Tamiyo/Tezzeret does seem like a valid inclusion. Probably one or the other and not both, but I can't decide what's better.
At last count, I faced what I consider to be about 42 different reasonably competitive commanders, and another 57 more casual ones. Got to love a format like EDH where there's well over 100 different "archtypes".
Did you have any tournament experience with that deck or did you only play on cockatrice?
I like the concept, but i never proxied it because it seems it's super slow to win and may result in a lot of draw games, or even loss du to a bad game 1.
A guy I know played this and did reasonably well in a recent tournament. His advice? "You only need to win game one"
Win game one, and if it looks like things are going tits up, concede quickly so you can get to the next games.
I played entirely on cockatrice. It's not nearly as slow as you think, due to lack of fetchlands, tutors, etc., and most of your turns are just draw, draw, land, go. Tournament play would definitely require you to be vigilant about opponent stalling.
On the other hand, the missed trigger rules would be very interesting. On cockatrice, I always remind people about missed draw triggers. I thought I read that in tournament play now, if you miss a trigger through your next turn, you miss it. I would guess 90% of people I play against miss at least one draw trigger while we're playing, and most of them miss a handful.
Have you tried tangle wire in this deck ?
It seems to lock your opponent for at least two turns, and you dont suffer from it that much especially if you have kami in play.
A couple of other people swear by Tangle Wire in this deck, but I wasn't impressed with it. If I play it on turn 3, with Kami on the board, I will end my turn 4 with two lands untapped and my blocker tapped. That's the best case scenario... so only most useful if I have a two-mana counterspell still in my hand and if I got that 4th land.
It's also pretty useful with some other cards like Winter Orb especially. But Tangle Wire is usually a bad draw after turn 3... and if Kami is on the board in any hypothetical situation with a card, that card has to be REALLY good to be worth including, since you're in good shape with just Kami on the board.
thoughts on invoke prejudice. it may come down too late, but if you got an early mana rock playing this could really hurt decks like maelstrom wanderer or other midrange decks.
*note i know it doesnt affect MW, but it could hinder the cards it cascades into
Yeah, I think it comes down a little too late. Which is a shame, because the UUUU mana cost is easily doable in this deck.
Propaganda would be a better card for this type of use, given that it costs less and impacts the creatures they've already played on turns 1, 2, and 3. Those are the ones that do the most damage to me, especially because I am unlikely to be able to counter them initially.
By turn 4, I start to be able to handle the threats as they arrive. The ideal turn 4 play with against a creature-oriented deck is to bounce a creature and counter a creature. To that end, I've been really happy with raising the number of 2cc counters in the deck.
Stop playing a format where a handful of people make foolish rules.
Honestly, I haven't even replaced it in my Cockatrice deck file, I just don't care any more. Vanishing, Humility, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, and Winter Orb, are fairly nonsensical. At least Bitterblossom's pointless banning was reversed, but one step forward and three steps back isn't progress in my eyes, and makes me assume things are only going to get sillier.
Storage Matrix is effective and I've been moderately happy with it thus far. If you don't play it already, it's certainly worthy of testing. And thematically, it's similar to Winter Orb.
Really though, Winter Orb has no direct analog. It's a powerful card that does one thing and does it really well. In some ways, putting Long-Term Plans in place of Winter Orb is actually sort of an interesting replacement, since 4 out of 5 times it fetches you Stasis anyways, and Stasis is the only card that does what Winter Orb does - and does it better!
I thought Tezz was borderline before the Winter Orb ban; I think it's probably best to remove him (and the package) afterwards as well. Maybe keep Relic of Progenitus since it cycles.
The more I played this deck, the more I felt like you could replace nearly anything with a counterspell and be 90% as effective in the original purpose and infinitely more effective at stopping other things.
For whatever reason, I never tested the manlands. I never had an issue pulling off a Polymorph (and, if it got late in the game and Kami had a heavy tax, most times I'd switch to a plan to accumulate 15 mana and hardcast Emrakul anyways).
Liliana of the Veil is a very good card that's very very good in this matchup, with so few ways to damage her. I hate that card
Played a little with Proteus staff thus far, and have hated it. A lot of mana to commit in my main phase; at least Polymorph puts Emrakul on the board when I spend the mana on it. With Proteus, I have to spend the mana in my main phase twice, and the first time I get basically nothing in return.
I do like the manlands so far though. Right now I'm running two - Mishra's Factory and Mutavault. Hasn't bit me yet with Stasis, but it will. I really *really* don't want more than one colorless mana source when I have Stasis. Every turn you can wait until bouncing it is crucial.
I've put Leyline of Anticipation back in the deck and it's been wonderful. It really single-handedly wins games when it's in the opening hand, and this deck - of all potential decks for a Leyline - can easily deal with the dead draw of it, since you can Brainstorm/Jace it away, pitch it to a Force of Will/Misdirection/Disrupting Shoal, or just plain old discard it when you have 8+ cards in hand.
Yes, about to log off for the night and it's a pain to format from Cockatrice to here, so I'll do it tomorrow.
HansonWK, some thoughts:
I hate Delay, given that about 50% of games go into stall mode with Stasis or Static Orb.
Black Vise is interesting, and if Winter Orb was still around, I would like it a bit more. 98% of the time, it's going to be your only source of damage (you'd be lucky to get three swings with Kami or two with a manland). So you're talking 9 to 10 turns to win the game with it...
Bribery is interesting, I'd guess half the time it's better than something like Tamiyo, half the time worse. It seems to be getting worse over time though, as people move towards more well-tuned, low-curve decks.
High Market seems superfluous. Shackles kills guys by blocking with them. And if you steal a guy with Shackles and don't need to block with it... well, you're in darn good shape.
Dissolve, meh. 3 mana is brutal as it's not countering Geist or Doran in 50% of games. I do think Swan Song has some potential though.
Anyways, will post my most recent list tomorrow. It's 97 must-haves (IMO) with a couple of flexible spots. Could be the above new cards, could be something fun (Panoptic Mirror), or maybe indeed Intuition is the must-have 98th card.
Condescend is sometimes a bad card, but sometimes amazing. I have a love-hate relationship with it.
Another thing I'm thinking about as I look over my list... Forbid has been so-so for me. When it's good, it's kind of win-more, and now that I have removed Font of Mythos, it's less useful. That may be a good removal candidate for the new Dissolve.
Anyways, OP is updated with my top 95 at the moment. In an unknown meta, I'd probably pick Prohibit, Turnabout, Pendrell Mists, and Disrupt. In an advanced metagame (i.e. lots of Geist, GAAIV, and Zur), swap Pendrell Mists for maybe Gainsay.
I still feel like running cards that can shuffle Emrakul back in the library will be a good idea. Just because actually drawing it is just the worst. Maybe See Beyond? Do you think you need it?
I tend to be overly conservative with Polymorph. So if Emrakul is in my hand, I usually like to wait until I have a full hand before Polymorphing anyways. Getting to 8 cards is typically not difficult in this deck. The only time I wish I could shuffle Emrakul back is when I'm in dire straights and swinging for a home run with Polymorph... i.e. no counter backup, out of options, etc. In such instances, it seems rare that I'd have a nearly empty hand and would have both Emrakul and Polymorph in it.
Do you feel like this deck picked up anything from theros?
I liked thassa, god of the sea; except that runs too much risk of hitting her off polymorph
the three cards that i saw that had potential were the counterspell, force spike, and unsummon that all cost 1 more, but tagged on scry 1. I feel like that one mana is too much to ask for the scry rider though.
Thassa is definitely no good, due to being a Polymorph-ruiner. Even beyond that, I'll never hit the devotion, so it's basically just a more expensive Anvil of Bogardan.
For the scry spells... I think the Unsummon is useless (60% of my bounce spells end up aimed at my own non-creatures like Static Orb). The Force Spike is probably not great (Condescend is on the lower end of the totem pole of counters in this deck, and is I think strictly better than that). The 3-mana counter/scry is perhaps the most promising. I was mentioning a few posts up that Forbid wasn't shining too much for me, and then the next game I played, I used it like three times. Still, it's worth swapping for the new one for testing purposes at least.
I've come to realize that I think Kami will only get worse, relative to other decks, since there does seem to be some momentum away from the ridiculous blue cards of the past (even things that looked innocuous like Brainstorm, or Counterspekll). And of course, Stasis and Winter Orb, two of the most un-fun cards in MTG, are never going to be printed again. Likewise, I find it hard to imagine a better suited card for this deck than Emrakul.
3U
Sorcery
Choose left or right. Starting with you and proceeding in the chosen direction, each player chooses a creature controlled by the next player in that direction. Each player gains control of the creature he or she chose.
Very high potential in this deck, given that we'll either have no creatures, or Kami, who is just as good on their side of the field as ours.
Certainly better than Control Magic since it can't be Disenchanted at a bad time... but best yet, IT CAN TAKE THRUN OR GEIST since the creatures are not targeted!!! And in fact, many of the decks that have hexproof creatures have a very hard time dealing with them if they do manage to get taken.
This card is 100% worth a long look at in Kami or any monoblue deck. Most excited I've been about a card for this deck in 3+ sets...
Have there been any updates on this, OP? I have been following/lurking (mostly lurking) this thread for quite some time and would love an update on the current list. Also, the groups I usually play in use US ban lists, so I've been running the deck a little differently. Could you possibly use a list for with the US ban list? Thanks a bunch!
No updates, I haven't played it in a while. I missed the entire Derevi period, though, so I'm not sure much has changed. The loss of Zur probably helps this deck - I managed to play it to about 50/50 on Cockatrice, but never really felt like it should have been quite that strong.
Oath of Druids and Natural Order being removed, as well as Loyal Retainers, probably only helps. Specifically the latter two, which cannot be answered by bounce.
Unfortunately I am not familiar with the US banlist (is that simply the multiplayer banlist?). If it's the multiplayer banlist, you lose a big piece of what helps this deck win, in Emrakul. Without him, I'd probably move towards a decklist that removes Polymorph as well, since there's no real replacement available. I'd add in Snapcaster Mage, Vendilion Clique, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Venser, Shaper Savant, which are incredibly powerful in this deck (and, really, almost any deck). Those, plus Vedalken Shackles, is more than enough to win with.
As far as new blue cards to add in, nothing I haven't mentioned above seems worthy of inclusion. Including the most recent spoiler list, which is basically a complete zero for this deck. Retraction Helix is actually a bit interesting, as it's a one-mana way to bounce a Stasis. I would guess in 80% of games that I have a Stasis on the board, there's an untapped Kami of the Crescent Moon in play. Really though, this card is a bit too cute, and win-more, as it doesn't help in those 20% of games I don't have Kami in play.
Really what the deck could use is more people trying it and putting their ideas in for testing. For example, I tend not to play Mishra's Factory cards, but they could be valuable. The entire Polymporph/Emrakul gameplan could be scrapped. Or maybe there's some other minor tweaking that could be done. With the exception of the Polymorph gameplan itself, the deck is a very inbred creation of mine. And what I found to be good, might differ from someone else's experience, given how they play. It's a powerful, fun, and relatively inexpensive deck, and I'm really surprised it hasn't been tested more.
I've used your decklist as inspiration for my own decklist using the multiplayer ban list. The main way I've been winning has been omniscience/enter the infinite/lab maniac, after the usual stall with stasis. I'm on mobile right now, but if you'd be interested I could post my deck list at some point.
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Having some fun with Storage Matrix (it's basically The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale without missing the land drop, so it probably should be banned for warping the format).
Tamiyo/Tezzeret does seem like a valid inclusion. Probably one or the other and not both, but I can't decide what's better.
At last count, I faced what I consider to be about 42 different reasonably competitive commanders, and another 57 more casual ones. Got to love a format like EDH where there's well over 100 different "archtypes".
A guy I know played this and did reasonably well in a recent tournament. His advice? "You only need to win game one"
Win game one, and if it looks like things are going tits up, concede quickly so you can get to the next games.
On the other hand, the missed trigger rules would be very interesting. On cockatrice, I always remind people about missed draw triggers. I thought I read that in tournament play now, if you miss a trigger through your next turn, you miss it. I would guess 90% of people I play against miss at least one draw trigger while we're playing, and most of them miss a handful.
Have you tried tangle wire in this deck ?
It seems to lock your opponent for at least two turns, and you dont suffer from it that much especially if you have kami in play.
It's also pretty useful with some other cards like Winter Orb especially. But Tangle Wire is usually a bad draw after turn 3... and if Kami is on the board in any hypothetical situation with a card, that card has to be REALLY good to be worth including, since you're in good shape with just Kami on the board.
*note i know it doesnt affect MW, but it could hinder the cards it cascades into
My Blog - contains my decklists
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Propaganda would be a better card for this type of use, given that it costs less and impacts the creatures they've already played on turns 1, 2, and 3. Those are the ones that do the most damage to me, especially because I am unlikely to be able to counter them initially.
By turn 4, I start to be able to handle the threats as they arrive. The ideal turn 4 play with against a creature-oriented deck is to bounce a creature and counter a creature. To that end, I've been really happy with raising the number of 2cc counters in the deck.
My Blog - contains my decklists
Uril, The Miststalker
Frankie Peanuts - needs to move to multiplayer.
Honestly, I haven't even replaced it in my Cockatrice deck file, I just don't care any more. Vanishing, Humility, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, and Winter Orb, are fairly nonsensical. At least Bitterblossom's pointless banning was reversed, but one step forward and three steps back isn't progress in my eyes, and makes me assume things are only going to get sillier.
Storage Matrix is effective and I've been moderately happy with it thus far. If you don't play it already, it's certainly worthy of testing. And thematically, it's similar to Winter Orb.
Really though, Winter Orb has no direct analog. It's a powerful card that does one thing and does it really well. In some ways, putting Long-Term Plans in place of Winter Orb is actually sort of an interesting replacement, since 4 out of 5 times it fetches you Stasis anyways, and Stasis is the only card that does what Winter Orb does - and does it better!
The more I played this deck, the more I felt like you could replace nearly anything with a counterspell and be 90% as effective in the original purpose and infinitely more effective at stopping other things.
For whatever reason, I never tested the manlands. I never had an issue pulling off a Polymorph (and, if it got late in the game and Kami had a heavy tax, most times I'd switch to a plan to accumulate 15 mana and hardcast Emrakul anyways).
Liliana of the Veil is a very good card that's very very good in this matchup, with so few ways to damage her. I hate that card
Admittedly, the fact that manlands can beat down on Liliana, is almost reason in and of itself for me to put them in. I really should test them.
What was it used for? Seems like a win-more card.
Well your opponent must have blundered a lot for that to happen, seeing how you can only use the staff at sorcery speed.
I do like the manlands so far though. Right now I'm running two - Mishra's Factory and Mutavault. Hasn't bit me yet with Stasis, but it will. I really *really* don't want more than one colorless mana source when I have Stasis. Every turn you can wait until bouncing it is crucial.
I've put Leyline of Anticipation back in the deck and it's been wonderful. It really single-handedly wins games when it's in the opening hand, and this deck - of all potential decks for a Leyline - can easily deal with the dead draw of it, since you can Brainstorm/Jace it away, pitch it to a Force of Will/Misdirection/Disrupting Shoal, or just plain old discard it when you have 8+ cards in hand.
HansonWK, some thoughts:
I hate Delay, given that about 50% of games go into stall mode with Stasis or Static Orb.
Black Vise is interesting, and if Winter Orb was still around, I would like it a bit more. 98% of the time, it's going to be your only source of damage (you'd be lucky to get three swings with Kami or two with a manland). So you're talking 9 to 10 turns to win the game with it...
Bribery is interesting, I'd guess half the time it's better than something like Tamiyo, half the time worse. It seems to be getting worse over time though, as people move towards more well-tuned, low-curve decks.
High Market seems superfluous. Shackles kills guys by blocking with them. And if you steal a guy with Shackles and don't need to block with it... well, you're in darn good shape.
Dissolve, meh. 3 mana is brutal as it's not countering Geist or Doran in 50% of games. I do think Swan Song has some potential though.
Anyways, will post my most recent list tomorrow. It's 97 must-haves (IMO) with a couple of flexible spots. Could be the above new cards, could be something fun (Panoptic Mirror), or maybe indeed Intuition is the must-have 98th card.
Another thing I'm thinking about as I look over my list... Forbid has been so-so for me. When it's good, it's kind of win-more, and now that I have removed Font of Mythos, it's less useful. That may be a good removal candidate for the new Dissolve.
Anyways, OP is updated with my top 95 at the moment. In an unknown meta, I'd probably pick Prohibit, Turnabout, Pendrell Mists, and Disrupt. In an advanced metagame (i.e. lots of Geist, GAAIV, and Zur), swap Pendrell Mists for maybe Gainsay.
I liked thassa, god of the sea; except that runs too much risk of hitting her off polymorph
the three cards that i saw that had potential were the counterspell, force spike, and unsummon that all cost 1 more, but tagged on scry 1. I feel like that one mana is too much to ask for the scry rider though.
My Blog - contains my decklists
Uril, The Miststalker
Frankie Peanuts - needs to move to multiplayer.
For the scry spells... I think the Unsummon is useless (60% of my bounce spells end up aimed at my own non-creatures like Static Orb). The Force Spike is probably not great (Condescend is on the lower end of the totem pole of counters in this deck, and is I think strictly better than that). The 3-mana counter/scry is perhaps the most promising. I was mentioning a few posts up that Forbid wasn't shining too much for me, and then the next game I played, I used it like three times. Still, it's worth swapping for the new one for testing purposes at least.
I've come to realize that I think Kami will only get worse, relative to other decks, since there does seem to be some momentum away from the ridiculous blue cards of the past (even things that looked innocuous like Brainstorm, or Counterspekll). And of course, Stasis and Winter Orb, two of the most un-fun cards in MTG, are never going to be printed again. Likewise, I find it hard to imagine a better suited card for this deck than Emrakul.
Really the best one can hope for is a new bounce spell like Into the Roil, or a new Howling Mine.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/commander-2013-spoiler.html#7914
Very high potential in this deck, given that we'll either have no creatures, or Kami, who is just as good on their side of the field as ours.
Certainly better than Control Magic since it can't be Disenchanted at a bad time... but best yet, IT CAN TAKE THRUN OR GEIST since the creatures are not targeted!!! And in fact, many of the decks that have hexproof creatures have a very hard time dealing with them if they do manage to get taken.
This card is 100% worth a long look at in Kami or any monoblue deck. Most excited I've been about a card for this deck in 3+ sets...
Oath of Druids and Natural Order being removed, as well as Loyal Retainers, probably only helps. Specifically the latter two, which cannot be answered by bounce.
Unfortunately I am not familiar with the US banlist (is that simply the multiplayer banlist?). If it's the multiplayer banlist, you lose a big piece of what helps this deck win, in Emrakul. Without him, I'd probably move towards a decklist that removes Polymorph as well, since there's no real replacement available. I'd add in Snapcaster Mage, Vendilion Clique, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Venser, Shaper Savant, which are incredibly powerful in this deck (and, really, almost any deck). Those, plus Vedalken Shackles, is more than enough to win with.
As far as new blue cards to add in, nothing I haven't mentioned above seems worthy of inclusion. Including the most recent spoiler list, which is basically a complete zero for this deck. Retraction Helix is actually a bit interesting, as it's a one-mana way to bounce a Stasis. I would guess in 80% of games that I have a Stasis on the board, there's an untapped Kami of the Crescent Moon in play. Really though, this card is a bit too cute, and win-more, as it doesn't help in those 20% of games I don't have Kami in play.
Really what the deck could use is more people trying it and putting their ideas in for testing. For example, I tend not to play Mishra's Factory cards, but they could be valuable. The entire Polymporph/Emrakul gameplan could be scrapped. Or maybe there's some other minor tweaking that could be done. With the exception of the Polymorph gameplan itself, the deck is a very inbred creation of mine. And what I found to be good, might differ from someone else's experience, given how they play. It's a powerful, fun, and relatively inexpensive deck, and I'm really surprised it hasn't been tested more.