I hear you, I have my rebels all foil too except for lin,cho, and lieutenant. I've been looking for a foil of Blade of the Sixth Pride for my deck. If only for the awesomeness of a full art foil.....he's got to look amazing.....
It was a real pain to pick them all up. I ended up going to 2 major single dealers to fill in the majority of the list. I then was forced to ebay the last 3 rebels which I couldn't find on either. I haven't bothered picking up most of the non rebel foils for now as they are sort of just the generic stuff that goes in a lot of EDH lists and costs an arm and a leg. I figure in the random event of if they ever print rebels again the price on the older ones foiled could be a problem. I am happy to have them taken care of though. The rebels do make up the most played cards in the deck so it is nice to have them covered at least.
Target Task force a bunch w/ Outrider, sac to one of those lands, yay.
Also, Endless Horizons was always really kind to me in Lin-Sivvi. I can see being scared of enchantment hate, but even insuring the next three-four land drops is huge.
Good luck with the Rebels! May you never face down a Cursed Totem.
I am aware of the infinite life combo in rebels. However I have never seen it end well for the person who executes it. A friend of mine used to run a rebel list a good 6+ months back and everytime he executed the infinite life he was killed next so meh. I dont like defensive infinite combos as they really paint a target on you that is usually not so great.
Endless Horizons - great card. I have been considering it for a while in here. It will likely go in sometime in the future. I really like using it even if it is only for 4-6 lands on it. I will probably try to get it in sometime in the future and I agree it is good.
Torpor Orb I run it and I agree it fits the deck nicely. I only have a few things that this interfears with and very little overall. I wish I could have a few more ways to reliably draw it though.
Brass Squire ehhh he is ok. I have never been really impressed by him really in any format though. He is better when you look at running a few more protections / shroud equipment in my opinion. Still I am not huge on him.
Puresteel Paladin I did strongly consider him in the earlier stages of my deck construction. I think in the end I would just want a few more equipment in my deck all in all before I would include him. If I could add like another 3+ equpment to my list I would probably go back to considering him but for now I am having some issues with including him.
Cursed Totem - this isn't the only problematic card out there. Someone hit me up with a Grafdigger's Cage the other day which shut down all of my rebel tutoring but you are right that would stop me from doing much. Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Damping Matrix, Strangelhold, Aven Mindcensor and Humility sort of all likewise screw over most of this deck but this is mono white so it is hard to really expect to not have some things to sort of hose you.
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EDIT: well... played with the decklist for a good amount of time today... I probably looked at my list for a good like 3 hours today just trying to tweek it a little. I found that I had a little more creature hate that was outside of my rebel package than I wanted. I cut back on this and tried to increase some of my other utility.
CUTS: Condemn it would end up sitting in hand a lot. My rebel tutor ability really gives me a lot of defensive capability already as is. If someone is stupid enough to swing at me when I have rebels ready and mana up they usually take a rebel response. I found that this was less needed due to that. Plus the constraint on attackers only felt a bit narrow. Sometimes creatures need to be answered before they swing or commanders who dont swing need answers.
Path to Exile This one was a bit of a harder cut. I really do like path but I just find that singe spot removal in mono white isnt enough due to the lack of card advantage in mono white. Due to this I cut this out.
Mind Stone Decent little small ramp but I find it is probably one of my weaker links in the deck. I swapped it out for Endless Horizons instead which will hopefully give me several land drops and all in all give me better results. This swap will give me less ramp but give me some maintained land drops.
Darksteel Plate I just found that I wasn't using these defensive equipments enough. I was rarely tutoring for them and rarely happy to draw them. Due to this I am going to cut them. I did like having my commander able to chump block like anything and everything but even then... meh.
ADDS: Oblivion Stone I was going to put Akroma's Vengeance in here at first but then I realized that this deck does tons of things at instant speed at the end of my opponents turns. This would open up the option to wrath at the end of their turns if need be or in response to something. It also gives me an artifact wrath to tutor for / recur so that is nice. Hopefully it will pan out as I felt like I needed another wrath or two. I might end up needing another wrath yet but we will see how adding just one more works for now.
Disenchant some basic artifact / enchantment hate. I considered running a few other things but in the end I liked the fact that this is instant speed, cheap, and versatile. I didnt like the sorcery speed stuff and I didnt like the stuff that only handled one or the other. I considered this being another sweeper effect for them but I think a little bit of just emergency spot removal is good as well.
Batterskull another decent lifegain option for the deck. I love that I can protect it with mana up as well and beating in with 5/5+ sized creatures with vigilance / lifegain seems quite solid. Time for more testing with this and I hope it pans out.
Endless Horizons guarenteed land drops is good in this deck. I always need more lands and I often sputter out of lands to drop in the mid to late game due to the lack of card draw. I would love to drop this and exile 4/5 lands as that seems like some solid land dropping.
I had a bit of a hard time with everything as I sort of really analyzed everything before coming to any conclusions. I really thought a lot on a few of these but I think these will be decent changes for now:
EDIT 2: I had some magical thoughts of Teferi's Puzzle Box in this deck... Generally speaking I get some rebels in hand and what not as well as the madness it would have with a Land Tax in play... The Puzzle Box probably needs to go into this deck. This deck tends to just sort of sit with things in hand for a long time so this would give me conditional cards that I can use or allow them to cycle... Other people sort of freak out when this is in play as well so that would be sort of funny. It would jack with tutoring decks as well. It might just have to go in...
I did a few more changes and had a few more games last night with the updated changes. Sadly salvation was down most of yesterday so I couldnt update my changes that I was making before the games. Ohhh well now I can update with my games as well.
CUTS: Sword of Feast and Famine I dont tend to try to overextend my board position as much in multiplayer games but if I intended on tutoring into tutoring rebels a bit more often I could see this being more useful.
Strata Scythe I just find that it operates a bit too similarly to the Quietus Spike. I generally speaking have a few evasive creatures so I find the spike does more damage and provides me with deathtouch on defense. It is possible for the Scythe to give a good buff as well but I just find it a bit redundant to have them both now as well as Batterskull.
Shield Dancer The more games I get the more I realize I never tutor for or really want this rebel. Generally speaking if something big without flying is attacking me I go for Defiant Vanguard. There are a few situations in which the Shield Dancer is better however the paying mana to deflect the damage is a bit of a pain in the ass.
ADDS: Teferi's Puzzle Box I tend to sit behind a lot of the same cards for a lot of time. I thought the ability to just sort of cycle through them might be good. It would also help move some of the rebels that I draw through the deck. On top of that this card is amazing with Scroll Rack which allows me to sort of preserve some of my hand from turn to turn. It is also highly irritating to combo decks due to the difficulty in keeping multiple cards in hand for combos. It also works really well with Land Tax which is cool.
Lapse of Certainty I wanted to see how this panned out. I play mostly just draw / go so it is sort of funny to have a counterspell randomly in mono white. I actually had it as the nin player tried going off last night and screwed with his Mana Geyser. He had a Counter for it but the look on his face as the mono white player tried to counter his mana production was quite funny.
Helm of Possession I can easily grab some chump creatures that aren't important. I want to see if this ends up panning out. I have several sac outlet lands as well that I could ditch stolen creatures to.
GAME 1: an hour and a half 4 player game. We had a lot of neusence cards in play that didn't help and a new player who had some trouble adjusting to the effects. Opponents were Nin, the Pain Artist, Kaalia of the Vast (out of box precon), and Olivia Voldaren.
The game was a slow one somehow. I had Teferi's Puzzle Box in play but somehow nobody was really doing anything big. Nin just kept drawing cards and cycling his hand. Everyone had things to hate on his commander so he sort of slow played.
Kaalia from the get go had tunnel vision for me only screwing with me all game. Every creature he had hit me every time he could and every removal spell came for me... joy.
Olivia was sort of playing very slowly and protectively. He ended up playing War's Toll which totally ****ed me all game.
The game eventually got to the point where Nin dropped a Consecrated Sphinx which drew him like 50 cards in a turn rotation thanks to the puzzle box. I had an Oblation in hand however by the time I could use it thanks to War's Toll tapping me down the damage had been done.
I ended up just passing on my turn to see how he would try to go off. His hand was so big that when he went to puzzle box his hand he wrapped around through his deck. He ended up stacking all of the land in his hand on the bottom literally containing every spell in his deck in his hand at the same time. Luckily he was still bound on his mana so he wasnt just free to run away with things. He started with a Mana Geyser which I happily threw a Lapse of Certainty at. He had a Cryptic Command that he shut it down with then tapped down all creatures. I successfully blew through a lot of his blue mana doing this though. From here he did some small things and ended up with something like a 10 spell storm count for Ignite Memories. I recieved 7 of them... Luckily I had a 10 card hand and only one card that cost more than 4 in it. I took 9 from this. He swung a big ass Charmbreaker Devils that would have killed me so I dropped a White Sun's Zenith thanks to having some mana stones to make my way through the War's Toll on the counter. I live through the turn at 22 life.
Kalia's turn... He swings at me with 2 dragons including a Mana-Charged Dragon and dumps everything into it to kill me... damn you cryptic command I had a 1/1 flyer. There wasn't much I could do about doing a 3v1 with rebels and literally would have won it if anything had gone differently. Next turn I would have killed 2+ opponents with Mirror Entity however I was forced to stall it another turn to get more bodies. (I love how nin just drew his deck and tried outputting like 50+ damage in his turn and yet he still kills me.... he had the option to kill Nin as well).
Nin killed everyone next turn with a rite of replication on the devils followed by 2 haste outlets and 4 more spells to super pump them and kill the last 2 stragglers.
Game 2: again Kaalia is tunneling me and this is a 3 player with Oliva as the other opponent.
I end up locking Olivia away behind a Faith's Fetters and when Olivia drops a Nev's Disk attempting to free Olivia I drop Karn Liberated to deal with the disk. Kaalia Mortify's my Faith's Fetters (OMFG I HATE WHEN BAD PLAYERS DO BAD THINGS) freeing Oliva because he doesnt like Karn...
Oliva in turn eats Kaalia to pump up and kills Karn. From here I take another hit then spawn like 10 2/2 soldiers off of Decree of Justice + Caged Sun. I strap a Skullclamp to a soldier token and hit Olivia for 21 damage with my soldiers. Kaalia goes and drops an Akroma's Vengeance when Olivia has a Darksteel Plate on (OMFG I HATE WHEN BAD PLAYERS DO BAD THINGS). He ends up blowing up like everything I have and leaving Olivia with everything that they had out. From here Olivia hits me again... I go and have literally nothing to do so I just play a 2/2 which Olivia eats... Oliva kills me from here then Kaalia in 2 shots.
Again... I totally hate scrubs especially when they for no reason just tunnel me in stupid situations. He handed the game to Olivia on a platter...
I think I am going to refuse to play with him in the future... Well that is the story of how I died twice last night to the same bad player... Screw tunnel vision I hate players who dont even bother assessing the board.
EDIT:Plains -> Tithe it should be a simple swap. I like that it nets me several lands and can fetch me Mistveil Plains
Minor suggestion, have you considered a lone fetchland, something like Arid Mesa to recur land drops with Sun Titan? I know you want to keep your plains count high for Emeria, but at least one probably wouldn't hurt and wouldn't push you to far into optimizing this deck.
Minor suggestion, have you considered a lone fetchland, something like Arid Mesa to recur land drops with Sun Titan? I know you want to keep your plains count high for Emeria, but at least one probably wouldn't hurt and wouldn't push you to far into optimizing this deck.
I could probably consider adding fetchlands. Normally in a mono colored deck it would be to increase the number of shuffles I can do to utilize topdeck manipulation more but the rebels usually cover shuffling. If I do go for fetchlands I should probably also consider Crucible of Worlds which would give me a little value as well. Things to consider at least. I dont think it would be really a huge impact either way. I don't really have a way to tutor for Sun Titan so when he comes along he comes along.
And ya... I dont think I will be playing with that guy again and if I do it will probably be with a dickhole combo deck. Then I dont give a **** if he tunnels me. It irritates me though that I handicap myself by playing mono white, then someone draws 50+ cards and yet I am still his target....
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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.
Well, just a small update however I got Sioux to do me an oldschool feeling rebel banner and I really love the old feel of it. Really well results as always Sioux I love your color alters they turn out so amazing.
Wow a rebel deck, thats some badass tribal right there.
Here are a few cards that I think are worth trying.
Orim's Chant: One of my favourite cards in mono-white People don't usually expect you to interact with the stack, let along such a powerful effect. Silence too.
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails: I have no idea how feasible this is, and I don't know too well how your deck works. But it seems to me that you'll often times have mana open because all of you rebel abilities can be used at the end of your last opponent's turn. With mana open and Eight-and-a-Half-Tails on the board, it'll be extremely difficult for anyone to touch your permanents unless they use boardwipes.
karmic justice: another card that prevents your opponents from messing with your opponents.
Wow a rebel deck, thats some badass tribal right there.
Here are a few cards that I think are worth trying.
Orim's Chant: One of my favourite cards in mono-white People don't usually expect you to interact with the stack, let along such a powerful effect. Silence too.
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails: I have no idea how feasible this is, and I don't know too well how your deck works. But it seems to me that you'll often times have mana open because all of you rebel abilities can be used at the end of your last opponent's turn. With mana open and Eight-and-a-Half-Tails on the board, it'll be extremely difficult for anyone to touch your permanents unless they use boardwipes.
karmic justice: another card that prevents your opponents from messing with your opponents.
Hey thanks for the responses:
Orim's Chant due to the fact that this is multiplayer I have a little harder time using this. It really comes down to timing issues where Other than if someone has a huge army, has sat all turn behind a big carddraw engine, or something significant it can be hard to time this effect. There is no card advantage to it and best case scenario it is probably a fog of some sort. If I were running Isochron Scepter then this would be a lot more feasable but as is I have a hard time really judging when something like this would be appropriate.
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails unfortunately the biggest concern for this deck is usually sweepers. The deck is very defensive and doesnt really depend on anything too much. The best use for this would probably be the noncreature protection but again my biggest concern with this deck is usually sweepers.
karmic justice hummmm... let me get back to you on this one real quick I need to check some rules... expect an edit here.
EDIT: asked a rules question for Karmic Justice... sadly the lead didnt pan out. Karmic Justice for now is... alright. I like my equipment however I don't usually pull the biggest presence with this deck. If it becomes a problem I will consider it a bit more.
Ya... sadly I knew I was probably grasping at straws and it turns out I was
This deck sort of operates as a defensive toolboxing style of deck which sort of skews some of what I run in the list. As sort of a side-note I had been considering Martyr's Bond for the deck which might actually work out better than Karmic Justice just because some of the keeper creatures have self sac abilities which could be fun for controlling stuff... who knows.
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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.
Hey I like your list. A few comments on the list and some differences in our lists:
Snow-Covered Plains It has been on my list of things to do for upgrading these for the Scrying Sheets / Mouth of Ronom. I haven't been putting a ton of my commander budget towards this deck lately though.
Thawing Glaciers a good way to get some card advantage. I might have to get one for this deck.
Overall though your landbase looks a little low. You might consider bumping the count up a few. If I counted right you are running like 35 lands currently which just feels a bit low considering how much mana this type of deck can use.
Sweepers - I feel like you are a little heavy on your sweepers... You might consider swapping some of them as well. Divine Reckoning is bad for this type of deck and might leave important things like commanders left in play. Austere Command has been great for me as I can remove big creatures and artifacts / enchantments if I want or use it as a plain creature wrath if need be. Oblivion Stone has been fairly decent for me as well due to the fact that I can control it at instant speed. Given some time you can protect some of your more key targets as well with O Stone.
Pariah's Shield - cute but it would never work for me. I know there is the fun little deal where you strap it to Cho-Manno, Revolutionary however I would never get away with that. I sort of view it as a defensive psudo combo. This sort of stuff tends to just piss people off and he still dies to wrath effects / just the removal of the equipment and or exiling Cho. I think it is cute but it draws a lot of hate.
Shroud Equipment - I like shroud equipment however I find that usually I am not the one drawing the hate to my creatures just due to them being small and sort of meh overall. Plus the big problem for this sort of deck is wraths which these don't help against at all. I would cut back on them some. It isn't like rebels have really huge targets anyways. I feel like you are overkilling this a bit and the Champion's Helm might be your worst one.
Saltblast -> Faith's Fetters saltblast just sort of sucks. Faith's Fetters locks down white permenants as well and while saltblast can deal with some things that have just static abilities I find that locking a commander in play can be powerful with Fetters and the fact that it can be applied to all sort of permenants is usually fairly strong still.
Extraplanar Lens it is a good card but you are running sort of a low basic land count and I don't like how it exiles a land you control when it comes in. If someone blows it up as you had mentioned having problems with then you are out the land as well... Due to this I dont run the Lens.
Ajani Goldmane - underwhelming overall. I have found Karn Liberated fairly good all in all as a replacement planeswalker. Given how defensive the deck is you can really gain some good advantage off of Karn which I dont feel is replicated nearly as nicely with ajani.
Martyr's Bond nice pick I have been considering it myself.
I actually think I'm low on Sweepers. I like Divine Reckoning as it will destroy everything but that one dude (usually Sivvi). Then just use Sivvi to find an answer to whatever threat is left on the field.
I usually would only tutor for Cho-Manno if I get the Shield going. It's a cute trick but if you pull it off (which isn't that hard) and protect it, it can buy you time to assemble some win condition.
I like te shroud/protection equipments as once you start tutoring for rebels, Sivvi becomes a target.
Saltblast is good for getting rid of permanents with static abilities.
Ajani's Goldmane is good when you have a weenie army going, or if you already have millions of life and just wanna create that massive avatar.
I agree with the deck needing more lands. Once Sivvi is active, I don't mind drawing lands.
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Thanks for spiderboy4 of High~Light_Studios for the kick ass avatar.
Thanks for DarkNightCavalier of HotPS for the exceptional signature.
I am convinced that WotC is "dumbing" the game because of all the stupid posts they come across on MTG-related forums
What sort of decks do you play against where you aren't running enough sweepers against? I would normally count 7 sweepers as fairly high in most any deck. I might have a somewhat low count but other than facing down a token deck I rarely need to blow everything out.
Cho-Manno I ran him early on in my list however I just found I really never tutored for him. People dont really swing small stuff at me much as I can always block stuff off with Lin Sivvi since she is a 1/3 and bigger things I often repel with Defiant Vanguard / Bound in Silence / Changeling Hero / Rappelling Scouts. After around 5 or so games when I realized that I just never really wanted Cho I cut him out.
As for Lin Sivvi becoming a target... once I get another tutoring rebel online I generally dont pull any hate. Her tuck effect is good and her versatility is good however I dont really rely on her once I have more tutoring guys onboard. I have found that mono white doesnt really pull the big hate like other colors. Sure you can kill my commander but I have other creatures who do the same thing so meh. I ran the protection at first but found I never really needed it.
Saltblast - I see a lot of wedge commanders so its a pain in the ass if I cant hit over 50% of commanders because they have white in them. Plus it only temp answers them whereas Faith's Fetters can be a lot harder to get out of. The other day I locked down an Olivia Voldaren as a commander. The player did literally nothign for a long time as the colors lack enchantment removal. Not to say it is always perfect but I love just locking a commander up for a while. I have found that it is often more productive than simply killing them.
In my playgroup, we have Slivers, Ezuri Elves, Teegs, Damia Beatdown and Kaalia. And I have been recently playing a lot on Cockatrice. I like that sense of security that I'll draw into my reset button if I need to.
Against green-ramp decks or any decks that run a low removal count, I would usually get Cho-Manno out. Maybe we have different experiences with him but I don't I'd him for now.
As for Saltblast, you make a fine point with Faith's Fetters. You can also Tutor for it. I'll give it a try.
I usually use Ajani for its ultimate. No one sees it coming, gain 2 life while I start assembling my Life.dec combo. Then bam! A 99999/99999 avatar! The Buff is a bonus if u have a weenie army going.
As for Karn, have you ever tried the Barren Glory combo with it?
@nicoG:
How often can you pull off the Salvagers combo without a means of tutor at least one piece of it?
@Everyone:
Has anyone tried running Sands of Time + Equipoise combo? It's essentially Balance on a stick. My only problem was Sands of Time never worked on my side if I don't have Equipoise on the field.
I used I have my own Sivvi thread here. It was Sivvi, Mother Superior.
i don't have a lot of sweeper, my goal is too keep the board untill i run a combo.
also i prefer cataclysm to divine reckoning for the mass mana removal: against high ccm deck , u don't want them to keep a lot of lands.
My problem is still that when I am running a combo deck mono white is really weak to try to execute it in comparison to blue and black options. While I dont see a problem per say with running this deck with some combo pieces I sort of question if you might draw more hate for it as well as be able to compete against the good combo deck opposition. I think a list like this would work best online where people dont know if you are running combo or not. I respect the option but still dont want to go there myself for this deck.
A few notes from your list though:
35 lands feels low. I find I like a lot of mana in this list as I can usually use about all of it.
Fiend Hunter I am a bit curious as to how your usual use of him is... I have always had a problem with these cards that only temp answer things. I suppose targeting opposing commanders works fine but do you have some regular uses outside of this?
False prophet I dont like the lack of control I feel with this guy. He works nice if you have a High Market in play or something of the sort however a lot of time I feel like I cant control when he goes off. Also I have seen bounce and exile removal stop his wrath effect. How would you feel about this just being a regular wrath instead?
Eternal Dragon he is ok in the fact that he self recurs but outside of that I just havent been all that impressed by him. Creatures these days are 6/6s or smaller guys. I just dont find a 5/5 flyer to be that useful to me and I hate tapping out on my turn with this deck. I tried him briefly but wasnt pleased by his performance. I would be a bit interested to hear more about why you still use him but I found him underwhelming in here. The usual reason to include him in mono white is for the card advantage of a reusable threat however we have the rebel tutoring to sort of offset this usual issue.
Leonin Relic-Warder again I hate cards that temp answer and hope that no wrath effect / spot removal kills them sort of answers. I feel like something similar to Kor Sanctifiers would just be better for the most part.
Mother of Runes ok but I don't usually find myself needing this effect. I could see it possibly being more important though in your combo style of list though where you might need a little spot removal protection from something like this.
Twilight Shepherd I really don't want my rebels back into hand. In fact I strongly dislike rebels being in my hand as it feels like I have less versatility as for playing them from hand.
Whitemane Lion I would probably personally swap this with Stonecloaker just for the graveyard hate if need be. If in a pinch you can just use stonecloaker a few times at EOT to hate on graveyards but he does the same thing essentially as the Lion for one more mana. This type of deck I often find myself with a lot of mana up at EOT.
Altar of Dementia if this worked off of toughness I could totally see why you would run it however I just dont see much of a bonus in milling yourself and usually when you mill an opponent, unless you have a threat of milling them to death it is a bonus for your opponent. Graveyard abuse is something fairly widely used in commander so I dont like milling people unless I think I can feasably do it or if milling myself is productive.
Voyager Staff I like this a lot more with a deck heavily ETB based and I dont get that feeling from this list. It does have some nice utility with Auriok Salvagers but other than that... meh.
Not that I think all of this needs to change but just some thoughts on the list overall for you to think about...
wow, awesome banner
I need one for my list. lol, I think the title on your banner is the same as the title of my lin list.....lol
edit: nope, it's rebel alliance.....ha!
Ya it is a nice banner Sioux really did a good job on it. There is a link under the banner to his shop if you want to put in a request for a banner of your own. He has some really great work and I love his color work.
In my playgroup, we have Slivers, Ezuri Elves, Teegs, Damia Beatdown and Kaalia. And I have been recently playing a lot on Cockatrice. I like that sense of security that I'll draw into my reset button if I need to.
Against green-ramp decks or any decks that run a low removal count, I would usually get Cho-Manno out. Maybe we have different experiences with him but I don't I'd him for now.
As for Saltblast, you make a fine point with Faith's Fetters. You can also Tutor for it. I'll give it a try.
I usually use Ajani for its ultimate. No one sees it coming, gain 2 life while I start assembling my Life.dec combo. Then bam! A 99999/99999 avatar! The Buff is a bonus if u have a weenie army going.
As for Karn, have you ever tried the Barren Glory combo with it?
@nicoG:
How often can you pull off the Salvagers combo without a means of tutor at least one piece of it?
@Everyone:
Has anyone tried running Sands of Time + Equipoise combo? It's essentially Balance on a stick. My only problem was Sands of Time never worked on my side if I don't have Equipoise on the field.
I used I have my own Sivvi thread here. It was Sivvi, Mother Superior.
Ok, well that explination of your meta does explain the wrath happy nature of your list. Normally I would say that is a lot of overkill for wraths however if your meta looks like that I can sort of understand.
Ajani - I have found that playing planeswalkers just for their ultimates is not a good way to play them. I love Elspeth, Knight-Errant in this list because extra 1/1s are useful for blocking, championing, using with multiple pump effects especially Mirror Entity. However in my Jenara deck the only useful effect is her ultimate so I dont run her there. If the only good effect on a planeswalker is their ultimate that is usually a bad planeswalker. I use Karn Liberated instead and while his ultimate is good I don't know if I have ever done it in multiplayer commander. I play him to control the board and that is about it. If I managed to control the board for long enough to go ultimate I would but that isn't why he is in the list. The difficulty in multiple people answering a single creature that has no evasion isn't very hard...
Barren Glory I don't run Karn to try to ultimate. If I do ultimate off of him it will because it is a good play not because I am trying to combo with him. Barren Glory is a bad card for the deck all in all as there are too few ways for it to go off.
Sands of Time + Equipoise - they are really sort of bad cards on their own. Also, I don't see any sort of combo here between these two cards...
Your old list is here. I found it in the commander section rather than the multiplayer section. If you need to add to it / bump it I can move it over to multiplayer then. Back in 2009 I don't think they had as much structure for subforums so a lot of the older list were just listed in the commander main.
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I played a few games last night trying to play some of each of my decks. When I played this deck it was a 5 player star game... It was going really good until the B/R goblin player played a turn 7 Insurrection and killed me in one shot... Still there is very little to be done about this issue as it comes down to like Homeward Path being like the only answer for this situation as I had good blockers set up but just couldn't respond to this situation.
As a side note I think I want to include a few more equipment so I will be looking through my list for some small changes to make.
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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.
Well, I have another bit of small changes for the list:
Helm of Possession -> Luminarch Ascension I would say they probably bring about as much hate between the two of them however Luminarch has so much more potential output. This deck is very defensive so blocking for the Ascension really isn't much of a problem plus the fact that Sun Titan can recur it seems solid. If I can get a bunch of bodies out that is what I am shooting for in this deck. The bonus here is that they are big enough that they really dont need the pump effect to make them good.
1 Plains -> Gift of Estates generally speaking I am good for the first several lands but it is the problem of continuing my land drops. Hopefully going down to 37 lands shouldn't hurt my ability to hit 3 - 4+ lands in my opening. Still as long as I can get 2 down this can get me going from there.
Marshal's Anthem -> Sacred Mesa I like the anthem however the biggest thing it does for me is gets me bodies. Sacred Mesa also gives me bodies and probably a lot more. I can always use my commander to move creatures back through the list. Sacred Mesa gives me a cheap option to swarm the board with. From here I can use one of several pump effects to try to close the game out or just use them as flying blockers.
Nothing too much else to report on for now. I still sort of want to try to get at least 1 more equipment into the deck but I am still mostly undecided on what it will be and what it comes in for. I will see what the token additions do for the deck for now.
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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 love your list I've been testing it out on cockatrice. I really would recommend adding lightning greaves to your list though. It's nice when someone tries to kill your Stonehewer Giant and you just attach the boots to him. It's also nice to be able to chain search your rebels, even if it's at sorcery speed.
Lightning Greaves has been a card I have sort of tossed back and forth a few times. I included it early on but wasn't overly impressed with its performance on my actual rebels. It is best used with most of the non rebels in the list and they are not huge in number. Still like you said it works amazingly with Stonehewer Giant. I have a hard time really deciding one way or another on the matter though. Definitely not the worst add to the list though and I go back and forth on it quite a bit.
I have also been considering adding Sword of Feast and Famine back into the list for the protections as well as the nice untap effect. It was nice and it might very easily find its way back into the list. Other equipment I have been toying with have been mainly narrowed to Umezawa's Jitte however whenever I seem to play Jitte it usually gets blown up like on sight... so I have a harder time with that.
I will likely try to free up a slot for at least one equipment to go back in here in the future but I need a bit more testing to sort of see some more weak spots. Last week's test game didn't really show me much when I get hit by a turn 6 Insurrection for over 40 damage.... Sometimes it sucks to be that guy. Even when I play a mono white non combo deck I seem to draw hate like nobody's business.
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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.
Ok, well AVR is completely released so I am doing my regular set releases for my decklists. For Rebels the cards I sort of considered are as follows:
Banishing Stroke interesting due to its versatility. Normally I really don't like this card due to its high cost but it is instant speed with a low miracle cost. This deck doesn't draw a lot of cards at once and often a card here or there on opponents turns. Plus the fact that I play draw / go for the most part with this deck makes this an interesting inclusion.
Entreat the Angels big old angel swarm. I don't like the idea of casting it outside of the Miracle cost however I have several ways to send cards back into the deck and I have top to try to manipulate when I draw it. The potential to draw a big instant speed angel swarm at the EOT of my opponents seems worth trying out.
Terminus another good tuck wrath. I tend to have a lot of presence in play though so I try to keep the number of wraths a bit down. Still it is a good card with some potential.
Gallows at Willow Hill Interesting due to the fact that about half of my creatures in the list are humans. Still it requires a lot of set up to execute it. I think it might be a bit too much work to kill a target.
Cavern of Souls due to the deck being rebel based this could be a great deck to include this to dodge a few random tuck effect counters. I dont think it is a necessity though so I think I will see if it drops in price before I commit to it. Nice but not something that I feel is $20 necessary for the deck.
Changes that will be occuring:
Disenchant -> Banishing Stroke The new Banishing Stroke gives me the option to hit most of the same targets but with a tuck effect. The Miracle cost is super cheap and it is still instant speed even if I don't go that route.
Lapse of Certainty -> Entreat the Angels Lapse of Certainty is fun however I feel like I need a few more wincons and a swarm of angels sounds like just the trick.
Steelshaper's Gift -> Dreamstone Hedron swapping out some of my equipment tutoring for another ramp / draw effect. A lot of my big token producing needs more big mana and I like the Hedron due to its ability to give me good mana and still sacrifice for some cards.
My opening hand is ok, I have a Wayfarer's Bauble to get me started. I somehow topdeck Luminarch Ascension on my turn 2 so I just roll with it and drop it in. The turn rolls around with nobody having hit me. I think it is going to go active but then at my EOT Lorthos bounces it to my hand. I pop off my Wayfarer's Bauble to ramp up. My turn rolls back around and people seem to have some creatures now so I go for a Solemn Simulacrum to ramp me rather than replaying the enchant yet. I replay the enchant the next turn and it gets bounced again. I start playing into my rebels with Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero. I play my Luminarch Ascension for the third time just to dump some mana and the fact is he is blowing a lot of his bounce cards just stalling this enchant.
A Primeval Titan hits the board, luckily I played my commander before it so I can rebel tutor an answer. He decides to hit the bounce player rather than trying to swing it at me again. I finally go active on the Luminarc on the player behind me's turn. I get ready to shat angels everywhere and it rolls around to Kamahl's turn. He animates like 5-6 of his own lands then overruns to slap the bounce player hard... I think he actually dies to this hit. I EOT spawn 4 angels. On my turn I tutor into Mirror Entity and slap Kamahl back with 5 8/8 creatures before he can do some stupid overrun tactics to me. Ironically I guess Gwafa could have picked who won at that point as he had a Kor Haven in play which could have saved Kamahl which likely would have killed me. I probably should have played this a bit slower after seeing this but he lets me kill Kamahl then concedes himself.
I go with it and drop my Luminarch Ascension on turn 2. From here I sort of struggle to defend myself due to the lack of white mana. I get stuck with some really bad lands but the Maze holds Omnath off my back which is great. I slowly bank up my lands in play and counters on the enchant.
The two of them sort of conspire against me when Teeg hits a Worldly Tutor and Omnath tells him he will use his Early Harvest to help him hit the 8 mana for Terastodon. I have another turn to drop some angels due to the delay before they can do it. I end up with 5 angels in play when I get my Maze of Ith + Luminarch Ascension blown up. Luckily for me he picks Omnath for the 3rd target removal. Omnath dumps a ton of guys into play and I swing into omnath for 20 dmg in the air with the angels. From here Omnath drops a doubling cube and hits 30 mana from there. He happens to have Kamahl, Fist of Krosa in hand and 4x overruns us with Kamahl to kill both of us in one shot... sad as I had a great setup and outside of them working together for the elephant I would have likely had the game.
Overall the games were very fun. I liked the deck and the enchant was a champ for me both games. I might even consider adding Idyllic Tutor to the deck but I get the impression I shouldn't lean too much on Luminarch Ascension as it really isnt that hard to answer it.
One thing I did get from my games is that I essentially never want to cycle a land so axing Secluded Steppe from my list for a basic for now. I don't think I even had it on my digital list however I had been using it and the fact that it comes in tapped did actually hurt me in game 2 when I drew it around the 4th land drop ish time and it sucked having it come in tapped. I originally included it sort of as a Wayfarer fodder tool however I think I have yet to ever draw wayfarer... so ya.
Just curious to see how the list has been working out. I recently picked up a Lin Sivvi purely because she's one of my favorite characters lorewise, bu ive been thinking of trying the rebels out. Only worry I have is my playgroup is a lot of goodstuff and combo decks, and im not sure how it'd hold up.
On the upside, rebels have a very low profile. The downside, if you are playing against combo out tactics it can be really rough. Generally speaking due to all of the token spawners you can hit some surprise spawn 6+ guys and then on your turn tutor into Mirror Entity and axe murder people randomly. Overall this is usually a deck that I pull out a little more casually though. There are a few combo options to the deck but the main rebel combo involves obtaining infinite life which in my mind really doesn't work out all that well. You can run some surprise mono white combos though that can work out alright. Yosei locks are decent all in all.
Overall I would say that my Lin Sivvi deck is one of my more casual decks but it is just so much fun to play that I keep it together. It is a blast to play though. If you want something higher up on competitive level I don't think I would be looking at mono white though as I think mono white always has some issues with competitiveness.
Overall I would say that my list is decent but I wouldn't expect to be regularly beating high end combo decks with it. It has the advantage of usually having sort of a low profile though which is nice in respect to a lot of toolbox / tutoring decks.
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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.
Thanks for the feedback! I agree with you 1000% on the infinite life combo. Im not a fan of many staple cards, an didndt neccesarily plan on outracing te combo decks, just a deck to have fun with. But who would have fun getting comboed out on over and over :p. Anyways, thanks again and best of luck with the list!
Thanks, while I don't view my list as a super competitive one, I try to keep improving it and making it better. So far the addition of the tokens has been great. I still don't win a ton of games with the list but I love the versatility of the rebel toolbox gives to a mono white list. I might still end up manipulating my rebel toolbox further as I really never tutor for Cho-Arrim Bruiser but he is decent if you want to push the equipment connecting to people a bit more.
Overall I still play this because I have a lot of fun in the way it operates. It plays as a draw / go which really isn't an option in much outside of a blue / x colored commander. I like toolboxing into cards other than combo pieces and it is always exciting and different from game to game. If you have any particular questions I would be more than happy to relay information on my experience so far but I still have only been playing rebels for a few months now. Best of luck on your list if you decide to go forward with it. Rebels can be a lot of fun all in all.
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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.
It was a real pain to pick them all up. I ended up going to 2 major single dealers to fill in the majority of the list. I then was forced to ebay the last 3 rebels which I couldn't find on either. I haven't bothered picking up most of the non rebel foils for now as they are sort of just the generic stuff that goes in a lot of EDH lists and costs an arm and a leg. I figure in the random event of if they ever print rebels again the price on the older ones foiled could be a problem. I am happy to have them taken care of though. The rebels do make up the most played cards in the deck so it is nice to have them covered at least.
I am aware of the infinite life combo in rebels. However I have never seen it end well for the person who executes it. A friend of mine used to run a rebel list a good 6+ months back and everytime he executed the infinite life he was killed next so meh. I dont like defensive infinite combos as they really paint a target on you that is usually not so great.
Endless Horizons - great card. I have been considering it for a while in here. It will likely go in sometime in the future. I really like using it even if it is only for 4-6 lands on it. I will probably try to get it in sometime in the future and I agree it is good.
Torpor Orb I run it and I agree it fits the deck nicely. I only have a few things that this interfears with and very little overall. I wish I could have a few more ways to reliably draw it though.
Brass Squire ehhh he is ok. I have never been really impressed by him really in any format though. He is better when you look at running a few more protections / shroud equipment in my opinion. Still I am not huge on him.
Puresteel Paladin I did strongly consider him in the earlier stages of my deck construction. I think in the end I would just want a few more equipment in my deck all in all before I would include him. If I could add like another 3+ equpment to my list I would probably go back to considering him but for now I am having some issues with including him.
Cursed Totem - this isn't the only problematic card out there. Someone hit me up with a Grafdigger's Cage the other day which shut down all of my rebel tutoring but you are right that would stop me from doing much. Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Damping Matrix, Strangelhold, Aven Mindcensor and Humility sort of all likewise screw over most of this deck but this is mono white so it is hard to really expect to not have some things to sort of hose you.
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EDIT: well... played with the decklist for a good amount of time today... I probably looked at my list for a good like 3 hours today just trying to tweek it a little. I found that I had a little more creature hate that was outside of my rebel package than I wanted. I cut back on this and tried to increase some of my other utility.
CUTS:
Condemn it would end up sitting in hand a lot. My rebel tutor ability really gives me a lot of defensive capability already as is. If someone is stupid enough to swing at me when I have rebels ready and mana up they usually take a rebel response. I found that this was less needed due to that. Plus the constraint on attackers only felt a bit narrow. Sometimes creatures need to be answered before they swing or commanders who dont swing need answers.
Path to Exile This one was a bit of a harder cut. I really do like path but I just find that singe spot removal in mono white isnt enough due to the lack of card advantage in mono white. Due to this I cut this out.
Mind Stone Decent little small ramp but I find it is probably one of my weaker links in the deck. I swapped it out for Endless Horizons instead which will hopefully give me several land drops and all in all give me better results. This swap will give me less ramp but give me some maintained land drops.
Darksteel Plate I just found that I wasn't using these defensive equipments enough. I was rarely tutoring for them and rarely happy to draw them. Due to this I am going to cut them. I did like having my commander able to chump block like anything and everything but even then... meh.
ADDS:
Oblivion Stone I was going to put Akroma's Vengeance in here at first but then I realized that this deck does tons of things at instant speed at the end of my opponents turns. This would open up the option to wrath at the end of their turns if need be or in response to something. It also gives me an artifact wrath to tutor for / recur so that is nice. Hopefully it will pan out as I felt like I needed another wrath or two. I might end up needing another wrath yet but we will see how adding just one more works for now.
Disenchant some basic artifact / enchantment hate. I considered running a few other things but in the end I liked the fact that this is instant speed, cheap, and versatile. I didnt like the sorcery speed stuff and I didnt like the stuff that only handled one or the other. I considered this being another sweeper effect for them but I think a little bit of just emergency spot removal is good as well.
Batterskull another decent lifegain option for the deck. I love that I can protect it with mana up as well and beating in with 5/5+ sized creatures with vigilance / lifegain seems quite solid. Time for more testing with this and I hope it pans out.
Endless Horizons guarenteed land drops is good in this deck. I always need more lands and I often sputter out of lands to drop in the mid to late game due to the lack of card draw. I would love to drop this and exile 4/5 lands as that seems like some solid land dropping.
I had a bit of a hard time with everything as I sort of really analyzed everything before coming to any conclusions. I really thought a lot on a few of these but I think these will be decent changes for now:
EDIT 2: I had some magical thoughts of Teferi's Puzzle Box in this deck... Generally speaking I get some rebels in hand and what not as well as the madness it would have with a Land Tax in play... The Puzzle Box probably needs to go into this deck. This deck tends to just sort of sit with things in hand for a long time so this would give me conditional cards that I can use or allow them to cycle... Other people sort of freak out when this is in play as well so that would be sort of funny. It would jack with tutoring decks as well. It might just have to go in...
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CUTS:
Sword of Feast and Famine I dont tend to try to overextend my board position as much in multiplayer games but if I intended on tutoring into tutoring rebels a bit more often I could see this being more useful.
Strata Scythe I just find that it operates a bit too similarly to the Quietus Spike. I generally speaking have a few evasive creatures so I find the spike does more damage and provides me with deathtouch on defense. It is possible for the Scythe to give a good buff as well but I just find it a bit redundant to have them both now as well as Batterskull.
Shield Dancer The more games I get the more I realize I never tutor for or really want this rebel. Generally speaking if something big without flying is attacking me I go for Defiant Vanguard. There are a few situations in which the Shield Dancer is better however the paying mana to deflect the damage is a bit of a pain in the ass.
ADDS:
Teferi's Puzzle Box I tend to sit behind a lot of the same cards for a lot of time. I thought the ability to just sort of cycle through them might be good. It would also help move some of the rebels that I draw through the deck. On top of that this card is amazing with Scroll Rack which allows me to sort of preserve some of my hand from turn to turn. It is also highly irritating to combo decks due to the difficulty in keeping multiple cards in hand for combos. It also works really well with Land Tax which is cool.
Lapse of Certainty I wanted to see how this panned out. I play mostly just draw / go so it is sort of funny to have a counterspell randomly in mono white. I actually had it as the nin player tried going off last night and screwed with his Mana Geyser. He had a Counter for it but the look on his face as the mono white player tried to counter his mana production was quite funny.
Helm of Possession I can easily grab some chump creatures that aren't important. I want to see if this ends up panning out. I have several sac outlet lands as well that I could ditch stolen creatures to.
GAME 1: an hour and a half 4 player game. We had a lot of neusence cards in play that didn't help and a new player who had some trouble adjusting to the effects. Opponents were Nin, the Pain Artist, Kaalia of the Vast (out of box precon), and Olivia Voldaren.
The game was a slow one somehow. I had Teferi's Puzzle Box in play but somehow nobody was really doing anything big. Nin just kept drawing cards and cycling his hand. Everyone had things to hate on his commander so he sort of slow played.
Kaalia from the get go had tunnel vision for me only screwing with me all game. Every creature he had hit me every time he could and every removal spell came for me... joy.
Olivia was sort of playing very slowly and protectively. He ended up playing War's Toll which totally ****ed me all game.
The game eventually got to the point where Nin dropped a Consecrated Sphinx which drew him like 50 cards in a turn rotation thanks to the puzzle box. I had an Oblation in hand however by the time I could use it thanks to War's Toll tapping me down the damage had been done.
I ended up just passing on my turn to see how he would try to go off. His hand was so big that when he went to puzzle box his hand he wrapped around through his deck. He ended up stacking all of the land in his hand on the bottom literally containing every spell in his deck in his hand at the same time. Luckily he was still bound on his mana so he wasnt just free to run away with things. He started with a Mana Geyser which I happily threw a Lapse of Certainty at. He had a Cryptic Command that he shut it down with then tapped down all creatures. I successfully blew through a lot of his blue mana doing this though. From here he did some small things and ended up with something like a 10 spell storm count for Ignite Memories. I recieved 7 of them... Luckily I had a 10 card hand and only one card that cost more than 4 in it. I took 9 from this. He swung a big ass Charmbreaker Devils that would have killed me so I dropped a White Sun's Zenith thanks to having some mana stones to make my way through the War's Toll on the counter. I live through the turn at 22 life.
Kalia's turn... He swings at me with 2 dragons including a Mana-Charged Dragon and dumps everything into it to kill me... damn you cryptic command I had a 1/1 flyer. There wasn't much I could do about doing a 3v1 with rebels and literally would have won it if anything had gone differently. Next turn I would have killed 2+ opponents with Mirror Entity however I was forced to stall it another turn to get more bodies. (I love how nin just drew his deck and tried outputting like 50+ damage in his turn and yet he still kills me.... he had the option to kill Nin as well).
Nin killed everyone next turn with a rite of replication on the devils followed by 2 haste outlets and 4 more spells to super pump them and kill the last 2 stragglers.
Game 2: again Kaalia is tunneling me and this is a 3 player with Oliva as the other opponent.
I end up locking Olivia away behind a Faith's Fetters and when Olivia drops a Nev's Disk attempting to free Olivia I drop Karn Liberated to deal with the disk. Kaalia Mortify's my Faith's Fetters (OMFG I HATE WHEN BAD PLAYERS DO BAD THINGS) freeing Oliva because he doesnt like Karn...
Oliva in turn eats Kaalia to pump up and kills Karn. From here I take another hit then spawn like 10 2/2 soldiers off of Decree of Justice + Caged Sun. I strap a Skullclamp to a soldier token and hit Olivia for 21 damage with my soldiers. Kaalia goes and drops an Akroma's Vengeance when Olivia has a Darksteel Plate on (OMFG I HATE WHEN BAD PLAYERS DO BAD THINGS). He ends up blowing up like everything I have and leaving Olivia with everything that they had out. From here Olivia hits me again... I go and have literally nothing to do so I just play a 2/2 which Olivia eats... Oliva kills me from here then Kaalia in 2 shots.
Again... I totally hate scrubs especially when they for no reason just tunnel me in stupid situations. He handed the game to Olivia on a platter...
I think I am going to refuse to play with him in the future... Well that is the story of how I died twice last night to the same bad player... Screw tunnel vision I hate players who dont even bother assessing the board.
EDIT: Plains -> Tithe it should be a simple swap. I like that it nets me several lands and can fetch me Mistveil Plains
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Say it with me now - "Serenity Now!".
Minor suggestion, have you considered a lone fetchland, something like Arid Mesa to recur land drops with Sun Titan? I know you want to keep your plains count high for Emeria, but at least one probably wouldn't hurt and wouldn't push you to far into optimizing this deck.
I could probably consider adding fetchlands. Normally in a mono colored deck it would be to increase the number of shuffles I can do to utilize topdeck manipulation more but the rebels usually cover shuffling. If I do go for fetchlands I should probably also consider Crucible of Worlds which would give me a little value as well. Things to consider at least. I dont think it would be really a huge impact either way. I don't really have a way to tutor for Sun Titan so when he comes along he comes along.
And ya... I dont think I will be playing with that guy again and if I do it will probably be with a dickhole combo deck. Then I dont give a **** if he tunnels me. It irritates me though that I handicap myself by playing mono white, then someone draws 50+ cards and yet I am still his target....
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Banner.siouxwerks.
Really a beautiful piece if I do say so myself. It might be my favorite banner I have had done for me yet so far....
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Here are a few cards that I think are worth trying.
Orim's Chant: One of my favourite cards in mono-white People don't usually expect you to interact with the stack, let along such a powerful effect. Silence too.
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails: I have no idea how feasible this is, and I don't know too well how your deck works. But it seems to me that you'll often times have mana open because all of you rebel abilities can be used at the end of your last opponent's turn. With mana open and Eight-and-a-Half-Tails on the board, it'll be extremely difficult for anyone to touch your permanents unless they use boardwipes.
karmic justice: another card that prevents your opponents from messing with your opponents.
Hey thanks for the responses:
Orim's Chant due to the fact that this is multiplayer I have a little harder time using this. It really comes down to timing issues where Other than if someone has a huge army, has sat all turn behind a big carddraw engine, or something significant it can be hard to time this effect. There is no card advantage to it and best case scenario it is probably a fog of some sort. If I were running Isochron Scepter then this would be a lot more feasable but as is I have a hard time really judging when something like this would be appropriate.
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails unfortunately the biggest concern for this deck is usually sweepers. The deck is very defensive and doesnt really depend on anything too much. The best use for this would probably be the noncreature protection but again my biggest concern with this deck is usually sweepers.
karmic justice hummmm... let me get back to you on this one real quick I need to check some rules... expect an edit here.
EDIT: asked a rules question for Karmic Justice... sadly the lead didnt pan out. Karmic Justice for now is... alright. I like my equipment however I don't usually pull the biggest presence with this deck. If it becomes a problem I will consider it a bit more.
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This deck sort of operates as a defensive toolboxing style of deck which sort of skews some of what I run in the list. As sort of a side-note I had been considering Martyr's Bond for the deck which might actually work out better than Karmic Justice just because some of the keeper creatures have self sac abilities which could be fun for controlling stuff... who knows.
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21 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Dust Bowl
1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Kor Haven
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Scrying Sheets
1 Temple of the False God
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Vesuva
Rebels:
1 Bound in Silence
1 Changeling Hero
1 Children of Korlis
1 Cho-Manno, Revolutionary
1 Defiant Falcon
1 Defiant Vanguard
1 Lawbringer
1 Lightbringer
1 Mirror Entity
1 Outrider en-Kor
1 Rappelling Scout
1 Task Force
1 Whipcorder
1 Zealot il-Vec
1 Felidar Sovereign
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Stonehewer Giant
1 Sun Titan
1 Weathered Wayfarer
Board Sweeper:
1 Day of Judgment
1 Divine Reckoning
1 Hallowed Burial
1 Kirtar's Wrath
1 Martial Coup
1 Phyrexian Rebirth
1 Wrath of God
Equipments:
1 Champion's Helm
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Pariah's Shield
1 Quietus Spike
1 Skullclamp
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
Spot Removal:
1 Aura of Silence
1 Brittle Effigy
1 Condemn
1 Disenchant
1 Oblation
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Path to Exile
1 Ray of Distortion
1 Return to Dust
1 Saltblast
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Crystal Ball
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Expedition Map
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Land Tax
1 Scroll Rack
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Steelshaper's Gift
Mana Rampers:
1 Extraplanar Lens
1 Sol Ring
1 Thran Dynamo
Utility Permanents/Combo Pieces:
1 Ajani Goldmane
1 Animal Boneyard
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Martyr's Bond
1 Mimic Vat
1 Nevermore
1 Test of Endurance
1 Thousand-Year Elixir
I didn't want to rely too much on artifact acceleration as my playgroup has a lot of artifact hate, though I do like my Equipments.
Thanks for spiderboy4 of High~Light_Studios for the kick ass avatar.
Thanks for DarkNightCavalier of HotPS for the exceptional signature.
Snow-Covered Plains It has been on my list of things to do for upgrading these for the Scrying Sheets / Mouth of Ronom. I haven't been putting a ton of my commander budget towards this deck lately though.
Thawing Glaciers a good way to get some card advantage. I might have to get one for this deck.
Overall though your landbase looks a little low. You might consider bumping the count up a few. If I counted right you are running like 35 lands currently which just feels a bit low considering how much mana this type of deck can use.
Sweepers - I feel like you are a little heavy on your sweepers... You might consider swapping some of them as well. Divine Reckoning is bad for this type of deck and might leave important things like commanders left in play. Austere Command has been great for me as I can remove big creatures and artifacts / enchantments if I want or use it as a plain creature wrath if need be. Oblivion Stone has been fairly decent for me as well due to the fact that I can control it at instant speed. Given some time you can protect some of your more key targets as well with O Stone.
Pariah's Shield - cute but it would never work for me. I know there is the fun little deal where you strap it to Cho-Manno, Revolutionary however I would never get away with that. I sort of view it as a defensive psudo combo. This sort of stuff tends to just piss people off and he still dies to wrath effects / just the removal of the equipment and or exiling Cho. I think it is cute but it draws a lot of hate.
Shroud Equipment - I like shroud equipment however I find that usually I am not the one drawing the hate to my creatures just due to them being small and sort of meh overall. Plus the big problem for this sort of deck is wraths which these don't help against at all. I would cut back on them some. It isn't like rebels have really huge targets anyways. I feel like you are overkilling this a bit and the Champion's Helm might be your worst one.
Saltblast -> Faith's Fetters saltblast just sort of sucks. Faith's Fetters locks down white permenants as well and while saltblast can deal with some things that have just static abilities I find that locking a commander in play can be powerful with Fetters and the fact that it can be applied to all sort of permenants is usually fairly strong still.
Extraplanar Lens it is a good card but you are running sort of a low basic land count and I don't like how it exiles a land you control when it comes in. If someone blows it up as you had mentioned having problems with then you are out the land as well... Due to this I dont run the Lens.
Ajani Goldmane - underwhelming overall. I have found Karn Liberated fairly good all in all as a replacement planeswalker. Given how defensive the deck is you can really gain some good advantage off of Karn which I dont feel is replicated nearly as nicely with ajani.
Martyr's Bond nice pick I have been considering it myself.
Thousand-Year Elixir another good pick I have been considering myself.
Nice list all in all. I think a few more lands would be good though.
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[Modern] Allies
I usually would only tutor for Cho-Manno if I get the Shield going. It's a cute trick but if you pull it off (which isn't that hard) and protect it, it can buy you time to assemble some win condition.
I like te shroud/protection equipments as once you start tutoring for rebels, Sivvi becomes a target.
Saltblast is good for getting rid of permanents with static abilities.
Ajani's Goldmane is good when you have a weenie army going, or if you already have millions of life and just wanna create that massive avatar.
I agree with the deck needing more lands. Once Sivvi is active, I don't mind drawing lands.
Thanks for spiderboy4 of High~Light_Studios for the kick ass avatar.
Thanks for DarkNightCavalier of HotPS for the exceptional signature.
Cho-Manno I ran him early on in my list however I just found I really never tutored for him. People dont really swing small stuff at me much as I can always block stuff off with Lin Sivvi since she is a 1/3 and bigger things I often repel with Defiant Vanguard / Bound in Silence / Changeling Hero / Rappelling Scouts. After around 5 or so games when I realized that I just never really wanted Cho I cut him out.
As for Lin Sivvi becoming a target... once I get another tutoring rebel online I generally dont pull any hate. Her tuck effect is good and her versatility is good however I dont really rely on her once I have more tutoring guys onboard. I have found that mono white doesnt really pull the big hate like other colors. Sure you can kill my commander but I have other creatures who do the same thing so meh. I ran the protection at first but found I never really needed it.
Saltblast - I see a lot of wedge commanders so its a pain in the ass if I cant hit over 50% of commanders because they have white in them. Plus it only temp answers them whereas Faith's Fetters can be a lot harder to get out of. The other day I locked down an Olivia Voldaren as a commander. The player did literally nothign for a long time as the colors lack enchantment removal. Not to say it is always perfect but I love just locking a commander up for a while. I have found that it is often more productive than simply killing them.
Ajani's Goldmane it takes too long to get the buff going. If you like using this guy you might just get a better result from Eldrazi Monument / Coat of Arms.
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[Modern] Allies
I need one for my list. lol, I think the title on your banner is the same as the title of my lin list.....lol
edit: nope, it's rebel alliance.....ha!
In my playgroup, we have Slivers, Ezuri Elves, Teegs, Damia Beatdown and Kaalia. And I have been recently playing a lot on Cockatrice. I like that sense of security that I'll draw into my reset button if I need to.
Against green-ramp decks or any decks that run a low removal count, I would usually get Cho-Manno out. Maybe we have different experiences with him but I don't I'd him for now.
As for Saltblast, you make a fine point with Faith's Fetters. You can also Tutor for it. I'll give it a try.
I usually use Ajani for its ultimate. No one sees it coming, gain 2 life while I start assembling my Life.dec combo. Then bam! A 99999/99999 avatar! The Buff is a bonus if u have a weenie army going.
As for Karn, have you ever tried the Barren Glory combo with it?
@nicoG:
How often can you pull off the Salvagers combo without a means of tutor at least one piece of it?
@Everyone:
Has anyone tried running Sands of Time + Equipoise combo? It's essentially Balance on a stick. My only problem was Sands of Time never worked on my side if I don't have Equipoise on the field.
I used I have my own Sivvi thread here. It was Sivvi, Mother Superior.
Thanks for spiderboy4 of High~Light_Studios for the kick ass avatar.
Thanks for DarkNightCavalier of HotPS for the exceptional signature.
My problem is still that when I am running a combo deck mono white is really weak to try to execute it in comparison to blue and black options. While I dont see a problem per say with running this deck with some combo pieces I sort of question if you might draw more hate for it as well as be able to compete against the good combo deck opposition. I think a list like this would work best online where people dont know if you are running combo or not. I respect the option but still dont want to go there myself for this deck.
A few notes from your list though:
35 lands feels low. I find I like a lot of mana in this list as I can usually use about all of it.
Fiend Hunter I am a bit curious as to how your usual use of him is... I have always had a problem with these cards that only temp answer things. I suppose targeting opposing commanders works fine but do you have some regular uses outside of this?
False prophet I dont like the lack of control I feel with this guy. He works nice if you have a High Market in play or something of the sort however a lot of time I feel like I cant control when he goes off. Also I have seen bounce and exile removal stop his wrath effect. How would you feel about this just being a regular wrath instead?
Eternal Dragon he is ok in the fact that he self recurs but outside of that I just havent been all that impressed by him. Creatures these days are 6/6s or smaller guys. I just dont find a 5/5 flyer to be that useful to me and I hate tapping out on my turn with this deck. I tried him briefly but wasnt pleased by his performance. I would be a bit interested to hear more about why you still use him but I found him underwhelming in here. The usual reason to include him in mono white is for the card advantage of a reusable threat however we have the rebel tutoring to sort of offset this usual issue.
Leonin Relic-Warder again I hate cards that temp answer and hope that no wrath effect / spot removal kills them sort of answers. I feel like something similar to Kor Sanctifiers would just be better for the most part.
Mother of Runes ok but I don't usually find myself needing this effect. I could see it possibly being more important though in your combo style of list though where you might need a little spot removal protection from something like this.
Twilight Shepherd I really don't want my rebels back into hand. In fact I strongly dislike rebels being in my hand as it feels like I have less versatility as for playing them from hand.
Whitemane Lion I would probably personally swap this with Stonecloaker just for the graveyard hate if need be. If in a pinch you can just use stonecloaker a few times at EOT to hate on graveyards but he does the same thing essentially as the Lion for one more mana. This type of deck I often find myself with a lot of mana up at EOT.
Altar of Dementia if this worked off of toughness I could totally see why you would run it however I just dont see much of a bonus in milling yourself and usually when you mill an opponent, unless you have a threat of milling them to death it is a bonus for your opponent. Graveyard abuse is something fairly widely used in commander so I dont like milling people unless I think I can feasably do it or if milling myself is productive.
Voyager Staff I like this a lot more with a deck heavily ETB based and I dont get that feeling from this list. It does have some nice utility with Auriok Salvagers but other than that... meh.
Not that I think all of this needs to change but just some thoughts on the list overall for you to think about...
Ya it is a nice banner Sioux really did a good job on it. There is a link under the banner to his shop if you want to put in a request for a banner of your own. He has some really great work and I love his color work.
Ok, well that explination of your meta does explain the wrath happy nature of your list. Normally I would say that is a lot of overkill for wraths however if your meta looks like that I can sort of understand.
Ajani - I have found that playing planeswalkers just for their ultimates is not a good way to play them. I love Elspeth, Knight-Errant in this list because extra 1/1s are useful for blocking, championing, using with multiple pump effects especially Mirror Entity. However in my Jenara deck the only useful effect is her ultimate so I dont run her there. If the only good effect on a planeswalker is their ultimate that is usually a bad planeswalker. I use Karn Liberated instead and while his ultimate is good I don't know if I have ever done it in multiplayer commander. I play him to control the board and that is about it. If I managed to control the board for long enough to go ultimate I would but that isn't why he is in the list. The difficulty in multiple people answering a single creature that has no evasion isn't very hard...
Barren Glory I don't run Karn to try to ultimate. If I do ultimate off of him it will because it is a good play not because I am trying to combo with him. Barren Glory is a bad card for the deck all in all as there are too few ways for it to go off.
Sands of Time + Equipoise - they are really sort of bad cards on their own. Also, I don't see any sort of combo here between these two cards...
Your old list is here. I found it in the commander section rather than the multiplayer section. If you need to add to it / bump it I can move it over to multiplayer then. Back in 2009 I don't think they had as much structure for subforums so a lot of the older list were just listed in the commander main.
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I played a few games last night trying to play some of each of my decks. When I played this deck it was a 5 player star game... It was going really good until the B/R goblin player played a turn 7 Insurrection and killed me in one shot... Still there is very little to be done about this issue as it comes down to like Homeward Path being like the only answer for this situation as I had good blockers set up but just couldn't respond to this situation.
As a side note I think I want to include a few more equipment so I will be looking through my list for some small changes to make.
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[Modern] Allies
Helm of Possession -> Luminarch Ascension I would say they probably bring about as much hate between the two of them however Luminarch has so much more potential output. This deck is very defensive so blocking for the Ascension really isn't much of a problem plus the fact that Sun Titan can recur it seems solid. If I can get a bunch of bodies out that is what I am shooting for in this deck. The bonus here is that they are big enough that they really dont need the pump effect to make them good.
1 Plains -> Gift of Estates generally speaking I am good for the first several lands but it is the problem of continuing my land drops. Hopefully going down to 37 lands shouldn't hurt my ability to hit 3 - 4+ lands in my opening. Still as long as I can get 2 down this can get me going from there.
Marshal's Anthem -> Sacred Mesa I like the anthem however the biggest thing it does for me is gets me bodies. Sacred Mesa also gives me bodies and probably a lot more. I can always use my commander to move creatures back through the list. Sacred Mesa gives me a cheap option to swarm the board with. From here I can use one of several pump effects to try to close the game out or just use them as flying blockers.
Nothing too much else to report on for now. I still sort of want to try to get at least 1 more equipment into the deck but I am still mostly undecided on what it will be and what it comes in for. I will see what the token additions do for the deck for now.
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[Modern] Allies
I have also been considering adding Sword of Feast and Famine back into the list for the protections as well as the nice untap effect. It was nice and it might very easily find its way back into the list. Other equipment I have been toying with have been mainly narrowed to Umezawa's Jitte however whenever I seem to play Jitte it usually gets blown up like on sight... so I have a harder time with that.
I will likely try to free up a slot for at least one equipment to go back in here in the future but I need a bit more testing to sort of see some more weak spots. Last week's test game didn't really show me much when I get hit by a turn 6 Insurrection for over 40 damage.... Sometimes it sucks to be that guy. Even when I play a mono white non combo deck I seem to draw hate like nobody's business.
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[Modern] Allies
Banishing Stroke interesting due to its versatility. Normally I really don't like this card due to its high cost but it is instant speed with a low miracle cost. This deck doesn't draw a lot of cards at once and often a card here or there on opponents turns. Plus the fact that I play draw / go for the most part with this deck makes this an interesting inclusion.
Entreat the Angels big old angel swarm. I don't like the idea of casting it outside of the Miracle cost however I have several ways to send cards back into the deck and I have top to try to manipulate when I draw it. The potential to draw a big instant speed angel swarm at the EOT of my opponents seems worth trying out.
Terminus another good tuck wrath. I tend to have a lot of presence in play though so I try to keep the number of wraths a bit down. Still it is a good card with some potential.
Gallows at Willow Hill Interesting due to the fact that about half of my creatures in the list are humans. Still it requires a lot of set up to execute it. I think it might be a bit too much work to kill a target.
Cavern of Souls due to the deck being rebel based this could be a great deck to include this to dodge a few random tuck effect counters. I dont think it is a necessity though so I think I will see if it drops in price before I commit to it. Nice but not something that I feel is $20 necessary for the deck.
Changes that will be occuring:
Disenchant -> Banishing Stroke The new Banishing Stroke gives me the option to hit most of the same targets but with a tuck effect. The Miracle cost is super cheap and it is still instant speed even if I don't go that route.
Lapse of Certainty -> Entreat the Angels Lapse of Certainty is fun however I feel like I need a few more wincons and a swarm of angels sounds like just the trick.
Steelshaper's Gift -> Dreamstone Hedron swapping out some of my equipment tutoring for another ramp / draw effect. A lot of my big token producing needs more big mana and I like the Hedron due to its ability to give me good mana and still sacrifice for some cards.
EDIT: a slight addition to my alters
Miren, the Moaning Well -> Temple of the False God I like the mana upgrade of the temple. I dont find myself using Miren much for a sac outlet so I want to see how temple does for me.
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[Modern] Allies
I managed 2 games last night with this deck. Both of which were largely very successful.
Game 1: 4 player FFA. Opponents are Lorthos, the Tidemaker (... I guess he is bounce themed), Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer (designed for emperor use but he likes it anyways), and Kamahl, Fist of Krosa.
My opening hand is ok, I have a Wayfarer's Bauble to get me started. I somehow topdeck Luminarch Ascension on my turn 2 so I just roll with it and drop it in. The turn rolls around with nobody having hit me. I think it is going to go active but then at my EOT Lorthos bounces it to my hand. I pop off my Wayfarer's Bauble to ramp up. My turn rolls back around and people seem to have some creatures now so I go for a Solemn Simulacrum to ramp me rather than replaying the enchant yet. I replay the enchant the next turn and it gets bounced again. I start playing into my rebels with Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero. I play my Luminarch Ascension for the third time just to dump some mana and the fact is he is blowing a lot of his bounce cards just stalling this enchant.
A Primeval Titan hits the board, luckily I played my commander before it so I can rebel tutor an answer. He decides to hit the bounce player rather than trying to swing it at me again. I finally go active on the Luminarc on the player behind me's turn. I get ready to shat angels everywhere and it rolls around to Kamahl's turn. He animates like 5-6 of his own lands then overruns to slap the bounce player hard... I think he actually dies to this hit. I EOT spawn 4 angels. On my turn I tutor into Mirror Entity and slap Kamahl back with 5 8/8 creatures before he can do some stupid overrun tactics to me. Ironically I guess Gwafa could have picked who won at that point as he had a Kor Haven in play which could have saved Kamahl which likely would have killed me. I probably should have played this a bit slower after seeing this but he lets me kill Kamahl then concedes himself.
GAME 2: 3 player FFA against Gaddock Teeg & Omnath, Locus of Mana
I opening hand Luminarch Ascension but my lands in hand totally suck. I get stuck with Maze of Ith + High Market + Temple of the False God + a Plains as my hand for the most part...
I go with it and drop my Luminarch Ascension on turn 2. From here I sort of struggle to defend myself due to the lack of white mana. I get stuck with some really bad lands but the Maze holds Omnath off my back which is great. I slowly bank up my lands in play and counters on the enchant.
The two of them sort of conspire against me when Teeg hits a Worldly Tutor and Omnath tells him he will use his Early Harvest to help him hit the 8 mana for Terastodon. I have another turn to drop some angels due to the delay before they can do it. I end up with 5 angels in play when I get my Maze of Ith + Luminarch Ascension blown up. Luckily for me he picks Omnath for the 3rd target removal. Omnath dumps a ton of guys into play and I swing into omnath for 20 dmg in the air with the angels. From here Omnath drops a doubling cube and hits 30 mana from there. He happens to have Kamahl, Fist of Krosa in hand and 4x overruns us with Kamahl to kill both of us in one shot... sad as I had a great setup and outside of them working together for the elephant I would have likely had the game.
Overall the games were very fun. I liked the deck and the enchant was a champ for me both games. I might even consider adding Idyllic Tutor to the deck but I get the impression I shouldn't lean too much on Luminarch Ascension as it really isnt that hard to answer it.
One thing I did get from my games is that I essentially never want to cycle a land so axing Secluded Steppe from my list for a basic for now. I don't think I even had it on my digital list however I had been using it and the fact that it comes in tapped did actually hurt me in game 2 when I drew it around the 4th land drop ish time and it sucked having it come in tapped. I originally included it sort of as a Wayfarer fodder tool however I think I have yet to ever draw wayfarer... so ya.
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[Modern] Allies
Overall I would say that my Lin Sivvi deck is one of my more casual decks but it is just so much fun to play that I keep it together. It is a blast to play though. If you want something higher up on competitive level I don't think I would be looking at mono white though as I think mono white always has some issues with competitiveness.
Overall I would say that my list is decent but I wouldn't expect to be regularly beating high end combo decks with it. It has the advantage of usually having sort of a low profile though which is nice in respect to a lot of toolbox / tutoring decks.
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[Modern] Allies
Overall I still play this because I have a lot of fun in the way it operates. It plays as a draw / go which really isn't an option in much outside of a blue / x colored commander. I like toolboxing into cards other than combo pieces and it is always exciting and different from game to game. If you have any particular questions I would be more than happy to relay information on my experience so far but I still have only been playing rebels for a few months now. Best of luck on your list if you decide to go forward with it. Rebels can be a lot of fun all in all.
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[Modern] Allies