The arcane package is one of the most fun parts! I'd prefer to keep that a focus of the primer, too. The other stuff (pumping and trample), while necessary, is actually more straightforward regarding victory through combat than needing to get 6+ instances of Overblaze on one of our shooters (like Mogg Fanatic) in order to snipe somebody. That and our best ritual.
I haven't seen any other decks abusing Splice onto Arcane.
So true. Part of the fun of running Zada is precisely the arcane hijinx! Purphoros, God of the Forge has been too good as an alternate wincon. With pillowfort being such a big thing in many commander decks, why bother pumping in such a massive way if your opponent is behind a pillowfort? Thanks to Purphoros you can take double advantage of token production.
My YouTube Channel: The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
I read through the thread (in one go so some things might not have stuck in my head). Have any of you tried Pyromancer's Goggles and Chandra's Ignition? Seems like good includes or are they too heavy on the mana to set them up?
Also I don't see Isochron Scepter in any of your lists, that card looks like it does everything we want.
I read through the thread (in one go so some things might not have stuck in my head). Have any of you tried Pyromancer's Goggles and Chandra's Ignition? Seems like good includes or are they too heavy on the mana to set them up?
Also I don't see Isochron Scepter in any of your lists, that card looks like it does everything we want.
Pyromancer's Goggles is very expensive for 5 mana. This is an issue because the nature of the deck requires casting a ton of spells in one turn. If we are trying to cast a bunch of spells in one turn, Goggles will really only get one activation. For 5 mana, that isn't really worth it. Isochron Scepter has similar issues- the fact that 90% of the time if we are targeting Zada we are winning the game on the spot doesn't leave much time to "get value" out of Goggles or Scepter, which means they would almost certainly be better served as different cards.
That being said, if you are playing a less combo-oriented version of Zada, then these would fit perfectly, because then they would actually have time to get value.
In regards to Otherworldly Outburst, Make Mischief, and Spawning Breath, I have found that the deck can be sped up immensely by the inclusion of cheap draw spells to allow you to hit your more powerful cards, rather then the listed powerful but situational cards. I have been much better served running Magmatic Insight and Faithless Looting rather than have cards that rely on other cards (namely toughness boosters and bad goblin lords in a deck with a medium to little amount of goblins). If this becomes a primer, then people are going to expect the optimal version of Zada, not the most fun. It is my fervent belief that eschewing the above cards will increase the power level of the deck. While they are fun, and can be very good, the overall power level and consistency of the deck goes up without them.
EDIT:
The issue with Chandra's Ignition is that you target Zada and have one of your Chandra's Ingition's resolve, which happens to murder all your derpy tokens, which makes all the rest of the copies of Chandra's Ignition fizzle.
Thanks for the reply, didn't realize Chandra's Ignition targets all other creatures and only opponents as in players. Thought it was opponent's creatures and players, ah well RTFC next time
Concerning the discussion about the cards listed and the 'optimal' version of the deck I think we should not dismiss some form of the deck over the other, especially not in EDH.. For me, I'm sure that the deck with the Otherworldly Outburst + Zap / Spawning Breath / Make Mischief / Flare combo to draw a lot of cards from tokens generated will be much better received in my playgroup. They don't like combo decks so much and counterspell heavy decks are not seen very often. I know the combo deck that blows up in the owner's face every now and then will be much more appreciated than a heavy streamlined version that reliably wins every single game. It's a casual format to us and I believe it should stay that way.
Sorry for the double post but just to keep the discussion separate, here is my first build of the deck. Since all the cards I either already own or are acquired very cheaply I think I'll just build it and change cards along the way. I focussed a bit more on the combo with Otherworldly Outburst to draw a ton of cards and not on cards like Aleatory.
Based on the poll it looks like this thread will be modified become more of a primer resource. I'll leave the polls open until Friday to give a full week of voting opportunity.
I lack familiarity with the options lyonhaert proposed means that I will be follow whichever is chosen for our use. I'll PM you my email today.
As to what gets covered, I think it would be worthwhile to break the deck down to its constituent parts for discussion. We could cover groups of cards to include for arcane and the pros/cons/strategy of that package. We could then do the same for toughness packages, token sources, pump spells, rituals, and continue until we've covered every angle. As we work through these options, we included everyones decklists and discuss how each package was implemended differently, with varying synergys.
That's my vote at least, though I suppose we could put the intended structure and composition to a vote over the next week. I'll try to be more active on here on weekends.
I read through the thread (in one go so some things might not have stuck in my head). Have any of you tried Pyromancer's Goggles and Chandra's Ignition? Seems like good includes or are they too heavy on the mana to set them up?
Also I don't see Isochron Scepter in any of your lists, that card looks like it does everything we want.
Another issue with the Goggles is that if you target Zada with the copy of the spell, she won't copy it to your other creatures.
Based on the poll it looks like this thread will be modified become more of a primer resource. I'll leave the polls open until Friday to give a full week of voting opportunity.
I lack familiarity with the options lyonhaert proposed means that I will be follow whichever is chosen for our use. I'll PM you my email today.
As to what gets covered, I think it would be worthwhile to break the deck down to its constituent parts for discussion. We could cover groups of cards to include for arcane and the pros/cons/strategy of that package. We could then do the same for toughness packages, token sources, pump spells, rituals, and continue until we've covered every angle. As we work through these options, we included everyones decklists and discuss how each package was implemended differently, with varying synergys.
That's my vote at least, though I suppose we could put the intended structure and composition to a vote over the next week. I'll try to be more active on here on weekends.
Sounds good to me. I'll be including some brief how-to for the basics of using what I'm setting up.
As for the packages, that's the approach I also favor for the card-by-card breakdowns. I really like the Card Options section of this primer where he lists a lot of relevant possibilities by has his choices for his build in bold.
We also don't have to have it 100% final version before posting it. We could decide what sections and content we want for the first version and when it's done paste. Then decide what's in the next update. Any writing can be done at pretty much any time in parallel, even for stuff meant for a later version, because all writing would be done on its own branch. Does this make sense?
Collective Defiance Escalated Once + Zada = DRAW a new hand for each creature you control if you ever want to have all the cards and no creatures left.
Collective Defiance Escalated Once + Zada = DRAW a new hand for each creature you control if you ever want to have all the cards and no creatures left.
Nope. Read Zada. She must be the only target of the spell.
With as many creatures as we make, we could very well deck ourselves that way, too. Plus we'd have to keep discarding and would only be able to cast instants/flash from each hand before pitching the rest. So if you had 5 cards in hand after casting that, you'd only ever have 5 cards in hand at a time. We rather want to draw all the cards and keep them at the same time to do crazy stuff.
In regards to Otherworldly Outburst, Make Mischief, and Spawning Breath, I have found that the deck can be sped up immensely by the inclusion of cheap draw spells to allow you to hit your more powerful cards, rather then the listed powerful but situational cards. I have been much better served running Magmatic Insight and Faithless Looting rather than have cards that rely on other cards (namely toughness boosters and bad goblin lords in a deck with a medium to little amount of goblins). If this becomes a primer, then people are going to expect the optimal version of Zada, not the most fun. It is my fervent belief that eschewing the above cards will increase the power level of the deck. While they are fun, and can be very good, the overall power level and consistency of the deck goes up without them.
The spells that specifically boost toughness are just cards that already warrant play for power-boosting and other effects, that incidentally boost toughness as well. I actually agree on the goblin lords, their inclusion in my deck was a relic from a more goblin-focused era and I've now cut them (and Eldrazi Monument) to make room for Otherworldly Outburst, Make Mischief, Hanweir Garrison, and Shreds of Sanity. Outburst is also great as wrath insurance, since it's pretty difficult to win if you spend three or four turns building your board and then a savvy opponent casts a boardwipe, forcing you to rebuild from a hand that likely has much less to work with now.
The thing is that for the deck to function at all, whether you're playing Zap/Flare/etc. or not, you have cards that rely on other cards. Crimson Wisps is probably the best individual card in the deck, and it's still useless if you don't have Zada and a decent board. It's just the nature of the beast.
Also, I don't think anyone expects the optimal build for any commander from MTGS Primers. Hunding Gjornersen's Zedruu Primer is probably not the optimal Zedruu build, but it's fun and unique and the thread serves its purpose as a Primer for people trying to build and play similar decks. The optimal version of Zada likely does not run any Splice nonsense, but I can't imagine it won't be in this thread anywhere for similar reasons.
I don't think of primers as the definitive version of a deck, the most optimized build for that commander that exists. I think of them as a single refined approach to the commander among many.
The problem I think we run into without the Arcane package is we then have to rely on a narrower set of instant-speed win conditions:
That could be enough, but the Arcane package is what allows Mogg Fanatic, Siege-Gang Commander, and Pia and Kiran Nalaar to take out a player at instant speed if combat receives an obstacle we can't answer or something is on the stack we don't want to let resolve. My thinking is that the more familiar opponents become with the deck, the more likely that are to pack a Fog, Deflecting Palm, or try to counter/remove Zada. crazy monkey doesn't run into this because his group doesn't see Zada very often. But when I was playing this a bit more often when I first built it these obstacles made me want to make the deck more resilient at the cost of some orders of magnitude in the amount of damage it could produce. So while a build that optimizes for combat might not run Arcane spells, I feel like they add flexibility while ridiculously abusing Zada's trigger.
On an unrelated note, a red version of Wild Defiance would be ridiculous.
Fog effects and pillowforts are definitely a hindrance with Zada. Which is why I run Purphoros, God of the Forge. This card has single-handedly won me so many games. Zada doesn't merely pump, it also allows for some serious card advantage - to a degree of making blue decks envious. This allows one to have a hand full of answers. So unless an opponent can counter 20 spells per turn, you're golden. When the game is stalled I'm still drawing cards like a mo'fo until I hit that Purphoros. Then it's GG - literally, cuz that god is lighting everyone up like the 4th of July.
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I missed the poll, but I'm excited about the prospect of a Zada primer. I have a mostly built budget Zada deck, but I haven't played it yet. Things I'd like to see included in the primer:
1) Options for the deck without the arcane package.
2) Mention of less combo-oriented approaches for those metas where combo is frowned upon.
3) A budget discussion similar to the one described by DementedKirby (quoted below). In EDH, I only play cards I acquired for 50 cents or less, so the lower the budget set, the better from my perspective.
I'd also like to approach the Budget Build from the standpoint of someone who has literally none of the cards and how they could possible build the deck all the way from people/friends/LGS donating commons and basic mountains (this is not an unusual practice).
I missed the poll, but I'm excited about the prospect of a Zada primer. I have a mostly built budget Zada deck, but I haven't played it yet. Things I'd like to see included in the primer:
1) Options for the deck without the arcane package.
2) Mention of less combo-oriented approaches for those metas where combo is frowned upon.
3) A budget discussion similar to the one described by DementedKirby (quoted below). In EDH, I only play cards I acquired for 50 cents or less, so the lower the budget set, the better from my perspective.
I'd also like to approach the Budget Build from the standpoint of someone who has literally none of the cards and how they could possible build the deck all the way from people/friends/LGS donating commons and basic mountains (this is not an unusual practice).
How do you define "combo", then?
Edit:
I have no problem mentioning non-Arcane stuff, because it basically comes down to running other choices from the card options for cantrips, tokens, rituals, etc.
That slim of a budget sounds pretty corner-case, though. I'd rather present card options and identify some as budget and let readers decide. For recasting spells, if you're not running Mizzix's Mastery and Past in Flames, you're stuck with Recoup, and Shreds of Sanity. Possibility Storm sortof of gets you some multi-casting.
Actually, both of those come down to the card options section.
On the other hand, if you have advice for acquiring cards on the cheap that are otherwise not cheap, that might fit somewhere. For example, Krenko is about 5 dollars. How would you acquire that for 50 cents or less?
I concur with lyonhaert. I find it more viable to have an average cost per card to be approximately $0.50 than to have each card cost no more than $0.50. I don't think that's viable. As it is, my budget list is budget because the average cost per card is around $0.90 (when you don't consider the 34 Mountains as the total). That's still considerably budget.
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Re: Budget
It's not my intent that you limit every card to 50 cents or less--that's just what I do personally. Market values fluctuate, so it's hard to pin cards down to that price and not have to edit your list every other week. I'm simply saying that I'd greatly appreciate a budget discussion. Since this is already a budget deck in a lot of ways, using a tighter budget to help players just getting started obtain a reasonable deck for cheap (e.g., perhaps $50 or less not including basic land) is helpful. As you mentioned, giving alternatives to expensive cards is a great way to go. (Is Recoup even worth it on a budget?) Explaining which expensive cards are highly desirable vs. which ones are just nice, but not necessary, is also helpful. I'm sure I'll be happy with whatever the person contributing the budget section decides to do. I just wanted to state my support for a budget section as I think I would find it very helpful.
Re: Combo
Previous posters mentioned "mid-range" decks vs. "storm" decks. I guess I interpreted "storm" as all out combo and "mid-range" as being less so. I was curious about the "mid-range" builds (also, I suspected they would be easier on a budget). Perhaps my assumptions are way off on this though.
Re: Budget
It's not my intent that you limit every card to 50 cents or less--that's just what I do personally. Market values fluctuate, so it's hard to pin cards down to that price and not have to edit your list every other week. I'm simply saying that I'd greatly appreciate a budget discussion. Since this is already a budget deck in a lot of ways, using a tighter budget to help players just getting started obtain a reasonable deck for cheap (e.g., perhaps $50 or less not including basic land) is helpful. As you mentioned, giving alternatives to expensive cards is a great way to go. (Is Recoup even worth it on a budget?) Explaining which expensive cards are highly desirable vs. which ones are just nice, but not necessary, is also helpful. I'm sure I'll be happy with whatever the person contributing the budget section decides to do. I just wanted to state my support for a budget section as I think I would find it very helpful.
I'm pretty sure we will frame card options that way, considering past discussion. Budget options are usually brought up (sometimes in the primer content, sometimes not) but I prefer to address anything that keeps coming up in the primer content eventually. Regarding Recoup, it's something that was a decent option before Mizzix's Mastery was printed.
Re: Combo
Previous posters mentioned "mid-range" decks vs. "storm" decks. I guess I interpreted "storm" as all out combo and "mid-range" as being less so. I was curious about the "mid-range" builds (also, I suspected they would be easier on a budget). Perhaps my assumptions are way off on this though.
I think the mid-range decks also storm, but try to have a resilient presence a little farther into the game rather than trying to min-max how early they can go off. It can be a bit of a stretch of the term mid-range perhaps. I could be wrong, so I'll defer to someone who pilots such a build.
As far as the terminology, it's hard to get away from combo entirely because of Zada herself. Even pointing a cantrip at her is a ridiculous amount of synergy that it's pretty much a combo. Pretty much anything we point at her is a combo. And normally we don't have any infinite combos in here. There's two I know that I've considered, but I'd rather focus on other aspects.
Again, I concur with lyonhaert. Zada, by essence, is a combo general. The whole point is to target it with cantrips and boons to send your army to the red zone. This is done by "comboing off". However, what is considered comboing off in Magic is a whole other can of worms. I've been that path before and the debate is not pretty. Let's just suffice it to say that, by default, Zada is a very synergistic commander.
As for Zada having a midrange build, the deck is too explosive for it to be considered midrange. It's not a turn4 or turn3 win like most extremely cutthroat decks out there, but I wouldn't classify Zada as a midrange general, either. Zada isn't usually building it's end game during a bunch of turns like midrange decks do; the end game could be built explosively and out of nowhere during the same turn - facilitated precisely by Zada's ability.
For the Budget Section, don't worry; I'm all over that. I was able to personally build my deck for pennies on the dollar and I'm sure that following my advice most other players interested in keeping budget will also. In real life I have 12 EDH decks and I live completely on my own with a teacher's salary. So yeah, I've made miracles with budget. I will also suggest which cards to add if one were to have a little more budget.
Luckily, since Zada matches usually end rather quickly, so everyone who's been testing has gotten quite a lot of data since building their decks. So I have no doubts that with the collaborative effort that's going on this will be one hell of a primer.
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Lol, the recent block didn't really have anything for Zada besides some token production - but not in an epic way of automatically including them. For example I only added Otherworldly Outburst and Make Mischief. However, with the new fabricate ability, I'm really hoping there are some cheap monoR and/or colorless creatures with fabricate in the Kaladesh block. I really want more creatures that give me more creatures when they enter the battlefield. Hopefully as more cards get spoiled, there will be more discussions in the thread.
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Yes, I do, in fact! I've just been working on my part of the Primer so I haven't posted anything besides my opinions or findings on any cards. Here're some decklists that I'm running right now. I'll quickly just post the decklist and eventually I'll put up a function list.
My YouTube Channel: The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
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I haven't seen any other decks abusing Splice onto Arcane.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
Also I don't see Isochron Scepter in any of your lists, that card looks like it does everything we want.
Pyromancer's Goggles is very expensive for 5 mana. This is an issue because the nature of the deck requires casting a ton of spells in one turn. If we are trying to cast a bunch of spells in one turn, Goggles will really only get one activation. For 5 mana, that isn't really worth it. Isochron Scepter has similar issues- the fact that 90% of the time if we are targeting Zada we are winning the game on the spot doesn't leave much time to "get value" out of Goggles or Scepter, which means they would almost certainly be better served as different cards.
That being said, if you are playing a less combo-oriented version of Zada, then these would fit perfectly, because then they would actually have time to get value.
In regards to Otherworldly Outburst, Make Mischief, and Spawning Breath, I have found that the deck can be sped up immensely by the inclusion of cheap draw spells to allow you to hit your more powerful cards, rather then the listed powerful but situational cards. I have been much better served running Magmatic Insight and Faithless Looting rather than have cards that rely on other cards (namely toughness boosters and bad goblin lords in a deck with a medium to little amount of goblins). If this becomes a primer, then people are going to expect the optimal version of Zada, not the most fun. It is my fervent belief that eschewing the above cards will increase the power level of the deck. While they are fun, and can be very good, the overall power level and consistency of the deck goes up without them.
EDIT:
The issue with Chandra's Ignition is that you target Zada and have one of your Chandra's Ingition's resolve, which happens to murder all your derpy tokens, which makes all the rest of the copies of Chandra's Ignition fizzle.
Here's the link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/autocardanywhere/eobkhgkgoejnjaiofdmphhkemmomfabg?hl=en
Concerning the discussion about the cards listed and the 'optimal' version of the deck I think we should not dismiss some form of the deck over the other, especially not in EDH.. For me, I'm sure that the deck with the Otherworldly Outburst + Zap / Spawning Breath / Make Mischief / Flare combo to draw a lot of cards from tokens generated will be much better received in my playgroup. They don't like combo decks so much and counterspell heavy decks are not seen very often. I know the combo deck that blows up in the owner's face every now and then will be much more appreciated than a heavy streamlined version that reliably wins every single game. It's a casual format to us and I believe it should stay that way.
Opinions and tips are most welcome:
1x Zada, Hedron Grinder
Instant (27)
1x Accelerate
1x Battle Hymn
1x Blazing Shoal
1x Boiling Blood
1x Brightstone Ritual
1x Brute Force
1x Chaos Warp
1x Crimson Wisps
1x Desperate Ritual
1x Downhill Charge
1x Expedite
1x Fatal Frenzy
1x Flare
1x Into the Fray
1x Otherworldly Outburst
1x Overblaze
1x Panic
1x Path of Anger's Flame
1x Rouse the Mob
1x Rush of Adrenaline
1x Spawning Breath
1x Strange Inversion
1x Stun
1x Temur Battle Rage
1x Titan's Strength
1x Unnatural Speed
1x Zap
1x Dragon Fodder
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Fiery Gambit
1x Haze of Rage
1x Heat Shimmer
1x Hordeling Outburst
1x Inner Fire
1x Krenko's Command
1x Make Mischief
1x Mana Geyser
1x Mizzix's Mastery
1x Mogg Alarm
1x Molten Birth
1x Past in Flames
1x Portent of Betrayal
1x Reckless Charge
1x Tempt with Vengeance
1x Twinflame
Artifact (4)
1x Helm of Awakening
1x Ruby Medallion
1x Scroll Rack
1x Sol Ring
Enchantment (2)
1x Goblinslide
1x Impact Tremors
1x Beetleback Chief
1x Emrakul's Hatcher
1x Goblin Dark-Dwellers
1x Krenko, Mob Boss
1x Legion Loyalist
1x Mogg War Marshal
1x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1x Priest of Urabrask
1x Siege-Gang Commander
1x Skirk Prospector
1x Spikeshot Elder
1x Treasonous Ogre
1x Young Pyromancer
Land (35)
1x Dwarven Ruins
32x Mountain
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Sandstone Needle
I lack familiarity with the options lyonhaert proposed means that I will be follow whichever is chosen for our use. I'll PM you my email today.
As to what gets covered, I think it would be worthwhile to break the deck down to its constituent parts for discussion. We could cover groups of cards to include for arcane and the pros/cons/strategy of that package. We could then do the same for toughness packages, token sources, pump spells, rituals, and continue until we've covered every angle. As we work through these options, we included everyones decklists and discuss how each package was implemended differently, with varying synergys.
That's my vote at least, though I suppose we could put the intended structure and composition to a vote over the next week. I'll try to be more active on here on weekends.
Kemba | Linvala | Talrand | Geth | Krenko | Zada | Patron of the Orochi | Medomai | Athreos | Gisela | Trostani | Nin | Silumgar | Kaervek | Jarad | Xenagos | Sydri | Narset | Roon | Zurgo | Ghave | Marath | Uril | Tasigur | Animar | Riku | Riku | Sek'Kuar | Cromat
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
As for the packages, that's the approach I also favor for the card-by-card breakdowns. I really like the Card Options section of this primer where he lists a lot of relevant possibilities by has his choices for his build in bold.
We also don't have to have it 100% final version before posting it. We could decide what sections and content we want for the first version and when it's done paste. Then decide what's in the next update. Any writing can be done at pretty much any time in parallel, even for stuff meant for a later version, because all writing would be done on its own branch. Does this make sense?
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
The spells that specifically boost toughness are just cards that already warrant play for power-boosting and other effects, that incidentally boost toughness as well. I actually agree on the goblin lords, their inclusion in my deck was a relic from a more goblin-focused era and I've now cut them (and Eldrazi Monument) to make room for Otherworldly Outburst, Make Mischief, Hanweir Garrison, and Shreds of Sanity. Outburst is also great as wrath insurance, since it's pretty difficult to win if you spend three or four turns building your board and then a savvy opponent casts a boardwipe, forcing you to rebuild from a hand that likely has much less to work with now.
The thing is that for the deck to function at all, whether you're playing Zap/Flare/etc. or not, you have cards that rely on other cards. Crimson Wisps is probably the best individual card in the deck, and it's still useless if you don't have Zada and a decent board. It's just the nature of the beast.
Also, I don't think anyone expects the optimal build for any commander from MTGS Primers. Hunding Gjornersen's Zedruu Primer is probably not the optimal Zedruu build, but it's fun and unique and the thread serves its purpose as a Primer for people trying to build and play similar decks. The optimal version of Zada likely does not run any Splice nonsense, but I can't imagine it won't be in this thread anywhere for similar reasons.
| Omnath | Zada | Alesha | Scion |
| Mazirek | Animar |
Modern
UR Storm RU
UBRG Dredge GRBU
Standard
UR Thermo-Thing RU
The problem I think we run into without the Arcane package is we then have to rely on a narrower set of instant-speed win conditions:
On an unrelated note, a red version of Wild Defiance would be ridiculous.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
1) Options for the deck without the arcane package.
2) Mention of less combo-oriented approaches for those metas where combo is frowned upon.
3) A budget discussion similar to the one described by DementedKirby (quoted below). In EDH, I only play cards I acquired for 50 cents or less, so the lower the budget set, the better from my perspective.
Budget Modern: GStompyG | R8-WhackR
Edit:
I have no problem mentioning non-Arcane stuff, because it basically comes down to running other choices from the card options for cantrips, tokens, rituals, etc.
That slim of a budget sounds pretty corner-case, though. I'd rather present card options and identify some as budget and let readers decide. For recasting spells, if you're not running Mizzix's Mastery and Past in Flames, you're stuck with Recoup, and Shreds of Sanity. Possibility Storm sortof of gets you some multi-casting.
Actually, both of those come down to the card options section.
On the other hand, if you have advice for acquiring cards on the cheap that are otherwise not cheap, that might fit somewhere. For example, Krenko is about 5 dollars. How would you acquire that for 50 cents or less?
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
It's not my intent that you limit every card to 50 cents or less--that's just what I do personally. Market values fluctuate, so it's hard to pin cards down to that price and not have to edit your list every other week. I'm simply saying that I'd greatly appreciate a budget discussion. Since this is already a budget deck in a lot of ways, using a tighter budget to help players just getting started obtain a reasonable deck for cheap (e.g., perhaps $50 or less not including basic land) is helpful. As you mentioned, giving alternatives to expensive cards is a great way to go. (Is Recoup even worth it on a budget?) Explaining which expensive cards are highly desirable vs. which ones are just nice, but not necessary, is also helpful. I'm sure I'll be happy with whatever the person contributing the budget section decides to do. I just wanted to state my support for a budget section as I think I would find it very helpful.
Re: Combo
Previous posters mentioned "mid-range" decks vs. "storm" decks. I guess I interpreted "storm" as all out combo and "mid-range" as being less so. I was curious about the "mid-range" builds (also, I suspected they would be easier on a budget). Perhaps my assumptions are way off on this though.
Budget Modern: GStompyG | R8-WhackR
I think the mid-range decks also storm, but try to have a resilient presence a little farther into the game rather than trying to min-max how early they can go off. It can be a bit of a stretch of the term mid-range perhaps. I could be wrong, so I'll defer to someone who pilots such a build.
As far as the terminology, it's hard to get away from combo entirely because of Zada herself. Even pointing a cantrip at her is a ridiculous amount of synergy that it's pretty much a combo. Pretty much anything we point at her is a combo. And normally we don't have any infinite combos in here. There's two I know that I've considered, but I'd rather focus on other aspects.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
As for Zada having a midrange build, the deck is too explosive for it to be considered midrange. It's not a turn4 or turn3 win like most extremely cutthroat decks out there, but I wouldn't classify Zada as a midrange general, either. Zada isn't usually building it's end game during a bunch of turns like midrange decks do; the end game could be built explosively and out of nowhere during the same turn - facilitated precisely by Zada's ability.
For the Budget Section, don't worry; I'm all over that. I was able to personally build my deck for pennies on the dollar and I'm sure that following my advice most other players interested in keeping budget will also. In real life I have 12 EDH decks and I live completely on my own with a teacher's salary. So yeah, I've made miracles with budget. I will also suggest which cards to add if one were to have a little more budget.
Luckily, since Zada matches usually end rather quickly, so everyone who's been testing has gotten quite a lot of data since building their decks. So I have no doubts that with the collaborative effort that's going on this will be one hell of a primer.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
Budget Modern: GStompyG | R8-WhackR
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
4 Zada, Hedron Grinder
Artifacts: 3
2 Helm of Awakening
2 Ruby Medallion
0 Spellbook
Creatures: 16
4 Beetleback Chief
7 Chancellor of the Forge
5 Emrakul's Hatcher
3 Ghirapur Gearcrafter
3 Goblin Matron
2 Goblin Recruiter
4 Krenko, Mob Boss
2 Mogg War Marshal
7 Myr Battlesphere
4 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
5 Precursor Golem
5 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Skirk Prospector
3 Thopter Engineer
4 Treasonous Ogre
2 Young Pyromancer
Lands: 36
0 Mountain (x36)
2 Distemper the Blood
2 Dragon Fodder
4 Empty the Warrens
3 Fiery Gambit
2 Haze of Rage
3 Heat Shimmer
3 Hordeling Outburst
4 Inner Fire
2 Krenko's Command
3 Make Mischief
5 Mana Geyser
4 Mizzix's Mastery
3 Mogg Alarm
3 Molten Birth
1 Reckless Charge
1 Tempt with Vengeance
2 Twinflame
Instant: 27
2 Accelerate
2 Aleatory
2 Battle Hymn
2 Blazing Shoal
3 Boiling Blood
1 Brightstone Ritual
1 Brute Force
2 Brute Strength
2 Chaotic Strike
1 Crimson Wisps
2 Desperate Ritual
3 Downhill Charge
1 Expedite
3 Fatal Frenzy
3 Flare
1 Into the Fray
1 Otherworldly Outburst
4 Overblaze
1 Panic
3 Path of Anger's Flame
1 Rouse the Mob
2 Spawning Breath
2 Stun
2 Temur Battle Rage
1 Titan's Strength
1 Unnatural Speed
3 Zap
4 Zada, Hedron Grinder
Artifacts: 6
3 Cloudstone Curio
2 Helm of Awakening
2 Ruby Medallion
1 Sol Ring
0 Spellbook
2 Thought Vessel
Creatures: 16
4 Beetleback Chief
7 Chancellor of the Forge
5 Emrakul's Hatcher
3 Goblin Matron
2 Goblin Recruiter
4 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Legion Loyalist
2 Mogg War Marshal
7 Myr Battlesphere
4 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
5 Precursor Golem
4 Purphoros, God of the Forge
5 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Skirk Prospector
4 Treasonous Ogre
2 Young Pyromancer
2 Accelerate
2 Battle Hymn
2 Blazing Shoal
3 Boiling Blood
1 Brightstone Ritual
1 Brute Force
2 Brute Strength
3 Chaos Warp
1 Crimson Wisps
2 Desperate Ritual
3 Downhill Charge
1 Expedite
3 Fatal Frenzy
3 Flare
1 Into the Fray
1 Otherworldly Outburst
4 Overblaze
1 Panic
3 Path of Anger's Flame
1 Rouse the Mob
2 Spawning Breath
2 Stun
2 Temur Battle Rage
1 Titan's Strength
1 Unnatural Speed
3 Zap
1 Assault Strobe
2 Distemper the Blood
2 Dragon Fodder
4 Empty the Warrens
3 Fiery Gambit
3 Heat Shimmer
3 Hordeling Outburst
4 Inner Fire
2 Krenko's Command
3 Make Mischief
5 Mana Geyser
4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Past in Flames
1 Reckless Charge
2 Twinflame
Lands: 36
0 Mountain (x34)
0 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
0 Reliquary Tower
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!