I agree on Aven Mindcensor though it should definitely be in everyone's 1 v 1 build.
I like Wargate because even in your opening hand you can still ramp into a land on turn 3.
I've only been playing with Venser, Shaper Savant in my 1 v 1 build but I think I might replace Sakashima's Student with it in multiplayer. Student can be awesome at times but it is a lot more situational than Venser.
Any idea what could be cut for Bident? I think it's definitely worth a shot.
I was sort of rolling around the idea of cutting Crystal Shard to test it. Crystal Shard has just been giving me really mixed results overall. It is a combo enabler which is fine and all but a lot of the time I am not as happy to just draw it.
Well, I can elaborate. Sakashima's Student is an overcosted clone that doesn't help us unless there's a good target on the table. Aven Mindcensor restricts the options open to opponents. It doesn't need a good target on the table to be useful. Having evasion, flash, and being clampable is just gravy. Wargate is always good after we hit UWG.
Student does also allow a retrigger of an ETB effect which isn't terrible. Other than its color commitment, its versatility with the ninjutsu puts it as stronger than clone in my opinion. I still dont know how much I want three clones in the list myself but it seems like the one I would consider if I went to three clones.
Mindcensor is still fragile. I think it would get a bit better if in a heavy combo meta or in a creature light meta where people might not be targeting and removing creatures as much. Personally, I see way too much sword of fire and ice to really think he would go anywhere. If your group is aggro or combo in direction it could be good but in those cases, running ETB creatures probably isn't that important anyways. My point being, if this card is working really well then you probably dont need to be running ETB as a direction. If you want to run him to nullify essentially a single tutor, it will probably work but beyond that I have not been impressed by him in the times I have seen him run. Generally speaking, I would rather run a counterspell for increased versatility...
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Because you're running Tezzeret the Seeker, why not run the W/G/U artifacts lands? This way Tezzeret could ramp you one turn and then ramp you even more by untapping them without losing even one loyalty counter.
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Because you're running Tezzeret the Seeker, why not run the W/G/U artifacts lands? This way Tezzeret could ramp you one turn and then ramp you even more by untapping them without losing even one loyalty counter.
The three artifact lands are also very fragile to removal such as Austere Command, Shattering Spree, Aura Shards, etc. Generally speaking, when I get Tezzeret in play I play him sort of suicidally usually stripping three - four of his loyalty in the first tutor. If he is still there a turn later I generally just finish him off and get a one mana artifact. It is possible to sit on him and get value from him but generally speaking it is in decks with more mana stones where his +1 is more valuable. Adding the artifact lands also cuts into the basic count and we do search for a lot of basics / forests with a lot of the ramp so cutting further into the basic count is unfortunate for that not to mention if anyone runs ruination / blood moon / back to basics type of effects. Overall, the situations where having an artifact land in the deck are extremely low vs the many situations that they are bad to have such as an artifact sweeper, cutting into basic counts, nonbasic land hate. If I want to get mana from Tezzeret then I usually tutor into Sol Ring / Solemn Simulacrum / Birthing Pod / Phyrexian Metamorph. If you can get away with slow rolling planeswalkers its great but usually it isnt the case unless you are dominating things anyways. If you are doing good enough to slow roll planeswalker effects over and over then probably start considering adding more walkers with value over time effects like Jace the Mind Sculptor (even in this case I still probably wouldn't run artifact lands though).
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I have been sort of lazy about doing my set reviews but here goes nothing I guess.
Theros Set Review:
Elspeth, Sun's Champion I like elspeth but she just doesn't really fit this deck. Planeswalkers tend to attract a lot of attention in my opinion and while she does sort of defend herself, the chances of her going ult are still somewhat low and her abilities just dont really fit what this deck does currently.
Heliod, God of the Sun he is sort of odd in the fact that he does and doesn't really fit the deck. Adding vigilance to swords and Jenara makes for some good defense as well as offense. He also gives a good mana sink for running big mana, doublers, and untappers like Seedborn Muse. If you find yourself enjoying some pillow-fort in your Jenara build then this could be a cool add. I like that he is a creature as well as it makes tutoring for him / recurring him really easy. Overall, he doesn't really fit my build but if you want a little bit of pillow-fort in your build I think he is interesting and worth testing.
Bident of Thassa I play ETB value creatures. These creatures often sit around after cast or get eaten up by blocking / skullclamp. I am interested in seeing what sort of value I can get from the bident though as it opens the option to draw a few cards from the ETB guys after casting them. The force attacks is also very interesting as I could potentially sit back on defense and force attackers. I like the combination of abilities and Coastal Piracy is something I had thought about for a while now.
Curse of the Swine its sort of like a blue wrath. The 2/2s aren't nothing, but they are a lot less threatening in multiplayer EDH. I generally wouldn't really run this spell outside of a wrath starved color combination like mono blue or blue green or something of the sort.
Master of Waves its interesting as it is an ETB effect and the thought of skullclamping 2/3 tokens seems like fun. He is cheap and he makes a few tokens friends. This isnt a token deck but there are some advantages to this guy. I wish he had costed one less to open him up to sun titan reanimation too but whatever. I dont plan to use him but I think he is cool. Probably not that playable in EDH though.
Omenspeaker it falls into the relm of Elvish Visionary. Generally speaking I would rather draw a card than scry 2 but its another interesting flavor of these effects. Overall.... I probably wouldn't play this particular flavor of cheap cantrip style of creature but its interesting still.
Swan Song in my opinion the strongest reason to consider this is if you are running a combo deck. That isnt my own list but if you want to defend a combo it works real nice in answering the threats to the combo while having some versatility still.
Thassa, God of the Sea personally, I think she is more geared towards Rafiq than Jenara as Jenara already has evasion. I think its something interesting still though but really needing additional evasion I dont find her as impressive. Scry one every turn though is useful for topdeck manipulation and it works well with other topdeck manipulation effects as well. She is also cheap and a creature dispite the fact that she will probably never animate in this deck. Interesting but I will pass personally.
Bow of Nylea it does a lot of cool things. I dont think it gets out of the relm of being cool though. It doesn't really pack enough power for most formats.
Fade into Antiquity I like that there is an effect like this for green. But comparing it against Return to Dust makes me think it should have costed less or have been instant speed. It might just be a balance thing though for this particular block and not wanting to one up Naturalize though but I think 3 mana at instant speed or 2 at sorcery speed would have been sufficient rather than 3 at sorcery...
Nylea, God of the Hunt probably the worst of the god cycle. Trample... meh... pump... meh.... its ok but I am not impressed in general. The pump cost is fairly high so you have to be ramping really hard and not drawing cards to find her activate ability that impressive.
Chronicler of Heroes anther sort of Elvish Visionary type of effect. This one is interestingly larger but with a conditional effect that Jenara can typically fit. Unfortunately, a 3/3 body is not necessarily better than a 1/1 body when it comes to EDH and a situational effect to draw is questionable at best.
Medomai the Ageless I like extra turns. I however dont really support things like Lightning Greaves for my deck. This seems like a good card to run as a commander or in a deck with lots of haste outlets potentially. I think its cool, but I also think its going to get blown out of the sky a lot.
Prophet of Kruphix this is for the most part a better Seedborn Muse. These effects are best when you have a lot of mana sinks other than just playing more cards. Cards that have re-usability or mana activate abilities are best with this sort of thing. I however, dont have a lot of mana sinks outside of Jenara herself.
Deck Changes:
Crystal Shard -> Bident of Thassa If you like playing combo, you probably want to keep the Shard in the deck. Outside of going infinite turns, I haven't found the shard really that amazing. I am going to try out the new Bidant because I have wanted to play Coastal Piracy for so long anyways.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I have been sort of lazy about doing my set reviews but here goes nothing I guess.
Theros Set Review:
Elspeth, Sun's Champion I like elspeth but she just doesn't really fit this deck. Planeswalkers tend to attract a lot of attention in my opinion and while she does sort of defend herself, the chances of her going ult are still somewhat low and her abilities just dont really fit what this deck does currently.
Prophet of Kruphix this is for the most part a better Seedborn Muse. These effects are best when you have a lot of mana sinks other than just playing more cards. Cards that have re-usability or mana activate abilities are best with this sort of thing. I however, dont have a lot of mana sinks outside of Jenara herself.
I think you are wrong about the two above cards.
Elspeth seems good in here. (Granted I am less afraid of running walkers. I run JTMS, Venser, and now this lady replacing her original) Her +1 with Clamp is saucy. Her neg will probably hurt your opponents more than you (particularly if there is a Lark in play). If you do somehow get to her ultimate (I agree it will be rare) It plays in perfectly with all the weenie creatures this deck runs. I am going to give her a try.
I have read your feelings on Prophet, but I really feel like this should be in every blue/green/x decklist ever. (particularly those with Lark) This card is bonkers powerful and to limit her abilities to just viewing them only as mana sync enablers just seems wrong. I know I for one will love being able to play creatures on somebodies EoT and getting that extra attack. Hey... It even makes Sphinx's Revelation better in that you will always have mana open to cast that spell for crazy amounts of card draw. The fact it actually helps our general is just icing on the cake for me. Giving this a try as well.
Elspeth seems good in here. (Granted I am less afraid of running walkers. I run JTMS, Venser, and now this lady replacing her original) Her +1 with Clamp is saucy. Her neg will probably hurt your opponents more than you (particularly if there is a Lark in play). If you do somehow get to her ultimate (I agree it will be rare) It plays in perfectly with all the weenie creatures this deck runs. I am going to give her a try.
I have read your feelings on Prophet, but I really feel like this should be in every blue/green/x decklist ever. (particularly those with Lark) This card is bonkers powerful and to limit her abilities to just viewing them only as mana sync enablers just seems wrong. I know I for one will love being able to play creatures on somebodies EoT and getting that extra attack. Hey... It even makes Sphinx's Revelation better in that you will always have mana open to cast that spell for crazy amounts of card draw. The fact it actually helps our general is just icing on the cake for me. Giving this a try as well.
Sorry if our viewpoints dont quite meet but I am just evaluating the cards based upon my own experience. Its totally fine if you would like to run them but I guess I can give some further explanations for my reasoning.
Elspeth - As a wrath its just not what I really specifically want for this deck. It wont wrath opponents tokens assuming they arent already super anthemed up when you drop her. She will likely take anything that is more than an ETB dork that we have in play, and she doesnt clear out opponents value creatures. To be honest, half of the point of a wrath is to just be done with opponents good creatures. I could be happy with this still if it just didnt hit like any good beater creatures we have in this deck but its sort of hit and miss on what it will take out and we get hit by it too. Her token generation has little to do with anything this deck is doing. Skullclamp and I guess Elesh Norn are about the most support I have for tokens in this deck. I think due to that you need to be either using them as sort of a pillowfort effect or be a token build to really get much from her +1 ability. Her ult is nice I suppose but its really not much of anything that I build arround nor would it really seal up the game by any means. I just dont see much synergy between her and the rest of the deck is my problem. I feel like I would rather just run another wrath effect instead of her. If you are running any of the other versions of elspeth already in your deck then I have to agree that she is the better version of elspeth to run, but I disagree with really running any of them in this type of build. She fits the deck the best between her versions due to pillowfort and situational wrathing but outside of that I dont really care for her.
Prophet - I for one have playtested with Seedborn Muse before in the past as well as Teferi. Neither of these effects have been very good for me. Most of the value of flashing in creatures is to keep your opponents thinking and not knowing what you will have as well as to jump over wrath effects. As this is a creature, you still get caught by a wrath effect and cant jump over it with the creatures you have after it passes. Due to this I like my flash enablers not on creatures preferably. I also really like being able to flash NONCREATURE effects as more often these are the ones that I want to surprise people with. Flashing creatures is still good but flashing in a wrath is really useful. I actually play a lot of these effects in my Angus list and so I am considering adding this one there. But offhand, I have to disagree with you. Without the ability to dump mana into something efficiently, these sort of effects are sort of wasted. Jenara is about my only mana dump outlet in this particular deck currently and its just not enough. Plus, a wrath takes Jenara and the Prophet out at the same time so I dont much like it here. I think they key to making the prophet good is having more things that you can repeatedly do like Capsize for example. More of these type of effects give you more options and dont just burn through your entire hand immediately.
Again, opinions will vary. I am just talking from my own testing and experience though. If you build your deck differently from my own, your own testing will vary from mine. Everyone's meta is also different so I cant speak for all players and opponents. In my particular meta, people do everything they can to kill planeswalkers on sight. It is incredibly rare to keep a walker for more than a turn or two in my meta as players will work together to break through and kill walkers in my area. Its great if JtMS works for you but he never would for me ($100 2UU sorcery speed Brainstorm sounds bad.)
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hey, first time posting here. i have been playing this deck for like 6 month, with a few changes. I'm playing JTMS for pvp, but i have to agree that its not good in multiplayer.
Also, i agree with ISB about both, elspeth and the prophet.
And about the shards, I had mixed feelings about it until yesterday. i got hit by a cataclysm, and it won me the game. bounced my oponents zur and others creatures he played. it may be slow, but it gives you a lot of value over time when you are running out of cards.
another question, what do you think about pithing needle? im trying it, since a friend who loves competitive commander said it was an amazing card to play with trinket mage, but i want to know your point of view about it.
hey, first time posting here. i have been playing this deck for like 6 month, with a few changes. I'm playing JTMS for pvp, but i have to agree that its not good in multiplayer.
Also, i agree with ISB about both, elspeth and the prophet.
And about the shards, I had mixed feelings about it until yesterday. i got hit by a cataclysm, and it won me the game. bounced my oponents zur and others creatures he played. it may be slow, but it gives you a lot of value over time when you are running out of cards.
another question, what do you think about pithing needle? im trying it, since a friend who loves competitive commander said it was an amazing card to play with trinket mage, but i want to know your point of view about it.
Welcome to sally and thanks for reading / supporting.
Bident of Thassa - most of my testing so far has been in my Angus list actually. I dont have any proof of it working or not working yet and while I cut Crystal Shard, its by no means a bad card. I just really wanted to make room to test the Bident and dislike playing combo as a wincon so it was a plus for me that the combo became slightly more difficult but I would not cut the shard just for that. Outside of the combo I just hadn't been seeing huge results from the shard. It has some big plays on occasion but often I just would have rather had some card draw than the ability to bounce my guys. I dont really have much for gametime with the bident yet though.
pithing needle - it totally depends unfortunately. Its good if someone has a strong activate ability commander but outside of that, I am not that impressed by it. I would usually rather tuck a commander than try to Pithing Needle it. Against non commanders, it can be ok in general. It does stop planeswalkers from going up which can be useful but in general, I havent been that impressed with it against non commanders as I would usually rather just have a counterspell or an answer.
Against some combo decks it can be nice though too if you know their deck well as you can pre-emptively attack a combo piece with it. I dont play against a lot of combo though personally. I usually consider Pithing Needle a meta dependant card as it can be HUGE or it can totally suck depending on who you play against.
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thanks for your answer! there is a lot of cards like necropotence in my meta right now, so i'll play it for a while.
Also, I'm running twilight shepherd, I like to pod ixidron / karmic guide/ acidic slime into him and get the card back again. And in the late game, it's silly to use alchemist's refuge to flash him in after a wrath and even play some of the cards you got back. I have been playing him for a few month and against commander heavy decks with ixidron is pretty awesome.
thanks for your answer! there is a lot of cards like necropotence in my meta right now, so i'll play it for a while.
Also, I'm running twilight shepherd, I like to pod ixidron / karmic guide/ acidic slime into him and get the card back again. And in the late game, it's silly to use alchemist's refuge to flash him in after a wrath and even play some of the cards you got back. I have been playing him for a few month and against commander heavy decks with ixidron is pretty awesome.
Keep in mind that against Necropotence, if the player who has one in play is paying attention, he will probably burn through his necro fairly hard when you cast the Needle. If you are looking for answers to Necropotence I would likely look more in the direction of countermagic or Krosan Grip. It can still sort of work but dropping it in after something like that lands is less ideal. Dropping it pre-emptively is difficult unless someone always tutors for a card or its their commander.
Pithing Needle is sort of an awkward card for commander due to that. It has some times where its effective but a lot of time its sort of like a temporary stall to a problem rather than an answer. It also drops in usually after the fact so there is still an opportunity to get value from things beforehand.
Twilight Shepard - its ok... It feels a little expensive though for what it does and keep in mind if someone does a wrath that doesn't just kill its not going to work. Its ok, but not that impressive in my opinion. It is also susceptible to grave hate and probably most ideal with sacrifice outlets.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I decided to try Jenara in my Phelddagrif deck (which is otherwise quite similar to this one). I never end up casting the hippo anyway, even though on paper it does sound like fun but it's never proven that way in practice. The difference in mana cost may make a significant difference, I think. I also thought about Rafiq but I don't know...
I decided to try Jenara in my Phelddagrif deck (which is otherwise quite similar to this one). I never end up casting the hippo anyway, even though on paper it does sound like fun but it's never proven that way in practice. The difference in mana cost may make a significant difference, I think. I also thought about Rafiq but I don't know...
Well, hummmm
You could always wait the month (November release) and see what comes from the Commander 2013 commanders as its likely that there will be a commander that does something on cast based upon its mana paid to make a whole cycle out of those. If you are not sold on any of the bant legends offhand its probably the best plan as its likely to generate some sort of value somehow.
I went with Jenara for my own reasons but I think if you dont build around him to some extent Rafiq really isn't going to pan out either. I like Jenara's late game though which is in part why I went with her. Until we see more of the legends though, I really cant say if I will stick to Jenara or change to a new option. I personally like the equipment and extra turns specifically with Jenara but its possible that a new direction will open up more for us or its possible to be underwhelming. Time will tell.
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Again, opinions will vary. I am just talking from my own testing and experience though. If you build your deck differently from my own, your own testing will vary from mine. Everyone's meta is also different so I cant speak for all players and opponents. In my particular meta, people do everything they can to kill planeswalkers on sight. It is incredibly rare to keep a walker for more than a turn or two in my meta as players will work together to break through and kill walkers in my area. Its great if JtMS works for you but he never would for me ($100 2UU sorcery speed Brainstorm sounds bad.)
It's cool, I have been playing this "type" of deck since about 2009 so I actually like to discuss this deck with people who have played it about as long as I have. I appreciate your build. I even switched out my original commander Treva, the Renewer based upon your deck/advice. I will probably still test these cards as I still think they will be solid additions to this deck.
As far as different meta's go. I guess the main problem in my meta would be that a lot of people know what my deck does already. Not sure how your deck fairs, but our decks are not so dissimilar that I would believe you don't tend to dominate matches fairly quickly if people really are willing to sit there and let you build. In many games I am already a target if they see me pull Jenara out (with or without walkers). So I figure that if I am going to get beat upon like a drum anyway why not do it in style?!
My walkers do die frequently, fortunately I run a more Reveillark/combo centered build and thus very few of my creatures or walkers ever stay dead. As for Jace, it is more like $50 for me as that was my original investment in the man and I play 0 other formats so I have nothing else to run him in...and I would prefer to not part with my last JtMS (used to have a playset) He never ultimates, but he does also have a nice interaction with Reveillark and Brainstorming is never a bad thing especially if you get to do it four times! And yes, before you say anything, I am a very greedy man...
You could always wait the month (November release) and see what comes from the Commander 2013 commanders
True. On the other hand, though, changing the commander in this deck doesn't require any changes to the other cards. Along those lines, I'm also planning a GW deck that wouldn't have a specific general but a variety to choose a different one from for each game.
I've been playing with Sphinx of Uthuun instead of Consecrated Sphinx and I have been very satisfied overall. I love the immediate value you get from Uthuun and it doesn't make you a huge target.
However, I've been very underwhelmed with Duplicant. I know it can be recurred by Reveillark but almost every time I draw it, I end up not playing it. Yes, it removes a creature from play but for 6 mana, it's not what I'm usually looking to do. The body you get, even if it's big, can still be blocked by anything.
I have thought about replacing Duplicant with either Consecrated Sphinx (because I want to have at least 3 six drops for Pod purposes) or Sphinx's Revelation. Seeing it dominate in Standard yesterday convinced me finally that this card should be in my EDH deck.
Deadeye Navigator is like the one other that hasnt been mentioned yet. Personally though, I think he is just as prone to removal as sphinx but in general he takes longer to get the same value as sphinx. He also needs another good target to flicker and lots of mana to use.
Deadeye can end games though with his flicker which the sphinx cant do directly but I still much prefer the sphinx over deadeye given the options.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Here's the Jenara deck that I've had for a while and would like some input on it. I'm playing in a commander tournament on Saturday and would just like some feedback.
I started with a Jenara deck that was fairly similar to ISBpathfinder's that I made about two years ago and have been tuning it for a while to run a lot smoother thanks to a lot of the suggestions/reasonings put forth by pathfinder in the primer. Instead of the extra turns that ISBpathfinder's deck takes, I've focused a bit more on blinking the creatures for extra value.
What do you guys think of Sakashima the Impostor? I've been getting the feeling that since he's kinda hard to recur and the rule change about Legendary creatures that's he's not as good anymore, however he's still a clone that can pull some interesting shenanigans.
Also, for normal play I don't like to play with infinite combos, but if I'm in a multiplayer tournament with an actual buy-in, that's out. I might put in Survival of the Fittest and Mirror Entity for the lark combo in for Saturday only.
Here's the Jenara deck that I've had for a while and would like some input on it. I'm playing in a commander tournament on Saturday and would just like some feedback.
I started with a Jenara deck that was fairly similar to ISBpathfinder's that I made about two years ago and have been tuning it for a while to run a lot smoother thanks to a lot of the suggestions/reasonings put forth by pathfinder in the primer. Instead of the extra turns that ISBpathfinder's deck takes, I've focused a bit more on blinking the creatures for extra value.
What do you guys think of Sakashima the Impostor? I've been getting the feeling that since he's kinda hard to recur and the rule change about Legendary creatures that's he's not as good anymore, however he's still a clone that can pull some interesting shenanigans.
Also, for normal play I don't like to play with infinite combos, but if I'm in a multiplayer tournament with an actual buy-in, that's out. I might put in Survival of the Fittest and Mirror Entity for the lark combo in for Saturday only.
You may want more acceleration to get out of the gates strong. Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Birds, or Noble Hierarch are great. Some more draw would be great. One of my personal favorites is Mystic Remora. And you will probably want more disruption to stop all the 2-card combos I know you will be losing to: Rest in Peace, Linvala, and Aven Mindcensor can slow those down. Good luck
Flyingdutchman - thanks for the results. I would be interested in hearing any other results as well if anyone has done any theros testing.
Bident - It is interesting to hear that you haven't found the draw portion of the bident that impressive. It depends a bit on how many cards you can feed immediately and how many you can get over the lifetime of the card in play I suppose. The tap ability results are good to hear though. It is amusing to push defensive creatures into turning sideways and push tap ability creatures into activating on their owner's turn rather than waiting. I really need to do some testing with it myself still but I have had a lot of focus spread over a lot of decks and a lot of formats of late.
Prophet - no real surprise for me. I had the same sort of experience with Seedborn Muse. It draws a ton of attention and we just dont run enough mana sinks to generate value that well in this type of build. With more mana sinks its definitely more impressive. Its a little too fragile to wrath removal though for sure as we cant jump in after the wrath with our creatures. Jenara works alright with it but only if nobody tries to disrupt it.
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Well I think I was just a tad bit unlucky with the draw portion.. I did get the bident out on several occasions but on those occasions I wanted to get some annoying creatures off the board. Pretty nice to force a Consecrated Sphinx to run into your Jenara and Riku of Two Reflections to run into Solemn.. But my own board position on these occasions wasn't good enough to draw a ton of cards off of it. Allthough I'm not so sure it was just bad luck. Honestly in most games I don't find myself having that many creatures in play at all and if my opponents have some kind of board position I will just trade or open myself up for beats. Players can still cast creature spells in their turn which will be able to block and the 1/1's or 2/2's I have won't be able to connect most of the time..
It's Coastal Piracy that can force attacks... I'm not impressed. and I have three of them
i think its underwhelming, though I have come up with a replay combo, its still unplayable, now if it had flash!
actually, its ability ignores needing flash. Its not casting it when you pay the 4 mana. Its actually better than flash.
For those wondering what we are talking about I will save the time and spoil it.
First of all, I really think its interesting and I like the design. It however, was not what I had expected if this is the bant part of the prosh commander cycle. It might however be one of the additional commanders rather than part of the cycle we had seen so far.
Jenara vs Derevi - First of all, these commanders operate on very different premises. I dont think that just swapping in Derevi and running with it would pan out that well. If you are interested in playing Derevi instead of jenara and your list looks like mine, I would suggest tweeking things at the very least. They have very very different functions. I think both are really great for different purposes but they clearly do not fit the same role.
Thoughts on Derevi - I probably will toy with Derevi because he/she/it (its a freakin bird with armor plus a mask) fits a very cool control element here. Lets run through some of the elements of the new legend though:
1) counter dodge + fixed price - I sort of have to address all of these at the same time. The ability to put Derevi into play for 1GWU is really sick as it is an ability rather than casting the commander. It ignores commander tax entirely and the tax doesn't increase when you use this option. This means we can flash in our commander and just sort of suicide them off because it wont increase the cost. Plus we can tap things down when we flash Derevi in so its sort of like potential for a double block. Sac outlets that do things are increasingly impressive with Derevi because of the fact that we have a fixed cost on the commander. As long as we have a free sac outlet, there actually isnt a way to tuck the commander due to the ability to use an ability to play them in the first place rather than cast them.
2) Built in flash - we have an etb effect plus flash on this commander with their activated ability. Flash lets us use our commander as a control effect here and fake or have other options instead to play with. Flash is also a huge pain in the ass because it means we need to keep mana up at most times making lots of sorcery speed things more of a pain or making it so we want to ramp harder to get more mana avalible in general. Currently, I have built arround having 2-3 mana up for most options so its sort of a pain pushing that up to four available. I think pushing the deck to be more flash accepting would be a good thing though by either reducing mana costs, increasing ramp, or adding more flash enablers.
3) tap / untap ability - The tap ability seems to me to be primarily useful when flashing Derevi in on other people's turns. There is possibility for it to work while in play though such as if you take an extra turn, you could tap down defenders for someone by attacking someone else and using the follow up turn to attack the person you tapped down. Primarily though, I am very very interested in the untap option here. The untap could be as little as opening land back up to do other things in second main or keeping control options up. It can also be used to untap creatures that just attacked though which gives options for defending as well. What I think will be very impressive about this ability though, is untapping value generating permanents such as Birthing Pod, Crystal Shard, Arcanis the Omnipotent. There are lots of value per tap sort of things out there and they can all be utilized more than once a turn by utilizing this sort of tactic. This ability actually has A TON OF POWER. It may seem small at first but I guarantee you, due to the versatility of how it and the commander works, this will be a huge ability.
power / toughness - so this is a drop in power when looking at it vs Jenara. However its clearly more of a control element design rather than an aggro design which Jenara had. The downside here being that its going to be a lot harder to utilize Derevi as a wincon as we wont have the power scaling option that Jenara had. If we want to utilize Derevi as a wiincon, equipment and buffs will be needed. Extra Turns also loose a lot of their commander finishing power when looking at Derevi instead of Jenara as extra turns meant more buffing to the commander in general as well as more combat steps. The power/toughness for the mana is fairly good though considering the abilities though.
evasion - we still have flying which is really solid. Flying is useful for a sword delivery system. If anything, I think the equipment package could expand if we make the change as the extra turns will be falling off in their power some of them could be transitioned to more equipment.
Sac oultets - by having sacrifice outlets handy, we can cycle the commander allowing for tapping / untapping multiple things. If you happen to have lands such as basillicas in play you could potentially untap those lands when the commander comes into play essentially making him cost the same as Reassembling Skeleton to bring into play. This can mean making value from sacrifice outlets and really opens up an interesting option in bant that we normally dont have. Sac outlets can also generate some value for us and keep us from getting tucked. I for one dont really plan to run basillicas in my build but even making it a 3 mana Reassembling Skeleton that comes in untapped and has flying, it seems super sick.
Overall..... I think Derevi is really cool and I am willing to experiment with testing him for a build. I cant say yet but I believe a deck built for him would look very different from what I currently have as my Jenara deck. I will play with it a bit further though and let you all know what I come up with.
I was sort of rolling around the idea of cutting Crystal Shard to test it. Crystal Shard has just been giving me really mixed results overall. It is a combo enabler which is fine and all but a lot of the time I am not as happy to just draw it.
Student does also allow a retrigger of an ETB effect which isn't terrible. Other than its color commitment, its versatility with the ninjutsu puts it as stronger than clone in my opinion. I still dont know how much I want three clones in the list myself but it seems like the one I would consider if I went to three clones.
Mindcensor is still fragile. I think it would get a bit better if in a heavy combo meta or in a creature light meta where people might not be targeting and removing creatures as much. Personally, I see way too much sword of fire and ice to really think he would go anywhere. If your group is aggro or combo in direction it could be good but in those cases, running ETB creatures probably isn't that important anyways. My point being, if this card is working really well then you probably dont need to be running ETB as a direction. If you want to run him to nullify essentially a single tutor, it will probably work but beyond that I have not been impressed by him in the times I have seen him run. Generally speaking, I would rather run a counterspell for increased versatility...
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The three artifact lands are also very fragile to removal such as Austere Command, Shattering Spree, Aura Shards, etc. Generally speaking, when I get Tezzeret in play I play him sort of suicidally usually stripping three - four of his loyalty in the first tutor. If he is still there a turn later I generally just finish him off and get a one mana artifact. It is possible to sit on him and get value from him but generally speaking it is in decks with more mana stones where his +1 is more valuable. Adding the artifact lands also cuts into the basic count and we do search for a lot of basics / forests with a lot of the ramp so cutting further into the basic count is unfortunate for that not to mention if anyone runs ruination / blood moon / back to basics type of effects. Overall, the situations where having an artifact land in the deck are extremely low vs the many situations that they are bad to have such as an artifact sweeper, cutting into basic counts, nonbasic land hate. If I want to get mana from Tezzeret then I usually tutor into Sol Ring / Solemn Simulacrum / Birthing Pod / Phyrexian Metamorph. If you can get away with slow rolling planeswalkers its great but usually it isnt the case unless you are dominating things anyways. If you are doing good enough to slow roll planeswalker effects over and over then probably start considering adding more walkers with value over time effects like Jace the Mind Sculptor (even in this case I still probably wouldn't run artifact lands though).
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Theros Set Review:
Elspeth, Sun's Champion I like elspeth but she just doesn't really fit this deck. Planeswalkers tend to attract a lot of attention in my opinion and while she does sort of defend herself, the chances of her going ult are still somewhat low and her abilities just dont really fit what this deck does currently.
Heliod, God of the Sun he is sort of odd in the fact that he does and doesn't really fit the deck. Adding vigilance to swords and Jenara makes for some good defense as well as offense. He also gives a good mana sink for running big mana, doublers, and untappers like Seedborn Muse. If you find yourself enjoying some pillow-fort in your Jenara build then this could be a cool add. I like that he is a creature as well as it makes tutoring for him / recurring him really easy. Overall, he doesn't really fit my build but if you want a little bit of pillow-fort in your build I think he is interesting and worth testing.
Bident of Thassa I play ETB value creatures. These creatures often sit around after cast or get eaten up by blocking / skullclamp. I am interested in seeing what sort of value I can get from the bident though as it opens the option to draw a few cards from the ETB guys after casting them. The force attacks is also very interesting as I could potentially sit back on defense and force attackers. I like the combination of abilities and Coastal Piracy is something I had thought about for a while now.
Curse of the Swine its sort of like a blue wrath. The 2/2s aren't nothing, but they are a lot less threatening in multiplayer EDH. I generally wouldn't really run this spell outside of a wrath starved color combination like mono blue or blue green or something of the sort.
Master of Waves its interesting as it is an ETB effect and the thought of skullclamping 2/3 tokens seems like fun. He is cheap and he makes a few tokens friends. This isnt a token deck but there are some advantages to this guy. I wish he had costed one less to open him up to sun titan reanimation too but whatever. I dont plan to use him but I think he is cool. Probably not that playable in EDH though.
Omenspeaker it falls into the relm of Elvish Visionary. Generally speaking I would rather draw a card than scry 2 but its another interesting flavor of these effects. Overall.... I probably wouldn't play this particular flavor of cheap cantrip style of creature but its interesting still.
Swan Song in my opinion the strongest reason to consider this is if you are running a combo deck. That isnt my own list but if you want to defend a combo it works real nice in answering the threats to the combo while having some versatility still.
Thassa, God of the Sea personally, I think she is more geared towards Rafiq than Jenara as Jenara already has evasion. I think its something interesting still though but really needing additional evasion I dont find her as impressive. Scry one every turn though is useful for topdeck manipulation and it works well with other topdeck manipulation effects as well. She is also cheap and a creature dispite the fact that she will probably never animate in this deck. Interesting but I will pass personally.
Bow of Nylea it does a lot of cool things. I dont think it gets out of the relm of being cool though. It doesn't really pack enough power for most formats.
Fade into Antiquity I like that there is an effect like this for green. But comparing it against Return to Dust makes me think it should have costed less or have been instant speed. It might just be a balance thing though for this particular block and not wanting to one up Naturalize though but I think 3 mana at instant speed or 2 at sorcery speed would have been sufficient rather than 3 at sorcery...
Nylea, God of the Hunt probably the worst of the god cycle. Trample... meh... pump... meh.... its ok but I am not impressed in general. The pump cost is fairly high so you have to be ramping really hard and not drawing cards to find her activate ability that impressive.
Chronicler of Heroes anther sort of Elvish Visionary type of effect. This one is interestingly larger but with a conditional effect that Jenara can typically fit. Unfortunately, a 3/3 body is not necessarily better than a 1/1 body when it comes to EDH and a situational effect to draw is questionable at best.
Medomai the Ageless I like extra turns. I however dont really support things like Lightning Greaves for my deck. This seems like a good card to run as a commander or in a deck with lots of haste outlets potentially. I think its cool, but I also think its going to get blown out of the sky a lot.
Prophet of Kruphix this is for the most part a better Seedborn Muse. These effects are best when you have a lot of mana sinks other than just playing more cards. Cards that have re-usability or mana activate abilities are best with this sort of thing. I however, dont have a lot of mana sinks outside of Jenara herself.
Deck Changes:
Crystal Shard -> Bident of Thassa If you like playing combo, you probably want to keep the Shard in the deck. Outside of going infinite turns, I haven't found the shard really that amazing. I am going to try out the new Bidant because I have wanted to play Coastal Piracy for so long anyways.
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I think you are wrong about the two above cards.
Elspeth seems good in here. (Granted I am less afraid of running walkers. I run JTMS, Venser, and now this lady replacing her original) Her +1 with Clamp is saucy. Her neg will probably hurt your opponents more than you (particularly if there is a Lark in play). If you do somehow get to her ultimate (I agree it will be rare) It plays in perfectly with all the weenie creatures this deck runs. I am going to give her a try.
I have read your feelings on Prophet, but I really feel like this should be in every blue/green/x decklist ever. (particularly those with Lark) This card is bonkers powerful and to limit her abilities to just viewing them only as mana sync enablers just seems wrong. I know I for one will love being able to play creatures on somebodies EoT and getting that extra attack. Hey... It even makes Sphinx's Revelation better in that you will always have mana open to cast that spell for crazy amounts of card draw. The fact it actually helps our general is just icing on the cake for me. Giving this a try as well.
Sorry if our viewpoints dont quite meet but I am just evaluating the cards based upon my own experience. Its totally fine if you would like to run them but I guess I can give some further explanations for my reasoning.
Elspeth - As a wrath its just not what I really specifically want for this deck. It wont wrath opponents tokens assuming they arent already super anthemed up when you drop her. She will likely take anything that is more than an ETB dork that we have in play, and she doesnt clear out opponents value creatures. To be honest, half of the point of a wrath is to just be done with opponents good creatures. I could be happy with this still if it just didnt hit like any good beater creatures we have in this deck but its sort of hit and miss on what it will take out and we get hit by it too. Her token generation has little to do with anything this deck is doing. Skullclamp and I guess Elesh Norn are about the most support I have for tokens in this deck. I think due to that you need to be either using them as sort of a pillowfort effect or be a token build to really get much from her +1 ability. Her ult is nice I suppose but its really not much of anything that I build arround nor would it really seal up the game by any means. I just dont see much synergy between her and the rest of the deck is my problem. I feel like I would rather just run another wrath effect instead of her. If you are running any of the other versions of elspeth already in your deck then I have to agree that she is the better version of elspeth to run, but I disagree with really running any of them in this type of build. She fits the deck the best between her versions due to pillowfort and situational wrathing but outside of that I dont really care for her.
Prophet - I for one have playtested with Seedborn Muse before in the past as well as Teferi. Neither of these effects have been very good for me. Most of the value of flashing in creatures is to keep your opponents thinking and not knowing what you will have as well as to jump over wrath effects. As this is a creature, you still get caught by a wrath effect and cant jump over it with the creatures you have after it passes. Due to this I like my flash enablers not on creatures preferably. I also really like being able to flash NONCREATURE effects as more often these are the ones that I want to surprise people with. Flashing creatures is still good but flashing in a wrath is really useful. I actually play a lot of these effects in my Angus list and so I am considering adding this one there. But offhand, I have to disagree with you. Without the ability to dump mana into something efficiently, these sort of effects are sort of wasted. Jenara is about my only mana dump outlet in this particular deck currently and its just not enough. Plus, a wrath takes Jenara and the Prophet out at the same time so I dont much like it here. I think they key to making the prophet good is having more things that you can repeatedly do like Capsize for example. More of these type of effects give you more options and dont just burn through your entire hand immediately.
Again, opinions will vary. I am just talking from my own testing and experience though. If you build your deck differently from my own, your own testing will vary from mine. Everyone's meta is also different so I cant speak for all players and opponents. In my particular meta, people do everything they can to kill planeswalkers on sight. It is incredibly rare to keep a walker for more than a turn or two in my meta as players will work together to break through and kill walkers in my area. Its great if JtMS works for you but he never would for me ($100 2UU sorcery speed Brainstorm sounds bad.)
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Also, i agree with ISB about both, elspeth and the prophet.
I want to ask about the Bident of Thassa. does it work?
And about the shards, I had mixed feelings about it until yesterday. i got hit by a cataclysm, and it won me the game. bounced my oponents zur and others creatures he played. it may be slow, but it gives you a lot of value over time when you are running out of cards.
another question, what do you think about pithing needle? im trying it, since a friend who loves competitive commander said it was an amazing card to play with trinket mage, but i want to know your point of view about it.
Welcome to sally and thanks for reading / supporting.
Bident of Thassa - most of my testing so far has been in my Angus list actually. I dont have any proof of it working or not working yet and while I cut Crystal Shard, its by no means a bad card. I just really wanted to make room to test the Bident and dislike playing combo as a wincon so it was a plus for me that the combo became slightly more difficult but I would not cut the shard just for that. Outside of the combo I just hadn't been seeing huge results from the shard. It has some big plays on occasion but often I just would have rather had some card draw than the ability to bounce my guys. I dont really have much for gametime with the bident yet though.
pithing needle - it totally depends unfortunately. Its good if someone has a strong activate ability commander but outside of that, I am not that impressed by it. I would usually rather tuck a commander than try to Pithing Needle it. Against non commanders, it can be ok in general. It does stop planeswalkers from going up which can be useful but in general, I havent been that impressed with it against non commanders as I would usually rather just have a counterspell or an answer.
Against some combo decks it can be nice though too if you know their deck well as you can pre-emptively attack a combo piece with it. I dont play against a lot of combo though personally. I usually consider Pithing Needle a meta dependant card as it can be HUGE or it can totally suck depending on who you play against.
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Also, I'm running twilight shepherd, I like to pod ixidron / karmic guide/ acidic slime into him and get the card back again. And in the late game, it's silly to use alchemist's refuge to flash him in after a wrath and even play some of the cards you got back. I have been playing him for a few month and against commander heavy decks with ixidron is pretty awesome.
Keep in mind that against Necropotence, if the player who has one in play is paying attention, he will probably burn through his necro fairly hard when you cast the Needle. If you are looking for answers to Necropotence I would likely look more in the direction of countermagic or Krosan Grip. It can still sort of work but dropping it in after something like that lands is less ideal. Dropping it pre-emptively is difficult unless someone always tutors for a card or its their commander.
Pithing Needle is sort of an awkward card for commander due to that. It has some times where its effective but a lot of time its sort of like a temporary stall to a problem rather than an answer. It also drops in usually after the fact so there is still an opportunity to get value from things beforehand.
Twilight Shepard - its ok... It feels a little expensive though for what it does and keep in mind if someone does a wrath that doesn't just kill its not going to work. Its ok, but not that impressive in my opinion. It is also susceptible to grave hate and probably most ideal with sacrifice outlets.
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Dreams of the Sphinx (Sharuum the Hegemon)
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow (Roon of the Hidden Realm)
For vår jord (Azusa, Lost But Seeking)
Black Power (Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed)
Well, hummmm
You could always wait the month (November release) and see what comes from the Commander 2013 commanders as its likely that there will be a commander that does something on cast based upon its mana paid to make a whole cycle out of those. If you are not sold on any of the bant legends offhand its probably the best plan as its likely to generate some sort of value somehow.
I went with Jenara for my own reasons but I think if you dont build around him to some extent Rafiq really isn't going to pan out either. I like Jenara's late game though which is in part why I went with her. Until we see more of the legends though, I really cant say if I will stick to Jenara or change to a new option. I personally like the equipment and extra turns specifically with Jenara but its possible that a new direction will open up more for us or its possible to be underwhelming. Time will tell.
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It's cool, I have been playing this "type" of deck since about 2009 so I actually like to discuss this deck with people who have played it about as long as I have. I appreciate your build. I even switched out my original commander Treva, the Renewer based upon your deck/advice. I will probably still test these cards as I still think they will be solid additions to this deck.
As far as different meta's go. I guess the main problem in my meta would be that a lot of people know what my deck does already. Not sure how your deck fairs, but our decks are not so dissimilar that I would believe you don't tend to dominate matches fairly quickly if people really are willing to sit there and let you build. In many games I am already a target if they see me pull Jenara out (with or without walkers). So I figure that if I am going to get beat upon like a drum anyway why not do it in style?!
My walkers do die frequently, fortunately I run a more Reveillark/combo centered build and thus very few of my creatures or walkers ever stay dead. As for Jace, it is more like $50 for me as that was my original investment in the man and I play 0 other formats so I have nothing else to run him in...and I would prefer to not part with my last JtMS (used to have a playset) He never ultimates, but he does also have a nice interaction with Reveillark and Brainstorming is never a bad thing especially if you get to do it four times! And yes, before you say anything, I am a very greedy man...
True. On the other hand, though, changing the commander in this deck doesn't require any changes to the other cards. Along those lines, I'm also planning a GW deck that wouldn't have a specific general but a variety to choose a different one from for each game.
Dreams of the Sphinx (Sharuum the Hegemon)
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow (Roon of the Hidden Realm)
For vår jord (Azusa, Lost But Seeking)
Black Power (Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed)
However, I've been very underwhelmed with Duplicant. I know it can be recurred by Reveillark but almost every time I draw it, I end up not playing it. Yes, it removes a creature from play but for 6 mana, it's not what I'm usually looking to do. The body you get, even if it's big, can still be blocked by anything.
I have thought about replacing Duplicant with either Consecrated Sphinx (because I want to have at least 3 six drops for Pod purposes) or Sphinx's Revelation. Seeing it dominate in Standard yesterday convinced me finally that this card should be in my EDH deck.
So Jenara players, which card would you go with?
Are there any other 6 drops worth discussing?
Deadeye can end games though with his flicker which the sphinx cant do directly but I still much prefer the sphinx over deadeye given the options.
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Here's the Jenara deck that I've had for a while and would like some input on it. I'm playing in a commander tournament on Saturday and would just like some feedback.
1 Jenara, Asura of War
Creatures
1 Gilded Drake
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Eternal Witness
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Fierce Empath
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Stonecloaker
1 Trinket Mage
1 Wood Elf
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Mystic Snake
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Restoration Angel
1 Sakashima the Impostor
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Acidic Slime
1 Body Double
1 Ixidron
1 Karmic Guide
1 Mulldrifter
1 Reveillark
1 Duplicant
1 Prime Speaker Zegana
1 Sun Titan
1 Sphinx of Uthuun
1 Sylvan Primordial
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Akroma's Vengeance
1 Austere Command
1 Bribery
1 Green Sun's Zenith
Instants
1 Pact of Negation
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Momentary Blink
1 Bant Charm
1 Beast Within
1 Ghostly Flicker
1 Hinder
1 Spell Crumple
1 Voidslime
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Chord of Calling
Enchantment
1 Sylvan Library
Artifacts
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Crystal Shard
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
Planeswalkers
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Venser, the Sojourner
1 Academy Ruins
1 Alchemist's Refuge
1 High Market
1 Kor Haven
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
Color Producing Lands
1 Command Tower
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
1 Savannah
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Windswept Heath
3 Forests
4 Plains
7 Islands
1 Seaside Citadel
I started with a Jenara deck that was fairly similar to ISBpathfinder's that I made about two years ago and have been tuning it for a while to run a lot smoother thanks to a lot of the suggestions/reasonings put forth by pathfinder in the primer. Instead of the extra turns that ISBpathfinder's deck takes, I've focused a bit more on blinking the creatures for extra value.
I've been thinking a lot about it recently and I think I am going to take out Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Crystal Shard, and Stonecloaker. Sphinx's Revelation and Scavenging Ooze will be going in for sure and I am considering Bident of Thassa. How has the bident been so far for those of you who have played with it?
What do you guys think of Sakashima the Impostor? I've been getting the feeling that since he's kinda hard to recur and the rule change about Legendary creatures that's he's not as good anymore, however he's still a clone that can pull some interesting shenanigans.
Also, for normal play I don't like to play with infinite combos, but if I'm in a multiplayer tournament with an actual buy-in, that's out. I might put in Survival of the Fittest and Mirror Entity for the lark combo in for Saturday only.
Oh, and I'm probably going to switch out Seaside Citadel for Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.
Thanks for any feedback.
You may want more acceleration to get out of the gates strong. Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Birds, or Noble Hierarch are great. Some more draw would be great. One of my personal favorites is Mystic Remora. And you will probably want more disruption to stop all the 2-card combos I know you will be losing to: Rest in Peace, Linvala, and Aven Mindcensor can slow those down. Good luck
BRGrenzo, Dungeon Warden EDH
GAzusa, Always in a Rush EDH
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Warlord EDH
Trade thread on MOTL
Bident - It is interesting to hear that you haven't found the draw portion of the bident that impressive. It depends a bit on how many cards you can feed immediately and how many you can get over the lifetime of the card in play I suppose. The tap ability results are good to hear though. It is amusing to push defensive creatures into turning sideways and push tap ability creatures into activating on their owner's turn rather than waiting. I really need to do some testing with it myself still but I have had a lot of focus spread over a lot of decks and a lot of formats of late.
Prophet - no real surprise for me. I had the same sort of experience with Seedborn Muse. It draws a ton of attention and we just dont run enough mana sinks to generate value that well in this type of build. With more mana sinks its definitely more impressive. Its a little too fragile to wrath removal though for sure as we cant jump in after the wrath with our creatures. Jenara works alright with it but only if nobody tries to disrupt it.
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It's Coastal Piracy that can force attacks... I'm not impressed. and I have three of them
Jenara, Asura of War at 3 CMC is one of my favorite Birthing Pod targets. I think this might do it better.
Oh yes But is it almost too good? I would have been happy for less.
Dreams of the Sphinx (Sharuum the Hegemon)
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow (Roon of the Hidden Realm)
For vår jord (Azusa, Lost But Seeking)
Black Power (Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed)
i think its underwhelming, though I have come up with a replay combo, its still unplayable, now if it had flash!
actually, its ability ignores needing flash. Its not casting it when you pay the 4 mana. Its actually better than flash.
For those wondering what we are talking about I will save the time and spoil it.
First of all, I really think its interesting and I like the design. It however, was not what I had expected if this is the bant part of the prosh commander cycle. It might however be one of the additional commanders rather than part of the cycle we had seen so far.
Jenara vs Derevi - First of all, these commanders operate on very different premises. I dont think that just swapping in Derevi and running with it would pan out that well. If you are interested in playing Derevi instead of jenara and your list looks like mine, I would suggest tweeking things at the very least. They have very very different functions. I think both are really great for different purposes but they clearly do not fit the same role.
Thoughts on Derevi - I probably will toy with Derevi because he/she/it (its a freakin bird with armor plus a mask) fits a very cool control element here. Lets run through some of the elements of the new legend though:
1) counter dodge + fixed price - I sort of have to address all of these at the same time. The ability to put Derevi into play for 1GWU is really sick as it is an ability rather than casting the commander. It ignores commander tax entirely and the tax doesn't increase when you use this option. This means we can flash in our commander and just sort of suicide them off because it wont increase the cost. Plus we can tap things down when we flash Derevi in so its sort of like potential for a double block. Sac outlets that do things are increasingly impressive with Derevi because of the fact that we have a fixed cost on the commander. As long as we have a free sac outlet, there actually isnt a way to tuck the commander due to the ability to use an ability to play them in the first place rather than cast them.
2) Built in flash - we have an etb effect plus flash on this commander with their activated ability. Flash lets us use our commander as a control effect here and fake or have other options instead to play with. Flash is also a huge pain in the ass because it means we need to keep mana up at most times making lots of sorcery speed things more of a pain or making it so we want to ramp harder to get more mana avalible in general. Currently, I have built arround having 2-3 mana up for most options so its sort of a pain pushing that up to four available. I think pushing the deck to be more flash accepting would be a good thing though by either reducing mana costs, increasing ramp, or adding more flash enablers.
3) tap / untap ability - The tap ability seems to me to be primarily useful when flashing Derevi in on other people's turns. There is possibility for it to work while in play though such as if you take an extra turn, you could tap down defenders for someone by attacking someone else and using the follow up turn to attack the person you tapped down. Primarily though, I am very very interested in the untap option here. The untap could be as little as opening land back up to do other things in second main or keeping control options up. It can also be used to untap creatures that just attacked though which gives options for defending as well. What I think will be very impressive about this ability though, is untapping value generating permanents such as Birthing Pod, Crystal Shard, Arcanis the Omnipotent. There are lots of value per tap sort of things out there and they can all be utilized more than once a turn by utilizing this sort of tactic. This ability actually has A TON OF POWER. It may seem small at first but I guarantee you, due to the versatility of how it and the commander works, this will be a huge ability.
power / toughness - so this is a drop in power when looking at it vs Jenara. However its clearly more of a control element design rather than an aggro design which Jenara had. The downside here being that its going to be a lot harder to utilize Derevi as a wincon as we wont have the power scaling option that Jenara had. If we want to utilize Derevi as a wiincon, equipment and buffs will be needed. Extra Turns also loose a lot of their commander finishing power when looking at Derevi instead of Jenara as extra turns meant more buffing to the commander in general as well as more combat steps. The power/toughness for the mana is fairly good though considering the abilities though.
evasion - we still have flying which is really solid. Flying is useful for a sword delivery system. If anything, I think the equipment package could expand if we make the change as the extra turns will be falling off in their power some of them could be transitioned to more equipment.
Sac oultets - by having sacrifice outlets handy, we can cycle the commander allowing for tapping / untapping multiple things. If you happen to have lands such as basillicas in play you could potentially untap those lands when the commander comes into play essentially making him cost the same as Reassembling Skeleton to bring into play. This can mean making value from sacrifice outlets and really opens up an interesting option in bant that we normally dont have. Sac outlets can also generate some value for us and keep us from getting tucked. I for one dont really plan to run basillicas in my build but even making it a 3 mana Reassembling Skeleton that comes in untapped and has flying, it seems super sick.
Overall..... I think Derevi is really cool and I am willing to experiment with testing him for a build. I cant say yet but I believe a deck built for him would look very different from what I currently have as my Jenara deck. I will play with it a bit further though and let you all know what I come up with.
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[Modern] Allies