Sorry if this is not the correct forum to post this. It's my first day on this site and I find it very confusing.
Anyways...I need some help on deciding on how to go about building a deck. I only recently got into edh and previously played standard/pauper. All of my cards are from old standard and pauper decks I had. (Standard decks are from eldritch moon to amonkhet, so mostly newer cards). And most of the cards I have are more controllish, lots of blue and white stuff.
I don't have many big creatures or ramp cards or cards that puke out millions of 15/15 tokens, but everyone at my LGS does.
So naturally I've been building combo decks because that's the only way I can even compete. But pretty much everyone I play gets annoyed when I combo off. This makes it no fun for anybody at the table.
So, what can I do about this? Every time I build a fair or creature based deck it just gets stomped out early every game. And every time I make a control/combo deck people just get pissy that I'm "not playing magic". How do I make a deck that can survive this extra big creature meta when I don't have creatures that can stand up to my opponents? I am on an extreme budget (can spend less than 5 dollars a week on cards).
Not so much looking for specific cards to play, but just ideas on a direction I can take for a new deck.
Commanders I have access to are:
Niv mizzet parun
Anafenza the foremost (although i have very few green cards)
Merieke ri beret
Kess
Etrata the silencer
Tymaret the murder king
Adeliz the cinder wind
Kopala
And Dromoka the eternal
I would recommend Zacama, Primal Calamity. All you have to is to put like ~50 lands, 30-40 ramp spells and fill the rest stuff with whatever you want.
You don't need any other creatures because zacama is big, answers everything and is nigh impossible to remove. Ramp spells are pretty cheap. You don't need the best ones. Even bad stuff like Ranger's Path is decent for zacama.
I would go a bit more control then - Not "counterspell" control, or try to control the whole board - but rather the "Discourage people from attacking me". When we had a period of big creatures at my meta, it was brought a bit down by a lot of boardwipes, and a few highly resilient creatures (indestructible/Persist/etc) with some extraneous equipment to make a few decent creatures into acceptable threats.
Keep creatures back, and removal spells in hand. Don't be the biggest threat, so people don't feel like they NEED to hit you, and don't be the lowest threat, so that people think they can get free shots off on you (thus, forcing you to actually USE your removal). The final piece of this is to ensure a decent amount of recursion, or ways to rebuild your threats quickly when wipes occur. For example, a slight Equipment theme (you don't need to go full on), can turn any mediocre creature into a decent enough threat. Vehicles provide an outlet of larger creatures that more easily survive most wraths, and can swing back immediately for a punishing crackback.
I tend to like Green/White for this, myself. From the Commanders you've listed, I like Anafenza, the Foremost the most. Both Anafenza and Dromoka encourage you to attack, which is a bit the opposite of what you want to do (it makes you a target), but Anafenza has utility even if you just need to chill back. Anafenza can also dump counters onto guys that got tapped for reasons other than attacking, and an early game 4/4 will provide more deflection early on.
It sounds like you have a limited card pool, so the addition of another color will let you reach more broadly and select better options across the line, and black adds some good deathtouch rattlers that have good utility as well.
The roles for your colors here (although if you have good cards that cross these, go for it!) will generally be:
White - Removal, Removal, more Removal. Also some recursion and big creatures. Vigilance is highly underrated. It lets you poke in, but still keep up your defensive formation.
Some of the cards that would fit well into this style (these are jsut examples, I don't know what you own, or how they can fit into your budget:)
Removal:
Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Tragic Slip, Necrotic Wound - One mana removal spells. These let you keep up little mana, so you can develop on your turn, but still let you react if something bigger than your defenses comes barreling through.
Soul Snare - Sometimes the THREAT of action is stronger than the action itself. Soul Snare can help deter larger creatures from coming your way. This can bite you back though, as if you have insufficient defenses, people may throw their weaker creatures, like Solemn Simulacrum at you, in order to try and get you to 'waste' the snare.
Rout - As an instant speed board clear, Rout hits in my top 3 favorite wraths of all time. Angel of the Dire Hour and Fated Retribution can also fit this style, though are more limited.
Wing Shards - People learn to respect this card very quickly.
Beast Within, Generous Gift - Don't forget removal for things other than creatures as well. These are great catch-alls.
Recursion:
Sun Titan - Gold Standard of white staple card - this functions as a beatstick, recursion, the Vigilance is great, and it can even be ramp.
Emeria Shepherd - This is an insane recursion engine, tempered only by the fact that she makes you an immediate threat.
Glissa, the Traitor - Firststrike and Deathtouch are potent together, but Glissa can be a huge target as she can be quite crazy if built around. Adds a touch of recursion for you.
Knight of the Ebon Legion - Can be a potent blocker, and can work well with equipment later in the game.
Generally, your goal is to deflect people to other opponents, and try to maneuver yourself into a position to take advantage of that and clean up at the end with better resilience and better removal, or, simply MORE of both (even if not better) due to the fact that you haven't needed to use it it - the threat of using it being enough to send people in other directions so you don't have to expend it.
Anyways...I need some help on deciding on how to go about building a deck. I only recently got into edh and previously played standard/pauper. All of my cards are from old standard and pauper decks I had. (Standard decks are from eldritch moon to amonkhet, so mostly newer cards). And most of the cards I have are more controllish, lots of blue and white stuff.
I don't have many big creatures or ramp cards or cards that puke out millions of 15/15 tokens, but everyone at my LGS does.
So naturally I've been building combo decks because that's the only way I can even compete. But pretty much everyone I play gets annoyed when I combo off. This makes it no fun for anybody at the table.
So, what can I do about this? Every time I build a fair or creature based deck it just gets stomped out early every game. And every time I make a control/combo deck people just get pissy that I'm "not playing magic". How do I make a deck that can survive this extra big creature meta when I don't have creatures that can stand up to my opponents? I am on an extreme budget (can spend less than 5 dollars a week on cards).
Not so much looking for specific cards to play, but just ideas on a direction I can take for a new deck.
Commanders I have access to are:
Niv mizzet parun
Anafenza the foremost (although i have very few green cards)
Merieke ri beret
Kess
Etrata the silencer
Tymaret the murder king
Adeliz the cinder wind
Kopala
And Dromoka the eternal
You don't need any other creatures because zacama is big, answers everything and is nigh impossible to remove. Ramp spells are pretty cheap. You don't need the best ones. Even bad stuff like Ranger's Path is decent for zacama.
Keep creatures back, and removal spells in hand. Don't be the biggest threat, so people don't feel like they NEED to hit you, and don't be the lowest threat, so that people think they can get free shots off on you (thus, forcing you to actually USE your removal). The final piece of this is to ensure a decent amount of recursion, or ways to rebuild your threats quickly when wipes occur. For example, a slight Equipment theme (you don't need to go full on), can turn any mediocre creature into a decent enough threat. Vehicles provide an outlet of larger creatures that more easily survive most wraths, and can swing back immediately for a punishing crackback.
I tend to like Green/White for this, myself. From the Commanders you've listed, I like Anafenza, the Foremost the most. Both Anafenza and Dromoka encourage you to attack, which is a bit the opposite of what you want to do (it makes you a target), but Anafenza has utility even if you just need to chill back. Anafenza can also dump counters onto guys that got tapped for reasons other than attacking, and an early game 4/4 will provide more deflection early on.
It sounds like you have a limited card pool, so the addition of another color will let you reach more broadly and select better options across the line, and black adds some good deathtouch rattlers that have good utility as well.
The roles for your colors here (although if you have good cards that cross these, go for it!) will generally be:
Some of the cards that would fit well into this style (these are jsut examples, I don't know what you own, or how they can fit into your budget:)
Removal:
Recursion:
Rattlesnakes
You'll probably want a few decent fogs here as well, just incase a surprise Craterhoof infused horde comes your way:
Generally, your goal is to deflect people to other opponents, and try to maneuver yourself into a position to take advantage of that and clean up at the end with better resilience and better removal, or, simply MORE of both (even if not better) due to the fact that you haven't needed to use it it - the threat of using it being enough to send people in other directions so you don't have to expend it.
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