So I played two games with Ephara on Friday night, and they went very well. The deck is firing on all cylinders, both games I quickly achieved a dominant position against fairly powerful decks. Capsize continues to impress.
I made two critical errors that cost me both games and they were both the same error so I wanted to talk about them briefly:
In the first game, I transmuted for a whitemane lion when I had a strong board state. I should have transmuted for Cyclonic rift, and I didn't, and then I got one-shotted by a Bruna player. I could have killed him fairly easily. (I had a Helm of Possession but I needed to get his swiftfoot boots off).
In game 2 I had a dominant position but didn't recognize the combo online of another player and tapped out (some animation module Elenda combo). I lost this game because I had not tutored for Oblivion Stone, instead getting a Cloudstone Curio.
My conclusion is roughly that if you can tutor, it is usually safer to tutor defensively when you have good board position - get a wrath or an answer instead of something to winmore. I talk about it in the main guide actually, that other decks have bombs that can get you so you need to sandbag answers. And then I ignored my own advice
All in all I am very very happy with where the deck is at. It just does so many good things and the draws are really solid.
Wow, pretty neat spoilers going on. I dig Regna, the Redeemer a lot as a lifegainy/tokensy Ephara build. Could easily get out of hand on a budget. Arena Rector is also very strong, not going to find a spot in my build due to the lack of sac outlets, but could really be great.
Looking like a promising set. I hope there's a really nice Azorius Partner pair that jazzes with our gameplan
I'm surprised there were no squeals of joy in this thread when Spellseeker was spoiled. Finds Swords, Mystical/Enlightened tutor, Unexpectedly Absent, Cyclonic Rift, Mana Drain, and definitely most importantly, Muddle the Mixture. And is tutorable by Recruiter.
So it appears we can tutor for Muddle with Recruiter! This seems to help the Navigator wincon.
Victory chimes is an incredibly important mana rock for us. It means that stuff like Mess tokens and whitemane lion cost only W while we devote our mana to more important matters.
While it's OK I'm not sure it's any better than a medallion. Probably a hair worse than Oketra's monument. Though it does enable sacred mesa which is nice. I don't think I'm likely to jam it but it has some upsides.
The warrior mobilization is probably good enough to replace mobilization in any deck that wants that. Very nice option.
Brightling is interesting but in the end I don't think mana efficient enough.
Overall this set looks really good for us. Lots of cool cards, strong effects, and options for different builds of Ephara. As a side note the huge number of reprints is going to be great for the format I think as well. I'm pretty excited all around.
It isn't often that we get a new autoinclude card with extremely high powerlevel like Spellseeker--it's on the power level with Recruiter of the Guard, which is pretty absurd.
Autoincludes Spellseeker - What's to say? A critter that tutors for muddle or cyclonic rift or mana drain or mystical or enlightened. It's too good not to play. I am not sure what I'm cutting for it, and I have to wait until the foil price comes down a bit, but definitely. This card is probably going to become a format defining card in non-CEDH (and might be good enough in CEDH).
Strong in Some Builds Regna, the Redeemer - There is surely a budget-ish lifegain deck as Shermanido37 points out with angelic accord, crested sunmare, possibly soul sisters and archangel of thune, etc. Lots of options there. Victory Chimes - A flexible mana rock, probably better in budget decks but it provides a considerable mana advantage that synergizes strongly with our best wincon (Sacred Mesa) Toothy, Imaginary Friend - This card is actually way stronger than I had thought, really powerful with E phara since it resets so easily. If you're displacing this you're going to be drawing a crapload of cards. All the Ephara draws will chain together. If you are in the market for raw card advantage this guy is quite powerful. Arcane Artisan - This is a cool card. Somewhat questionable, but poweful in some ways. I could see decks with more fatties or a reanimator subtheme wanting to run this (since the same fatties you want to cheat in with this are the ones you want to cheat out tokens of). Arena Rector - If your build is walker heavy or sac outlet heavy, this card is great. I'd say if you have more than a couple sac outlets or a SOFAI I would consider it. Even just to get one of the 2 walkers I run it'd be worth it, and I could see running more. Blaring Recruiter - If you are currently running mobilization I think this card is much better. It costs a little more but it gets a free draw when it comes in and can be tutored with Recruiter, which is generally better than enlightened tutor (which you are not going to ever tutor for Mobilization with anyway). I won't play it due to the mana efficiency but it's very good on a budget.
Fringe, but neat Out of Bounds - a nice cheap counterspell, that is likely to get the full assist cost paid a lot of the time Brightling - I could see a deck wanting this effect. It's a pretty powerful card in some ways and very good at wearing swords. I will say its inability to be unblockable is a hard no for me.
I also don't think Blaring Recruiter is much of a catch. I'd much rather pay W more per token and have my token engine not die to every single thing in existence. Both Oketra the True and Heliod, God of the Sun fit this bill. I also run Mobilization and will definitely not swap it out for this card.
Yeah there is almost for sure a budget lifegain build with Regna, I talked about it some but then forgot when I did the set review, so I added it for posterity.
So I guess it depends on what you're doing but Blaring Recruiter being able to come back off Reveillark or Karmic Guide, or even be Body Doubled, feels like it's enough better than Mobilization to me (which really only comes back off Sun Titan). And also being able to recruiter.
If your deck is higher on wraths I can definitely see why you would prefer mobilization, but I think the upside of getting a card immediately (and getting two cards for 7 mana instead of two cards for 9 mana) is worth it for most builds, especially those with lots of critters.
Note: I do think I would play Thraben Doomsayer before either. Free token production is extremely underrated.
So I've been getting aggro'd out a bit lately, my shop is pretty hostile to control players. I found myself really wanting like a Selfless Squire effect.
I'm considering swapping Sword of Light and Shadow for it, so I have a recruiterable critter I use to stave off aggro rushes a bit better. Obviously doesn't deal with annihilator, so maybe a propaganda type effect would be better, I dunno.
The specific thing that drive me this way the other day was getting just spammed out by a Gishath player; I killed Gishath no fewer than 4 times but he'd just keep ramping and recasting it. Ideally I woulda drawn a theft effect. What I realized after the fact was I could have recruitered for Containment Priest which might have at least stalled it quite a bit, but I'm not positive that would have done it. Or maybe another Theft effect? I don't think there is one that is recruiterable.
Any other thoughts? Maybe just play a little more targeted removal? The nice thing about Squire is it goes over the top pretty well -- people are regularly crashing at me for 20+ and making a 20/20 is pretty strong, etc.
It was a particularly frustrating board state as I had verdict and a snapcaster, and verdicting doesn't even buy me a turn against the huge hasted commanders.
It's possible that SpellSeeker will be enough since it lets me tutor for Rift, but not really sure.
Meddling Mage the problem commander. Creature answers are easily removed, but at least it slows them down and makes them dig for an answer rather than just aggroing out. Peacekeeper is a nice option you can just not pay for when you're ready to drop Elesh Norn. Of course you'd rather your opponents attack each other than not be able to attack at all, so that might not work for your meta. I actually think Humility would do some work - yeah it turns off your hatebears, but it turns off everything, you don't care too much with the grindy nature of your deck, and somebody will remove it and then you can have garnered some nice advantage and go to town. In the same vein, Godhead of Awe does the same thing and is a little less hateful. And with Elesh it's pretty sweet.
Man I always forget meddling mage. It's such a clean answer to problem commanders. I think it might be a bit narrow in that it only handles that avenue.
I used to play peacekeeper but I always found it turned me into public enemy #1 until it was gone, and the mana tax was surprisingly relevant.
I think I like Godhead more than Humility given the issues with humility and ephara (you have to make sure not to drop it when Ephara's online). Might be worth a try. That effect does seem to hurt us a lot less than anyone else. I'll keep that on the burner after I see how Spellseeker performs. I'm thinking that being able to tutor up an instant speed answer will possibly get the job done.
I've also got to remember Containment priest. I don't think I value its ability combined with blink effects like Displacer highly enough. I realized that I lost at least one and possibly two games the other day due to not realizing I could just basically 1-sided sweeper with that interaction
My main problem with Godhead of Awe is that Ephara immediately activates with it on the field, yet is shrunk to a measely 1/1. Once that happens, any -1/-1 becomes a kill spell for her, and we really don't want that. One of the regular decks in my meta is a Liliana, Heretical Healer deck which runs a pretty good amount of Languish and Flaying Tendrils cards, which are problematic enough as it is even without killing Ephara, so I would definitely not include Godhead.
Yeah, aggro is a serious problem for this deck. Ephara actually has a lot solutions to that kind of thing, but you need to survive the early game for that. Here are a couple of things we already have: Meddling Mage, as mentioned - I run it with high praise. Containment Priest, as mentioned - this is the kind of shenanigans this card was meant to stop. If cast vs Gishath's ability he doesn't even get to reanimate his stuff! Spell Queller - most aggressive commanders need to be cheap in order to be efficient, like Krenko, Mob Boss, and when you run this card into them, the players will usually choose to put them in the command zone, so if Queller dies we aren't in any trouble. On top of that, the body usually wrecks early attackers. Every time I cast this vs. early aggro I completely stopped them to a halt. Capsize - this is for stuff like Gishath. You cast a ton of mana for your commander? Well now you get nothing for it, as long as I can resolve this spell! Forbid - this is even more brutal if we can set it up, since it provides even less ways for them to interact with our answer.
Solitary Confinement - I've already told you about it and it might help you out. It does cost cards, but we have plenty of those, and it answers a LOT of strategies that hurt us: aggro, discard, burn, etc. On top of that a lot of aggro decks usually don't have answers to enchantments, and even if they do those are rare and inefficient. Silumgar Sorcerer - Another answer to problematic commanders. Probably not amazing but still useful.
My deck has a lot of mass removal, and that's one of its most effective ways at controlling the board since we have so many creatures in the meta. I still don't have Austere Command and I'll probably get it because choosing what gets wrecked is very powerful, but classic 4 mana wipes still have a ton of benefit IMO.
Even more stuff: Maze of Ith/Thaumatic Compass - very powerful if you're facing decks focused on getting one creature to hit you in order to work. Magus of the Tabernacle / Lightmine Field - useful against swarm. Authority of the Counsuls - hate on haste creatures all day every day. Also bananas against swarm. Faerie Artisans - you've already written a post on why this card isn't that good, but it could be a good solution to your problem. Mirror whatever fattie your opponent is trying to attack you with, then bounce the Artisans when they play another creature so that the token stays indefinitely.
Other options are Venser locks, stuff like Opposition, your other, more expensive wrath effects like Oblivion Stone and Austere Command, and single target removal.
I wonder if maybe I just am overreacting to not finding an answer when I needed it--I think what is probably right is to have at least one recruiterable anti-aggro tech piece, and part of the problem honestly might be that I made some bad play decisions. in retrospect a stoneforge with feast and famine would have solved my issues that game too, I just didn't think of it.
It's crazy how often I am losing just to playing like crap; some of it not knowing people's decks very well and some of it just poor decision making on tutoring. The deck is so much more efficient and consistent now but there're tons more decision trees.
Going to see if I can jam a bunch more games this friday and refine my play a bit.
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Totally unrelated experience, I got to do an intuition package the other day of Reveillark/Recruiter/Karmic Guide, and it was quite satisfying; opp. chose wrong and gave me Reveillark and the game went poorly for them. Again in retrospect I shoulda gone Recruiter/Titan/Lark I think (since that doesn't close me off of the Lark/Guide loop later in the game--can recruiter for guide and start it up).
Intuition definitely is strong in the deck, just again with the decision trees. I need to map some more good ones out, but for now I think Lark/Recruiter/Sun Titan is the optimal one to start with.
Titan + any two powerful 3-drops is probably pretty strong in general, might even be better since you can essentially force recruiter or sacred mesa, which is nice.
It's true that any answer is meta-dependent, and also true that sometimes you fix something with deck building and sometimes you fix it with changing how you play the deck. And this deck is definitely a tricky deck to play, requiring paying attention to the developing game state - as opposed to Gishath where as long as the blue player is tapped out, go ahead and cast your dino and wreck face. Speaking of the blue player being tapped out, I like Shermanido's Capsize suggestion. You don't need to Capsize lock the whole table, just the main threat at the moment (though I did Capsize lock someone once with my version of this deck in a 1 v 1).
I don't currently run Godhead, and there is a risk in running it, but man I have a boner for that card and will eventually run it just for that.
Another option as a grindy control deck is Archaeomancer and Evacuation as a soft lock. You only have to do it once really for any good player to tone down their aggro game, but even if you're doing it every turn, we can easily redeploy.
On a side note, when I first slotted Eldrazi Displacer in next to Containment Priest I was frowning at the nonbo for myself, and then realized I could just exile any creature I wanted to and actually giggled. That is a sweet interaction.
6/09/2018
Cut Sword of Light and Shadow
Add Spellseeker
This card is just very strong and Sword was the only thing I could think to cut for it. I've played it in a few games and Spellseeker is definitely the truth.
spellseeker - not sure what there is to say about this card that hasn't been said but it's extremely powerful--Just getting rift is great, getting mystical or enlightened is great, getting unexpectedly absent is great. It does everything we want to do and you can recruiter for it. It's nuts.
On the plus side I got a foil in trade at the release! Overpaid but whatever, cards that I didn't pay much for
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I also wanted to say a little bit about intuition -- this card has been *spectacular*. Intuition package I use primarily is Recruiter + Reveillark + Sun Titan; this leaves Karmic Guide still in the deck to start the chain with the other guys.
I think it is possible Body Double needs to be in the deck based on this, but I can't figure out what to cut. Will do some noodling on it.
Timestream Navigator has also been very good. I took 4 or so extra turns in one game with it and allowed me to ultimate Elspeth, which was pretty good (won the game ofc).
The combo just does not seem to come together much; tonight the entire table arch-enemy'd me and was able to exile some key pieces, though I also made a play error at another point.
I think as I get more practice with the deck the combo will close out more, but I can't help but wonder if the Lark combo kill would be more reliable especially with Intuition available.
Looking at running a new deck for Vegas commander fun and wanted to make an aggro deck that could hold on its own in a semi competitive to competitive environment. Since I also don't like running infinite combos or stax, that means I need a fairly powerful CA engine and disruptive elements to my aggro deck to stand a chance. This deck caught my eye so I've been working on a list for it and I think I'll either be running with this or a junk hatebears deck helmed by Sidar Kondo and Tymna.
Few things- I'm comfortable playing powerful cards and the usual broken artifact accelerants- so crypt and ring are fine- but I do generally restrain myself from stuff like Timestream Navigator, which I gather hasn't been an essential part of the deck anyways, so shouldn't be too much of a loss. I also try to run only a handful of limited tutors as I don't like running the same lines of play every commander game. Stuff like the new BBD 3 drop that fetches very specifically a 2 cmc or less instant/sorc is fine. Muddle the Mixture is probably fine too. But I might stop shy of something like Enlightened Tutor, which might be a bit too general and just approaching too many tutors in general anyways. How reliant is this deck on tutoring up specific stuff each game? Is just playing out the hatebears I get and relying on Ephara's card draw engine likely good enough for a semi competitive environment?
Some specific card questions I was thinking of adding in place of some of the stuff I'm cutting-
Scroll Rack- the deck already has Land Tax and some ways to shuffle unwanted cards with fetches, tutors resetting the deck. Would this be an alright piece to add or is it simply unnecessary if Land Tax is already online and Ephara so easy to trigger? Might be going too deep on the draw engines.
Trading Post- Tested a few token generators and this has actually been my favorite in self played testing games against myself lol. The 1 mana is a real thing, but being on an artifact instead of a creature is a little bit more resilient and the flexibility of the artifact outside triggering Ephara seems great. Particularly its ability to recur powerful artifacts like Cloudstone Curio or the SFM target equipment.
Faerie Artisans- Alright, I know this has been controversial from what I've read at the front and back of the thread, so I'm going to go back and read those comments instead of asking yall to reiterate. I've just found it great in testing and it seems tailor made for the deck so I'm kind of astounded its been such a source of heated debate. It's also just a cool fun card.
Hushwing Gryff- this is a card I took out of the deck from testing. It just kills so many other cards in the deck, from powerful cipt creatures to Cloudstone Curio to effectively killing a ton of the utility of things like Eldrazi Displacer that aren't directly affected by it.
Snapcaster MageSpellseeker- My current build runs about 9 instants and sorceries total. Now, they are great targets so I don't mind leaving these cards in with so few things to hit, but I was just curious if you felt there was a needed critical mass to make these worth running. What do you think the most essential Spellseeker cards to include in general are? What about Muddle the Mixture targets?
Stunt Double- I see the advantages of a card like Sakashima's Student, but I would assume the flash utility of Stunt Double would make it a either a worthy replacement or at least an addition to some of the clones in the deck. Is it not being run simply because you guys don't own/haven't tested it or has it been tested and found worse than the other clones being run?
Winding Canyons- not a lot to say here. Seems like a natural fit for the deck; is it just too mana intensive?
Silumgar Sorcerer- A counterspell that triggers Ephara, can leverage any Solider/Goat/Faerie tokens lying around, and can be recurred/blinked to counter more stuff with instant speed blink or return to hand effects/blinking Sun Titan if its in the graveyard. I'm assuming this was tested and found wanting at some point too?
Teferi's Protection- I tend to prefer to run this in any heavy board investment deck that's also white and commonly leaves up mana for the opponent's turns, especially if that deck also runs Snapcaster Mage. However, no way to tutor it in my build (you guys at least have Mystical Tutor in yours) might mean its not worth a slot. What do you think?
Thanks in advance for any feedback you might have!
re: How reliant is this deck on tutoring up specific stuff each game? Is just playing out the hatebears I get and relying on Ephara's card draw engine likely good enough for a semi competitive environment?
It is faaairly reliable. The main things that change lines of play are big cards you can't tutor for easily, like Recruiter and Eldrazi Displacer. When it's a displacer game, it's a lot different than a non-displacer game, same with recruiter. But you can usually find an engine, it's just not a guarantee what engine. I do think the deck has gotten fairly heavy on tutors but one of the reasons for that is that finding answers has gotten so important (hence mystical, for example). I would be careful about removing too many things that can tutor up answers (e.g. trophy mage, mystical tutor).
So I think I misinterpreted your question at first, but here's an edit to clarify:
The deck (as I have it built) is fairly reliant on having additional ways to find engines than just drawing cards. If you don't play tutors you may want to play some draw spells or additional engines. Cards like Mulldrifter, Cloudblazer, Sphinx's revelation, Solemn Simulacrum, are the types of things you might want to play if not playing tutors.
There are two main ways we lose games: (1) not finding an engine early enough, (2) not finding an answer when we need it and the tutors help a lot with both of those things. I generally do not find that, even with my tutor profile, that games play out the same way, because I react to the board state and opponents.
Once you find an engine, the game becomes less deterministic again, and what cards you draw off of your engine (E.g. sacred mesa pegasi drawing cards) determines how the game goes.
re: Scrollrack
If you're playing fewer tutors, Rack is great. But it's also very durdly and dependent on you to play quickly which is pretty hard with a new deck. It is faster than tutoring all the time I guess. The only reason the tutoring is bearable for me is I have a lot of mental shortcuts for it (e.g. always intuition for recruiter/sun titan/reveillark unless grave hate presents).
The deck is usually full on cards and would usually like to find a specific card to secure the game (e.g. Norn or Oblivion Stone or whatever).
re: Trading Post
I like it, definitely worth trying. I never used it because it was pretty expensive to get out, kind of durdly, and so on. The thing is I never really want to sacrifice stuff in my board state except in response to a sweeper. Deck is very mana hungry even for signets and stuff.
It does have a lot of varied applications, just feels like you're going to spend a lot of time having it be a worse than Thraben Doomsayer that drains your life.
re: Artisans
I played it several times and every single time it got hated off the table or played around. I don't like cards that give people lots of choices and this does.
re: Hushwing Gryff
I would play an additional way to get rid of it (Sakashima's Student, helm of possession, umezawa's jitte are my primary ones, but also sweepers/removal). I have found it to be really important to have - shuts off a lot of combos and shuts off a lot of decks that just outclass you power level wise.
The nice thing about it is we can just keep playing dudes and drawing cards but a lot of decks just can do nothing in the face of Gryff. It's probably the most singularly powerful hatebear in the deck. Would be cautious of cutting it.
re: Snapcaster/Spellseeker Cyclonic Rift is the most important. Snapcaster is an easy cut if you aren't running the power instants like tutors and intuition in my opinion, but spellseeker is great even just for Rift.
re: Stunt Double Sakashima's student is significantly more powerful than stunt double because it lets you reuse one of your ETB guys (and bounce/replay your other clones/hatebears, and other tricks). I don't run stunt double because it's worse than too many other clones. Right now Clever Impersonator sits on the bench so I would add that first. I also think Sakashima the Impostor is stronger than Stunt double (ability to have two Elesh Norns for example is hilarious).
Flash is nice and you will get people sometimes so that might be worth it. It's possible I don't value it highly enough.
Re: Winding Canyons
Yes, you got it. Same reason no riptide lab (though I am considering that one) and no Moorland haunt.
re: Silumgar Sorcerer
I never tested it, others have had success. I don't like how it depletes our board, or how restricted - too many noncreatures I want to counter. It's similar to the reason I don't play Skullclamp and am sometimes iffy about Cloudstone curio. The nice thing about the deck is it usually builds up a pretty strong boardstate just by doing its thing and the reason to play critters that do stuff is that they are critters after they do stuff
re: Teferi's Protection
It exiles on resolution and we don't mill ourselves so I don't see the appeal with snaps (unless you're banking on it getting discarded/countered for some reason). It is a powerful card undoubtedly. One of the issues of tutoring for it is that it's *much* worse when you tutor for it with a restricted tutor and have to reveal it. Generally speaking I like it better in demonic tutor/vampiric tutor decks or decks for that reason.
I dunno though, I've definitely considered it. I'm not sure it's a lot better than Eerie Interlude (especially with Archaeomancer in your deck).
You've picked a pretty good deck for not tutoring too much because Ephara sees tons of cards, but you may want to think about playing some higher powered cards if you're not tutoring a lot. Maybe some traditional UW goodstuff, maybe some more spells, maybe top. Stuff like Deadeye Navigator and Selfless Squire, maybe an extra sweeper, I dunno. Might want to look at Shermanido's deck if you can find it, or PM him, I think he plays on some budget but also plays some more goodstuff I think. Some folks play draw spells like rhystic study and sphinx's rev too, and have success with that.
You might consider playing Tezzeret, the Seeker over some of the less restricted tutors too.
As a last word, I would caution you of thinking of this as an aggro deck. It's more like an aggro-control deck by design and lately for me has been slanting toward control even more. Almost all the time lately I am having to get a sweeper with tutors to be able to close the game.
Good luck and I realize that's a lot so I'm happy to expand on anything if needed. Really your testing is going to be the big determiner I think.
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And, sorry, one more thing to throw at you:
I think Karador is the best hatebears commander, possibly better than Ephara because of being able to ramp in green. He's vulnerable to yard hate but you can pretty reliably leave a qasali pridemage or caustic catterpillar or whatever on the field to hate on grave hate.
If I built another deck this style (hatebearsy) that's definitely the way I'd go. His ability to recast your dead bears from the yard is super.
Not at all! Thanks so much for the detailed response!
Since it seems to be the determining factor for a lot of feedback, I'll touch on the playgroup a bit. I travel around a lot, at least for the moment, so I never really build too much for a specific meta as it changes too much to be worth that. That's also while I like a competitively built deck that eschews pure stax, infinite combos, and the like- it'll be strong enough to have a fighting chance at a cutthroat table, but not so brutal that more casual tables will be too angered by it. (The restriction on tutors is more personal preference than it is playgroup insurance, though; I just don't like playing out the same lines every game)
Now, all that said, my current playgroup is a bit of a weird one. It's a mostly casual bunch, but there's one or two of them that just throw down burgeoning or show an infinite combo in their hand, say "I won, but let's play it out", I guess either totally unaware of the social contracts they're breaking or just out of a complete lack of consideration. We also have this weird tendency to play 6 player games- despite my objections :P- so "people don't feel left out." I won't dwell too much on playgroup frustrations as I know it's a bit tasteless and I'm just a traveler passing through the meta anyways, but, here's a bit of helpful advice to others cultivating their own playgroups- if you expressly don't want infinite combos to be a thing, you probably shouldn't run 6 or even 5 player games. Good luck trying to play aggro, midrange, or control with that many other players.
So with all that said, do you think Ephara stands a chance in a 6 player game? Does any hatebear deck stand a chance? (and would you rather run Ephara or the abzan dudes in such a meta?)
Durdly was definitely the word floating around in the back of my head for both Rack and Canyons. Effective, but durdly. I'll finish a temporary list then see if Rack makes sense given the engines/tutors that did make it in. I think Canyon is probably a cut but I do question running Nykthos over it. Nykthos has always struck me as winmore, especially in non big mana decks, and here especially I don't get the sense it makes a ton of sense since you typically want to spend mana across turns in small bursts rather than using a ton of mana at once. I concede that I haven't tested with it basically at all- think I got it out once in a Cockatrice game?- so I'd defer to experience here. It just seems like Winding Canyons is more a natural fit for what the deck wants to do for me if we're allocating a colorless land slot somewhere.
I also agree with the durdly label for Cloud Post. Not too concerned about its costs, though. 1 life a turn is usually less than what a goat can stop and 1 mana is a fine price to pay to draw a card. The few times you do rescue something, it feels great too. Sacrificing a token of any kind- not just a goat- to get back one of your key artifacts always feels worth it. But that's the rules text cost- as for the deckbuilding cost of running this over something like doomsayer, which is 1 cheaper and can activate without needing mana is another matter. I definitely haven't played enough to accurately compare them.
fanta
I went back and read your Artisans manifesto and I gotta say- most of those scenarios didn't seem bad at all to me? Like if my opponents go Wurmcoil Engine into Wood Elves, I'm not dejected because I didn't get to keep a Wurmcoil- I'm celebrating because I just got two 3/3 tokens, a 1/1 chump blocker for the moment, and 2 Ephara triggers over two turns. That's fantastic. Similarly, if my opponents feel they shouldn't play creatures at all because I've played this, I'm also feeling pretty good. Like, I get that 4 is a lot for the deck, but it seems like the expectations for this were maybe set a bit too high? As a single 4 mana Ephara trigger machine, it really doesn't need to do that much to be worth it I feel. All that said, you guys have the experience here; I just think if I'm going to get burned on Faerie Artisans, I'll have to learn it myself and get burned before I cut it because I'm not really seeing a bad card here. Anything my opponents always want to immediately remove or play around to hate out is probably something effective enough it should stay in the deck.
Alright, I've overlooked some of the ways of getting rid of Gryff. And I'm even running Crystal Shard atm, which is another out you don't have in yours. (What are your thoughts on that card by the way?) I can definitely see what you mean about blocking the potent stuff, then just getting rid of him when you need to. I'll put him back in alongside Sakashima's student as a new addition and outlet and see how he fares with some more thoughtful play on my part. Speaking of which, you definitely sold me on the student. I'll give him a shot over the double.
I totally missed the exile clause on Teferi's. Fortunately, I don't think I've ever actually cheated or benefitted from that, but it definitely weakens its appeal. Also, with the decks general goal of running creatures for effects like that over instants, maybe Selfless Spirit makes more sense for that style of Wrath prevention?
Re:deck philosophy as a whole- aggro control is fine, great even, as that's ultimately my favorite style of deck. (Death and Taxes is my favorite constructed deck of all time, and this is basically expanding that strategy to a commander sized level) I'm keeping more of your tutors than not- enlightened and mystical are the ones are the chopping block for being not attached to creatures/less specialized than Recruiter of the Guard, SFM, and Spellseeker, which are all in the deck. My build is going to be more close to yours than not, though I'm seeing/expecting around 7 cards difference.
You think Karador would be much stronger than Tymna/Sidar? Not disagreeing; just curious. I thought that pair together looked particularly good just because you devote all your slots to hatebears similar to this deck and let Tymna draw you gas in the absence of needing dedicated draw engines. (and in my meta- Tymna draws 5 cards! Might as well punish them for 6 player games if we're going to keep at it. :P) Sidar's ability to convert all our hatebears to actual effective combat tools which lets them enable Tymna in turn didn't look too shabby to me either. Karador does have a pretty powerful line of text or two on him though, and I haven't played with either to know.
So with all that said, do you think Ephara stands a chance in a 6 player game? Does any hatebear deck stand a chance? (and would you rather run Ephara or the abzan dudes in such a meta?)
No, I don't think so. I personally refuse to play >4 player games, my play style (low curve, efficient decks) doesn't really suit them. I'd rather play 2x3 player pods. Honestly think 3 player is the best EDH but 4 is tolerable
Nykthos is really good on your critical turn where you're going to try to win or set up the lock. I typically will use it to drop a big threat like Elesh Norn or something and then pass turn with tons of mana up to defend it. You need to check your pips on permanents in the deck to make sure it's good, but in my deck it almost always will have an activation for 5-7 which lets me drop Elspeth with countermagic backup for example.
It's kinda like As Foretold in that it can help you close a game out by enabling stuff like Venser Locks.
Artisans tokens exile so you don't get wurmcoil tokens. I don't think I ever got a single card worth of value out of Artisans (other than ephara triggers which could be accomplished by a variety of cards). If it works for you though by all means. It might work better in some metas. I think what makes me cranky about it is how poor it is when you're behind and people can choose to screw you?
Crystal shard is very powerful especially if you're on Trophy mage. If I played it I would play it in the Curio slot. Not quite as strong but doesn't require creatures in hand to be good.
Personally I don't worry much about wrath protection. This deck is so resilient to sweepers I mostly just lean on countermagic to defend from things like Merciless Eviction that hose me. Hence no Interlude type effects. Selfless Spirit feels mostly pointless to me. I like to play around wraths by just being careful and sandbagging counterspells/etc.
If I was going to play wrath protection I might think more about counterspells on dudes. Spell Queller is great for dealing with most commonly use wraths (Even Verdict).
Interlude is nice because it generates a crapload of value and can generate an infinite value train with archaeomancer so sometimes I think about that, but not for me personally at this moment. Our deck is pretty good with Evacuation effects too so Evac-Archaeomancer is worth considering.
Deck is *Definitely* inspired by D&T. It's hard to port to multiplayer beecause controlling mana is basically impossible without being that guy tutoring up winter orb every game. I played it in legacy for a while and modern briefly.
I think based on what I've heard you may want to err more on the side of Eidolon of Rhetoric effects and go slightly heavier on instant speed stuff (flash critters, etc.). When I used to play in bigger groups I would always lean hard on Eidolon. It makes your countermagic more potent and also ups the value of flash critters.
You may also want to play 2-3 more sweepers. Sweepers go up in value the more people you're playing against. I'd add Evacuation and terminus if playing with top+scroll rack.
I do but I could be mistaken. I don't particularly care for Tymna's effect as being contingent on dealing combat damage to people. Karador's value is easy to achieve: Jam Satyr Wayfinder and Hermit Druid and then cast your commander for 3 and cast stuff from your yard. Don't even need to tutor much, just mill yourself for value. Also who doesn't want to sakura-tribe elder every turn?
His ability to sacrifice and recast hatebears in your turn is also stellar (sac eidolon, cast some cheap spells, recast eidolon; works with Thalia effects too). Just need to jam enough sac outlets. Thankfully they are great in the deck since they can protect you from exile effects.
Plus, fairly easy to win through noninfinite value by doing stuff like recasting massacre wurm every turn. You could also do enchantments and doomwake giant people if you wanted (but that is a bit sketchier than just infinite fleshbag marauders).
Re:artisans, yeah i realized that right after I posted, but there are also like 3 or 4 sac outlets in the deck that could leverage those tokens if they were onboard.
Nothing more to add for now. Thanks so much for all the help!
Edit: oh i did have one really small aside- I assume Sea of Clouds gets a spot in the deck now? Not sure which land you'd want to cut but its almost strictly better than Glacial Fortress in my playgroup.
Ephara is actually one of the commanders that benefits from facing multiple enemies, purely mechanic-wise.
Without looking at mana, each opponent enables your Whitemane Lion and Sacred Mesa to draw you more cards per round.
Each opponent further improves the mechanics of cards we already want to run, like Victory Chimes and As Foretold.
Furthermore, if you run globally affecting cards, like static effects (which Ephara has in spades), or mass removal (which Ephara really likes), they affect each opponent equally - unlike cards like Mind Twist or Orim's Chant or any other "target player" cards, which have phenomenal card advantage in 1v1 but leave you wide open for retaliation in EDH.
However, that does mean that since we'll be scaling better with more players, most other players won't build up a board as much as we will, and there will be more players to punish overextending. So if we develop well we'll probably stand out, and we will get heavily punished by it.
Nykthos is very strong because Ephara still has several big-mana plays she wants to make, like land Elesh Norn or play a Recruiter chain, and doing that kind of stuff while leaving mana up for opponents' turns is quite a challenge, especially with 6 players. However, feel free to try it out before you actually go for the card, because it might not end up to your liking.
Artisans is one of those very dependent meta cards that can be a powerhouse or a bust. I have a ton of big creature decks in my meta, like Maelstrom Wanderer, Kaalia of the Vast, Kozilek, the Great Distortion, etc. where the Artisans are bound to net me giant bodies and not just ETB effects, so that will be closer to their maximum efficiency. However, if you're up against Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, for example, you'll be looking at far less giant bodies, but hopefully slightly more ETBs.
Either way, what's going most strongly against it isn't its actual effect - it's the card's mana cost. Ephara's 4 drops are the most highly contested slots in the deck, and cards really need to be consistent if they stay in the deck.
That doesn't only apply to Artisans - the same applies to Trading Post. How much does it do for 4 mana? Probably not enough. Meanwhile, with Helm of Possession you sac a token in exchange for your opponent's commander or giant beater, a trade that will always be good for you.
Yeah Tymna Sidar is definitely more powerful for a 6 player FFA. However, when your basic strategy is creatures in that matchup, and you have 5 other players with wraths, you're going to have a ton of trouble getting threats to stick. Tymna will still be far better than Karador - since his cast creature from GY once per turn usually isn't good enough card advantage - but she'll still have plenty of problems. You might even consider Ravos instead of Sidar, for the added long game resiliency instead of giving 2/2's evasion.
Be sure to let us know how it goes! Especially interested to hear about unique things you tried, or your experience with stuff I didn't like (e.g. artisans).
If you ever spin up a thread for your own, let me know and I'll link to it in the main post.
Lots of good stuff here too. I'll be keeping a close eye on Artisans to see how they perform as well as how the other 4 drops perform in general.
Got a Victory Chimes yesterday in sealed actually. I didn't even put it in the list, but it works great with flash creatures (and a certain goat making machine :P) so I'll definitely find a spot for it. Had previously restricted myself to 2 cmc or less artifact ramp but that one might deserve the exception, especially in a 6 player games.
Given how much everyone here gushes over it, I'm assuming you guys find Helm of Possession to perform considerably better than Vedalken Shackles? I definitely would lean towards the shackles if I wasn't looking at advice or had the experience to make the call, so that's curious to me. (I also have an extreme aversion to using non-modern frames, so there's that too but I know that's not a reasonable point for or against anything)
Yall have sold me on Karador. I'm going to try building my abzan list from scratch for him rather than just changing out the generals for the current abzan hatebears deck I have.
Ephara is actually one of the commanders that benefits from facing multiple enemies, purely mechanic-wise.
Without looking at mana, each opponent enables your Whitemane Lion and Sacred Mesa to draw you more cards per round.
Each opponent further improves the mechanics of cards we already want to run, like Victory Chimes and As Foretold.
Furthermore, if you run globally affecting cards, like static effects (which Ephara has in spades), or mass removal (which Ephara really likes), they affect each opponent equally - unlike cards like Mind Twist or Orim's Chant or any other "target player" cards, which have phenomenal card advantage in 1v1 but leave you wide open for retaliation in EDH.
Oddly enough I find Ephara's effect much stronger in 1-1 or 3 player pods and the reason for that is:
1) the mana requirement is lower
2) the comparative card advantage is higher - in 1v1 if you trigger ephara each turn you will draw 3 cards for each 1 an opponent draws. In 6 player you will draw 7 cards for every 5 opponents draw. When it comes down to 1v1 is usually where Ephara shines for me, which is why I usually aim to kill one person at a time.
re: Tymna/Sidar
You're missing the asymmetrical stuff Karador can do with those abilities I think. Casting a fleshbag every turn is nearly unstoppable in a 6 player game, and there're several similar plays. Repeated Massacre wurms/bane of progress/angel of serenity type shenanigans are pretty hard to stop. Many opponents will straight up lose to a caustic caterpillar.
The biggest advantage is that he's easy to keep on the table by filling your hard. Kinda behaves like Ephara in that regard (ephara is hard to remove, karador is cheap to recast). With Tymna/Sidar you're kinda dependent on them, and it's easy to get blown out by swinging into a board and someone removes Sidar, etc.
Definitely either could be fine. Just not a big fan of relying on your commander for card advantage if it doesn't have some resilience.
I made two critical errors that cost me both games and they were both the same error so I wanted to talk about them briefly:
In the first game, I transmuted for a whitemane lion when I had a strong board state. I should have transmuted for Cyclonic rift, and I didn't, and then I got one-shotted by a Bruna player. I could have killed him fairly easily. (I had a Helm of Possession but I needed to get his swiftfoot boots off).
In game 2 I had a dominant position but didn't recognize the combo online of another player and tapped out (some animation module Elenda combo). I lost this game because I had not tutored for Oblivion Stone, instead getting a Cloudstone Curio.
My conclusion is roughly that if you can tutor, it is usually safer to tutor defensively when you have good board position - get a wrath or an answer instead of something to winmore. I talk about it in the main guide actually, that other decks have bombs that can get you so you need to sandbag answers. And then I ignored my own advice
All in all I am very very happy with where the deck is at. It just does so many good things and the draws are really solid.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Looking like a promising set. I hope there's a really nice Azorius Partner pair that jazzes with our gameplan
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
So it appears we can tutor for Muddle with Recruiter! This seems to help the Navigator wincon.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
The warrior mobilization is probably good enough to replace mobilization in any deck that wants that. Very nice option.
Brightling is interesting but in the end I don't think mana efficient enough.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Overall this set looks really good for us. Lots of cool cards, strong effects, and options for different builds of Ephara. As a side note the huge number of reprints is going to be great for the format I think as well. I'm pretty excited all around.
It isn't often that we get a new autoinclude card with extremely high powerlevel like Spellseeker--it's on the power level with Recruiter of the Guard, which is pretty absurd.
Autoincludes
Spellseeker - What's to say? A critter that tutors for muddle or cyclonic rift or mana drain or mystical or enlightened. It's too good not to play. I am not sure what I'm cutting for it, and I have to wait until the foil price comes down a bit, but definitely. This card is probably going to become a format defining card in non-CEDH (and might be good enough in CEDH).
Strong in Some Builds
Regna, the Redeemer - There is surely a budget-ish lifegain deck as Shermanido37 points out with angelic accord, crested sunmare, possibly soul sisters and archangel of thune, etc. Lots of options there.
Victory Chimes - A flexible mana rock, probably better in budget decks but it provides a considerable mana advantage that synergizes strongly with our best wincon (Sacred Mesa)
Toothy, Imaginary Friend - This card is actually way stronger than I had thought, really powerful with E phara since it resets so easily. If you're displacing this you're going to be drawing a crapload of cards. All the Ephara draws will chain together. If you are in the market for raw card advantage this guy is quite powerful.
Arcane Artisan - This is a cool card. Somewhat questionable, but poweful in some ways. I could see decks with more fatties or a reanimator subtheme wanting to run this (since the same fatties you want to cheat in with this are the ones you want to cheat out tokens of).
Arena Rector - If your build is walker heavy or sac outlet heavy, this card is great. I'd say if you have more than a couple sac outlets or a SOFAI I would consider it. Even just to get one of the 2 walkers I run it'd be worth it, and I could see running more.
Blaring Recruiter - If you are currently running mobilization I think this card is much better. It costs a little more but it gets a free draw when it comes in and can be tutored with Recruiter, which is generally better than enlightened tutor (which you are not going to ever tutor for Mobilization with anyway). I won't play it due to the mana efficiency but it's very good on a budget.
Fringe, but neat
Out of Bounds - a nice cheap counterspell, that is likely to get the full assist cost paid a lot of the time
Brightling - I could see a deck wanting this effect. It's a pretty powerful card in some ways and very good at wearing swords. I will say its inability to be unblockable is a hard no for me.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Token engines:
Regna, the Redeemer
Crested Sunmare
Angelic Accord
Phyrexian Processor
Luminarch Ascension
Lifegain:
Soul Sisters
Sun Droplet
Celestial Force
Worthy Cause
Sunscorch Regent
Good cards:
Not Forgotten
Absorb
Non-budget cards:
Lyra Dawnbringer - pairs up with all the angels and lifegain wonderfully. Baneslayer Angel is much more sane price wise.
Umezawa's Jitte - lifegain triggers FTW.
I also don't think Blaring Recruiter is much of a catch. I'd much rather pay W more per token and have my token engine not die to every single thing in existence. Both Oketra the True and Heliod, God of the Sun fit this bill. I also run Mobilization and will definitely not swap it out for this card.
So I guess it depends on what you're doing but Blaring Recruiter being able to come back off Reveillark or Karmic Guide, or even be Body Doubled, feels like it's enough better than Mobilization to me (which really only comes back off Sun Titan). And also being able to recruiter.
If your deck is higher on wraths I can definitely see why you would prefer mobilization, but I think the upside of getting a card immediately (and getting two cards for 7 mana instead of two cards for 9 mana) is worth it for most builds, especially those with lots of critters.
Note: I do think I would play Thraben Doomsayer before either. Free token production is extremely underrated.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I'm considering swapping Sword of Light and Shadow for it, so I have a recruiterable critter I use to stave off aggro rushes a bit better. Obviously doesn't deal with annihilator, so maybe a propaganda type effect would be better, I dunno.
The specific thing that drive me this way the other day was getting just spammed out by a Gishath player; I killed Gishath no fewer than 4 times but he'd just keep ramping and recasting it. Ideally I woulda drawn a theft effect. What I realized after the fact was I could have recruitered for Containment Priest which might have at least stalled it quite a bit, but I'm not positive that would have done it. Or maybe another Theft effect? I don't think there is one that is recruiterable.
Any other thoughts? Maybe just play a little more targeted removal? The nice thing about Squire is it goes over the top pretty well -- people are regularly crashing at me for 20+ and making a 20/20 is pretty strong, etc.
It was a particularly frustrating board state as I had verdict and a snapcaster, and verdicting doesn't even buy me a turn against the huge hasted commanders.
It's possible that SpellSeeker will be enough since it lets me tutor for Rift, but not really sure.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
WUBRG Some of these decks can actually win games...WUBRG
How I know I should build a deck:
I used to play peacekeeper but I always found it turned me into public enemy #1 until it was gone, and the mana tax was surprisingly relevant.
I think I like Godhead more than Humility given the issues with humility and ephara (you have to make sure not to drop it when Ephara's online). Might be worth a try. That effect does seem to hurt us a lot less than anyone else. I'll keep that on the burner after I see how Spellseeker performs. I'm thinking that being able to tutor up an instant speed answer will possibly get the job done.
I've also got to remember Containment priest. I don't think I value its ability combined with blink effects like Displacer highly enough. I realized that I lost at least one and possibly two games the other day due to not realizing I could just basically 1-sided sweeper with that interaction
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Yeah, aggro is a serious problem for this deck. Ephara actually has a lot solutions to that kind of thing, but you need to survive the early game for that. Here are a couple of things we already have:
Meddling Mage, as mentioned - I run it with high praise.
Containment Priest, as mentioned - this is the kind of shenanigans this card was meant to stop. If cast vs Gishath's ability he doesn't even get to reanimate his stuff!
Spell Queller - most aggressive commanders need to be cheap in order to be efficient, like Krenko, Mob Boss, and when you run this card into them, the players will usually choose to put them in the command zone, so if Queller dies we aren't in any trouble. On top of that, the body usually wrecks early attackers. Every time I cast this vs. early aggro I completely stopped them to a halt.
Capsize - this is for stuff like Gishath. You cast a ton of mana for your commander? Well now you get nothing for it, as long as I can resolve this spell!
Forbid - this is even more brutal if we can set it up, since it provides even less ways for them to interact with our answer.
Solitary Confinement - I've already told you about it and it might help you out. It does cost cards, but we have plenty of those, and it answers a LOT of strategies that hurt us: aggro, discard, burn, etc. On top of that a lot of aggro decks usually don't have answers to enchantments, and even if they do those are rare and inefficient.
Silumgar Sorcerer - Another answer to problematic commanders. Probably not amazing but still useful.
My deck has a lot of mass removal, and that's one of its most effective ways at controlling the board since we have so many creatures in the meta. I still don't have Austere Command and I'll probably get it because choosing what gets wrecked is very powerful, but classic 4 mana wipes still have a ton of benefit IMO.
Even more stuff:
Maze of Ith/Thaumatic Compass - very powerful if you're facing decks focused on getting one creature to hit you in order to work.
Magus of the Tabernacle / Lightmine Field - useful against swarm.
Authority of the Counsuls - hate on haste creatures all day every day. Also bananas against swarm.
Faerie Artisans - you've already written a post on why this card isn't that good, but it could be a good solution to your problem. Mirror whatever fattie your opponent is trying to attack you with, then bounce the Artisans when they play another creature so that the token stays indefinitely.
Other options are Venser locks, stuff like Opposition, your other, more expensive wrath effects like Oblivion Stone and Austere Command, and single target removal.
It's crazy how often I am losing just to playing like crap; some of it not knowing people's decks very well and some of it just poor decision making on tutoring. The deck is so much more efficient and consistent now but there're tons more decision trees.
Going to see if I can jam a bunch more games this friday and refine my play a bit.
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Totally unrelated experience, I got to do an intuition package the other day of Reveillark/Recruiter/Karmic Guide, and it was quite satisfying; opp. chose wrong and gave me Reveillark and the game went poorly for them. Again in retrospect I shoulda gone Recruiter/Titan/Lark I think (since that doesn't close me off of the Lark/Guide loop later in the game--can recruiter for guide and start it up).
Intuition definitely is strong in the deck, just again with the decision trees. I need to map some more good ones out, but for now I think Lark/Recruiter/Sun Titan is the optimal one to start with.
Titan + any two powerful 3-drops is probably pretty strong in general, might even be better since you can essentially force recruiter or sacred mesa, which is nice.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I don't currently run Godhead, and there is a risk in running it, but man I have a boner for that card and will eventually run it just for that.
Another option as a grindy control deck is Archaeomancer and Evacuation as a soft lock. You only have to do it once really for any good player to tone down their aggro game, but even if you're doing it every turn, we can easily redeploy.
On a side note, when I first slotted Eldrazi Displacer in next to Containment Priest I was frowning at the nonbo for myself, and then realized I could just exile any creature I wanted to and actually giggled. That is a sweet interaction.
WUBRG Some of these decks can actually win games...WUBRG
How I know I should build a deck:
Cut Sword of Light and Shadow
Add Spellseeker
This card is just very strong and Sword was the only thing I could think to cut for it. I've played it in a few games and Spellseeker is definitely the truth.
spellseeker - not sure what there is to say about this card that hasn't been said but it's extremely powerful--Just getting rift is great, getting mystical or enlightened is great, getting unexpectedly absent is great. It does everything we want to do and you can recruiter for it. It's nuts.
On the plus side I got a foil in trade at the release! Overpaid but whatever, cards that I didn't pay much for
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I also wanted to say a little bit about intuition -- this card has been *spectacular*. Intuition package I use primarily is Recruiter + Reveillark + Sun Titan; this leaves Karmic Guide still in the deck to start the chain with the other guys.
I think it is possible Body Double needs to be in the deck based on this, but I can't figure out what to cut. Will do some noodling on it.
Timestream Navigator has also been very good. I took 4 or so extra turns in one game with it and allowed me to ultimate Elspeth, which was pretty good (won the game ofc).
The combo just does not seem to come together much; tonight the entire table arch-enemy'd me and was able to exile some key pieces, though I also made a play error at another point.
I think as I get more practice with the deck the combo will close out more, but I can't help but wonder if the Lark combo kill would be more reliable especially with Intuition available.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Looking at running a new deck for Vegas commander fun and wanted to make an aggro deck that could hold on its own in a semi competitive to competitive environment. Since I also don't like running infinite combos or stax, that means I need a fairly powerful CA engine and disruptive elements to my aggro deck to stand a chance. This deck caught my eye so I've been working on a list for it and I think I'll either be running with this or a junk hatebears deck helmed by Sidar Kondo and Tymna.
Few things- I'm comfortable playing powerful cards and the usual broken artifact accelerants- so crypt and ring are fine- but I do generally restrain myself from stuff like Timestream Navigator, which I gather hasn't been an essential part of the deck anyways, so shouldn't be too much of a loss. I also try to run only a handful of limited tutors as I don't like running the same lines of play every commander game. Stuff like the new BBD 3 drop that fetches very specifically a 2 cmc or less instant/sorc is fine. Muddle the Mixture is probably fine too. But I might stop shy of something like Enlightened Tutor, which might be a bit too general and just approaching too many tutors in general anyways. How reliant is this deck on tutoring up specific stuff each game? Is just playing out the hatebears I get and relying on Ephara's card draw engine likely good enough for a semi competitive environment?
Some specific card questions I was thinking of adding in place of some of the stuff I'm cutting-
Scroll Rack- the deck already has Land Tax and some ways to shuffle unwanted cards with fetches, tutors resetting the deck. Would this be an alright piece to add or is it simply unnecessary if Land Tax is already online and Ephara so easy to trigger? Might be going too deep on the draw engines.
Trading Post- Tested a few token generators and this has actually been my favorite in self played testing games against myself lol. The 1 mana is a real thing, but being on an artifact instead of a creature is a little bit more resilient and the flexibility of the artifact outside triggering Ephara seems great. Particularly its ability to recur powerful artifacts like Cloudstone Curio or the SFM target equipment.
Faerie Artisans- Alright, I know this has been controversial from what I've read at the front and back of the thread, so I'm going to go back and read those comments instead of asking yall to reiterate. I've just found it great in testing and it seems tailor made for the deck so I'm kind of astounded its been such a source of heated debate. It's also just a cool fun card.
Hushwing Gryff- this is a card I took out of the deck from testing. It just kills so many other cards in the deck, from powerful cipt creatures to Cloudstone Curio to effectively killing a ton of the utility of things like Eldrazi Displacer that aren't directly affected by it.
Snapcaster Mage Spellseeker- My current build runs about 9 instants and sorceries total. Now, they are great targets so I don't mind leaving these cards in with so few things to hit, but I was just curious if you felt there was a needed critical mass to make these worth running. What do you think the most essential Spellseeker cards to include in general are? What about Muddle the Mixture targets?
Stunt Double- I see the advantages of a card like Sakashima's Student, but I would assume the flash utility of Stunt Double would make it a either a worthy replacement or at least an addition to some of the clones in the deck. Is it not being run simply because you guys don't own/haven't tested it or has it been tested and found worse than the other clones being run?
Winding Canyons- not a lot to say here. Seems like a natural fit for the deck; is it just too mana intensive?
Silumgar Sorcerer- A counterspell that triggers Ephara, can leverage any Solider/Goat/Faerie tokens lying around, and can be recurred/blinked to counter more stuff with instant speed blink or return to hand effects/blinking Sun Titan if its in the graveyard. I'm assuming this was tested and found wanting at some point too?
Teferi's Protection- I tend to prefer to run this in any heavy board investment deck that's also white and commonly leaves up mana for the opponent's turns, especially if that deck also runs Snapcaster Mage. However, no way to tutor it in my build (you guys at least have Mystical Tutor in yours) might mean its not worth a slot. What do you think?
Thanks in advance for any feedback you might have!
It is faaairly reliable. The main things that change lines of play are big cards you can't tutor for easily, like Recruiter and Eldrazi Displacer. When it's a displacer game, it's a lot different than a non-displacer game, same with recruiter. But you can usually find an engine, it's just not a guarantee what engine. I do think the deck has gotten fairly heavy on tutors but one of the reasons for that is that finding answers has gotten so important (hence mystical, for example). I would be careful about removing too many things that can tutor up answers (e.g. trophy mage, mystical tutor).
So I think I misinterpreted your question at first, but here's an edit to clarify:
The deck (as I have it built) is fairly reliant on having additional ways to find engines than just drawing cards. If you don't play tutors you may want to play some draw spells or additional engines. Cards like Mulldrifter, Cloudblazer, Sphinx's revelation, Solemn Simulacrum, are the types of things you might want to play if not playing tutors.
There are two main ways we lose games: (1) not finding an engine early enough, (2) not finding an answer when we need it and the tutors help a lot with both of those things. I generally do not find that, even with my tutor profile, that games play out the same way, because I react to the board state and opponents.
Once you find an engine, the game becomes less deterministic again, and what cards you draw off of your engine (E.g. sacred mesa pegasi drawing cards) determines how the game goes.
re: Scrollrack
If you're playing fewer tutors, Rack is great. But it's also very durdly and dependent on you to play quickly which is pretty hard with a new deck. It is faster than tutoring all the time I guess. The only reason the tutoring is bearable for me is I have a lot of mental shortcuts for it (e.g. always intuition for recruiter/sun titan/reveillark unless grave hate presents).
The deck is usually full on cards and would usually like to find a specific card to secure the game (e.g. Norn or Oblivion Stone or whatever).
re: Trading Post
I like it, definitely worth trying. I never used it because it was pretty expensive to get out, kind of durdly, and so on. The thing is I never really want to sacrifice stuff in my board state except in response to a sweeper. Deck is very mana hungry even for signets and stuff.
It does have a lot of varied applications, just feels like you're going to spend a lot of time having it be a worse than Thraben Doomsayer that drains your life.
re: Artisans
I played it several times and every single time it got hated off the table or played around. I don't like cards that give people lots of choices and this does.
re: Hushwing Gryff
I would play an additional way to get rid of it (Sakashima's Student, helm of possession, umezawa's jitte are my primary ones, but also sweepers/removal). I have found it to be really important to have - shuts off a lot of combos and shuts off a lot of decks that just outclass you power level wise.
The nice thing about it is we can just keep playing dudes and drawing cards but a lot of decks just can do nothing in the face of Gryff. It's probably the most singularly powerful hatebear in the deck. Would be cautious of cutting it.
re: Snapcaster/Spellseeker
Cyclonic Rift is the most important. Snapcaster is an easy cut if you aren't running the power instants like tutors and intuition in my opinion, but spellseeker is great even just for Rift.
re: Stunt Double
Sakashima's student is significantly more powerful than stunt double because it lets you reuse one of your ETB guys (and bounce/replay your other clones/hatebears, and other tricks). I don't run stunt double because it's worse than too many other clones. Right now Clever Impersonator sits on the bench so I would add that first. I also think Sakashima the Impostor is stronger than Stunt double (ability to have two Elesh Norns for example is hilarious).
Flash is nice and you will get people sometimes so that might be worth it. It's possible I don't value it highly enough.
Re: Winding Canyons
Yes, you got it. Same reason no riptide lab (though I am considering that one) and no Moorland haunt.
re: Silumgar Sorcerer
I never tested it, others have had success. I don't like how it depletes our board, or how restricted - too many noncreatures I want to counter. It's similar to the reason I don't play Skullclamp and am sometimes iffy about Cloudstone curio. The nice thing about the deck is it usually builds up a pretty strong boardstate just by doing its thing and the reason to play critters that do stuff is that they are critters after they do stuff
re: Teferi's Protection
It exiles on resolution and we don't mill ourselves so I don't see the appeal with snaps (unless you're banking on it getting discarded/countered for some reason). It is a powerful card undoubtedly. One of the issues of tutoring for it is that it's *much* worse when you tutor for it with a restricted tutor and have to reveal it. Generally speaking I like it better in demonic tutor/vampiric tutor decks or decks for that reason.
I dunno though, I've definitely considered it. I'm not sure it's a lot better than Eerie Interlude (especially with Archaeomancer in your deck).
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To speak to the deck as a whole briefly I'll say that the hatebear package is very meta dependent. You might want more Eidolon of Rhetoric or Aven Mindcensor or Stonehorn Dignitary and less Leonin Relic-Warder and Hushwing Gryff.
You've picked a pretty good deck for not tutoring too much because Ephara sees tons of cards, but you may want to think about playing some higher powered cards if you're not tutoring a lot. Maybe some traditional UW goodstuff, maybe some more spells, maybe top. Stuff like Deadeye Navigator and Selfless Squire, maybe an extra sweeper, I dunno. Might want to look at Shermanido's deck if you can find it, or PM him, I think he plays on some budget but also plays some more goodstuff I think. Some folks play draw spells like rhystic study and sphinx's rev too, and have success with that.
You might consider playing Tezzeret, the Seeker over some of the less restricted tutors too.
As a last word, I would caution you of thinking of this as an aggro deck. It's more like an aggro-control deck by design and lately for me has been slanting toward control even more. Almost all the time lately I am having to get a sweeper with tutors to be able to close the game.
Good luck and I realize that's a lot so I'm happy to expand on anything if needed. Really your testing is going to be the big determiner I think.
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And, sorry, one more thing to throw at you:
I think Karador is the best hatebears commander, possibly better than Ephara because of being able to ramp in green. He's vulnerable to yard hate but you can pretty reliably leave a qasali pridemage or caustic catterpillar or whatever on the field to hate on grave hate.
If I built another deck this style (hatebearsy) that's definitely the way I'd go. His ability to recast your dead bears from the yard is super.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Since it seems to be the determining factor for a lot of feedback, I'll touch on the playgroup a bit. I travel around a lot, at least for the moment, so I never really build too much for a specific meta as it changes too much to be worth that. That's also while I like a competitively built deck that eschews pure stax, infinite combos, and the like- it'll be strong enough to have a fighting chance at a cutthroat table, but not so brutal that more casual tables will be too angered by it. (The restriction on tutors is more personal preference than it is playgroup insurance, though; I just don't like playing out the same lines every game)
Now, all that said, my current playgroup is a bit of a weird one. It's a mostly casual bunch, but there's one or two of them that just throw down burgeoning or show an infinite combo in their hand, say "I won, but let's play it out", I guess either totally unaware of the social contracts they're breaking or just out of a complete lack of consideration. We also have this weird tendency to play 6 player games- despite my objections :P- so "people don't feel left out." I won't dwell too much on playgroup frustrations as I know it's a bit tasteless and I'm just a traveler passing through the meta anyways, but, here's a bit of helpful advice to others cultivating their own playgroups- if you expressly don't want infinite combos to be a thing, you probably shouldn't run 6 or even 5 player games. Good luck trying to play aggro, midrange, or control with that many other players.
So with all that said, do you think Ephara stands a chance in a 6 player game? Does any hatebear deck stand a chance? (and would you rather run Ephara or the abzan dudes in such a meta?)
Durdly was definitely the word floating around in the back of my head for both Rack and Canyons. Effective, but durdly. I'll finish a temporary list then see if Rack makes sense given the engines/tutors that did make it in. I think Canyon is probably a cut but I do question running Nykthos over it. Nykthos has always struck me as winmore, especially in non big mana decks, and here especially I don't get the sense it makes a ton of sense since you typically want to spend mana across turns in small bursts rather than using a ton of mana at once. I concede that I haven't tested with it basically at all- think I got it out once in a Cockatrice game?- so I'd defer to experience here. It just seems like Winding Canyons is more a natural fit for what the deck wants to do for me if we're allocating a colorless land slot somewhere.
I also agree with the durdly label for Cloud Post. Not too concerned about its costs, though. 1 life a turn is usually less than what a goat can stop and 1 mana is a fine price to pay to draw a card. The few times you do rescue something, it feels great too. Sacrificing a token of any kind- not just a goat- to get back one of your key artifacts always feels worth it. But that's the rules text cost- as for the deckbuilding cost of running this over something like doomsayer, which is 1 cheaper and can activate without needing mana is another matter. I definitely haven't played enough to accurately compare them.
fanta
I went back and read your Artisans manifesto and I gotta say- most of those scenarios didn't seem bad at all to me? Like if my opponents go Wurmcoil Engine into Wood Elves, I'm not dejected because I didn't get to keep a Wurmcoil- I'm celebrating because I just got two 3/3 tokens, a 1/1 chump blocker for the moment, and 2 Ephara triggers over two turns. That's fantastic. Similarly, if my opponents feel they shouldn't play creatures at all because I've played this, I'm also feeling pretty good. Like, I get that 4 is a lot for the deck, but it seems like the expectations for this were maybe set a bit too high? As a single 4 mana Ephara trigger machine, it really doesn't need to do that much to be worth it I feel. All that said, you guys have the experience here; I just think if I'm going to get burned on Faerie Artisans, I'll have to learn it myself and get burned before I cut it because I'm not really seeing a bad card here. Anything my opponents always want to immediately remove or play around to hate out is probably something effective enough it should stay in the deck.
Alright, I've overlooked some of the ways of getting rid of Gryff. And I'm even running Crystal Shard atm, which is another out you don't have in yours. (What are your thoughts on that card by the way?) I can definitely see what you mean about blocking the potent stuff, then just getting rid of him when you need to. I'll put him back in alongside Sakashima's student as a new addition and outlet and see how he fares with some more thoughtful play on my part. Speaking of which, you definitely sold me on the student. I'll give him a shot over the double.
I totally missed the exile clause on Teferi's. Fortunately, I don't think I've ever actually cheated or benefitted from that, but it definitely weakens its appeal. Also, with the decks general goal of running creatures for effects like that over instants, maybe Selfless Spirit makes more sense for that style of Wrath prevention?
Re:deck philosophy as a whole- aggro control is fine, great even, as that's ultimately my favorite style of deck. (Death and Taxes is my favorite constructed deck of all time, and this is basically expanding that strategy to a commander sized level) I'm keeping more of your tutors than not- enlightened and mystical are the ones are the chopping block for being not attached to creatures/less specialized than Recruiter of the Guard, SFM, and Spellseeker, which are all in the deck. My build is going to be more close to yours than not, though I'm seeing/expecting around 7 cards difference.
You think Karador would be much stronger than Tymna/Sidar? Not disagreeing; just curious. I thought that pair together looked particularly good just because you devote all your slots to hatebears similar to this deck and let Tymna draw you gas in the absence of needing dedicated draw engines. (and in my meta- Tymna draws 5 cards! Might as well punish them for 6 player games if we're going to keep at it. :P) Sidar's ability to convert all our hatebears to actual effective combat tools which lets them enable Tymna in turn didn't look too shabby to me either. Karador does have a pretty powerful line of text or two on him though, and I haven't played with either to know.
Thanks again for the detailed response!
No, I don't think so. I personally refuse to play >4 player games, my play style (low curve, efficient decks) doesn't really suit them. I'd rather play 2x3 player pods. Honestly think 3 player is the best EDH but 4 is tolerable
Nykthos is really good on your critical turn where you're going to try to win or set up the lock. I typically will use it to drop a big threat like Elesh Norn or something and then pass turn with tons of mana up to defend it. You need to check your pips on permanents in the deck to make sure it's good, but in my deck it almost always will have an activation for 5-7 which lets me drop Elspeth with countermagic backup for example.
It's kinda like As Foretold in that it can help you close a game out by enabling stuff like Venser Locks.
Artisans tokens exile so you don't get wurmcoil tokens. I don't think I ever got a single card worth of value out of Artisans (other than ephara triggers which could be accomplished by a variety of cards). If it works for you though by all means. It might work better in some metas. I think what makes me cranky about it is how poor it is when you're behind and people can choose to screw you?
Crystal shard is very powerful especially if you're on Trophy mage. If I played it I would play it in the Curio slot. Not quite as strong but doesn't require creatures in hand to be good.
Personally I don't worry much about wrath protection. This deck is so resilient to sweepers I mostly just lean on countermagic to defend from things like Merciless Eviction that hose me. Hence no Interlude type effects. Selfless Spirit feels mostly pointless to me. I like to play around wraths by just being careful and sandbagging counterspells/etc.
If I was going to play wrath protection I might think more about counterspells on dudes. Spell Queller is great for dealing with most commonly use wraths (Even Verdict).
Interlude is nice because it generates a crapload of value and can generate an infinite value train with archaeomancer so sometimes I think about that, but not for me personally at this moment. Our deck is pretty good with Evacuation effects too so Evac-Archaeomancer is worth considering.
Deck is *Definitely* inspired by D&T. It's hard to port to multiplayer beecause controlling mana is basically impossible without being that guy tutoring up winter orb every game. I played it in legacy for a while and modern briefly.
I think based on what I've heard you may want to err more on the side of Eidolon of Rhetoric effects and go slightly heavier on instant speed stuff (flash critters, etc.). When I used to play in bigger groups I would always lean hard on Eidolon. It makes your countermagic more potent and also ups the value of flash critters.
You may also want to play 2-3 more sweepers. Sweepers go up in value the more people you're playing against. I'd add Evacuation and terminus if playing with top+scroll rack.
I do but I could be mistaken. I don't particularly care for Tymna's effect as being contingent on dealing combat damage to people. Karador's value is easy to achieve: Jam Satyr Wayfinder and Hermit Druid and then cast your commander for 3 and cast stuff from your yard. Don't even need to tutor much, just mill yourself for value. Also who doesn't want to sakura-tribe elder every turn?
His ability to sacrifice and recast hatebears in your turn is also stellar (sac eidolon, cast some cheap spells, recast eidolon; works with Thalia effects too). Just need to jam enough sac outlets. Thankfully they are great in the deck since they can protect you from exile effects.
Plus, fairly easy to win through noninfinite value by doing stuff like recasting massacre wurm every turn. You could also do enchantments and doomwake giant people if you wanted (but that is a bit sketchier than just infinite fleshbag marauders).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Re:artisans, yeah i realized that right after I posted, but there are also like 3 or 4 sac outlets in the deck that could leverage those tokens if they were onboard.
Nothing more to add for now. Thanks so much for all the help!
Edit: oh i did have one really small aside- I assume Sea of Clouds gets a spot in the deck now? Not sure which land you'd want to cut but its almost strictly better than Glacial Fortress in my playgroup.
Without looking at mana, each opponent enables your Whitemane Lion and Sacred Mesa to draw you more cards per round.
Each opponent further improves the mechanics of cards we already want to run, like Victory Chimes and As Foretold.
Furthermore, if you run globally affecting cards, like static effects (which Ephara has in spades), or mass removal (which Ephara really likes), they affect each opponent equally - unlike cards like Mind Twist or Orim's Chant or any other "target player" cards, which have phenomenal card advantage in 1v1 but leave you wide open for retaliation in EDH.
However, that does mean that since we'll be scaling better with more players, most other players won't build up a board as much as we will, and there will be more players to punish overextending. So if we develop well we'll probably stand out, and we will get heavily punished by it.
Nykthos is very strong because Ephara still has several big-mana plays she wants to make, like land Elesh Norn or play a Recruiter chain, and doing that kind of stuff while leaving mana up for opponents' turns is quite a challenge, especially with 6 players. However, feel free to try it out before you actually go for the card, because it might not end up to your liking.
Artisans is one of those very dependent meta cards that can be a powerhouse or a bust. I have a ton of big creature decks in my meta, like Maelstrom Wanderer, Kaalia of the Vast, Kozilek, the Great Distortion, etc. where the Artisans are bound to net me giant bodies and not just ETB effects, so that will be closer to their maximum efficiency. However, if you're up against Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, for example, you'll be looking at far less giant bodies, but hopefully slightly more ETBs.
Either way, what's going most strongly against it isn't its actual effect - it's the card's mana cost. Ephara's 4 drops are the most highly contested slots in the deck, and cards really need to be consistent if they stay in the deck.
That doesn't only apply to Artisans - the same applies to Trading Post. How much does it do for 4 mana? Probably not enough. Meanwhile, with Helm of Possession you sac a token in exchange for your opponent's commander or giant beater, a trade that will always be good for you.
Yeah Tymna Sidar is definitely more powerful for a 6 player FFA. However, when your basic strategy is creatures in that matchup, and you have 5 other players with wraths, you're going to have a ton of trouble getting threats to stick. Tymna will still be far better than Karador - since his cast creature from GY once per turn usually isn't good enough card advantage - but she'll still have plenty of problems. You might even consider Ravos instead of Sidar, for the added long game resiliency instead of giving 2/2's evasion.
If you ever spin up a thread for your own, let me know and I'll link to it in the main post.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Got a Victory Chimes yesterday in sealed actually. I didn't even put it in the list, but it works great with flash creatures (and a certain goat making machine :P) so I'll definitely find a spot for it. Had previously restricted myself to 2 cmc or less artifact ramp but that one might deserve the exception, especially in a 6 player games.
Given how much everyone here gushes over it, I'm assuming you guys find Helm of Possession to perform considerably better than Vedalken Shackles? I definitely would lean towards the shackles if I wasn't looking at advice or had the experience to make the call, so that's curious to me. (I also have an extreme aversion to using non-modern frames, so there's that too but I know that's not a reasonable point for or against anything)
Yall have sold me on Karador. I'm going to try building my abzan list from scratch for him rather than just changing out the generals for the current abzan hatebears deck I have.
Also, sticking with Nykthos, for now at least.
Oddly enough I find Ephara's effect much stronger in 1-1 or 3 player pods and the reason for that is:
1) the mana requirement is lower
2) the comparative card advantage is higher - in 1v1 if you trigger ephara each turn you will draw 3 cards for each 1 an opponent draws. In 6 player you will draw 7 cards for every 5 opponents draw. When it comes down to 1v1 is usually where Ephara shines for me, which is why I usually aim to kill one person at a time.
re: Tymna/Sidar
You're missing the asymmetrical stuff Karador can do with those abilities I think. Casting a fleshbag every turn is nearly unstoppable in a 6 player game, and there're several similar plays. Repeated Massacre wurms/bane of progress/angel of serenity type shenanigans are pretty hard to stop. Many opponents will straight up lose to a caustic caterpillar.
The biggest advantage is that he's easy to keep on the table by filling your hard. Kinda behaves like Ephara in that regard (ephara is hard to remove, karador is cheap to recast). With Tymna/Sidar you're kinda dependent on them, and it's easy to get blown out by swinging into a board and someone removes Sidar, etc.
Definitely either could be fine. Just not a big fan of relying on your commander for card advantage if it doesn't have some resilience.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall