One of these days I'll snap and get one. That day is not today though.
Bloodchief Ascension is the sort of card that turns heads towards you instantly and makes people very unhappy, at least in the Phenax, God of Deception deck that occasionally shows up in my meta. We're not super good at turning it on, and I'm not sure we're that good at getting stuff in graveyards later either. So essentially likely to get all the hate with none of the payoff. I need to sit down one day and just playtest Waste Not, possibly along with a soft shift towards a more discard-centric build. However, I am quite happy with the weird silver bullet toolbox I'm running, and there's only so much space in the 99... Scroll Rack makes perfect sense, everything else is a hard pass, not only because of price. Mass discard does not enable Nether Void in any way, if anything it makes it more likely they'll have the mana to spare to pay it.
Can't argue with your assessments. I think I'll try to see if have space to try Bloodchief Ascension in my vamp deck as its thematic and aggro anyway. It is unfortunate some very powerful unique/cards end up getting shafted due to politics. I'll try Waste Not and Scroll Rack for now. Figured I'd mention the legends enchantments as they are some of the most powerful effects printed.
Scroll Rack is a card where ideally you want a decently sized hand to make it work. If your average hand size is <3 then it becomes poor.
When looking for library manipulation options for Xenagod I ran it for a time, and then took it out for Mirri's Guile as the latter served my needs far more effectively.
Hm. Given the fact one of the deck's things is trying to get everyone hellbent, that's a pretty valid observation. I'll still have to do some testing at some point. I burnt out my usual playtest partner when setting up my fish deck for the time being, but you just made me considerably more sceptical towards it working.
DOM is a set of ample cool throwback designs, countless super linear legends (not like I get to talk, given the fact Daxos literally says "play enchantments kthx"...) and miscellaneous tech that is going to make many an EDH deck happy. Daxos doesn't get any cool new toys though. This is most unfortunate, especially as one of the "things" of the set are kooky enchantments. Phyrexian Scriptures is a telegraphed wipe, and I've been looping time and time again how removal has to come function first, form second or abandoned altogether. The Eldest Reborn is a reasonable burst of value over three turns, but feels too expensive at five mana. You know what else is five mana? Skybind. Sphere of Safety. Doomwake Giant. This doesn't even hold a candle to these bad boys. Crappy Coffers isn't bad, but I don't feel comfortable carving out a slot for it. In purely cosmetic realms, I might swap my basics to the Serra/Urborg-looking ones though, for cute visual synergy with the power lifter lands. The best thing to happen for the list is the reprinting of Gilded Lotus - now those of you who weren't lucky enough to purchase yours at two euro a pop way back when should hopefully have easier access to it. WOTC has been on fire with rock reprints recently.
There's some stuff cooking in the 99 nevertheless.
It might be the case of playing with/against other decks, but I've come to appreciate the versatility of the Intervention. Nevermore would either dumpster someone's game, if I was being malicious, or just rot in hand or on a suboptimal target. This offers the same asshat potential if needed, but can act as a soft shield against various debris in a more benign application (which I've found myself gravitating towards quite often). As a practical example, my ever-vigilant (and still burned out) playtest partner cooked up a Pestilence tribal list with various self-damaging payoff a while back. Intervention can put up a bubble around my board to avoid harm from his engines without completely destroying his game plan, if desired. Alternately, it can reactively put up a shield against a ludicrous beatstick if Righteous Aura is nowhere to be seen. Having a Nevermore effect is good in the 99 if it needs to be used in full, but it's also very nice to have this shielding alternative if the game does not call for the main mode and you happened to draw it. True, it's marginally more expensive than Nevermore to get out, which could come back to bite you in games against powerful foes, but that's no place for Daxos to be anyway.
More potential changes are bubbling under the surface, but nothing has fully materialised at this point. I could use a touch more discard. I could swap in Slaughter the Strong. Cathars' Crusade could be a beating, but I'm still conceptually frightened of the logistics. Azor's Gateway is perennially hovering around the chopping block, especially after I realised I could essentially ram Underworld Connections in its place to help with the recent enchantment deficit and get marginally preferable bang for the buck when not playing the flip mini game, and that was a card that went bye-bye from the list ages ago and wasn't missed. When something good shows up, or I make up my mind on what to put in, the slot is waiting. I was THIS close to snapping and getting Chains of Mephistopheles, but then I did a bit of reading into rules minutiae. Turns out replacement effects are not like triggers and it's the affected player that gets to pick. As such, Chains would not stack with Uba Mask for maximum filth. This mild inconvenience snapped me out of it, probably for good.
The brawl special of Game Knights captures my common Azor's Gateway experience all too well. You start off pure, you're just gonna use it for filtering, you go about your day. But then the CMCs stack, you get four under there, you have the missing fifth in your hand, you start getting corrupted by the power, and then it gets removed. The feelbad is in a class of its own, and if you got greedy in the ships in spite of starting out pure then you often look at the exile pile and feel like a dumbass. Outside of flip land, the Underworld Connections musings still largely hold true, and no fitting low end option got found to put in instead. Time to bump my curve up some more, slowly encroaching on uncomfortable territory in need of a thinning! Cue Cathars' Crusade. Logistics aside, this card is a ridiculous power bomb, even in this particular shell. It's a bit like Anointed Procession in that your spirits get more impact per unit expenditure and it grants you play flexibility. Use it offensively to cook up a fat stack of power - it wasn't uncommon for me to get 10+ power bodies in spite of no more than three experience counters. Use it defensively to get around Daxos trouble - sculpt your board and play speed bumps/hate pieces aggressively, missing out on experience counters, as once the game simmers down the board will grow without problems. Plus this way you get the hyper cute bit of Daxos independent interaction with Anointed Procession and Elspeth, Sun's Champion. Six 7/7s for a +1, seems dece. Add True Conviction for bonus rub-ins.
I was going to introduce Slaughter the Strong in over Elspeth, Sun's Champion, but given the Crusade it would be another one of those lovely mistimed cuts. In terms of other observations, I showed the list to Dominicus, who recommended the inclusion of the discard package way back when, and he didn't have that much to say. Cards he pointed out as the weaker slots are Reconnaissance and Righteous Aura, with some notable omissions being Painful Quandary and Quarantine Field. I don't feel comfortable doing that set of swaps as my curve already feels on the verge of being in a bad place (I think the influx of big mana lands may be holding it together). On the whole though, he seemed to think that this was about as good as you could make a Daxos deck, which was great to hear - my EDH mission statement is pretty much "pick a jank city commander, build as well as possible around them". Also, the influx of beefy high CMC utility beefslabs and whatnot else into the list over the course of the past year or so, now coupled with slight Crusade shenanigans, helps the deck not just wave its legs in the air aimlessly without Daxos around, yet still contributes positively if he gets to stick. Useful!
What do you think about Night's Whisper? Not exciting for sure, but it has low cmc and helps you smooth your early draws, similar to blue cantrips. Cathar's Crusade is fun for sure, but as you mentioned the curve increase is worrying and it also gets Daxos into the range of your boardwipes.
What do you think about Night's Whisper? Not exciting for sure, but it has low cmc and helps you smooth your early draws, similar to blue cantrips. Cathar's Crusade is fun for sure, but as you mentioned the curve increase is worrying and it also gets Daxos into the range of your boardwipes.
Eh, into range of some, out of range of others. And the Deluge/Extinguish alpha wipes become more game ending, so there's that. I used to run Night's Whisper style stuff for quite a while, but they got thinned out over time. At least one of them served as a jumping-off point to reintroduce Necropotence into the list after stabilising my mana base a bit. They're not bad at all, those cheap draw cards, mind you.
Battlebond is a sweet set, and black has a thing going where it fields a few extremely narrow, yet potent effects. Stunning Reversal and Thrilling Encore are the ones I specifically have in mind, but they strike me as too damn narrow (the former), or not quite as catch-all and guaranteed to deliver as Teferi's Protection (the latter). Similarly to DOM, the best thing to happen to the list in the set is the Land Tax reprint. No changes to the list at this time, as since offing Azor's Gateway the deck hasn't had anything poke out as in need of replacement.
However, a certain element of BBD annoys me quite a bit - the lands. The allied pairing gets yet another perfectly serviceable cycle while enemy pairs are left in the dirt. This already happened with tango/bicycle lands, which would be fantastic to have, and this new one just rubs salt in the wound. Seriously? How far can this go? The last time we got a useable dual was with KLD, and fastlands are not exactly what most EDH wants. Urgh.
It has come to my attention that heavy buyouts of a ludicrous number of cards have been happening in 2018. I don't tend to check prices too religiously, so finding out that a number of cards I own are now single-handedly worth more than what I tossed at my Patron of the Orochi list in 2014 was quite a bitter sensation. This was not without ramifications for Daxos either - why is Serra's Sanctum $100? Replenish at $50? Outrageous stuff. In spite of the fact the primer list is over a thousand dollars, I actually feel Daxos is a reasonably cheap deck at its core, so I added a new section to the primer with some pretty basic budget thinning suggestions, just in case. TL;DR big mana lands are useful (but at the same time Serra's Sanctum is narrow as hell) and most anything else that costs above 15 dollars can go.
It has come to my attention that heavy buyouts of a ludicrous number of cards have been happening in 2018. I don't tend to check prices too religiously, so finding out that a number of cards I own are now single-handedly worth more than what I tossed at my Patron of the Orochi list in 2014 was quite a bitter sensation. This was not without ramifications for Daxos either - why is Serra's Sanctum $100? Replenish at $50? Outrageous stuff. In spite of the fact the primer list is over a thousand dollars, I actually feel Daxos is a reasonably cheap deck at its core, so I added a new section to the primer with some pretty basic budget thinning suggestions, just in case. TL;DR big mana lands are useful (but at the same time Serra's Sanctum is narrow as hell) and most anything else that costs above 15 dollars can go.
Hey Rumpy, so see you commented on the ongoing reserved list buyouts. If for some reason you haven't watched videos on Alpha Investments youtube channel I'd highly advise as he does give the best breakdown and financial angle overall. If you look at it as simply cardboard then even the existing prices on a lot of these cards were ridiculous. However, I think the main thing to understand is twofold: 1) In 20 years wizards has not gone back on reserved list promise and is unlikely to do so going forward, 2) individuals who started playing magic when they were kids/teens are now adults and many of them have good jobs / savings and want to either regain or acquire cards that is reminiscent of their childhood at any price they can afford. There is a good chance that at some point there will be a correction and several prices will come back down as overall there is evidence of a bubble. It is unfortunate as acquiring more of these reserved cards now feels like a bad investment and is just extremely pricy.
That said I wouldn't say compared to others Serra Sanctum or replenish are overpriced. The one thing is they are not in an extremely limited set like legends or beta. However, even revised duals are exploding right now and while they are the best at what they do you could in EDH/legacy play shocklands instead and still be kind of close to same power level. These 2 cards are basically the only ones for what they do. Serra sanctum didn't even get a flip land like academy or cradle, which we both were hoping for. Replenish is also at a power level unlikely to be reprinted (see Open the Vaults). Cards spiking in urza/tempest block are actually good cards, unlike ones in legends/arabian knights which often can just be on reserved list and awful but sought after for rarity.
Overall will be interesting to see what WOTC and the EDH board decide to do. Wizards I don't think cares about legacy/vintage but EDH is becoming their most loved format and a cash cow. The original ruling board on EDH decided to ban cards like power 9 in EDH from start not really for power level (sol ring arguably better than a mox) but due to the cost and accessibility. As more and more cards start to go north of 100 or even 1000$ the pressure to either ban more cards or make a new format/list rises. We've seen brawl introduced but I can see a more modern style EDH being introduced at some point one perhaps more focused on casual style and leaving the existing for the competitive/legacy type.
I'm pretty sure that most of the reserved list spikes are not organic in the slightest. I somehow doubt that all of a sudden a cart full of nostalgia men managed to make Ritual of the Machine leapfrog Helm of Possession out of nowhere. You're right that WOTC has largely respected the reserved list, which is driving various individuals with more concern for their own financial welfare than the health of the game to profiteer. It may well end up like you predict - with a lot of cards banned from EDH. "Modern EDH" won't fly, as there's no sensible way to construct it given the precons and their contents. One way or the other, the market is still ugly, and the speculators' selfishness and shortsightedness is still as condemnable as ever.
As per the norm, there's another set in town. Liliana's Contract seems pretty decent actually - a Promise of Power-like that can do shenanigans with bounce and recursion. However, the list has already become quite top-heavy, and five CMC does this no favours. I guess it'll become like Oath of Liliana, a card I keep somewhere in the back of my mind but never really act on or find room for. If any of you run it (or the Oath), feel free to report back how it fares. Also, as usual, there's a pretty cool reprint in Crucible of Worlds. However, something's telling me that if you have the fetches and stuff already, you probably also own this bad boy. For those without Maximum Mana Base Pimp TM, I'm not sure Crucible + shock + 4 ally fetches is worth it. C'mon, WOTC, toss us some enemy fetchable duals!
Heh ritual of the machine I didn't even know it was reserved or spiked. That's a pretty mild spike into 5$ mark which I think pretty much all reserved list cards will hit at least. And you are right this isn't solely based on nostalgia, though the fact many old cards were creeping up over time was (along with decreased supply). Buyouts are partly due to some individuals with a lot of capital realizing that they can make a quick buck buying up cards that may be underpriced in the market. But I would say when buyouts start it likely does trigger players to try to buy up some of these cards (for nostalgia) before they become too expensive to obtain. And you are correct in implying that some buyouts seem to defy reason as the capitalist behind it may have limited or no knowledge of the game but knows how to read a page called "reserved list". I actually did acquire a number of the sub 5$ reserved list cards in older sets not to make money pre spike but as I was worried they could become too expensive later I would no longer want them. Channels on YT like Rudy's could have also played a role both talking MTG Finance but also showing off collections of old sets which got some to see $ and others to get nostalgic. What is true is many of these cards will never be as cheap as they were even with a correction. For those that cannot afford cards they could really need due to this its sad and a bit messed up. Btw "Modern" EDH I meant like no-reserved card EDH, not like 8th edition on EDH which would be dumb. If it wouldn't be so hard to police over time a budget commander official format could be interesting...but since prices would be impossible to do I suppose could be like pauper based on card rarity with ecxeption of the commander. As much as I like the libertarian philosophy behind EDH I still think long term there needs to be more official split of CEDH and more casual long term.
Finance aside...I'm actually looking to use Liliana's Contract in my Hapatra deck as turned out that I was already running 4 demons and not hard to add a few more. Obviously that flavor win not really doable in daxos without ruining the deck but Razaketh does count for 1 (and a contract signer in lore). If you're just using it for draw its probably not great esp. in WB that lacks the same kind of ramp green decks offer. I think in those it also is interesting replacement for Phyrexian Arena as it gives the value up front and a better topdeck if mana less of an issue. Still, overall its my favorite card in this set between the value, the art, the alt win con flavor
Btw fetchlands are in a bad place now. They seem to have largely backed away from master sets for the time being (maybe well see one this year or not) and trying to get reprints in core set and yearly sets like battlebond. Pretty sure Rosewater has literally said they do NOT want fetchlands in standard again. So idk when next time will see them...they also can't just add them easily to things like commander precons as then distributors will just hoard them and sell singles. Thankfully they didn't up them to mythic in masters 2017 so they can still be rares in a set. I too find it hard to rationalize prices on several enemy fetches compared to ally counterparts and only use them in my favorite decks. It may be a year or two before they print any more. On plus side ravnica almost guarantees shocks are getting a reprint which are my go to dual land in EDH and that should offer a good price drop (after an initial increase for standard decks before supply opened of course).
Depressing financial musings aside, another couple new sets hail down upon us and Daxos gets nothing. While I'd typically just shrug it off as poor fortune or be quite stoked about needed reprints making the deck more accessible, one of the commander decks was enchantment focused and I'm a bit miffed by there being literally nothing new in white that merits even the slightest amount of consideration. Why did they have to add that last bit of text to Coveted Jewel
The deck's in a pretty good place, but I do wonder sometimes if I shot the curve a bit too hard. Other times, I wonder whether I should replace Gideon's Intervention - I've become soft in my old age, and the Nevermore mode is very seldom used (and paying four mana for a faux-Runed Halo is a bit silly). I check my high CMC cards, look at the recursion creatures, ponder if those slots could go to something else, and remind myself that they help smooth performance in the grand scheme of things. Not much else seems trimmable above the commander's cost, and there aren't exactly miles and miles of cool utility stuff waiting to go on. There also isn't any non-rock ramp to slot in, or ways to fetch the big mana lands. Just overzealous nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking, I haven't had anything new to build in a while. Kumena doesn't count as the deck pretty much just built itself. In times like these, I remind myself of when I got a seal of approval from Dominicus for this thing. That's something.
A couple of days ago, while idly pondering about Gideon's Intervention, I realised that I'd be better off running Gossamer Chains, a utility crack stuffer I offed in 2016. Plus, I had a bunch of games recently where I clunked out hard and accomplished nothing. Okay, that's enough bloat, time to slim down the list a little.
The Intervention's secret strength that let it survive in the list was metagaming against a friend's Pestilence + enrage tribal list that could effortlessly consume most of my board states before I'd get to properly settle in. However, the list got abandoned for some reason, and the very softening that led me to swap away from Nevermore in the first place made the card rather suboptimal. I took the opportunity and ran a CMC comb through the higher echelons of the deck, nabbing two swaps. It should be noted both Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Emeria Shepherd perform well, the problem is that the list got a bit on the heavy side. Sunspeth nominally comes with some promise of Daxos independence, but it takes some serious Christmas Land shenanigans to have impact. The Shepherd recurs things really well, and sets up cute stuff with Depression Automaton, but also costs seven. Big Ole Raz is eight. On top of that, Lightning Greaves were in the list as a bit of a meta call. In peak focus times, I'd be forced to recast Daxos for 13 with 2 experience counters and nothing of note whatsoever having happened on my side of the board while the dudebro slinging Marchesa, the Black Rose robots would be drawing cards in everybody else's turns undisrupted. Since then, things have calmed down a bit in the blindly focusing into the dirt on principle department, perhaps in part thanks me to busting out fish as a reminder that Daxos is indeed quite bad.
The high CMC comb slightly ruffled some other stuff too, but it gets to stay. Sun Titan got new life breathed into him by the introduction of the fetches, putting on a crappy Prime Time impression that's enough to merit survival. Merciless Eviction is quite expensive, but it's not like there are versatile cheap options that this is keeping out of the list. Cathars' Crusade looks unglamorous in this shell, but it does ensure very good board presence on its own regardless of the luck of the draw and can help counteract Daxos disruption. Uba Mask is super powerful with the discard elements, and the scarcity of pieces of this nature mean that its slight over-costing and artifact nature can be lived with. It's a bit of a pity Cast Out is an Oblivion Ring variant, really, but ironically there isn't any better removal that I'm not running already. Depression Automaton is the god of unappealing, but the on-hit ramp and on-death cantrip are both quite welcome in the list and perform better than other underwhelming cards that used to grace the 99.
Since I'm complaining about the list becoming a bit of a clunker (this manifests itself in particular when no big mana lands or land drop acquisition engines come online), it makes sense to devote a slot towards mana generation. Unfortunately, I had to dip into the rock realm, as there's nothing good land-wise that I'm not already running - Burnished Hart is the best, and that's saying something. Thran Dynamo got unceremoniously booted when I got my hands on a Mana Crypt, but it never really did anything wrong. It single-handedly takes me into the zone of mana where I want to be to start mounting sensible plays together, and the occasional sequencing unwieldiness is far preferable to being stunted on an uncomfortable mana total. Going back up to five rocks is not ideal, but the re-introduction of the Dynamo coupled with the slight curve trim should hopefully stem the clunkiness bleeding at this point. Sunspeth becomes Slaughter the Strong in a swap that should have happened long ago, removing any Christmas Land cuteness from the equation and just offering a blunt board gutter at a negligible mana investment. The two remaining cards are me getting over some sort of weird mental block to avoid running multiple copies of similar effects - Blind Obedience and Attrition were both perfectly fine during their time in the list, and were taken out when marginal improvements were printed, and should be just what the doctor ordered to try to slim the list down a notch.
In terms of future direction, I keep wishing for more discard room, but there really aren't any options that demand immediate inclusion at this time. Painful Quandary is still underpowered in comparison to what it takes to hold on to a 5-drop slot here, and suffice it to say that Myojin of Night's Reach lost a spot to Big Ole Raz and I'm currently complaining about a bloated curve.
It is unfortunate that you need to keep the curve at a decent place, otherwise Overwhelming Splendor is a powerful way to shut down Marchesa robots decks.
I know because a Daxos deck dropped this on me yesterday. This was AFTER someone wiped + nuked my graveyard of Arcbound Ravager and other things. I bounced back and returned the favor with an All is Dust to wipe the two enchantment players who just hosed the two artifact players.
I also somehow dealt with an indestructible Rest in Peace and Nevermore on my commander that game.
It is unfortunate that you need to keep the curve at a decent place, otherwise Overwhelming Splendor is a powerful way to shut down Marchesa robots decks.
I know because a Daxos deck dropped this on me yesterday. This was AFTER someone wiped + nuked my graveyard of Arcbound Ravager and other things. I bounced back and returned the favor with an All is Dust to wipe the two enchantment players who just hosed the two artifact players.
I also somehow dealt with an indestructible Rest in Peace and Nevermore on my commander that game.
My meta's robot Marchesa is nowhere near the power level of yours, it was just an example of me being automatically rammed face first into the ground on sight while another guy set up a juicy little value engine and drew his way to victory. Overwhelming Splendor feels like such a weird include, I hate the card on principle though. Hey, let's take Humility, remove any sort of interesting build-around component and make it cost out the wazoo. Fantastic. Print it. Hyuck hyuck hyuck. The fact it's an eight drop makes me not feel like I'm missing out too much by not including it. Once again, for context, Big Ole Raz is eight. Skybind is five, True Conviction is six. All those feel better.
The draw was with you a bit in that case - I literally only see three answers in the deck (Meteor Golem, Chaos Warp, All is Dust). Still, that sounds like a painful game.
If you want to stay away from rocks, there is the Boreas Charger which can be card advantage while ramping. The issue is if someone has more lands than you do; it's also a dead draw late game in my experience. I'm currently contemplating it but it is also competing with Kor Cartographer for a Ramp slot. Considering how good your land base is, you probably don't want either.
If you want to stay away from rocks, there is the Boreas Charger which can be card advantage while ramping. The issue is if someone has more lands than you do; it's also a dead draw late game in my experience. I'm currently contemplating it but it is also competing with Kor Cartographer for a Ramp slot. Considering how good your land base is, you probably don't want either.
Thanks for further illustrating my point Kor Cartographer is probably the better of the two, as you need the Charger to go away to reap the benefits and also be land-short. If land-short ramp is the name of the game, Knight of the White Orchid would like a word for a more reliable option. I love how he's masquerading as a two drop, and a weary cardboard trawler may mistake him for a ramp option they can chase out before Daxos.
Anyway, in the games I've played since the slimming update, I didn't really feel the absence of the cards I cut while simultaneously avoiding clunking out. Anecdotal evidence! I'm still not super happy about being back to five rocks, but Thran Dynamo has single handedly offered enough mana to smooth out the game, just like predicted.
I've been getting stuck on finishing games, I am wondering if you know of some interesting wincons that will let me flat out win or make it pretty decisive. My musings have been Karma and Descent into Madness as a way to clear out the table. In Karma's case, I can prevent the hit or outrace it with life gain. With Descent, I feed Daxosmen to it while opponents lose permanents.
I don't know whether these would fit the definition of "interesting" (they probably don't, as you know your way around Daxos), but you pretty much lack every single element I'd call game-ending in my list apart from Skybind and Doomwake Giant: True Conviction, Cathars' Crusade, Thoughtrender Lamia and Razaketh, the Foulblooded. Asymmetric wipes (Toxic Deluge, Extinguish All Hope) shine here too. Another thing that helps in the game-ending department is consistency and big mana. You've got the same big-land setup I've got going, which is very nice. You could consider peppering in the swole rocks (Gilded Lotus in particular is very nice). On the other hand, consistency is aided by tutors, which you are probably not running by conscious choice. Once again, I am pretty darn sure you already know all this. I don't go out of my way to try to figure out kooky wincons as the list is crap enough as is and needs all the help it can get to close anything out.
On another note, how have you been finding Spirit Bonds? You seem quite keen on the card in the thread.
Since you have so many ways to shuffle, what's your opinion of Sensei's Divining Top? I feel like it's the card you wanted Azor's Gateway to be (minus the unlikely big mana of course). It's light-weight and should help with consistency immensely. I often find myself flooded with large cmc cards or not enough mana and the top should help with that.
Also, I'm very interested in how your latest changes worked out. I have been following your list for the most part but I have grown attached to Emeria Shepherd, she has been really awesome for me. I'm running Open the Vaults instead of Replenish due to budget concerns and I wonder if Open would be a better cut instead of the angel to trim the fat. Especially since artifacts and enchantments seem to be prevalent in my meta.
Oh, I was a greed monster and wanted Azor's Gateway for the flip Top could be interesting here, you bring up I run the fetches and a bit of library search. Thanks for the tip, I guess I need to see how it plays.
Hey, if you get value off Shepherd, all the more power to you. I just trimmed the list's curve as it was getting a bit too dependant on its big mana lands. The tweaks did what I wanted - shaved the high end a bit, replacing it with proven low cost options that were in the list previously. The deck runs smoother now, as expected. Blind Obedience is likely gonna get offed the next time the list gets a bone.
Yeah, Open the Vaults is the immediate budget Replenish, but I've never been a fan of the symmetry. Once again, if the Shepherd works for you, keep it
What ate your guys' thoughts on Divine Visitation? It seems good in the mid game but is it worth it in the late game when our dudes are like 10/10s? I mean the flying is nice, I often wish I had more ways to give my 10/10's more evasion
Bloodchief Ascension is the sort of card that turns heads towards you instantly and makes people very unhappy, at least in the Phenax, God of Deception deck that occasionally shows up in my meta. We're not super good at turning it on, and I'm not sure we're that good at getting stuff in graveyards later either. So essentially likely to get all the hate with none of the payoff. I need to sit down one day and just playtest Waste Not, possibly along with a soft shift towards a more discard-centric build. However, I am quite happy with the weird silver bullet toolbox I'm running, and there's only so much space in the 99... Scroll Rack makes perfect sense, everything else is a hard pass, not only because of price. Mass discard does not enable Nether Void in any way, if anything it makes it more likely they'll have the mana to spare to pay it.
When looking for library manipulation options for Xenagod I ran it for a time, and then took it out for Mirri's Guile as the latter served my needs far more effectively.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
There's some stuff cooking in the 99 nevertheless.
1 Nevermore
1 Gideon's Intervention
It might be the case of playing with/against other decks, but I've come to appreciate the versatility of the Intervention. Nevermore would either dumpster someone's game, if I was being malicious, or just rot in hand or on a suboptimal target. This offers the same asshat potential if needed, but can act as a soft shield against various debris in a more benign application (which I've found myself gravitating towards quite often). As a practical example, my ever-vigilant (and still burned out) playtest partner cooked up a Pestilence tribal list with various self-damaging payoff a while back. Intervention can put up a bubble around my board to avoid harm from his engines without completely destroying his game plan, if desired. Alternately, it can reactively put up a shield against a ludicrous beatstick if Righteous Aura is nowhere to be seen. Having a Nevermore effect is good in the 99 if it needs to be used in full, but it's also very nice to have this shielding alternative if the game does not call for the main mode and you happened to draw it. True, it's marginally more expensive than Nevermore to get out, which could come back to bite you in games against powerful foes, but that's no place for Daxos to be anyway.
More potential changes are bubbling under the surface, but nothing has fully materialised at this point. I could use a touch more discard. I could swap in Slaughter the Strong. Cathars' Crusade could be a beating, but I'm still conceptually frightened of the logistics. Azor's Gateway is perennially hovering around the chopping block, especially after I realised I could essentially ram Underworld Connections in its place to help with the recent enchantment deficit and get marginally preferable bang for the buck when not playing the flip mini game, and that was a card that went bye-bye from the list ages ago and wasn't missed. When something good shows up, or I make up my mind on what to put in, the slot is waiting. I was THIS close to snapping and getting Chains of Mephistopheles, but then I did a bit of reading into rules minutiae. Turns out replacement effects are not like triggers and it's the affected player that gets to pick. As such, Chains would not stack with Uba Mask for maximum filth. This mild inconvenience snapped me out of it, probably for good.
1 Azor's Gateway
1 Cathars' Crusade
The brawl special of Game Knights captures my common Azor's Gateway experience all too well. You start off pure, you're just gonna use it for filtering, you go about your day. But then the CMCs stack, you get four under there, you have the missing fifth in your hand, you start getting corrupted by the power, and then it gets removed. The feelbad is in a class of its own, and if you got greedy in the ships in spite of starting out pure then you often look at the exile pile and feel like a dumbass. Outside of flip land, the Underworld Connections musings still largely hold true, and no fitting low end option got found to put in instead. Time to bump my curve up some more, slowly encroaching on uncomfortable territory in need of a thinning! Cue Cathars' Crusade. Logistics aside, this card is a ridiculous power bomb, even in this particular shell. It's a bit like Anointed Procession in that your spirits get more impact per unit expenditure and it grants you play flexibility. Use it offensively to cook up a fat stack of power - it wasn't uncommon for me to get 10+ power bodies in spite of no more than three experience counters. Use it defensively to get around Daxos trouble - sculpt your board and play speed bumps/hate pieces aggressively, missing out on experience counters, as once the game simmers down the board will grow without problems. Plus this way you get the hyper cute bit of Daxos independent interaction with Anointed Procession and Elspeth, Sun's Champion. Six 7/7s for a +1, seems dece. Add True Conviction for bonus rub-ins.
I was going to introduce Slaughter the Strong in over Elspeth, Sun's Champion, but given the Crusade it would be another one of those lovely mistimed cuts. In terms of other observations, I showed the list to Dominicus, who recommended the inclusion of the discard package way back when, and he didn't have that much to say. Cards he pointed out as the weaker slots are Reconnaissance and Righteous Aura, with some notable omissions being Painful Quandary and Quarantine Field. I don't feel comfortable doing that set of swaps as my curve already feels on the verge of being in a bad place (I think the influx of big mana lands may be holding it together). On the whole though, he seemed to think that this was about as good as you could make a Daxos deck, which was great to hear - my EDH mission statement is pretty much "pick a jank city commander, build as well as possible around them". Also, the influx of beefy high CMC utility beefslabs and whatnot else into the list over the course of the past year or so, now coupled with slight Crusade shenanigans, helps the deck not just wave its legs in the air aimlessly without Daxos around, yet still contributes positively if he gets to stick. Useful!
Eh, into range of some, out of range of others. And the Deluge/Extinguish alpha wipes become more game ending, so there's that. I used to run Night's Whisper style stuff for quite a while, but they got thinned out over time. At least one of them served as a jumping-off point to reintroduce Necropotence into the list after stabilising my mana base a bit. They're not bad at all, those cheap draw cards, mind you.
However, a certain element of BBD annoys me quite a bit - the lands. The allied pairing gets yet another perfectly serviceable cycle while enemy pairs are left in the dirt. This already happened with tango/bicycle lands, which would be fantastic to have, and this new one just rubs salt in the wound. Seriously? How far can this go? The last time we got a useable dual was with KLD, and fastlands are not exactly what most EDH wants. Urgh.
Hey Rumpy, so see you commented on the ongoing reserved list buyouts. If for some reason you haven't watched videos on Alpha Investments youtube channel I'd highly advise as he does give the best breakdown and financial angle overall. If you look at it as simply cardboard then even the existing prices on a lot of these cards were ridiculous. However, I think the main thing to understand is twofold: 1) In 20 years wizards has not gone back on reserved list promise and is unlikely to do so going forward, 2) individuals who started playing magic when they were kids/teens are now adults and many of them have good jobs / savings and want to either regain or acquire cards that is reminiscent of their childhood at any price they can afford. There is a good chance that at some point there will be a correction and several prices will come back down as overall there is evidence of a bubble. It is unfortunate as acquiring more of these reserved cards now feels like a bad investment and is just extremely pricy.
That said I wouldn't say compared to others Serra Sanctum or replenish are overpriced. The one thing is they are not in an extremely limited set like legends or beta. However, even revised duals are exploding right now and while they are the best at what they do you could in EDH/legacy play shocklands instead and still be kind of close to same power level. These 2 cards are basically the only ones for what they do. Serra sanctum didn't even get a flip land like academy or cradle, which we both were hoping for. Replenish is also at a power level unlikely to be reprinted (see Open the Vaults). Cards spiking in urza/tempest block are actually good cards, unlike ones in legends/arabian knights which often can just be on reserved list and awful but sought after for rarity.
Overall will be interesting to see what WOTC and the EDH board decide to do. Wizards I don't think cares about legacy/vintage but EDH is becoming their most loved format and a cash cow. The original ruling board on EDH decided to ban cards like power 9 in EDH from start not really for power level (sol ring arguably better than a mox) but due to the cost and accessibility. As more and more cards start to go north of 100 or even 1000$ the pressure to either ban more cards or make a new format/list rises. We've seen brawl introduced but I can see a more modern style EDH being introduced at some point one perhaps more focused on casual style and leaving the existing for the competitive/legacy type.
As per the norm, there's another set in town. Liliana's Contract seems pretty decent actually - a Promise of Power-like that can do shenanigans with bounce and recursion. However, the list has already become quite top-heavy, and five CMC does this no favours. I guess it'll become like Oath of Liliana, a card I keep somewhere in the back of my mind but never really act on or find room for. If any of you run it (or the Oath), feel free to report back how it fares. Also, as usual, there's a pretty cool reprint in Crucible of Worlds. However, something's telling me that if you have the fetches and stuff already, you probably also own this bad boy. For those without Maximum Mana Base Pimp TM, I'm not sure Crucible + shock + 4 ally fetches is worth it. C'mon, WOTC, toss us some enemy fetchable duals!
Finance aside...I'm actually looking to use Liliana's Contract in my Hapatra deck as turned out that I was already running 4 demons and not hard to add a few more. Obviously that flavor win not really doable in daxos without ruining the deck but Razaketh does count for 1 (and a contract signer in lore). If you're just using it for draw its probably not great esp. in WB that lacks the same kind of ramp green decks offer. I think in those it also is interesting replacement for Phyrexian Arena as it gives the value up front and a better topdeck if mana less of an issue. Still, overall its my favorite card in this set between the value, the art, the alt win con flavor
Btw fetchlands are in a bad place now. They seem to have largely backed away from master sets for the time being (maybe well see one this year or not) and trying to get reprints in core set and yearly sets like battlebond. Pretty sure Rosewater has literally said they do NOT want fetchlands in standard again. So idk when next time will see them...they also can't just add them easily to things like commander precons as then distributors will just hoard them and sell singles. Thankfully they didn't up them to mythic in masters 2017 so they can still be rares in a set. I too find it hard to rationalize prices on several enemy fetches compared to ally counterparts and only use them in my favorite decks. It may be a year or two before they print any more. On plus side ravnica almost guarantees shocks are getting a reprint which are my go to dual land in EDH and that should offer a good price drop (after an initial increase for standard decks before supply opened of course).
The deck's in a pretty good place, but I do wonder sometimes if I shot the curve a bit too hard. Other times, I wonder whether I should replace Gideon's Intervention - I've become soft in my old age, and the Nevermore mode is very seldom used (and paying four mana for a faux-Runed Halo is a bit silly). I check my high CMC cards, look at the recursion creatures, ponder if those slots could go to something else, and remind myself that they help smooth performance in the grand scheme of things. Not much else seems trimmable above the commander's cost, and there aren't exactly miles and miles of cool utility stuff waiting to go on. There also isn't any non-rock ramp to slot in, or ways to fetch the big mana lands. Just overzealous nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking, I haven't had anything new to build in a while. Kumena doesn't count as the deck pretty much just built itself. In times like these, I remind myself of when I got a seal of approval from Dominicus for this thing. That's something.
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Emeria Shepherd
1 Gideon's Intervention
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Attrition
1 Blind Obedience
1 Slaughter the Strong
1 Thran Dynamo
The Intervention's secret strength that let it survive in the list was metagaming against a friend's Pestilence + enrage tribal list that could effortlessly consume most of my board states before I'd get to properly settle in. However, the list got abandoned for some reason, and the very softening that led me to swap away from Nevermore in the first place made the card rather suboptimal. I took the opportunity and ran a CMC comb through the higher echelons of the deck, nabbing two swaps. It should be noted both Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Emeria Shepherd perform well, the problem is that the list got a bit on the heavy side. Sunspeth nominally comes with some promise of Daxos independence, but it takes some serious Christmas Land shenanigans to have impact. The Shepherd recurs things really well, and sets up cute stuff with Depression Automaton, but also costs seven. Big Ole Raz is eight. On top of that, Lightning Greaves were in the list as a bit of a meta call. In peak focus times, I'd be forced to recast Daxos for 13 with 2 experience counters and nothing of note whatsoever having happened on my side of the board while the dudebro slinging Marchesa, the Black Rose robots would be drawing cards in everybody else's turns undisrupted. Since then, things have calmed down a bit in the blindly focusing into the dirt on principle department, perhaps in part thanks me to busting out fish as a reminder that Daxos is indeed quite bad.
The high CMC comb slightly ruffled some other stuff too, but it gets to stay. Sun Titan got new life breathed into him by the introduction of the fetches, putting on a crappy Prime Time impression that's enough to merit survival. Merciless Eviction is quite expensive, but it's not like there are versatile cheap options that this is keeping out of the list. Cathars' Crusade looks unglamorous in this shell, but it does ensure very good board presence on its own regardless of the luck of the draw and can help counteract Daxos disruption. Uba Mask is super powerful with the discard elements, and the scarcity of pieces of this nature mean that its slight over-costing and artifact nature can be lived with. It's a bit of a pity Cast Out is an Oblivion Ring variant, really, but ironically there isn't any better removal that I'm not running already. Depression Automaton is the god of unappealing, but the on-hit ramp and on-death cantrip are both quite welcome in the list and perform better than other underwhelming cards that used to grace the 99.
Since I'm complaining about the list becoming a bit of a clunker (this manifests itself in particular when no big mana lands or land drop acquisition engines come online), it makes sense to devote a slot towards mana generation. Unfortunately, I had to dip into the rock realm, as there's nothing good land-wise that I'm not already running - Burnished Hart is the best, and that's saying something. Thran Dynamo got unceremoniously booted when I got my hands on a Mana Crypt, but it never really did anything wrong. It single-handedly takes me into the zone of mana where I want to be to start mounting sensible plays together, and the occasional sequencing unwieldiness is far preferable to being stunted on an uncomfortable mana total. Going back up to five rocks is not ideal, but the re-introduction of the Dynamo coupled with the slight curve trim should hopefully stem the clunkiness bleeding at this point. Sunspeth becomes Slaughter the Strong in a swap that should have happened long ago, removing any Christmas Land cuteness from the equation and just offering a blunt board gutter at a negligible mana investment. The two remaining cards are me getting over some sort of weird mental block to avoid running multiple copies of similar effects - Blind Obedience and Attrition were both perfectly fine during their time in the list, and were taken out when marginal improvements were printed, and should be just what the doctor ordered to try to slim the list down a notch.
In terms of future direction, I keep wishing for more discard room, but there really aren't any options that demand immediate inclusion at this time. Painful Quandary is still underpowered in comparison to what it takes to hold on to a 5-drop slot here, and suffice it to say that Myojin of Night's Reach lost a spot to Big Ole Raz and I'm currently complaining about a bloated curve.
I know because a Daxos deck dropped this on me yesterday. This was AFTER someone wiped + nuked my graveyard of Arcbound Ravager and other things. I bounced back and returned the favor with an All is Dust to wipe the two enchantment players who just hosed the two artifact players.
I also somehow dealt with an indestructible Rest in Peace and Nevermore on my commander that game.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
My meta's robot Marchesa is nowhere near the power level of yours, it was just an example of me being automatically rammed face first into the ground on sight while another guy set up a juicy little value engine and drew his way to victory. Overwhelming Splendor feels like such a weird include, I hate the card on principle though. Hey, let's take Humility, remove any sort of interesting build-around component and make it cost out the wazoo. Fantastic. Print it. Hyuck hyuck hyuck. The fact it's an eight drop makes me not feel like I'm missing out too much by not including it. Once again, for context, Big Ole Raz is eight. Skybind is five, True Conviction is six. All those feel better.
The draw was with you a bit in that case - I literally only see three answers in the deck (Meteor Golem, Chaos Warp, All is Dust). Still, that sounds like a painful game.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Thanks for further illustrating my point Kor Cartographer is probably the better of the two, as you need the Charger to go away to reap the benefits and also be land-short. If land-short ramp is the name of the game, Knight of the White Orchid would like a word for a more reliable option. I love how he's masquerading as a two drop, and a weary cardboard trawler may mistake him for a ramp option they can chase out before Daxos.
Anyway, in the games I've played since the slimming update, I didn't really feel the absence of the cards I cut while simultaneously avoiding clunking out. Anecdotal evidence! I'm still not super happy about being back to five rocks, but Thran Dynamo has single handedly offered enough mana to smooth out the game, just like predicted.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
On another note, how have you been finding Spirit Bonds? You seem quite keen on the card in the thread.
Also, I'm very interested in how your latest changes worked out. I have been following your list for the most part but I have grown attached to Emeria Shepherd, she has been really awesome for me. I'm running Open the Vaults instead of Replenish due to budget concerns and I wonder if Open would be a better cut instead of the angel to trim the fat. Especially since artifacts and enchantments seem to be prevalent in my meta.
Hey, if you get value off Shepherd, all the more power to you. I just trimmed the list's curve as it was getting a bit too dependant on its big mana lands. The tweaks did what I wanted - shaved the high end a bit, replacing it with proven low cost options that were in the list previously. The deck runs smoother now, as expected. Blind Obedience is likely gonna get offed the next time the list gets a bone.
Yeah, Open the Vaults is the immediate budget Replenish, but I've never been a fan of the symmetry. Once again, if the Shepherd works for you, keep it
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)