you resolve the ability with no creatures in your deck), Synthetic Destiny, Mass Polymorph and Reweave. Potential bombs include things like Stormtide Leviathan, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Windreader Sphinx and Tidespout Tyrant.

Aside from that, another source of cast triggers that hasn't been mentioned yet but could generate incredible value is Isochron Scepter. I'd also look into cards with buyback (Forbid, Capsize, Whispers of the Muse).