Hey there everyone. First update of 2018! Now that all that holiday craziness is over.
First order of business is that I've added a new banner more repesentative of the deck's history, some of the cards that are being played now and with the Amonkhet flavor that I dearly love I've about gotten Invocation versions of all cards that have them, then I just have to get another Sol Ring invention
In addition, I've done a little more formatting and editing of the main post and applied for Primer status! Around the end of December I received some feedback that I've attended to this weekend, and after a long time here's hoping the thread finally gets that!
Regarding deck changes: I have not made any changes for Rivals of Ixalan yet, but will be discussing the set blow. I'm currently deciding on what to switch for Torment of Hailfire, which I had been very skeptical of. That is, until I had it played against me in two different games, and essentially won both of those games for it's controller. My initial feelings were that giving players choices is a bad idea. However, with the amount of board wipes and removal we pack and and opponent's hand sizes always fluctuating, I now feel that it can either be an amazing tool to decimate the board to pave the way for our win by buying us time, or outright win by itself. Previously I had taken out Profane Command as the other XBB utility/finisher spell. But, even casting Torment of Hailfire for a mere 6-7 can be devastating and leave opponents struggling. Currently I'm eyeing Scroll Rack and Toxic Deluge. The deck has enough draw and tutoring power that Scroll Rack is not particularly necessary to the deck. Hand fixing is nice, but for most of the history of the deck I've never had a problem with consistency to absolutely warrant it. Toxic Deluge is an amazing board wipe, but still having three other board wipes in here and having played for a long time without Toxic Deluge being necessary, it's also under consideration for replacement.
Rivals of Ixalan Set Review
Rivals of Ixalan is one of the more fun sets we've seen in a while that offers a lot of reasonable considerations! The prerelease was super fun and I've had my eyes on a couple items from it, which I'll discuss below! As usual I won't be reviewing every card, but rather cards that might appear to have some usefulness to the deck or might raise an eyebrow. If I skip over a card, it's a safe bet that it doesn't fit well into the deck's overall scheme.
Blazing Hope - In Commander if you can cast this on a creature, you're probably already doomed
Bishop of Binding - Given that we're not a combat oriented deck, this isn't particularly appealing. It's an Oblivion Ring that dies more easily and for a triggered ability that doesn't particularly matter to us.
Martyr of Dusk - It has some potential in a build that wants to play around with a token sub-theme. With it, Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle you can create a loop. Mostly a pass, because generally making a 1/1 token isn't too valuable for the deck
Paladin of Atonement - This gets a little funny with Necropotence, because at the end of each player's turn you can exile a card with it and put a counter on it. A life-gain build could possibly make use of him, but for the main build, the loss of life to various effects is negligible.
Slaughter the Strong - A weak, Standard-oriented board wipe that probably won't even see play in Standard.
Zetalpa, Primal Dawn - If you want to run Ayli as more reanimator than combo, Zetalpa can be a nice, hard-to-remove target. It won't be found in the main deck, and there are more game-changing reanimator targets available, but it's not necessarily a bad choice.
Black
Dead Man's Chest - With Sun Titan and some recursive removal, this could be a fun toy to play around with. We're in the land of giants, where seeing 4-6 power on Turn 4 or 5 is commonplace. Play this and then find a way to wipe out that creature. Repeat it with Sun Titan. For rules clarification, when an Aura enters the battlefield and isn't cast and targeted, it's owner simply choses a permanent for it to attach to. It circumvents Shroud and Hexproof as you're not actually targeting that creature. It won't be found in the main deck, but have fun if you enjoy playing other people's cards!
Dusk Legion Zealot - There is enough card draw and tutoring that it's ultimately unnecessary, though wouldn't be bad in a budget build. We always want our ETB triggers to have a big impact. Just stick with that Reassembling Skeleton(or Bloodghast) and Skullclamp
Gruesome Fate - This isn't the worst in a build that tries to push creature tokens, but the problem is it becomes a dead card when you don't have any. Mostly a pass, but once again budget friendly.
Mastermind's Acquisition - This could be okay if your group runs sideboards. Mine does not, and personally I'd rather it stay that way. Otherwise, it's a Diabolic Tutor.
Ravenous Chupacraba - Everyone is excite dabout this Chupacabra. It's Nekrataal without First Strike and one less power, but destroys any creature which is fantastic. If you're playing a budget build, he could be a consideration, but there are far better options already in the main build.
Tetzimoc, Primal Death - This is probably my favorite of the Elder Dinosaurs. A 6/6 Deathtouch body for 4BB isn't the worst. I do find his ability and prey counters to be really fun. The reason he won't be making his way into the deck is because if you board wipe or don't have pray counters he's only that 6/6 Deathtouch which isn't that useful to us. Once you have him on the battlefield or he goes to your graveyard, you'll have a hard time finding a way to get him back into your hand. If you run Phyrexian Reclamation that's a thing, but the other big downside is how he telegraphs what's coming. The imminent doom of all the marked creatures adds a fun social aspect to the game, but he's ultimately a large mana investment that lets your opponents know he's coming, and the deck doesn't want to return creatures from the graveyard to your hand.
Twilight Prophet - This is one of the cards that I'm most excited about in the deck. Gaining the City's Blessing by Turn 4 or after is not a problem at all in EDH/Commander. It's a 2/4, so it's less easily killed and can do some blocking. Best of all, it has Sorin, Grim Nemesis's +1 ability at every upkeep, and is a creature you can bring back easily if it gets removed. I really want to play it because it fits Ayli's attrition kit very well. It doesn't have an ETB effect or death trigger, but is good card advantage. I ultimately would like to find a spot for it for testing.
Vona's Hunger - Without the City's Blessing it's a one-off Merciless Executioner which isn't great. With the City's Blessing, it's an Instant speed partial board wipe that is the best when opponents have an odd number of creatures on the board, do to them having to round up (If they have 5, they have to sacrifice 3, etc). Considering Toxic Deluge is an option at the same cost, I want to say it's a pretty easy pass. If you're in a very fast, aggressive meta, it could be worth it for the Instant speed, though. But really, much better board wipe options are available, and we seldom want to give them the ability to leave some of their creatures alive when we want to board wipe.
Multicolor
Elenda, the Dusk Rose - She may have some potential in a build that wants to try more tokens. a 1/1 for 2WB basically falls over if the wind blows in an EDH/Commander game. She has potential to get big. The disadvantage of running her here is that most board wipes are symmetrical. In Ayli, we're surgically exiling things with our non-creature spot removal spells; we're mass board wiping; or occasionally we're using recursion to make them sac stuff with Merciless Executioner; or when we're choosing to sac our own creatures. The Executioner is the only really reliable way to grow the amount of counters on Elenda in the deck without killing her as well as any other creatures to trigger her ability, because sacrificing our other creatures usually is the start of the end. She may be fine for Teysa, Orzhov Scion or her own deck built for her, but sadly she just doesn't work well with how this Ayli build works and there's not much reason to want the tokens she makes, anyway.
Profane Procession // Tomb of the Dusk Rose - I've seen people excited about this thing, but I'm looking at paying 4WWBB to exile the first creature with it. Then, you only get to exile with it twice more at a cost of 3WB each. Then, we can get one back for 4-mana. This isn't great. It's not even good. With the kind of mana it requires, we can easily win the game or be doing so, so much more. There's way, way better ways to get rid of problematic creatures or make them serve our cause. Hard pass.
Artifact
Azor's Gateway // Sanctum of the Sun - It should go without saying, but we want to be able to get our stuff back when we use it. This asks us to exile cards. 5 cards. Five potentially very important cards. And then, we get to add a but load of mana of one color to our mana pool. And do what with it? There's enough ways to generate enough mana to finish games available to us, that making room for this and hoping whatever you choose to exile isn't something you need later, or that it gets removed before you can flip it and it has to start over because it's considered a new card and doesn't see what you've previously exiled. No. Just... no!
The Immortal Sun - I mean it's not bad, but why? If you have an Atraxa Superfriends player in your group, hose them down. If it sticks. But the only real interesting ability on it for us is to draw a card, and we have plenty of that.
Land
Arch of Orazca - I really hope you're never so desperate that paying 5 mana to draw one card is good.
Another very fine analysis, thanks!
Lately, I’ve been more and more impressed by the seemingly unassuming Reassembling Skeleton. It blocks, it fires off colorless damage of Blasting Station, it happily gets eaten by Razaketh, the Foulblooded and its the very best Skullclamp fodder. Hurray for the little guy!
Another very fine analysis, thanks!
Lately, I’ve been more and more impressed by the seemingly unassuming Reassembling Skeleton. It blocks, it fires off colorless damage of Blasting Station, it happily gets eaten by Razaketh, the Foulblooded and its the very best Skullclamp fodder. Hurray for the little guy!
In another example from a game just last night, he was even more helpful! An opponent stole my Sheoldred, Whispering One from my graveyard with their own Sepulchral Primordial. The skeleton was in the graveyard so I was able to activate it's ability to get something to sac to Sheoldred at the end of the turn before mine That game was a 3-player pod with me versus Volrath the Fallen and Mogis, God of Slaughter. Used the Skeleton all game to avoid taking damage from the Mogis triggers and block Volrath and the threats he reanimated from the stuff discarded to buff Volrath up
Since you really helped me out with the basics of building an Ayli, the Eternal Pilgrim EDH deck a while back (thanks again for that), I thought I'd get back to you and tell you that I built one and I'm quite happy with it. I can't really afford most of the expensive cards, but I think I was able to substitute them with cheaper options while keeping the main engine and general feeling of the deck the same.
Here's my list just in case you'd want to check it out.
Glad to see you drop by, tarotplz! I'm super happy that I could help you out with an Ayli build! I'm actually trying to acqiure a few of the more expensive cards myself after an emergency came up and I had to sell off some stuff. Yawgmoth's Will was $15 last year when I finally got my paper copy and now it's almost $50... But anyway! It looks like you found some fine substitutes for some of the more expensive cards. We also got very fortunate with some reprints of Sheoldred, Whispering One and Kokusho, the Evening Star in Iconic Masters Hopefully Masters 25 will reduce the budget even further (A pack reprint of Impreial Seal or Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed would be fantastic...).
Play report from yesterday: only won one game, (but the other 3 were with different decks - Ayli FTW!)
Gary (Gray Merchant of Asphodel) took the match, jumping in and out of the 'yard wearing his fancy Nim Deathmantle.
Lately, I'm a bit inclined to retire the former head of this deck: Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter. (even though I got a nice Asian one)
It's a superb sac outlet (and he enables some combos, especially with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed). BUT: he does so little (for his huge manacost), especially nothing upon ETB or dying. What do you think?
I love playing this deck, but I've been having issues with The Ur-Dragon, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, fast green decks, and Breya, Etherium Shaper. Breya decks are just OP IMO. This deck can just be very clunky at times, it's kinda too slow. Draw power and tokens kill this deck.
We need to play a reactive game. Permanent-based threats will almost inevatably be swiped (think Merciless EvictionAustere Command or False Prophet) around T4. They lose their threats and often also valuable manarocks and repeatable drawpower (like Sylvan Library).
Opponents' vital combopieces (think Food Chain for Prosh for example) we can remove with pinpoint accuracy. Often exiling them.
We're Orzhov. Permanents do not trouble us.
I think it's important with this deck not to take an aggressive stance (even, a thing like putting an Ashnod's Altar into play) unless it's too late for the opponents.
I've been going through my deck and there are some cards I'm surprised are not on the deck list, like: Grim Tutor, Thought Vessel (For Necropotence), Tainted Field, Arcane Lighthouse, Reflecting Pool, and especially Mirrorpool. Mirrorpool alone has won me a bunch of games. Most players don't even realize you have it or totally forget about it. You can copy any of these cards with it:
It almost always catches everyone off guard. That card is just straight value. You might even be able to have the Sun Titan bring it back, but you wont be able to full most players again if you bring it back. I mostly use it for Kokusho, the Evening Star, Yosei, the Morning Star, and Sun Titan
Also, I haven't found much value with Cavern of Souls. I do play with blue players, but they know better than to counter creatures because they're easier to kill. Enchantments and Artifacts are whats getting countered. So even players who play with Prossh and Foodchain know better than to rely on 1 card to achieve victory. Most players I see are using draw power and Scroll Rack/Sensei's Divining Top to play cards with Boseiju, Who Shelters All that place permanents on the battlefield free, like Genesis Wave. Especially when there's a Gaea's Cradle on the board. God is that card so busted. I don't know why they don't ban it. We try not going after other peoples land, but lately it's been something we have to stay on top of.
Has anyone played against the infinite lockdown combo in Breya's deck using Mindslaver? It sucks. It's one of the most broken combos I've seen. Granted we don't play a lot of graveyard hate, so that's our fault. We try to not use cards that stop specific colors or functions, or totally screw players like Contamination and Blood Moon. But hey that's the game right?
For the past year I've been testing different cards for life gain and token decks for Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim. I think this Ayli deck is probably the best I've ever played with.
There are definitely a few cards I would swap out though. I swapped out Coalition Relic for Thran Dynamo, better value IMO. I'm not sure why the deck has Faith's Fetters. As long as I've been watching this build, I've never seen such a common card added to the build. Especially when this deck is almost all spot removal. I think Gift of Immortality is a much better option. Can't see why you'd waste a card slot on a temp enchantment that costs 4, no Sun Titan recursion there. I like Gift of Immortality because it can be a minor distraction for your other artifacts and enchantments. Plus, it's hard as hell to remove from the game when you have Sun Titan and Necromancy orAngelic Renewal around. I also swapped out Entomb for Imperial Seal and Razaketh, the Foulblooded for Grim Tutor. I can't justify paying 8 mana for any kind of tutor. It's cool if you want to cheat him out, but he puts a major target on your back. If you can't afford a Grim Tutor, you can get 3 cards with Diabolic Revelation for the same cost as Razaketh, the Foulblooded. I think Razaketh, the Foulblooded is one of those "More Win" cards.
I love playing this deck, but I've been having issues with The Ur-Dragon, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, fast green decks, and Breya, Etherium Shaper. Breya decks are just OP IMO. This deck can just be very clunky at times, it's kinda too slow. Draw power and tokens kill this deck.
As with every deck, how successful it is depends on your meta. I've found the Ayli build here to be able to stand up on it's own in many metas. When you say Prossh, if you're talking about Food Chain Prossh, then no it's probably not going to prevent you from getting KO'd on Turn 2 or 3. If you're fortunate, you'll have Swords to Plowshares in hand. If that's the meta you're playing in, then it would behoove you to make some adjustments and meta calls such as adding cheaper removal. But as I've described in the OP, Ayli isn't a Turn 2-4 win deck. It can prevent those decks from going off at times. But Ayli is built for EDH as it was intended, not the toxic environment of "cEDH" dominated by Prossh, Jeleva and so on that look to win before the game even starts.
Losing to Breya and Ur-Dragon is a bit puzzling, however. Ur-Dragon even with a lot of ramp is pretty dang slow. Where's everyone else in the pod? This isn't a 1v1 deck, so I assume there are other opponents. Very bizarre. Breya is powerful, but between several Exile effects and two mass Artifact removal effects in the list, surgically taking out the engines and cards that push Breya over the top shouldn't be a problem. When I talk about finesse in the Primer, part of that is knowing what to remove and what not to remove. A well constructed Breya deck is definitely one that you have to know when to old removal to your chest, because most combos in Breya are 3-4 card combos such as Time Sieve + Thopter Assembly where Time Sieve is the much bigger threat as it is a lot worse to deal with than Thopter Assembly.
As for Nim Deathmantle and Ashnod's Altar: the deck can win without them pretty easily, but again it's a politics and finesse thing. You have to examine the group you're playing with. If you're playing with very experienced or cutthroat players, of course they're going to get removed ASAP. Look to combos like Fiend Hunter + Sun Titan instead with Viscera Seer to dig for answers or Ayli since it's very easy for the deck to get creatures back. If you find you need to play Grand Abolisher, that's a meta call and I encourage you to do so. Most of the combos in the deck can be done at instant speed on other player's turns. But losing important combo pieces is again a finesse and politics thing. I'm usually able to judge if it's safe to play those cards or not and how much I'll be able to get out of them without them blowing up and make a decision as to whether to make a different game plan or simply prolong the game plan
We need to play a reactive game. Permanent-based threats will almost inevatably be swiped (think Merciless EvictionAustere Command or False Prophet) around T4. They lose their threats and often also valuable manarocks and repeatable drawpower (like Sylvan Library).
I personally find Dawn of the Dead to be too slow, and often would rather my creatures stay in my graveyard until a certain point that I need them. For the same reason, Debtors' Knell was cut a few years back, for it's cost even though it can target other graveyards. There are just many times where it's a dead card in my hand or on the board because I'm not looking to reanimate a creature every turn - often they're there in cold storage until needed.
Grim Haruspex and Dark Prophecy are good cards in some decks, but this isn't one of them because if you're able to draw a lot of cards off of them, you should already be winning. Creatures don't loop, die and get brought back too much until the deck is winning or very close to winning. I also don't have a card in the deck I'd take out for either of these. I prefer Phyrexian Arena to Dark Prophecy for the consistency, because I'm not always killing a creature on my turn. Dark Prophecy is also more likely to get removed since people tend to assume that if you're playing it, you're about to go off or you're going to draw way more cards than they're comfortable with.
Opponents' vital combopieces (think Food Chain for Prosh for example) we can remove with pinpoint accuracy. Often exiling them.
We're Orzhov. Permanents do not trouble us.
I think it's important with this deck not to take an aggressive stance (even, a thing like putting an Ashnod's Altar into play) unless it's too late for the opponents.
I've been going through my deck and there are some cards I'm surprised are not on the deck list, like: Grim Tutor, Thought Vessel (For Necropotence), Tainted Field, Arcane Lighthouse, Reflecting Pool, and especially Mirrorpool. Mirrorpool alone has won me a bunch of games. Most players don't even realize you have it or totally forget about it. You can copy any of these cards with it:
It almost always catches everyone off guard. That card is just straight value. You might even be able to have the Sun Titan bring it back, but you wont be able to full most players again if you bring it back. I mostly use it for Kokusho, the Evening Star, Yosei, the Morning Star, and Sun Titan
Grim Tutor - Tutors are overall representative of another copy of any card in a deck. The reason I don't run Grim Tutor is partially because of cost, but also because tutors have a diminishing returns. At some point to add more tutors, you're taking out a card that your other tutors can be representative of. Between Demonic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Expedition Map, and the repeatable effects of Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Rune-scarred Demon and Sidisi, Undead Vizier, I find that the deck is in a very fine spot for tutors where replacing a card to add more would be more of a detriment to the deck than a boon. This is the same reason that I have yet to add Imperial Seal to the main list.
Tainted Field - Was actually purposefully overlooked because colored mana is more important to the deck functioning than colorless mana, and I choose to run a heavy toolbox of utility lands leaving me with only 8 Swamps. I'd rather not get stuck with a colorless source if my opening hand has that as my Black source. In a deck that runs way more basic lands than I do, it's not a bad card, but it's not as consistent as it could be.
Arcane Lighthouse - If hexproof such as Sigarda, Host of Herons is a problem for someone, they can make that meta call, but in general I don't feel it's worth reducing my basic land count for this effect. With plenty of board wipes and being able to get around Hexproof by recurring Merciless Executioner, I've found that Hexproof is very rarely a problem for me, so I have elected not to run it
Reflecting Pool - I have no particular reason I'm not running this other than that I've never had one. The consistency in my access to colors and mana base has not been an issue for me so I haven't sought it out. It would be at most an optimization for the deck, same as why I haven't dropped the money to get a Scrubland yet. If I come into one in the future, I will probably play it and add it to the list. Until then it's not particularly a concern as the mana base has currently felt fine
and especially Mirrorpool - This is a card that I tested at one point and is what I've concluded is a "win more" card. In most cases, paying the extra C2 to copy a spell was more prohibitive to my game plan when casting a spell. I try to avoid taplands when I can, and paying 5 to copy a creature doesn't really mean much to more when I could pay the same converted cost to sacrifice a creature for it's effect, pay for and Buyback Corpse Dance with the same amount of mana and without sacrificing a land to do so. Effectively, Mirrorpool asks to tie up mana that I'd rather not for an effect that is pretty negligible for the deck.
Also, I haven't found much value with Cavern of Souls. I do play with blue players, but they know better than to counter creatures because they're easier to kill. Enchantments and Artifacts are whats getting countered. So even players who play with Prossh and Foodchain know better than to rely on 1 card to achieve victory. Most players I see are using draw power and Scroll Rack/Sensei's Divining Top to play cards with Boseiju, Who Shelters All that place permanents on the battlefield free, like Genesis Wave. Especially when there's a Gaea's Cradle on the board. God is that card so busted. I don't know why they don't ban it. We try not going after other peoples land, but lately it's been something we have to stay on top of.
On Cavern of Souls - For a while I had considered removing it, but the most common Creature type in the deck is Human with 9 total. All of them happen to be cards that I cast first rather than dump in my graveyard to reanimate later. Getting Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed out to get back important Black spells, or Recruiter of the Guard to tutor up combo pieces and many other examples have been pretty important to success with the deck. While it's not strictly necessary, it actually protects the ability to cast some of the most important creatures in the deck that Blue player I've played with felt forced to counter because of their effect. They'd rather delay my ability to get a board wipe back with Xiahou or the ability to exile the board with False Prophet than let them hit the battlefield. So while it's not exceedingly obvious, there's a very real reason that Cavern of Souls has remained part of the list
Sensei's Divining Top - This was in the list until not too long ago, however I actually chose to exile it and keep with Scroll Rack. In the mid to late game when I have very large hands and I'm able to shuffle due to the large amount of search effects, I found it far more effective to be able to dig 7+ cards looking for combo pieces than spinning the top and looking at my top 3. In playing with them both for quite a while, Scroll Rack always gave me an extra level of consistency that Top doesn't, especially when I have Necropotence on the board and I'm digging 10+ cards deep.
Has anyone played against the infinite lockdown combo in Breya's deck using Mindslaver? It sucks. It's one of the most broken combos I've seen. Granted we don't play a lot of graveyard hate, so that's our fault. We try to not use cards that stop specific colors or functions, or totally screw players like Contamination and Blood Moon. But hey that's the game right?
I've faced the Mindslaver lock before and it's difficult to deal with. If they're smart, they're going to wait until they have a set up by which they can sacrifice the Mindslaver to Krark-Clan Ironworks or Breya in response to it being targeted with removal, so it's really hard to get rid of it. Earlier on I was talking about it being necessary to remove things surgically. It is, however, usually abused by cards that are a lot easier to get rid of like Prototype Portal and Academy Ruins. Depending on which method they're using to achieve the lock, you can at least slow them down and dig for answers. If you try to exile Prototype Portal first, they at least can't perform a hard lock on the game and it might give another player a chance to try to deal with it (assuming they're smart and helping with a threat that big, of course). Same with Goblin Welder. The main culprit is usually Academy Ruins, which no one should feel ashamed of getting rid of. I also try to avoid land destruction, but if it's a utility land with a powerful effect, I'm not going to hold any punches as to me that's just like any other combo piece that needs to be dealt with. I'd Ashen Rider, Archon of Justice or Mangara of Corondor and target Academy Ruins as soon as it hits the table.
I'm not going to lie, but between Foodchain Prossh and Mindslaver Lock Breya, it sounds like you're playing with a group of people who are of a different mentality about what EDH/Commander is than who this Ayli deck is built for. With that said, make plenty of meta calls. Leyline of the Void would probably be a very good addition to the deck for you. Praetor's Grasp, Sadistic Sacrament or Bitter Ordeal may be worth looking into as a way to make those decks play fair. The terms "fair" and "unfair" are thrown around at a very high rate these days, and I would say that Ayli is a "fair" deck whereas those aren't.
For the past year I've been testing different cards for life gain and token decks for Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim. I think this Ayli deck is probably the best I've ever played with.
There are definitely a few cards I would swap out though. I swapped out Coalition Relic for Thran Dynamo, better value IMO. I'm not sure why the deck has Faith's Fetters. As long as I've been watching this build, I've never seen such a common card added to the build. Especially when this deck is almost all spot removal. I think Gift of Immortality is a much better option. Can't see why you'd waste a card slot on a temp enchantment that costs 4, no Sun Titan recursion there. I like Gift of Immortality because it can be a minor distraction for your other artifacts and enchantments. Plus, it's hard as hell to remove from the game when you have Sun Titan and Necromancy orAngelic Renewal around. I also swapped out Entomb for Imperial Seal and Razaketh, the Foulblooded for Grim Tutor. I can't justify paying 8 mana for any kind of tutor. It's cool if you want to cheat him out, but he puts a major target on your back. If you can't afford a Grim Tutor, you can get 3 cards with Diabolic Revelation for the same cost as Razaketh, the Foulblooded. I think Razaketh, the Foulblooded is one of those "More Win" cards.
Thran Dynamo - Coalition Relic in all actuality is much more important to the deck as colored mana is like gold, here. I've genuinely never been in a position where I wanted to pay 4 mana for a mana rock that only produces colorless mana at the point in the game where I'd be playing it, whereas often I use it's ability to put a charge counter on it when I haven't had to use it and get two additional colored for my next turn.
Faith's Fetters - For the same reason that decks with a lot of removal still play Lignify, Imprisoned in the Moon, Song of the Dryads and other similar effects, I run Faithless Fetters. That reason is that there are often cases where I'd rather not destroy or exile a Commander so that it can come back, and this effectively shuts it down. There are also many cases where I want to shut down a utility land in a deck that has plenty of ways to get it's Lands back. Your problem with Breya's Mindslaver lock for example, could be partially solved by putting this on Academy Ruins. There are also plenty of times where a Planeswalker hits the table but there are more important targets I'd like to save my removal for, so putting this on that Planeswalker keeps it from becoming a problem. This is especially useful against Atraxa Superfriends. If other builds aren't running it, then that's their choice. But many players build off of EDHREC now, which is an echo chamber aggregating information from the same websites people build decks and post to, who are then adding to the pool of information on EDHREC, and the cycle continues. I haven't looked at EDHREC for Ayli, but it's an example of the echo chamber that people are building within these days, as when I look at Reddit or Facebook groups, it's always people suggesting the exact same cards. Creativity has gotten at a low point in the greater EDH community, which is kind of sad. But I certainly will always rely more on experience than what other people are running to make cuts for my decks
Gift of Immortality - It's a cute card, and I run it in my Elenda, the Dusk Rose deck because it makes sense given that I want her to go to my graveyard and bring her back rather than the Command Zone. In Ayli, it's more questionable because I might want to sacrifice something in response to a mass exile or board wipe effect and then it'd come right back just to die again to a board wipe. If you're trying to replace Faith's Fetters with this, then that's your call, but it's slow and just doing what many cards in the deck already do
As for more tutors - I explained above that each tutor in the deck is representative of another copy of a card in the deck, and single use tutors have diminishing returns where you're cutting cards that other tutors in the deck could be representative of. Throwing more and more tutors isn't the answer to faster decks, and constantly tutoring also makes you a target. I'd rather have Entomb than yet another tutor, since Entomb does something that many other cards in this deck don't and the ability to toss a creature into my graveyard to reanimate at instant speed to blow out an opponent who wasn't expecting it is far more valuable to me! As for Razaketh, the Foulblooded: If I hard cast him, I'm about to win the game because I can stack his activations in response to him being targeted and go find any amount of combo pieces or removal I need. If they target him, he's going to come back. This is a reanimation deck. Opponents can target my creatures all they want - they're going to suffer for it in the end, some way. There's a high chance of always having enough fodder on the board to sac to him. When Razaketh hits the battlefield, in every game I've had him, I won the game that turn or the next because no amount of removal can stop me from stacking his ability in response to the removal. Or just bringing him back, anyway Razkaeth isn't a win more card - he's a win condition, because he gets all your combo pieces, or sets up your next 3-4 plays. Diabolic Revelation doesn't get cheaper by being cast from the graveyard, and doesn't come back near as easy as Razaketh. If anything, Razaketh has been one of the best additions to the deck in the last few years!
I'm really enthusiastic about Gift of Immortality, though.
When you have free repeatable sac outlet (like an Altar or a Blasting Station) it's so backbreaking for opponents: recurring a Fleshbag Marauderevery turn (not just mine), having compete board control with False Prophet, and that's not even mentioning more (mana) expensive critters like Yosei, the Morning Star or Ashen Rider. Even if it just reanimates something once, it's worth it.
EDIT: I thought I remembered something about the merits of Gift of Immortality. There were quite a few insightful posts on the matter, on the last few pages of BlackJack's Ghost Council Thread (RIP).
By the way: congratulations on the Primer status and the Primer Highlight feature!
I'm really enthusiastic about Gift of Immortality, though.
When you have free repeatable sac outlet (like an Altar or a Blasting Station) it's so backbreaking for opponents: recurring a Fleshbag Marauderevery turn (not just mine), having compete board control with False Prophet, and that's not even mentioning more (mana) expensive critters like Yosei, the Morning Star or Ashen Rider. Even if it just reanimates something once, it's worth it.
EDIT: I thought I remembered something about the merits of Gift of Immortality. There were quite a few insightful posts on the matter, on the last few pages of BlackJack's Ghost Council Thread (RIP).
By the way: congratulations on the Primer status and the Primer Highlight feature!
Thanks, Jonas!
Regarding Gift of Immortality. I do admit that being able to bring a creature back every turn can be pretty backbreaking. I should clarify that I don't think it's bad at all - far from it, it's a pretty great card. As far as the main build goes, though, there's not really anything I feel that I want to cut for it. I did mean to mention that cutting Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter has been on my mind if something comes up that warrants it, because he is expensive. The thing I like about him is that he can finish the game if he sticks and he's a sac outlet that doesn't require a cost for activation. Something I may consider. I've also become less and less of a fan of Wayfarer's Bauble over the years.
Well, I'm here to do my set review, so I'll discuss that in a moment!
Hey there everyone! I've been really busy trying out new archetypes and Commanders lately as I add new types of decks to my repertoire. But Ayli hasn't been forgotten! Below I'll go through the cards I feel are worth noting, including some that may seem like includes or upgrades but don't quite cut it and why. It's about 45 minutes before I leave for my local prerelease event, so this may be posted as a two-part ordeal. We'll see how much I can get done!
Dominaria Set Review
Colorless
Karn, Scion of Urza (Pass) - There's a lot of hype around Karn and his card advantage. However, between Scroll Rack, Sensei's Divining Top if you run it, several tutors and other draw engines, the deck is in a pretty good place without Karn. Planeswalkers are some of the hardest cards to get back, and Karn can't be touched by Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed, either. His -2 is seldom relevant to the deck and his +1 requires you reveal upcoming cards and let your opponents know what is coming - information you don't want opponents to know in a heavily combo-oriented deck. Is he amazing? Probably. Is he for Ayli? Sadly not.
White
Baird, Steward of Argive (Budget, Taxes) - Included with some of the new Legendary creatures in the set are some effects attached to creatures based on other permanent types from the past. This Ghostly Prison on a creature is potentially more valuable to Ayli because it's a creature, which makes it a target for Entomb as well as all the other reanimation effects. The problem is he's not quite that Ghostly Prison, as paying only tax to attack you isn't that big of a threat. This also excludes the plethora of removal we run so we don't have to worry about playing cards like this. For someone looking at a budget list or that just wants to focus heavy on taxes, he may be your guy. In general, however, I'd say to look elsewhere for taxing effects on creatures.
Board the Weatherlight (Budget) - It's very rare that White gains the ability to take cantrips. While I don't foresee updating Ayli to include any Sagas, digging five for an Artifact or Legendary creature may be decent depending on your build. It won't make it into the main list, and I wish it were an Instant, but if you're on a budget and can't afford the ever rising cost of the best tutors, then this could definitely be a consideration if you don't want to pay 4+ mana for Diabolic Tutor, Increasing Ambition, etc.
Daring Archaeologist (Pass) - I don't foresee Daring Archaeologist ever being more than $0.50. I feel it is too expensive for it's effect in Standard, and that holds especially true for Modern. I won't speculate here on builds in Standard that may include it in the long run. The main point is that it's no Argivian Find which is still very affordable, and if you're wanting a creature with an effect similar to this there's Restoration Specialist which I've been considering after it worked very well in my Elenda, the Dusk Rose deck.
Evra, Halcyon Witness (Pass) - Evra is certainly a unique card. For 6 mana, though, there is so much more that an Ayli deck can do. It doesn't have Trample and while it could have shenanigans with Vizkopa Guildmage. In a very casual build I could see someone swinging in with Evra, activating Vizkopa Guildmage then Evra's ability and making it's power 30 or whatever at the time and if it's not removed the Lifelink triggers and you gain 30 and the table loses 30. But for a 6 mana and 4 to activate? Not worth. It's a cute effect, though.
Fall of the Thran (Pass) - It's a mass land destruction spell, which I wholly avoid in EDH/Commander. Dos it give you some lands back? Yes. Does it still hose you? Yes. One could presumably, in a very attrition based build that doesn't care about the health of your local meta and atmosphere, use Hex Parasite to use mana rocks and repeatedly remove the first lore counter from Fall of the Thran so that every turn you're destroying all lands. Save that for another deck, and don't run this card. The utility land tool box is part of what makes the deck as effective as it is, and getting four lands back two turns after you play this won't go well for you.
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle (Pass) - Teshar is a mini-Sun Titan but depends on you casting a lot of Artifacts or Legendaries. As a mostly reanimation focused deck, you ideally want to be bringing them back from your graveyard. There's the upside that he's fetchable with Recruiter of the Guard, but he also is far more limited than Sun Titan in that he can only target creatures. For this reason, he's a pretty hard pass.
Urza's Ruinous Blast (Pass) - As far as mass removal spells go, this isn't something we're particularly interested in. The requirement of having a Legendary creature isn't that big of a deal with Ayli costing as little mana as she does and there being plenty of Legendary Creatures in the deck. That does make it less consistent than our catalog of board wipes available that have no such limitations. However the biggest down side is exiling everything. The reason I love Merciless Eviction and Austere Command and what makes them so good is being able to fit their effect to the board state. There is really a time where we can't handle and somehow pinpoint exact problems on the board without doing the very Urza thing of just exiling everything. Being able to leave our Enchantments intact when we use board wipes is great because some of them are our best card draw engines; or leaving our mana rocks untouched when Enchantress gets out of control, etc. At least normally, we can get them back. I have no doubt that this is a powerful card for EDH/Commander, but it really isn't for Ayli with how important it is to tactically leave certain permanent types untouched when selecting our board wipes.
Black
Dark Bargain (Budget) - One thing the deck doesn't particularly focus on is very specific ways of putting cards into the graveyard. There is Entomb and the value-climbing Buried Alive, too. Dark Bargain - and even an Instant - isn't a bad way to go about that. It's not the greatest at 4 mana, but it's another draw/dig option that also lets us dump reanimation targets in our graveyard. It's a budget card for those who don't want to spend $40+ on a Demonic Tutor and who want more ways to dump stuff in the graveyard.
Demonlord Belzenlok (Pass) - After how crazy Razaketh, the Foulblooded was, it's a bit disappointing that I don't feel the same about Belzenlok. The first thing you notice is that he exiles the cards you don't put in your hand. That's bad right from the start. The second is that you have to really build around him to make him valuable. The great majority of cards in the deck can be brought back later, and he completely goes against that. He really feels like he should be Rakdos colors more than Mono-B. He's sure to hit a lot of targets and could possibly let you get a lot of cards in Ayli. But exiling the rest is just unacceptable.
The Eldest Reborn (???) - This is an interesting series of effects. For 5 mana it's a hit to the board that can cause 3-4 death triggers, or put targets for other stuff in opponents graveyards. Not something we care about too much, but it has it's times. Then each opponent discards a card. Disruption is nice, even though we don't particularly play to this style. The final effect, which allows you to return a creature OR Planeswalker from any graveyard to the battlefield under your control raises an eyebrow. Planeswalker reanimation is not something we've really seen. On one hand, the Planeswalkers that see play in this format are usually very powerful and game changing, and if there's not one in a graveyard then there's probably a creature. On the other hand - and this is one of my main issues with Sagas - is that while this sits on the battlefield, you're telegraphing what you're planning to do. It gives opponents two turns to prepare for it, to make them take the initiative and find graveyard hate. That's 6 turns in total if you count 2 turns for each opponent. They aren't going to want you to get their Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon or Garruk Beastcaller. But, it's a fun card. And questionably powerful.
Final Parting (Budget) - It's been a while since we've seen an Instant/Sorcery that lets you tutor for a card to toss directly in your graveyard. The spell is costed appropriately for Standard Black tutor spells, considering that you're paying 2BB for Diabolic Tutor with a B to attach Entomb to it. If you're running on a budget and want to focus your money elsewhere, this isn't an awful replacement for Entomb. I personally try to avoid running Diabolic Tutor in decks that can at least afford Diabolic Intent which was just reprinted in Battlebond after I went back to finish this review, finally. The biggest downside compared to Entomb is that this isn't Instant speed. That means you can't dump a toolbox creature in your graveyard at Instant speed to get out with Corpse Dance or Instant Necromancy and so forth. But again, for the Orzhovian on a budget, this isn't a terrible include.
Josu Vess, Lich Knight (Pass) - I wanted to mention Josu here just because he has a very big, potentially game ending effect. He's a bit problematic for Ayli to run, however, in that the main reason to run him requires that you can pay his Kicker cost when he enters the battlefield. That generally puts him square out of interest of Ayli since reanimation is the main way the deck wants to abuse ETB effects. If you run Phyrexian Reclamation, you could always sacrifice him after making your army of 2/2 Menace Zombies to be able to re-cast him. But for the sake of Ayli, he's probably a Win More card that is ultimately unneeded anyway. As always, if you decide you want to try to do some sort of creature token strategy he could be of interest, but otherwise he's a pretty easy pass. Even in a token build, with the kind of mana you need to sink into him, you should be approaching your end game and using mana to better effect than on Josu.
Phyrexian Scriptures (???) - This is probably the most interesting Saga for Ayli or even Orzhov decks in general. The first Chapter isn't anything too special, but does allow you to save Ayli from Chapter II or whatever else you may want to stick on the battlefield. Casting this with Sheoldred, Whispering One on the battlefield could be pretty brutal! Chapter II is pretty close to a Day of Judgement depending on your meta. Finally, Chapter III is a very nice non-symmetrical graveyard wipe which could become very important moving forward with the rise of Muldrotha, the Grave Tide and Slimefoot, the Stowaway. It's not an autoinclude, but definitely a fun card I would suggest to try out and see if it's to your liking. A board wipe and mass graveyard hate in one card for 2BB is honestly not bad at all.
Torgaar, Famine Incarnate (Pass) - While Torgaar has a pretty tempting ETB effect that cuts a single opponent's life in half, and a cost reduction that doesn't particularly matter as a generally non-token, non-creature swarm based strategy, I feel that it's hard to want to put him in over the other current possibilities or existing cards in the main list. When Ixalan released, I did try Dire Fleet Ravager, which does the same effect but on a symmetrical level. Even though Dire Fleet Ravager includes ourselves in it's effect, the huge swing in life caused by hitting everyone is a lot more valuable than a targeted version. This is especially true if you have Kokusho, the Evening Star, Exsanguinate, Death to the Debtless or similar cleave effects, wherein the halved life totals puts the table that much closer to within execution range with those effects. I ended up not running Dire Fleet Ravager, however, because with paying life to effects like Necropotence and often being the Archenemy, it was exceedingly difficult to find a good time to cast it where I would get the most benefit from it. So of course, with that said, I definitely won't be running Torgaar in the main build.
Whisper, Blood Liturgist (Budget) - Generally speaking, I would almost rather run Hell's Caretaker for a similar effect, even with it being limited to use during the Upkeep on our turn. The reasoning here is the requirement to have two creatures to sacrifice. We love sacrificing creatures, but that doesn't mean we always have two creatures we're happy to get rid of. Reanimation effects are often at their most useful following board wipes or when setting up a play where you're not going to necessarily have the requisite (2) creatures on the battlefield to use her ability. She's definitely a fast and clear pass for the main build, but I've labelled her as worthy for the Budget deck because as an Uncommon, she is very affordable and repeatable reanimation effects can still be great when on a budget, and you can make the call as to whether your build will run enough creatures or token creation to use her ability easily.
Yawgmoth's Vile Offering (Pass) - The closest comparision we have for this card is Beacon of Unrest, which is far, far better for the deck due to Artifacts being more important to us than Planeswalkers. After it resolves, it also does the opposite of Yawgmoth's Vile Offering and shuffles back into the library, while YVO exiles itself. And requires us to control a Legendary Creature to cast it. The requisite Legendary Creature honestly isn't too bad because we have a lower cost Commander and a handful of Legendary Creatures in the deck. It's still makes the card more conditional than other options, however. If you're set on wanting to get Planeswalkers from graveyards, I would almost run The Eldest Reborn. While not immediate, at least the Saga will do some Creature removal and hand disruption while still getting you the same effect later on, and it doesn't exile itself so you can get it back with Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed, Yawgmoth's Will, Argivian Find, Restoration Specialist or Auramancer.
Multicolor
Primevals' Glorious Rebirth (Pass) - Now, this is a strong card. It's power level varies depending on your build. Currently, my build only runs 8 Legendary Creatures and no Planeswalkers. Those are still very powerful Legendary Creatures, however. This also can hit important lands if they've been blown up, such as Boseiju, Who Shelters All, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Volrath's Stronghold and others. If I still ran Sorin, Grim Nemesis and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon this may have been an auto-include, though what it would replace is a bit of a mystery. While this isn't going to make the cut in the main build because I feel like I most of the time I won't have enough targets in my graveyard that I can't get back another way to make this worthwhile, if you have a number more Legendary permanents that you feel this could easily hit, it is a very solid consideration.
Artifact
Blackblade Reforged/Forebear's Blade (Equipment Package) - I've tied these two up together because l generally wouldn't run them outside of an Equipment package in a build that focuses on getting damage through. With the amount of removal available it's not unrealistic to try to win with lethal Commander Damage or trying to push a lot of combat damage through with some of the beefy ETB/Dying trigger creatures. The largest issue with Equipment packages unless you go deep in is that Equip costs stack up in addition to trying to utilize mana-intensive recursion and death triggers. If you're set on trying to do something like that and are running Stoneforge Mystic and so on, these have some lethal potential.
Helm of the Host (Pass) - What we have here is the new Panharmonicon. A lot of players are trying to force this Equipment into decks that don't have much potential to benefit from it outside of a couple potential cute combos or interactions. The truth is, it's expensive. It's a total of 9 to cast and equip this to a creature. Sure you get a token to copy to sacrifice or beat someone with, but is it really necessary? Generally, no. Even in an equipment build, it's a very slow effect and probably not worth replacing something else. I admit it's unique and a fun ability, but ultimately not worth forcing.
Land
Cabal Stronghold (Pass) - If you've looked at the deck list on the first post, it should be a no-brainer on why this is a pass. I'm mentioning this here because there are people that still ask why I don't run it's amply better predecessor, Cabal Coffers. The deck runs a heavy amount of utility lands in the form of non-basics, which have priority over finding Basic Swamps, which Cabal Stronghold needs. Cabal Coffers is not in the deck because without Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, it is a dead card in hand and most of the time cannot even be tapped for mana without a loss due to how few Swamps can be on the battlefield. Cabal Stronghold is even worse, because even Urborg can't help it tap for multiple mana due to it requiring very specifically Basic Swamps.
Conclusion
Well, that concludes my review of Dominaria. As I always say at the start of every review: I don't talk about every single potential card here that someone might want to play with. Because of how old the deck is and how tight the list is, it's very hard to find cards that could make a splash or replace something in the list that isn't just better in every way. I can say that Dominaria has included some interesting cards to try out and have fun with. The Sagas The Eldest Reborn and Phyrexian Scriptures are very cool, and could definitely have an application in the deck. One I didn't discuss was Chainer's Torment because the only reason I see to run it is one very specific interaction: Paying half of your life for a 20/20 (or less depending), activating Vizkopa Guildmage and sacrificing it to Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim to drain the table for 20 and gain the 20 life back. That's a pretty narrow interaction that doesn't really warrant it's inclusion, but still a funny one I thought I'd bring up, nontheless.
I admit that it feels bad to always write "Hard/Fast Pass" on the majority of cards that come out, but that's just the nature of looking at a deck that one has had around as long as this. Always remember that despite what I say about the build included in the main post and even though I can provide ample reasoning to not run a card, that shouldn't stop you from trying something if it really jumps out at you. I my disagree and it may not be for me or for inclusion here in what I feel is the best version this deck can be for the purposes of learning and the Primer; but if a card strikes you as really fun, by all means, try it!
Now that I've finished the Dominaria review, I'll be posting up a Battlebond review, shortly! Stay tuned!
Lately, I’ve been facing alphastriking hordes of hasty trampling threats (Craterhoof and friends). Wraths often prove 1 turn too slow. I’m considering adding a Peacekeeper. Perhaps Moat as well. Or Batwing Brume.
First of all, thx for the great primer! I recently started building a similar Ayli deck as well and this primer has been very helpfull.
Currently getting all the cards together, and when going through my collection I found a Lifeline.. I was wondering of any of you tried it, because I couldn't find a mention of the card in this thread? I know it's a VERY risky card to run, but if done correct seems pretty sweet.
Hey there Orzhovians! I hope everyone has been enjoying Dominaria and your Battlebond preview weekend! I'm going to be editing the Dominaria review post to finish that today, and start on Battlebond!
Update: Edited and finished the Dominaria review. Check out my last post, above!
First of all, thx for the great primer! I recently started building a similar Ayli deck as well and this primer has been very helpfull.
Currently getting all the cards together, and when going through my collection I found a Lifeline.. I was wondering of any of you tried it, because I couldn't find a mention of the card in this thread? I know it's a VERY risky card to run, but if done correct seems pretty sweet.
Welcome to the thread daanzel! Thanks for stopping by, and for the kind words! I'm glad the thread has been of some help to you
So, here's where I stand on Lifeline and my experience with it:
Lifeline is not something I have really considered for Ayli. My other Orzhov deck is Elenda, the Dusk Rose and I tested it out there due to the fact that for her to work I need to send her to the graveyard when she dies rather than the Command Zone. What I found was that it was way, way too easy for my opponents to be aggressive with using it themselves thanks to the oracle wording that it works for every creature and not just your own, as you eluded to with how risky it is.
Although Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim and Elenda, the Dusk Rose both like to get value from ETB/Dying triggers by bringing stuff back from the graveyard, one huge issue is that it enables almost any deck running Green to ramp out of control. A lot of the staple ramp cards like Sakura-Tribe Elder (which doesn't even require a sac outlet!), Wood Elves and so on that are played in Green or other graveyard decks like Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Muldrotha, the Grave Tide suddenly become very, very aggressive, repeatable ramp spells. It's a serious issue for Orzhov decks which are typically slow, control based decks - especially the two I've mentioned - that need a steady stream of removal and board wipes to keep the game in check and execute a long term plan. It really helps accelerate more creature based strategies beyond our ability to keep them in check. In addition, with how prevalent high creature counts and ETB/Dying effects are in EDH/Commander, many decks have no problem finding a way to plant at least one creature before the end of turn after trying to board wipe them. In other words, it's easy for people to reverse board wipes and use our own Lifeline as an anti-control tool against us.
The last issue is getting rid of it when you don't want it. Of course, one answer to Lifeline's downside is to just nuke it yourself when it's going to be problematic. However, that almost always means spending your own removal on it instead of your opponent's stuff, or having to make room for Claws of Gix or Defiant Salvager, the latter of which isn't exactly what Ayli wants to do. Claws of Gix is a pretty acceptable sac outlet, though!
Anyway, I've ended up replacing Lifeline in Elenda and chosen not to run it in Ayli. BUT if you do want to try it, I would suggest trying to make room for Leyline of the Void to run them in concert. If you could overcome the downside of it helping your opponents out, it's got some serious potential. I hope this explains why well enough why I don't include it in the main list, though!
Welcome to the thread daanzel! Thanks for stopping by, and for the kind words! I'm glad the thread has been of some help to you
So, here's where I stand on Lifeline and my experience with it:
................
Anyway, I've ended up replacing Lifeline in Elenda and chosen not to run it in Ayli. BUT if you do want to try it, I would suggest trying to make room for Leyline of the Void to run them in concert. If you could overcome the downside of it helping your opponents out, it's got some serious potential. I hope this explains why well enough why I don't include it in the main list, though!
Thx for the elaborate response. I can see why it could get out of hand quickly, and I don't really want to dilute my list by running cards just for the support of Lifeline.. Back in the binder you go
I'm a couple weeks late, but I figure it's time to go over Battlebond! There are many interesting, fun and powerful cards in the set. I've probably added more cards collectively to my decks from Battlebond than any other set in the last three years - and I'm not talking about reprints! I'm talking about the brand new cards! Without further adieu, let's get on to the aforementioned cards!
White
Regna, the Redeemer (1/5 - Very Low Consideration) - Of all the Partner with ~ pairs, Regna and Krav, the Unredeemed are probably one of the two most viable pairs (the other two not being relevant here). Regna, however, isn't all that great for Ayli. There are much better creatures with ETB/Death triggers for the cost that can produce tokens and have other utility. Take for example the wonderful Knight-Captain of Eos. Life gain isn't that hard for Ayli, but why settle for once a turn when you can destroy or reanimate something that makes tokens over and over, instead? She's a pretty swift and easy pass. I'll talk about her partner, Krav, later!
Arena Rector (3/5 - Some Consideration) - For quite a while Academy Rector was in the list. There are a few important Enchantments that should probably be in every Ayli build, and that list at least includes Angelic Renewal, Necropotence, and Necromancy. Other important targets could be Grave Pact, Animate Dead, Martyr's Bond, Faith's Fetters, Debtors' Knell or who knows what else. The list of Orzhov enchantments that work great with Ayli is pretty large. My list is currently down to 5, but with the amount of tutors available it seemed silly to keep Academy Rector in the list. This was doubly true with Sidisi, Undead Vizier and Razaketh, the Foulblooded being added to Ayli's repetoir in recent years that - while not putting Enchantments directly onto the battlefield - are repeatable tutor engines. The point I'm getting to here is that much like Academy rector, Arena Rector will entirely depend on your list, how important your Planeswalkers are to you and if you feel it's worth it. The clause that you have to Exile either Rector really sucks. I got around this in the past with Mimic Vat. But generally speaking, the amount of Planeswalkers that are useful to the deck are far fewer than that of Enchantments. Sorin, Grim Nemesis, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Liliana Vess, Sorin Markov(if you're *that* type of player) and to an extent Kaya, Ghost Assassin are probably the most useful. If you want to run Karn, Liberated for spot removal and can afford him, Arena Rector could be worth it. The Rectors are powerful cards and worth including, but entirely depending on your build and evaluation of that.
Play of the Game (0/5 - No Consideration) - As an Overwatch player, I love the name of the card alone. It also saved me twice in my Battlebond sealed events. I find the Assist mechanic to be fun as well, though it's probably not well suited to a deck that already tends to be the Archenemy. Who is going to help us? Probably no one But the biggest issue here is exiling all permanents. We don't have many effects for sacrificing things outside of our Creatures. If you run Claws of Gix, this may not be as big of a problem for you. Generally speaking, though, it's our non-Creature, non-Land permanents that help us recover and not suffer too much at the hands of boardwipes. Exiling all non-Land permanents is problematic for us, and frankly, you can almost always cast Hour of Revelation for WWW and not have to depend on an opponent
Together Forever (0/5 - No Consideration) - As I've said many times in this thread: We're better off letting our creatures die and go to the graveyard than anywhere else, whether that be our library or hand. I'm mentioning this here because it probalby seems like a great card in the right deck. This isn't that deck, though. For it to remain relevant past the initial +1/+1 counters distributed from Support 2, you have to start trying to make room for other cards. You start thinking about Archangel of Thune, which itself is a great card. If you're going for a more Life Gain Matters strategy with Ayli, that might be of interest to you. I've found over a long time playing that Life Gain Matters falls pretty flat much of the time, because the ways in which a life total can protect you in this game is pretty finite, and you have to start cutting better cards to try to make it work. But back to the original point - a deck in the style of the main post's list is better letting creatures go to the graveyard. That's why Phyrexian Reclamation isn't in the main list, and if I were to chose either of them, it would be Reclamation and only if my meta shifted to heavy graveyard hate to warrant it's inclusion. If you want to see a list where Together Forever shines, look for my Elenda, the Dusk Rose primer coming sometime in the near future
Black
Krav, the Unredeemed (4/5 - High Consideration)) - Generally speaking, cheap costed, free-to-activate sac outlets are the way to go. In extreme cases such as Razaketh, the Foulblooded where you have a huge flying body with an attached tutor effect, it's worth it. Krav isn't that level of crazy good, but he's not too far off. His partner, Regna, the Redeemer helps make fodder to sacrifice to both gain life and draw cards. That Krav grows himself with +1/+1 counters in the process isn't of too much relevance to us, but it does let you gain that much more life if you were to sacrifice him to Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim's own sacrifice effect after he's gotten big. He's an amazing sac outlet and can even sacrifice himself to his ability, rather than the increasingly common "...another creature" clause. If you run the types of cards that make tokens like Knight-Captain of Eos or have gone a route that includes more token production, he should be spectacular for you. He certainly has been in my Elenda, the Dusk Rose deck.
Archfiend of Despair (2/5 - Low Consideration) - Generally speaking, opponents gaining life isn't a problem. For much of the aside that I had regarding Together Forever above, I mentioned that a high life total and gaining life has a finite effect in this format. You still lose to infinite combos and alternative win conditions. And, more than not, you can still be brought down from upon high. This makes his first ability a moot point. His second ability is very, very inconsistent. As always, we want creatures that we're happy to have die, or at least don't care too much because you're going to punish someone for it. Archfiend of Despair helps in neither of these categories, and his triggered ability is inconsistent at most. Yes, you could have him out after sacrificing Kokusho, the Evening Star or a mini-powered Exsanguinate. But by the time you have the mana for that, you could just kill the table with Kokusho + Vizkopa Guildmage activated a couple times, which helps other cards in the deck; or just find a combo and power an infinite Exsanguinate and be done with it. Archfiend isn't the worst because as much cleave as the deck is capable of (that is, dealing damage/life loss to each opponent simultaneously), he has potential to cause a good amount of life loss himself. However, he doesn't do anything better than what the deck can already do with the existing cards.
Stunning Reversal (1/5 - Very Low Consideration) - It's a very cute card, and we've been getting a few of these lately. Exquisite Archangel is the one that comes to mind the most recently. The hard truth is that if you're in a position to play this and it matter, then you're probably not about to come out any better, afterwards. Much of your best card draw comes at the cost of life. I'm not a fan of card that basically wait the entire game for them to be worth anything to you and a totally dead card, otherwise. The exception is in combo heavy metas where perhaps there's a lot of Aetherflux Reservoir going around and you make someone pay 50 life for nothing. But these are very specific meta calls, and you still must have them in your hand for it to matter.
Thrilling Encore (4/5 - Heavy Consideration) - In Orzhov colors, and especially in Ayli, a plethora of board wipes and creature removal is done. It's a slow deck that wins through attrition. You cast board wipes to keep opponents in check. Well, this card can help those opponents check out. Thrilling Encore is worth considering, even if situational, because in many EDH/Commander games, if an opponent board wipes any time in the mid to late game, there are going to be heavy hitters, potential combo pieces and other cards that are hard to deal with entering the graveyard. Suddenly, they all become yours, and you're very likely to win with the new teammates you've made. If an opponent plays Living Death to try to get a leg up because they look and the graveyards are pretty shallow or empty and theirs is full, suddenly you have all of the creatures their opponents tossed in their graveyard. There is a large potential for complete blowouts with this card at Instant speed. It's a beautifully fun card.
Multicolor
(None)
Artifact
(None)(
Lands
(None)
Conclusion
There are a lot of fun cards in this set, including several reprints I didn't go over that are great like Diabolic Intent, Mangara of Corondor, Oreskos Explorer, Land Tax and Swords to Plowshares. Although I only reviewed. It also has what I think is the highest number of cards in one set worth considering or including in a list that resembles or plays like the main build, whereas almost everything is a hard pass in recent sets. I've been toning down my paper version to be more interactive and less responsive to make more enjoyable games, because my meta has shifted to being less cutthroat over the last few months. So, I'll definitely be testing out Thrilling Encore and potentially Krav, the Unredeemed. Truthfully, I've been enjoying my Elenda, the Dusk Rose list a lot more lately due to it being less combo-based and more interactive. But don't fret! Ayli will still be getting love. As I mentioned in the midst of the review, I'll be writing up a primer for Elenda (as well as my other decks before long!)
I hope everyone is having fun with Battlebond, and we'll see what comes with Core Set 2019 and Commander 2019!
The potential issue i can see with Thrilling Encore is that you can't really prepare for when a player board wipes and open mana is not an Orzhov thing, how much more 5 open mana. That's why at some point I'm really considering putting in Vedalken Orrery. just to make the deck reactive.
The potential issue i can see with Thrilling Encore is that you can't really prepare for when a player board wipes and open mana is not an Orzhov thing, how much more 5 open mana. That's why at some point I'm really considering putting in Vedalken Orrery. just to make the deck reactive.
It's true that you can't control when other players board wipe, but in my thinking I feel like I'm usually the one doing the board wiping. Orzhov and mana isn't too much of an issue. With Ashnod's Altar and the several mana rocks and how long games can go on with attrition, I usually find myself with an excess of mana. By the mid to late game it shouldn't be hard to cast a board wipe followed up by Thrilling Encore. Asking for 8-9 mana isn't uncommon, which is about what it'd be to cast Toxic Deluge or Damnation into Thrilling Encore I'm certainly not saying to absolutely 100% make a spot for it, but I can definitely see it leading to a pretty big victory and blowout. I'm sure at that point the question comes up of "Then why not just play [c]Rise of the Dark Realms?", but having the option of the Instant speed effect of Thrilling Encore is very enticing. It may be me personally, but I can feel out when I think a board wipe is about to happen based on the state of the game. It also adds an interesting strategic element of trying to force a board wipe from other players, which can be easy for Ayli to do.
do we have a board wipe in a stick ala False Prophet but not exile. on top of my head, it's Massacre Wurm but it's very limited. that should make Thrilling Encore really enticing.
on the other hand, awesome work on this primer, mate. i've been lurking since you took over from Black Jack and the discussions have been really helpful to my 99. thank you! i was also a convert from using Ghost Council as commander. will try to post my list soon.
also, i'm just wondering if the deck list on your original post is the most recent version of what you play?
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First order of business is that I've added a new banner more repesentative of the deck's history, some of the cards that are being played now and with the Amonkhet flavor that I dearly love I've about gotten Invocation versions of all cards that have them, then I just have to get another Sol Ring invention
In addition, I've done a little more formatting and editing of the main post and applied for Primer status! Around the end of December I received some feedback that I've attended to this weekend, and after a long time here's hoping the thread finally gets that!
Regarding deck changes: I have not made any changes for Rivals of Ixalan yet, but will be discussing the set blow. I'm currently deciding on what to switch for Torment of Hailfire, which I had been very skeptical of. That is, until I had it played against me in two different games, and essentially won both of those games for it's controller. My initial feelings were that giving players choices is a bad idea. However, with the amount of board wipes and removal we pack and and opponent's hand sizes always fluctuating, I now feel that it can either be an amazing tool to decimate the board to pave the way for our win by buying us time, or outright win by itself. Previously I had taken out Profane Command as the other XBB utility/finisher spell. But, even casting Torment of Hailfire for a mere 6-7 can be devastating and leave opponents struggling. Currently I'm eyeing Scroll Rack and Toxic Deluge. The deck has enough draw and tutoring power that Scroll Rack is not particularly necessary to the deck. Hand fixing is nice, but for most of the history of the deck I've never had a problem with consistency to absolutely warrant it. Toxic Deluge is an amazing board wipe, but still having three other board wipes in here and having played for a long time without Toxic Deluge being necessary, it's also under consideration for replacement.
Rivals of Ixalan is one of the more fun sets we've seen in a while that offers a lot of reasonable considerations! The prerelease was super fun and I've had my eyes on a couple items from it, which I'll discuss below! As usual I won't be reviewing every card, but rather cards that might appear to have some usefulness to the deck or might raise an eyebrow. If I skip over a card, it's a safe bet that it doesn't fit well into the deck's overall scheme.
Baffling End - With having W cost exile effects like Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares available that target any creature, this is largely a pass. No one is likely to waste spot removal on this to earn themselves a 3/3 green Dinosaur. If you're having a hard time tracking down Path or Swords, there are plenty of better options like Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, or even Eye-blight's End, Rend Spirit and Dust to Dust.
Blazing Hope - In Commander if you can cast this on a creature, you're probably already doomed
Bishop of Binding - Given that we're not a combat oriented deck, this isn't particularly appealing. It's an Oblivion Ring that dies more easily and for a triggered ability that doesn't particularly matter to us.
Martyr of Dusk - It has some potential in a build that wants to play around with a token sub-theme. With it, Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle you can create a loop. Mostly a pass, because generally making a 1/1 token isn't too valuable for the deck
Paladin of Atonement - This gets a little funny with Necropotence, because at the end of each player's turn you can exile a card with it and put a counter on it. A life-gain build could possibly make use of him, but for the main build, the loss of life to various effects is negligible.
Slaughter the Strong - A weak, Standard-oriented board wipe that probably won't even see play in Standard.
Zetalpa, Primal Dawn - If you want to run Ayli as more reanimator than combo, Zetalpa can be a nice, hard-to-remove target. It won't be found in the main deck, and there are more game-changing reanimator targets available, but it's not necessarily a bad choice.
Dead Man's Chest - With Sun Titan and some recursive removal, this could be a fun toy to play around with. We're in the land of giants, where seeing 4-6 power on Turn 4 or 5 is commonplace. Play this and then find a way to wipe out that creature. Repeat it with Sun Titan. For rules clarification, when an Aura enters the battlefield and isn't cast and targeted, it's owner simply choses a permanent for it to attach to. It circumvents Shroud and Hexproof as you're not actually targeting that creature. It won't be found in the main deck, but have fun if you enjoy playing other people's cards!
Dusk Legion Zealot - There is enough card draw and tutoring that it's ultimately unnecessary, though wouldn't be bad in a budget build. We always want our ETB triggers to have a big impact. Just stick with that Reassembling Skeleton (or Bloodghast) and Skullclamp
Gruesome Fate - This isn't the worst in a build that tries to push creature tokens, but the problem is it becomes a dead card when you don't have any. Mostly a pass, but once again budget friendly.
Mastermind's Acquisition - This could be okay if your group runs sideboards. Mine does not, and personally I'd rather it stay that way. Otherwise, it's a Diabolic Tutor.
Ravenous Chupacraba - Everyone is excite dabout this Chupacabra. It's Nekrataal without First Strike and one less power, but destroys any creature which is fantastic. If you're playing a budget build, he could be a consideration, but there are far better options already in the main build.
Tetzimoc, Primal Death - This is probably my favorite of the Elder Dinosaurs. A 6/6 Deathtouch body for 4BB isn't the worst. I do find his ability and prey counters to be really fun. The reason he won't be making his way into the deck is because if you board wipe or don't have pray counters he's only that 6/6 Deathtouch which isn't that useful to us. Once you have him on the battlefield or he goes to your graveyard, you'll have a hard time finding a way to get him back into your hand. If you run Phyrexian Reclamation that's a thing, but the other big downside is how he telegraphs what's coming. The imminent doom of all the marked creatures adds a fun social aspect to the game, but he's ultimately a large mana investment that lets your opponents know he's coming, and the deck doesn't want to return creatures from the graveyard to your hand.
Twilight Prophet - This is one of the cards that I'm most excited about in the deck. Gaining the City's Blessing by Turn 4 or after is not a problem at all in EDH/Commander. It's a 2/4, so it's less easily killed and can do some blocking. Best of all, it has Sorin, Grim Nemesis's +1 ability at every upkeep, and is a creature you can bring back easily if it gets removed. I really want to play it because it fits Ayli's attrition kit very well. It doesn't have an ETB effect or death trigger, but is good card advantage. I ultimately would like to find a spot for it for testing.
Vona's Hunger - Without the City's Blessing it's a one-off Merciless Executioner which isn't great. With the City's Blessing, it's an Instant speed partial board wipe that is the best when opponents have an odd number of creatures on the board, do to them having to round up (If they have 5, they have to sacrifice 3, etc). Considering Toxic Deluge is an option at the same cost, I want to say it's a pretty easy pass. If you're in a very fast, aggressive meta, it could be worth it for the Instant speed, though. But really, much better board wipe options are available, and we seldom want to give them the ability to leave some of their creatures alive when we want to board wipe.
Elenda, the Dusk Rose - She may have some potential in a build that wants to try more tokens. a 1/1 for 2WB basically falls over if the wind blows in an EDH/Commander game. She has potential to get big. The disadvantage of running her here is that most board wipes are symmetrical. In Ayli, we're surgically exiling things with our non-creature spot removal spells; we're mass board wiping; or occasionally we're using recursion to make them sac stuff with Merciless Executioner; or when we're choosing to sac our own creatures. The Executioner is the only really reliable way to grow the amount of counters on Elenda in the deck without killing her as well as any other creatures to trigger her ability, because sacrificing our other creatures usually is the start of the end. She may be fine for Teysa, Orzhov Scion or her own deck built for her, but sadly she just doesn't work well with how this Ayli build works and there's not much reason to want the tokens she makes, anyway.
Profane Procession // Tomb of the Dusk Rose - I've seen people excited about this thing, but I'm looking at paying 4WWBB to exile the first creature with it. Then, you only get to exile with it twice more at a cost of 3WB each. Then, we can get one back for 4-mana. This isn't great. It's not even good. With the kind of mana it requires, we can easily win the game or be doing so, so much more. There's way, way better ways to get rid of problematic creatures or make them serve our cause. Hard pass.
Azor's Gateway // Sanctum of the Sun - It should go without saying, but we want to be able to get our stuff back when we use it. This asks us to exile cards. 5 cards. Five potentially very important cards. And then, we get to add a but load of mana of one color to our mana pool. And do what with it? There's enough ways to generate enough mana to finish games available to us, that making room for this and hoping whatever you choose to exile isn't something you need later, or that it gets removed before you can flip it and it has to start over because it's considered a new card and doesn't see what you've previously exiled. No. Just... no!
The Immortal Sun - I mean it's not bad, but why? If you have an Atraxa Superfriends player in your group, hose them down. If it sticks. But the only real interesting ability on it for us is to draw a card, and we have plenty of that.
Arch of Orazca - I really hope you're never so desperate that paying 5 mana to draw one card is good.
(Also known as Xenphire)
Lately, I’ve been more and more impressed by the seemingly unassuming Reassembling Skeleton. It blocks, it fires off colorless damage of Blasting Station, it happily gets eaten by Razaketh, the Foulblooded and its the very best Skullclamp fodder. Hurray for the little guy!
WB Ayli, Eternal Recursion WB - GUPir and Toothy GU - WBR Mathas, Fiend SeekerWBR
In another example from a game just last night, he was even more helpful! An opponent stole my Sheoldred, Whispering One from my graveyard with their own Sepulchral Primordial. The skeleton was in the graveyard so I was able to activate it's ability to get something to sac to Sheoldred at the end of the turn before mine That game was a 3-player pod with me versus Volrath the Fallen and Mogis, God of Slaughter. Used the Skeleton all game to avoid taking damage from the Mogis triggers and block Volrath and the threats he reanimated from the stuff discarded to buff Volrath up
(Also known as Xenphire)
(Also known as Xenphire)
Glad to see you drop by, tarotplz! I'm super happy that I could help you out with an Ayli build! I'm actually trying to acqiure a few of the more expensive cards myself after an emergency came up and I had to sell off some stuff. Yawgmoth's Will was $15 last year when I finally got my paper copy and now it's almost $50... But anyway! It looks like you found some fine substitutes for some of the more expensive cards. We also got very fortunate with some reprints of Sheoldred, Whispering One and Kokusho, the Evening Star in Iconic Masters Hopefully Masters 25 will reduce the budget even further (A pack reprint of Impreial Seal or Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed would be fantastic...).
Has Crypt Ghast been working alright for you without Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth? I dig the inclusion of Gift of Immortality It looks like a pretty sweet build!
(Also known as Xenphire)
Gary (Gray Merchant of Asphodel) took the match, jumping in and out of the 'yard wearing his fancy Nim Deathmantle.
Lately, I'm a bit inclined to retire the former head of this deck: Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter. (even though I got a nice Asian one)
It's a superb sac outlet (and he enables some combos, especially with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed). BUT: he does so little (for his huge manacost), especially nothing upon ETB or dying. What do you think?
WB Ayli, Eternal Recursion WB - GUPir and Toothy GU - WBR Mathas, Fiend SeekerWBR
Nim Deathmantle and Ashnod's Altar gets busted or exiled everytime anyone ever plays them. You almost need Grand Abolisher just to get one of those cards to stick.
I've been using Dawn of the Dead, Gift of Immortality, Mimic Vat, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Adarkar Valkyrie, and playing around with Twilight Shepherd. Another good angel that works at the end of your turn and offers some politics is Dawnbreak Reclaimer, which can potentially cough up another ETB or LTB.
I feel like adding Dark Prophecy, Grim Haruspex, Dark Confidant, and exchanging Scroll Rack for Sensei's Divining Top would help, but I can never figure out what to take out. Maybe even Mind's Eye?
Opponents' vital combopieces (think Food Chain for Prosh for example) we can remove with pinpoint accuracy. Often exiling them.
We're Orzhov. Permanents do not trouble us.
I think it's important with this deck not to take an aggressive stance (even, a thing like putting an Ashnod's Altar into play) unless it's too late for the opponents.
WB Ayli, Eternal Recursion WB - GUPir and Toothy GU - WBR Mathas, Fiend SeekerWBR
Instant or Sorcery
Grim Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Entomb
Enlightened Tutor
Corpse Dance
Demonic Tutor
Utter End
Anguished Unmaking
Swords to Plowshares
Creatures
Archon of Justice
Ashen Rider
Kokusho, the Evening Star
Yosei, the Morning Star
Sun TItan
Karmic Guide
Rune-Scarred Demon
Fiend Hunter
Knight-Captain of Eos
Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed.
It almost always catches everyone off guard. That card is just straight value. You might even be able to have the Sun Titan bring it back, but you wont be able to full most players again if you bring it back. I mostly use it for Kokusho, the Evening Star, Yosei, the Morning Star, and Sun Titan
Also, I haven't found much value with Cavern of Souls. I do play with blue players, but they know better than to counter creatures because they're easier to kill. Enchantments and Artifacts are whats getting countered. So even players who play with Prossh and Foodchain know better than to rely on 1 card to achieve victory. Most players I see are using draw power and Scroll Rack/Sensei's Divining Top to play cards with Boseiju, Who Shelters All that place permanents on the battlefield free, like Genesis Wave. Especially when there's a Gaea's Cradle on the board. God is that card so busted. I don't know why they don't ban it. We try not going after other peoples land, but lately it's been something we have to stay on top of.
Has anyone played against the infinite lockdown combo in Breya's deck using Mindslaver? It sucks. It's one of the most broken combos I've seen. Granted we don't play a lot of graveyard hate, so that's our fault. We try to not use cards that stop specific colors or functions, or totally screw players like Contamination and Blood Moon. But hey that's the game right?
There are definitely a few cards I would swap out though. I swapped out Coalition Relic for Thran Dynamo, better value IMO. I'm not sure why the deck has Faith's Fetters. As long as I've been watching this build, I've never seen such a common card added to the build. Especially when this deck is almost all spot removal. I think Gift of Immortality is a much better option. Can't see why you'd waste a card slot on a temp enchantment that costs 4, no Sun Titan recursion there. I like Gift of Immortality because it can be a minor distraction for your other artifacts and enchantments. Plus, it's hard as hell to remove from the game when you have Sun Titan and Necromancy orAngelic Renewal around. I also swapped out Entomb for Imperial Seal and Razaketh, the Foulblooded for Grim Tutor. I can't justify paying 8 mana for any kind of tutor. It's cool if you want to cheat him out, but he puts a major target on your back. If you can't afford a Grim Tutor, you can get 3 cards with Diabolic Revelation for the same cost as Razaketh, the Foulblooded. I think Razaketh, the Foulblooded is one of those "More Win" cards.
As with every deck, how successful it is depends on your meta. I've found the Ayli build here to be able to stand up on it's own in many metas. When you say Prossh, if you're talking about Food Chain Prossh, then no it's probably not going to prevent you from getting KO'd on Turn 2 or 3. If you're fortunate, you'll have Swords to Plowshares in hand. If that's the meta you're playing in, then it would behoove you to make some adjustments and meta calls such as adding cheaper removal. But as I've described in the OP, Ayli isn't a Turn 2-4 win deck. It can prevent those decks from going off at times. But Ayli is built for EDH as it was intended, not the toxic environment of "cEDH" dominated by Prossh, Jeleva and so on that look to win before the game even starts.
Losing to Breya and Ur-Dragon is a bit puzzling, however. Ur-Dragon even with a lot of ramp is pretty dang slow. Where's everyone else in the pod? This isn't a 1v1 deck, so I assume there are other opponents. Very bizarre. Breya is powerful, but between several Exile effects and two mass Artifact removal effects in the list, surgically taking out the engines and cards that push Breya over the top shouldn't be a problem. When I talk about finesse in the Primer, part of that is knowing what to remove and what not to remove. A well constructed Breya deck is definitely one that you have to know when to old removal to your chest, because most combos in Breya are 3-4 card combos such as Time Sieve + Thopter Assembly where Time Sieve is the much bigger threat as it is a lot worse to deal with than Thopter Assembly.
As for Nim Deathmantle and Ashnod's Altar: the deck can win without them pretty easily, but again it's a politics and finesse thing. You have to examine the group you're playing with. If you're playing with very experienced or cutthroat players, of course they're going to get removed ASAP. Look to combos like Fiend Hunter + Sun Titan instead with Viscera Seer to dig for answers or Ayli since it's very easy for the deck to get creatures back. If you find you need to play Grand Abolisher, that's a meta call and I encourage you to do so. Most of the combos in the deck can be done at instant speed on other player's turns. But losing important combo pieces is again a finesse and politics thing. I'm usually able to judge if it's safe to play those cards or not and how much I'll be able to get out of them without them blowing up and make a decision as to whether to make a different game plan or simply prolong the game plan
I personally find Dawn of the Dead to be too slow, and often would rather my creatures stay in my graveyard until a certain point that I need them. For the same reason, Debtors' Knell was cut a few years back, for it's cost even though it can target other graveyards. There are just many times where it's a dead card in my hand or on the board because I'm not looking to reanimate a creature every turn - often they're there in cold storage until needed.
Grim Haruspex and Dark Prophecy are good cards in some decks, but this isn't one of them because if you're able to draw a lot of cards off of them, you should already be winning. Creatures don't loop, die and get brought back too much until the deck is winning or very close to winning. I also don't have a card in the deck I'd take out for either of these. I prefer Phyrexian Arena to Dark Prophecy for the consistency, because I'm not always killing a creature on my turn. Dark Prophecy is also more likely to get removed since people tend to assume that if you're playing it, you're about to go off or you're going to draw way more cards than they're comfortable with.
Agreed!
Grim Tutor - Tutors are overall representative of another copy of any card in a deck. The reason I don't run Grim Tutor is partially because of cost, but also because tutors have a diminishing returns. At some point to add more tutors, you're taking out a card that your other tutors can be representative of. Between Demonic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Expedition Map, and the repeatable effects of Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Rune-scarred Demon and Sidisi, Undead Vizier, I find that the deck is in a very fine spot for tutors where replacing a card to add more would be more of a detriment to the deck than a boon. This is the same reason that I have yet to add Imperial Seal to the main list.
Thought Vessel (For Necropotence) - This truly hasn't been an issue for me except in very rare corner cases with all the tutors I mentioned above, including Expedition Map and Weathered Wayfarer.
Tainted Field - Was actually purposefully overlooked because colored mana is more important to the deck functioning than colorless mana, and I choose to run a heavy toolbox of utility lands leaving me with only 8 Swamps. I'd rather not get stuck with a colorless source if my opening hand has that as my Black source. In a deck that runs way more basic lands than I do, it's not a bad card, but it's not as consistent as it could be.
Arcane Lighthouse - If hexproof such as Sigarda, Host of Herons is a problem for someone, they can make that meta call, but in general I don't feel it's worth reducing my basic land count for this effect. With plenty of board wipes and being able to get around Hexproof by recurring Merciless Executioner, I've found that Hexproof is very rarely a problem for me, so I have elected not to run it
Reflecting Pool - I have no particular reason I'm not running this other than that I've never had one. The consistency in my access to colors and mana base has not been an issue for me so I haven't sought it out. It would be at most an optimization for the deck, same as why I haven't dropped the money to get a Scrubland yet. If I come into one in the future, I will probably play it and add it to the list. Until then it's not particularly a concern as the mana base has currently felt fine
and especially Mirrorpool - This is a card that I tested at one point and is what I've concluded is a "win more" card. In most cases, paying the extra C2 to copy a spell was more prohibitive to my game plan when casting a spell. I try to avoid taplands when I can, and paying 5 to copy a creature doesn't really mean much to more when I could pay the same converted cost to sacrifice a creature for it's effect, pay for and Buyback Corpse Dance with the same amount of mana and without sacrificing a land to do so. Effectively, Mirrorpool asks to tie up mana that I'd rather not for an effect that is pretty negligible for the deck.
On Cavern of Souls - For a while I had considered removing it, but the most common Creature type in the deck is Human with 9 total. All of them happen to be cards that I cast first rather than dump in my graveyard to reanimate later. Getting Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed out to get back important Black spells, or Recruiter of the Guard to tutor up combo pieces and many other examples have been pretty important to success with the deck. While it's not strictly necessary, it actually protects the ability to cast some of the most important creatures in the deck that Blue player I've played with felt forced to counter because of their effect. They'd rather delay my ability to get a board wipe back with Xiahou or the ability to exile the board with False Prophet than let them hit the battlefield. So while it's not exceedingly obvious, there's a very real reason that Cavern of Souls has remained part of the list
Sensei's Divining Top - This was in the list until not too long ago, however I actually chose to exile it and keep with Scroll Rack. In the mid to late game when I have very large hands and I'm able to shuffle due to the large amount of search effects, I found it far more effective to be able to dig 7+ cards looking for combo pieces than spinning the top and looking at my top 3. In playing with them both for quite a while, Scroll Rack always gave me an extra level of consistency that Top doesn't, especially when I have Necropotence on the board and I'm digging 10+ cards deep.
I've faced the Mindslaver lock before and it's difficult to deal with. If they're smart, they're going to wait until they have a set up by which they can sacrifice the Mindslaver to Krark-Clan Ironworks or Breya in response to it being targeted with removal, so it's really hard to get rid of it. Earlier on I was talking about it being necessary to remove things surgically. It is, however, usually abused by cards that are a lot easier to get rid of like Prototype Portal and Academy Ruins. Depending on which method they're using to achieve the lock, you can at least slow them down and dig for answers. If you try to exile Prototype Portal first, they at least can't perform a hard lock on the game and it might give another player a chance to try to deal with it (assuming they're smart and helping with a threat that big, of course). Same with Goblin Welder. The main culprit is usually Academy Ruins, which no one should feel ashamed of getting rid of. I also try to avoid land destruction, but if it's a utility land with a powerful effect, I'm not going to hold any punches as to me that's just like any other combo piece that needs to be dealt with. I'd Ashen Rider, Archon of Justice or Mangara of Corondor and target Academy Ruins as soon as it hits the table.
I'm not going to lie, but between Foodchain Prossh and Mindslaver Lock Breya, it sounds like you're playing with a group of people who are of a different mentality about what EDH/Commander is than who this Ayli deck is built for. With that said, make plenty of meta calls. Leyline of the Void would probably be a very good addition to the deck for you. Praetor's Grasp, Sadistic Sacrament or Bitter Ordeal may be worth looking into as a way to make those decks play fair. The terms "fair" and "unfair" are thrown around at a very high rate these days, and I would say that Ayli is a "fair" deck whereas those aren't.
Thran Dynamo - Coalition Relic in all actuality is much more important to the deck as colored mana is like gold, here. I've genuinely never been in a position where I wanted to pay 4 mana for a mana rock that only produces colorless mana at the point in the game where I'd be playing it, whereas often I use it's ability to put a charge counter on it when I haven't had to use it and get two additional colored for my next turn.
Faith's Fetters - For the same reason that decks with a lot of removal still play Lignify, Imprisoned in the Moon, Song of the Dryads and other similar effects, I run Faithless Fetters. That reason is that there are often cases where I'd rather not destroy or exile a Commander so that it can come back, and this effectively shuts it down. There are also many cases where I want to shut down a utility land in a deck that has plenty of ways to get it's Lands back. Your problem with Breya's Mindslaver lock for example, could be partially solved by putting this on Academy Ruins. There are also plenty of times where a Planeswalker hits the table but there are more important targets I'd like to save my removal for, so putting this on that Planeswalker keeps it from becoming a problem. This is especially useful against Atraxa Superfriends. If other builds aren't running it, then that's their choice. But many players build off of EDHREC now, which is an echo chamber aggregating information from the same websites people build decks and post to, who are then adding to the pool of information on EDHREC, and the cycle continues. I haven't looked at EDHREC for Ayli, but it's an example of the echo chamber that people are building within these days, as when I look at Reddit or Facebook groups, it's always people suggesting the exact same cards. Creativity has gotten at a low point in the greater EDH community, which is kind of sad. But I certainly will always rely more on experience than what other people are running to make cuts for my decks
Gift of Immortality - It's a cute card, and I run it in my Elenda, the Dusk Rose deck because it makes sense given that I want her to go to my graveyard and bring her back rather than the Command Zone. In Ayli, it's more questionable because I might want to sacrifice something in response to a mass exile or board wipe effect and then it'd come right back just to die again to a board wipe. If you're trying to replace Faith's Fetters with this, then that's your call, but it's slow and just doing what many cards in the deck already do
As for more tutors - I explained above that each tutor in the deck is representative of another copy of a card in the deck, and single use tutors have diminishing returns where you're cutting cards that other tutors in the deck could be representative of. Throwing more and more tutors isn't the answer to faster decks, and constantly tutoring also makes you a target. I'd rather have Entomb than yet another tutor, since Entomb does something that many other cards in this deck don't and the ability to toss a creature into my graveyard to reanimate at instant speed to blow out an opponent who wasn't expecting it is far more valuable to me! As for Razaketh, the Foulblooded: If I hard cast him, I'm about to win the game because I can stack his activations in response to him being targeted and go find any amount of combo pieces or removal I need. If they target him, he's going to come back. This is a reanimation deck. Opponents can target my creatures all they want - they're going to suffer for it in the end, some way. There's a high chance of always having enough fodder on the board to sac to him. When Razaketh hits the battlefield, in every game I've had him, I won the game that turn or the next because no amount of removal can stop me from stacking his ability in response to the removal. Or just bringing him back, anyway Razkaeth isn't a win more card - he's a win condition, because he gets all your combo pieces, or sets up your next 3-4 plays. Diabolic Revelation doesn't get cheaper by being cast from the graveyard, and doesn't come back near as easy as Razaketh. If anything, Razaketh has been one of the best additions to the deck in the last few years!
(Also known as Xenphire)
When you have free repeatable sac outlet (like an Altar or a Blasting Station) it's so backbreaking for opponents: recurring a Fleshbag Marauder every turn (not just mine), having compete board control with False Prophet, and that's not even mentioning more (mana) expensive critters like Yosei, the Morning Star or Ashen Rider. Even if it just reanimates something once, it's worth it.
EDIT: I thought I remembered something about the merits of Gift of Immortality. There were quite a few insightful posts on the matter, on the last few pages of BlackJack's Ghost Council Thread (RIP).
By the way: congratulations on the Primer status and the Primer Highlight feature!
WB Ayli, Eternal Recursion WB - GUPir and Toothy GU - WBR Mathas, Fiend SeekerWBR
Thanks, Jonas!
Regarding Gift of Immortality. I do admit that being able to bring a creature back every turn can be pretty backbreaking. I should clarify that I don't think it's bad at all - far from it, it's a pretty great card. As far as the main build goes, though, there's not really anything I feel that I want to cut for it. I did mean to mention that cutting Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter has been on my mind if something comes up that warrants it, because he is expensive. The thing I like about him is that he can finish the game if he sticks and he's a sac outlet that doesn't require a cost for activation. Something I may consider. I've also become less and less of a fan of Wayfarer's Bauble over the years.
(Also known as Xenphire)
WB Ayli, Eternal Recursion WB - GUPir and Toothy GU - WBR Mathas, Fiend SeekerWBR
Well, I'm here to do my set review, so I'll discuss that in a moment!
Hey there everyone! I've been really busy trying out new archetypes and Commanders lately as I add new types of decks to my repertoire. But Ayli hasn't been forgotten! Below I'll go through the cards I feel are worth noting, including some that may seem like includes or upgrades but don't quite cut it and why. It's about 45 minutes before I leave for my local prerelease event, so this may be posted as a two-part ordeal. We'll see how much I can get done!
Dominaria Set Review
Colorless
Karn, Scion of Urza (Pass) - There's a lot of hype around Karn and his card advantage. However, between Scroll Rack, Sensei's Divining Top if you run it, several tutors and other draw engines, the deck is in a pretty good place without Karn. Planeswalkers are some of the hardest cards to get back, and Karn can't be touched by Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed, either. His -2 is seldom relevant to the deck and his +1 requires you reveal upcoming cards and let your opponents know what is coming - information you don't want opponents to know in a heavily combo-oriented deck. Is he amazing? Probably. Is he for Ayli? Sadly not.
White
Baird, Steward of Argive (Budget, Taxes) - Included with some of the new Legendary creatures in the set are some effects attached to creatures based on other permanent types from the past. This Ghostly Prison on a creature is potentially more valuable to Ayli because it's a creature, which makes it a target for Entomb as well as all the other reanimation effects. The problem is he's not quite that Ghostly Prison, as paying only tax to attack you isn't that big of a threat. This also excludes the plethora of removal we run so we don't have to worry about playing cards like this. For someone looking at a budget list or that just wants to focus heavy on taxes, he may be your guy. In general, however, I'd say to look elsewhere for taxing effects on creatures.
Board the Weatherlight (Budget) - It's very rare that White gains the ability to take cantrips. While I don't foresee updating Ayli to include any Sagas, digging five for an Artifact or Legendary creature may be decent depending on your build. It won't make it into the main list, and I wish it were an Instant, but if you're on a budget and can't afford the ever rising cost of the best tutors, then this could definitely be a consideration if you don't want to pay 4+ mana for Diabolic Tutor, Increasing Ambition, etc.
Daring Archaeologist (Pass) - I don't foresee Daring Archaeologist ever being more than $0.50. I feel it is too expensive for it's effect in Standard, and that holds especially true for Modern. I won't speculate here on builds in Standard that may include it in the long run. The main point is that it's no Argivian Find which is still very affordable, and if you're wanting a creature with an effect similar to this there's Restoration Specialist which I've been considering after it worked very well in my Elenda, the Dusk Rose deck.
Evra, Halcyon Witness (Pass) - Evra is certainly a unique card. For 6 mana, though, there is so much more that an Ayli deck can do. It doesn't have Trample and while it could have shenanigans with Vizkopa Guildmage. In a very casual build I could see someone swinging in with Evra, activating Vizkopa Guildmage then Evra's ability and making it's power 30 or whatever at the time and if it's not removed the Lifelink triggers and you gain 30 and the table loses 30. But for a 6 mana and 4 to activate? Not worth. It's a cute effect, though.
Fall of the Thran (Pass) - It's a mass land destruction spell, which I wholly avoid in EDH/Commander. Dos it give you some lands back? Yes. Does it still hose you? Yes. One could presumably, in a very attrition based build that doesn't care about the health of your local meta and atmosphere, use Hex Parasite to use mana rocks and repeatedly remove the first lore counter from Fall of the Thran so that every turn you're destroying all lands. Save that for another deck, and don't run this card. The utility land tool box is part of what makes the deck as effective as it is, and getting four lands back two turns after you play this won't go well for you.
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle (Pass) - Teshar is a mini-Sun Titan but depends on you casting a lot of Artifacts or Legendaries. As a mostly reanimation focused deck, you ideally want to be bringing them back from your graveyard. There's the upside that he's fetchable with Recruiter of the Guard, but he also is far more limited than Sun Titan in that he can only target creatures. For this reason, he's a pretty hard pass.
Urza's Ruinous Blast (Pass) - As far as mass removal spells go, this isn't something we're particularly interested in. The requirement of having a Legendary creature isn't that big of a deal with Ayli costing as little mana as she does and there being plenty of Legendary Creatures in the deck. That does make it less consistent than our catalog of board wipes available that have no such limitations. However the biggest down side is exiling everything. The reason I love Merciless Eviction and Austere Command and what makes them so good is being able to fit their effect to the board state. There is really a time where we can't handle and somehow pinpoint exact problems on the board without doing the very Urza thing of just exiling everything. Being able to leave our Enchantments intact when we use board wipes is great because some of them are our best card draw engines; or leaving our mana rocks untouched when Enchantress gets out of control, etc. At least normally, we can get them back. I have no doubt that this is a powerful card for EDH/Commander, but it really isn't for Ayli with how important it is to tactically leave certain permanent types untouched when selecting our board wipes.
Black
Dark Bargain (Budget) - One thing the deck doesn't particularly focus on is very specific ways of putting cards into the graveyard. There is Entomb and the value-climbing Buried Alive, too. Dark Bargain - and even an Instant - isn't a bad way to go about that. It's not the greatest at 4 mana, but it's another draw/dig option that also lets us dump reanimation targets in our graveyard. It's a budget card for those who don't want to spend $40+ on a Demonic Tutor and who want more ways to dump stuff in the graveyard.
Demonlord Belzenlok (Pass) - After how crazy Razaketh, the Foulblooded was, it's a bit disappointing that I don't feel the same about Belzenlok. The first thing you notice is that he exiles the cards you don't put in your hand. That's bad right from the start. The second is that you have to really build around him to make him valuable. The great majority of cards in the deck can be brought back later, and he completely goes against that. He really feels like he should be Rakdos colors more than Mono-B. He's sure to hit a lot of targets and could possibly let you get a lot of cards in Ayli. But exiling the rest is just unacceptable.
The Eldest Reborn (???) - This is an interesting series of effects. For 5 mana it's a hit to the board that can cause 3-4 death triggers, or put targets for other stuff in opponents graveyards. Not something we care about too much, but it has it's times. Then each opponent discards a card. Disruption is nice, even though we don't particularly play to this style. The final effect, which allows you to return a creature OR Planeswalker from any graveyard to the battlefield under your control raises an eyebrow. Planeswalker reanimation is not something we've really seen. On one hand, the Planeswalkers that see play in this format are usually very powerful and game changing, and if there's not one in a graveyard then there's probably a creature. On the other hand - and this is one of my main issues with Sagas - is that while this sits on the battlefield, you're telegraphing what you're planning to do. It gives opponents two turns to prepare for it, to make them take the initiative and find graveyard hate. That's 6 turns in total if you count 2 turns for each opponent. They aren't going to want you to get their Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon or Garruk Beastcaller. But, it's a fun card. And questionably powerful.
Final Parting (Budget) - It's been a while since we've seen an Instant/Sorcery that lets you tutor for a card to toss directly in your graveyard. The spell is costed appropriately for Standard Black tutor spells, considering that you're paying 2BB for Diabolic Tutor with a B to attach Entomb to it. If you're running on a budget and want to focus your money elsewhere, this isn't an awful replacement for Entomb. I personally try to avoid running Diabolic Tutor in decks that can at least afford Diabolic Intent which was just reprinted in Battlebond after I went back to finish this review, finally. The biggest downside compared to Entomb is that this isn't Instant speed. That means you can't dump a toolbox creature in your graveyard at Instant speed to get out with Corpse Dance or Instant Necromancy and so forth. But again, for the Orzhovian on a budget, this isn't a terrible include.
Josu Vess, Lich Knight (Pass) - I wanted to mention Josu here just because he has a very big, potentially game ending effect. He's a bit problematic for Ayli to run, however, in that the main reason to run him requires that you can pay his Kicker cost when he enters the battlefield. That generally puts him square out of interest of Ayli since reanimation is the main way the deck wants to abuse ETB effects. If you run Phyrexian Reclamation, you could always sacrifice him after making your army of 2/2 Menace Zombies to be able to re-cast him. But for the sake of Ayli, he's probably a Win More card that is ultimately unneeded anyway. As always, if you decide you want to try to do some sort of creature token strategy he could be of interest, but otherwise he's a pretty easy pass. Even in a token build, with the kind of mana you need to sink into him, you should be approaching your end game and using mana to better effect than on Josu.
Phyrexian Scriptures (???) - This is probably the most interesting Saga for Ayli or even Orzhov decks in general. The first Chapter isn't anything too special, but does allow you to save Ayli from Chapter II or whatever else you may want to stick on the battlefield. Casting this with Sheoldred, Whispering One on the battlefield could be pretty brutal! Chapter II is pretty close to a Day of Judgement depending on your meta. Finally, Chapter III is a very nice non-symmetrical graveyard wipe which could become very important moving forward with the rise of Muldrotha, the Grave Tide and Slimefoot, the Stowaway. It's not an autoinclude, but definitely a fun card I would suggest to try out and see if it's to your liking. A board wipe and mass graveyard hate in one card for 2BB is honestly not bad at all.
Torgaar, Famine Incarnate (Pass) - While Torgaar has a pretty tempting ETB effect that cuts a single opponent's life in half, and a cost reduction that doesn't particularly matter as a generally non-token, non-creature swarm based strategy, I feel that it's hard to want to put him in over the other current possibilities or existing cards in the main list. When Ixalan released, I did try Dire Fleet Ravager, which does the same effect but on a symmetrical level. Even though Dire Fleet Ravager includes ourselves in it's effect, the huge swing in life caused by hitting everyone is a lot more valuable than a targeted version. This is especially true if you have Kokusho, the Evening Star, Exsanguinate, Death to the Debtless or similar cleave effects, wherein the halved life totals puts the table that much closer to within execution range with those effects. I ended up not running Dire Fleet Ravager, however, because with paying life to effects like Necropotence and often being the Archenemy, it was exceedingly difficult to find a good time to cast it where I would get the most benefit from it. So of course, with that said, I definitely won't be running Torgaar in the main build.
Whisper, Blood Liturgist (Budget) - Generally speaking, I would almost rather run Hell's Caretaker for a similar effect, even with it being limited to use during the Upkeep on our turn. The reasoning here is the requirement to have two creatures to sacrifice. We love sacrificing creatures, but that doesn't mean we always have two creatures we're happy to get rid of. Reanimation effects are often at their most useful following board wipes or when setting up a play where you're not going to necessarily have the requisite (2) creatures on the battlefield to use her ability. She's definitely a fast and clear pass for the main build, but I've labelled her as worthy for the Budget deck because as an Uncommon, she is very affordable and repeatable reanimation effects can still be great when on a budget, and you can make the call as to whether your build will run enough creatures or token creation to use her ability easily.
Yawgmoth's Vile Offering (Pass) - The closest comparision we have for this card is Beacon of Unrest, which is far, far better for the deck due to Artifacts being more important to us than Planeswalkers. After it resolves, it also does the opposite of Yawgmoth's Vile Offering and shuffles back into the library, while YVO exiles itself. And requires us to control a Legendary Creature to cast it. The requisite Legendary Creature honestly isn't too bad because we have a lower cost Commander and a handful of Legendary Creatures in the deck. It's still makes the card more conditional than other options, however. If you're set on wanting to get Planeswalkers from graveyards, I would almost run The Eldest Reborn. While not immediate, at least the Saga will do some Creature removal and hand disruption while still getting you the same effect later on, and it doesn't exile itself so you can get it back with Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed, Yawgmoth's Will, Argivian Find, Restoration Specialist or Auramancer.
Multicolor
Primevals' Glorious Rebirth (Pass) - Now, this is a strong card. It's power level varies depending on your build. Currently, my build only runs 8 Legendary Creatures and no Planeswalkers. Those are still very powerful Legendary Creatures, however. This also can hit important lands if they've been blown up, such as Boseiju, Who Shelters All, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Volrath's Stronghold and others. If I still ran Sorin, Grim Nemesis and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon this may have been an auto-include, though what it would replace is a bit of a mystery. While this isn't going to make the cut in the main build because I feel like I most of the time I won't have enough targets in my graveyard that I can't get back another way to make this worthwhile, if you have a number more Legendary permanents that you feel this could easily hit, it is a very solid consideration.
Artifact
Blackblade Reforged/Forebear's Blade (Equipment Package) - I've tied these two up together because l generally wouldn't run them outside of an Equipment package in a build that focuses on getting damage through. With the amount of removal available it's not unrealistic to try to win with lethal Commander Damage or trying to push a lot of combat damage through with some of the beefy ETB/Dying trigger creatures. The largest issue with Equipment packages unless you go deep in is that Equip costs stack up in addition to trying to utilize mana-intensive recursion and death triggers. If you're set on trying to do something like that and are running Stoneforge Mystic and so on, these have some lethal potential.
Helm of the Host (Pass) - What we have here is the new Panharmonicon. A lot of players are trying to force this Equipment into decks that don't have much potential to benefit from it outside of a couple potential cute combos or interactions. The truth is, it's expensive. It's a total of 9 to cast and equip this to a creature. Sure you get a token to copy to sacrifice or beat someone with, but is it really necessary? Generally, no. Even in an equipment build, it's a very slow effect and probably not worth replacing something else. I admit it's unique and a fun ability, but ultimately not worth forcing.
Land
Cabal Stronghold (Pass) - If you've looked at the deck list on the first post, it should be a no-brainer on why this is a pass. I'm mentioning this here because there are people that still ask why I don't run it's amply better predecessor, Cabal Coffers. The deck runs a heavy amount of utility lands in the form of non-basics, which have priority over finding Basic Swamps, which Cabal Stronghold needs. Cabal Coffers is not in the deck because without Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, it is a dead card in hand and most of the time cannot even be tapped for mana without a loss due to how few Swamps can be on the battlefield. Cabal Stronghold is even worse, because even Urborg can't help it tap for multiple mana due to it requiring very specifically Basic Swamps.
Conclusion
Well, that concludes my review of Dominaria. As I always say at the start of every review: I don't talk about every single potential card here that someone might want to play with. Because of how old the deck is and how tight the list is, it's very hard to find cards that could make a splash or replace something in the list that isn't just better in every way. I can say that Dominaria has included some interesting cards to try out and have fun with. The Sagas The Eldest Reborn and Phyrexian Scriptures are very cool, and could definitely have an application in the deck. One I didn't discuss was Chainer's Torment because the only reason I see to run it is one very specific interaction: Paying half of your life for a 20/20 (or less depending), activating Vizkopa Guildmage and sacrificing it to Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim to drain the table for 20 and gain the 20 life back. That's a pretty narrow interaction that doesn't really warrant it's inclusion, but still a funny one I thought I'd bring up, nontheless.
I admit that it feels bad to always write "Hard/Fast Pass" on the majority of cards that come out, but that's just the nature of looking at a deck that one has had around as long as this. Always remember that despite what I say about the build included in the main post and even though I can provide ample reasoning to not run a card, that shouldn't stop you from trying something if it really jumps out at you. I my disagree and it may not be for me or for inclusion here in what I feel is the best version this deck can be for the purposes of learning and the Primer; but if a card strikes you as really fun, by all means, try it!
Now that I've finished the Dominaria review, I'll be posting up a Battlebond review, shortly! Stay tuned!
(Also known as Xenphire)
WB Ayli, Eternal Recursion WB - GUPir and Toothy GU - WBR Mathas, Fiend SeekerWBR
Currently getting all the cards together, and when going through my collection I found a Lifeline.. I was wondering of any of you tried it, because I couldn't find a mention of the card in this thread? I know it's a VERY risky card to run, but if done correct seems pretty sweet.
GEzuriG
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Update: Edited and finished the Dominaria review. Check out my last post, above!
Welcome to the thread daanzel! Thanks for stopping by, and for the kind words! I'm glad the thread has been of some help to you
So, here's where I stand on Lifeline and my experience with it:
Lifeline is not something I have really considered for Ayli. My other Orzhov deck is Elenda, the Dusk Rose and I tested it out there due to the fact that for her to work I need to send her to the graveyard when she dies rather than the Command Zone. What I found was that it was way, way too easy for my opponents to be aggressive with using it themselves thanks to the oracle wording that it works for every creature and not just your own, as you eluded to with how risky it is.
Although Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim and Elenda, the Dusk Rose both like to get value from ETB/Dying triggers by bringing stuff back from the graveyard, one huge issue is that it enables almost any deck running Green to ramp out of control. A lot of the staple ramp cards like Sakura-Tribe Elder (which doesn't even require a sac outlet!), Wood Elves and so on that are played in Green or other graveyard decks like Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Muldrotha, the Grave Tide suddenly become very, very aggressive, repeatable ramp spells. It's a serious issue for Orzhov decks which are typically slow, control based decks - especially the two I've mentioned - that need a steady stream of removal and board wipes to keep the game in check and execute a long term plan. It really helps accelerate more creature based strategies beyond our ability to keep them in check. In addition, with how prevalent high creature counts and ETB/Dying effects are in EDH/Commander, many decks have no problem finding a way to plant at least one creature before the end of turn after trying to board wipe them. In other words, it's easy for people to reverse board wipes and use our own Lifeline as an anti-control tool against us.
The last issue is getting rid of it when you don't want it. Of course, one answer to Lifeline's downside is to just nuke it yourself when it's going to be problematic. However, that almost always means spending your own removal on it instead of your opponent's stuff, or having to make room for Claws of Gix or Defiant Salvager, the latter of which isn't exactly what Ayli wants to do. Claws of Gix is a pretty acceptable sac outlet, though!
Anyway, I've ended up replacing Lifeline in Elenda and chosen not to run it in Ayli. BUT if you do want to try it, I would suggest trying to make room for Leyline of the Void to run them in concert. If you could overcome the downside of it helping your opponents out, it's got some serious potential. I hope this explains why well enough why I don't include it in the main list, though!
(Also known as Xenphire)
Thx for the elaborate response. I can see why it could get out of hand quickly, and I don't really want to dilute my list by running cards just for the support of Lifeline.. Back in the binder you go
GEzuriG
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WB Ayli, Eternal Recursion WB - GUPir and Toothy GU - WBR Mathas, Fiend SeekerWBR
I'm always about the flavor wins Good job, Jonas!
(Also known as Xenphire)
I'm a couple weeks late, but I figure it's time to go over Battlebond! There are many interesting, fun and powerful cards in the set. I've probably added more cards collectively to my decks from Battlebond than any other set in the last three years - and I'm not talking about reprints! I'm talking about the brand new cards! Without further adieu, let's get on to the aforementioned cards!
White
Regna, the Redeemer (1/5 - Very Low Consideration) - Of all the Partner with ~ pairs, Regna and Krav, the Unredeemed are probably one of the two most viable pairs (the other two not being relevant here). Regna, however, isn't all that great for Ayli. There are much better creatures with ETB/Death triggers for the cost that can produce tokens and have other utility. Take for example the wonderful Knight-Captain of Eos. Life gain isn't that hard for Ayli, but why settle for once a turn when you can destroy or reanimate something that makes tokens over and over, instead? She's a pretty swift and easy pass. I'll talk about her partner, Krav, later!
Arena Rector (3/5 - Some Consideration) - For quite a while Academy Rector was in the list. There are a few important Enchantments that should probably be in every Ayli build, and that list at least includes Angelic Renewal, Necropotence, and Necromancy. Other important targets could be Grave Pact, Animate Dead, Martyr's Bond, Faith's Fetters, Debtors' Knell or who knows what else. The list of Orzhov enchantments that work great with Ayli is pretty large. My list is currently down to 5, but with the amount of tutors available it seemed silly to keep Academy Rector in the list. This was doubly true with Sidisi, Undead Vizier and Razaketh, the Foulblooded being added to Ayli's repetoir in recent years that - while not putting Enchantments directly onto the battlefield - are repeatable tutor engines. The point I'm getting to here is that much like Academy rector, Arena Rector will entirely depend on your list, how important your Planeswalkers are to you and if you feel it's worth it. The clause that you have to Exile either Rector really sucks. I got around this in the past with Mimic Vat. But generally speaking, the amount of Planeswalkers that are useful to the deck are far fewer than that of Enchantments. Sorin, Grim Nemesis, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Liliana Vess, Sorin Markov (if you're *that* type of player) and to an extent Kaya, Ghost Assassin are probably the most useful. If you want to run Karn, Liberated for spot removal and can afford him, Arena Rector could be worth it. The Rectors are powerful cards and worth including, but entirely depending on your build and evaluation of that.
Play of the Game (0/5 - No Consideration) - As an Overwatch player, I love the name of the card alone. It also saved me twice in my Battlebond sealed events. I find the Assist mechanic to be fun as well, though it's probably not well suited to a deck that already tends to be the Archenemy. Who is going to help us? Probably no one But the biggest issue here is exiling all permanents. We don't have many effects for sacrificing things outside of our Creatures. If you run Claws of Gix, this may not be as big of a problem for you. Generally speaking, though, it's our non-Creature, non-Land permanents that help us recover and not suffer too much at the hands of boardwipes. Exiling all non-Land permanents is problematic for us, and frankly, you can almost always cast Hour of Revelation for WWW and not have to depend on an opponent
Together Forever (0/5 - No Consideration) - As I've said many times in this thread: We're better off letting our creatures die and go to the graveyard than anywhere else, whether that be our library or hand. I'm mentioning this here because it probalby seems like a great card in the right deck. This isn't that deck, though. For it to remain relevant past the initial +1/+1 counters distributed from Support 2, you have to start trying to make room for other cards. You start thinking about Archangel of Thune, which itself is a great card. If you're going for a more Life Gain Matters strategy with Ayli, that might be of interest to you. I've found over a long time playing that Life Gain Matters falls pretty flat much of the time, because the ways in which a life total can protect you in this game is pretty finite, and you have to start cutting better cards to try to make it work. But back to the original point - a deck in the style of the main post's list is better letting creatures go to the graveyard. That's why Phyrexian Reclamation isn't in the main list, and if I were to chose either of them, it would be Reclamation and only if my meta shifted to heavy graveyard hate to warrant it's inclusion. If you want to see a list where Together Forever shines, look for my Elenda, the Dusk Rose primer coming sometime in the near future
Black
Krav, the Unredeemed (4/5 - High Consideration)) - Generally speaking, cheap costed, free-to-activate sac outlets are the way to go. In extreme cases such as Razaketh, the Foulblooded where you have a huge flying body with an attached tutor effect, it's worth it. Krav isn't that level of crazy good, but he's not too far off. His partner, Regna, the Redeemer helps make fodder to sacrifice to both gain life and draw cards. That Krav grows himself with +1/+1 counters in the process isn't of too much relevance to us, but it does let you gain that much more life if you were to sacrifice him to Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim's own sacrifice effect after he's gotten big. He's an amazing sac outlet and can even sacrifice himself to his ability, rather than the increasingly common "...another creature" clause. If you run the types of cards that make tokens like Knight-Captain of Eos or have gone a route that includes more token production, he should be spectacular for you. He certainly has been in my Elenda, the Dusk Rose deck.
Archfiend of Despair (2/5 - Low Consideration) - Generally speaking, opponents gaining life isn't a problem. For much of the aside that I had regarding Together Forever above, I mentioned that a high life total and gaining life has a finite effect in this format. You still lose to infinite combos and alternative win conditions. And, more than not, you can still be brought down from upon high. This makes his first ability a moot point. His second ability is very, very inconsistent. As always, we want creatures that we're happy to have die, or at least don't care too much because you're going to punish someone for it. Archfiend of Despair helps in neither of these categories, and his triggered ability is inconsistent at most. Yes, you could have him out after sacrificing Kokusho, the Evening Star or a mini-powered Exsanguinate. But by the time you have the mana for that, you could just kill the table with Kokusho + Vizkopa Guildmage activated a couple times, which helps other cards in the deck; or just find a combo and power an infinite Exsanguinate and be done with it. Archfiend isn't the worst because as much cleave as the deck is capable of (that is, dealing damage/life loss to each opponent simultaneously), he has potential to cause a good amount of life loss himself. However, he doesn't do anything better than what the deck can already do with the existing cards.
Stunning Reversal (1/5 - Very Low Consideration) - It's a very cute card, and we've been getting a few of these lately. Exquisite Archangel is the one that comes to mind the most recently. The hard truth is that if you're in a position to play this and it matter, then you're probably not about to come out any better, afterwards. Much of your best card draw comes at the cost of life. I'm not a fan of card that basically wait the entire game for them to be worth anything to you and a totally dead card, otherwise. The exception is in combo heavy metas where perhaps there's a lot of Aetherflux Reservoir going around and you make someone pay 50 life for nothing. But these are very specific meta calls, and you still must have them in your hand for it to matter.
Thrilling Encore (4/5 - Heavy Consideration) - In Orzhov colors, and especially in Ayli, a plethora of board wipes and creature removal is done. It's a slow deck that wins through attrition. You cast board wipes to keep opponents in check. Well, this card can help those opponents check out. Thrilling Encore is worth considering, even if situational, because in many EDH/Commander games, if an opponent board wipes any time in the mid to late game, there are going to be heavy hitters, potential combo pieces and other cards that are hard to deal with entering the graveyard. Suddenly, they all become yours, and you're very likely to win with the new teammates you've made. If an opponent plays Living Death to try to get a leg up because they look and the graveyards are pretty shallow or empty and theirs is full, suddenly you have all of the creatures their opponents tossed in their graveyard. There is a large potential for complete blowouts with this card at Instant speed. It's a beautifully fun card.
Multicolor
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Artifact
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Lands
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Conclusion
There are a lot of fun cards in this set, including several reprints I didn't go over that are great like Diabolic Intent, Mangara of Corondor, Oreskos Explorer, Land Tax and Swords to Plowshares. Although I only reviewed. It also has what I think is the highest number of cards in one set worth considering or including in a list that resembles or plays like the main build, whereas almost everything is a hard pass in recent sets. I've been toning down my paper version to be more interactive and less responsive to make more enjoyable games, because my meta has shifted to being less cutthroat over the last few months. So, I'll definitely be testing out Thrilling Encore and potentially Krav, the Unredeemed. Truthfully, I've been enjoying my Elenda, the Dusk Rose list a lot more lately due to it being less combo-based and more interactive. But don't fret! Ayli will still be getting love. As I mentioned in the midst of the review, I'll be writing up a primer for Elenda (as well as my other decks before long!)
I hope everyone is having fun with Battlebond, and we'll see what comes with Core Set 2019 and Commander 2019!
(Also known as Xenphire)
It's true that you can't control when other players board wipe, but in my thinking I feel like I'm usually the one doing the board wiping. Orzhov and mana isn't too much of an issue. With Ashnod's Altar and the several mana rocks and how long games can go on with attrition, I usually find myself with an excess of mana. By the mid to late game it shouldn't be hard to cast a board wipe followed up by Thrilling Encore. Asking for 8-9 mana isn't uncommon, which is about what it'd be to cast Toxic Deluge or Damnation into Thrilling Encore I'm certainly not saying to absolutely 100% make a spot for it, but I can definitely see it leading to a pretty big victory and blowout. I'm sure at that point the question comes up of "Then why not just play [c]Rise of the Dark Realms?", but having the option of the Instant speed effect of Thrilling Encore is very enticing. It may be me personally, but I can feel out when I think a board wipe is about to happen based on the state of the game. It also adds an interesting strategic element of trying to force a board wipe from other players, which can be easy for Ayli to do.
(Also known as Xenphire)
on the other hand, awesome work on this primer, mate. i've been lurking since you took over from Black Jack and the discussions have been really helpful to my 99. thank you! i was also a convert from using Ghost Council as commander. will try to post my list soon.
also, i'm just wondering if the deck list on your original post is the most recent version of what you play?