I did a bit of thinking about Ephara and I wanted to try my hand with tokens. You will see I push hard on cheap token creators especially at instant speed. I have a good number of instant speed cards that are cheap and generate tokens as well as creatures that generate more tokens off of spellcasts. I figured if I can generate bodies at instant speed plus draw a card from them, in a lot of cases that should just keep my hand moving.
I went for somewhat of a swarm and buff tactic here with answers mixed in. Let me know what you think of it. As of my posting this deck it has not been tested and is still a theory I am putting together.
Sun Titan - I had it in my list a long time. In the end I cut it because I am a spellslinger list so I have a lot of spells he cant interact with. I have a lot of good artifacts / enchantments but for the most part he cant interact with them either. In the end the count of things he interacts with felt low enough (I think it was like 10 targets + lands that I was interested in) that I felt that cutting him for some additional ramp made sense over something late trying to ramp me.
Gilded Drake - it really is good. I struggled with it for a while but in the end, I felt like it was a little generic control for right now. I think it totally can fit in here, I just opted to cut it for something I felt was a little more on theme / had synergy with the deck.
Mobilization - three mana per token is ok but with all of the card draw in the deck as well as token producers I felt I was better off with triggered tokens and or tokens on cast effects than value over time / mana I have. I should have enough draw in here to make it make more sense to not go the direction of pay mana for tokens in cases where they are not cheap. I opted to keep Heliod in the deck but cut Oketra the True because of the mass vigilance as well as the larger token size.
Mass Polymorph - I was originally going to run it but I felt it was too slow and I am not ETB value based so it felt too slow. Synthetic Destiny still feels good to me given that its instant speed and I can do it in response to a wrath.
The thing with this build is that it is a ton more reliant on Ephara than hatebear or blink builds.
Hatebears can lock down the game or counter spells, but tokens can't really do that, and without the game-controlling power it's much more difficult to protect Ephara and promise your card draw.
Please update on how Angel of Jubilation functions in your deck! I've had my eye on that card since forever and I really want to know how it works out.
Another point: you have both Snapcaster Mage and Torrential Gearhulk. What will you cast with them? The best thing is obviously Mana Drain, but other than that things look more grim.
Stuff you probably won't cast with Snapcaster: Synthetic Destiny, Desertion, Cyclonic Rift.
Stuff you probably won't cast with Gearhulk: White Sun's Zenith, Unexpectedly Absent, Secure the Wastes.
Also, a ton of your instants and sorceries are spells that do nothing but get you a token or two, and that's not worth casting with either of these creatures, so that severely weakens their synergy.
I still like the idea, however, and I'd like to see where you take this.
The thing with this build is that it is a ton more reliant on Ephara than hatebear or blink builds.
Hatebears can lock down the game or counter spells, but tokens can't really do that, and without the game-controlling power it's much more difficult to protect Ephara and promise your card draw.
Please update on how Angel of Jubilation functions in your deck! I've had my eye on that card since forever and I really want to know how it works out.
Another point: you have both Snapcaster Mage and Torrential Gearhulk. What will you cast with them? The best thing is obviously Mana Drain, but other than that things look more grim.
Stuff you probably won't cast with Snapcaster: Synthetic Destiny, Desertion, Cyclonic Rift.
Stuff you probably won't cast with Gearhulk: White Sun's Zenith, Unexpectedly Absent, Secure the Wastes.
Also, a ton of your instants and sorceries are spells that do nothing but get you a token or two, and that's not worth casting with either of these creatures, so that severely weakens their synergy.
I still like the idea, however, and I'd like to see where you take this.
Ephara Reliant - I agree it is reliant on her. My meta really doesn't run that much that can disrupt gods especially as the commanders so I am not that worried about it right now. Most removal is scarce and its my commander so I should be able to just flip her back out and be ready to go again. I was a little more worried about theft but it felt like it was down to like I could run Blatant Thievery or just decent spot removal so I opted for the spot removal in case she does get stolen. I did in fact build the deck with the assumption that I for the most part can stick Ephara though.
Token Abuse - I will look into it. For the most part I wanted to run the deck as a swarm and buff plan. Some of them get fairly good stat lines when you start buffing them + their tokens. Hero of Bladehold with the tokens it generates swings for 7 already on its own and if you drop like any other anthem in there it starts growing quite well how much output it has. I could see having more things to use the tokens for but in a lot of cases I didnt quite like them. Fanatical Devotion is probably at the top of the list of things you mentioned because it could help vs voltron tactics but for the most part right now I just wanted to see if I could get like a beatdown token style to it.
Angel of Jubilation - I will let you know how it does. I liked that it had decent stats itself plus gave a big anthem while also hating on some opposing strategies.
Snapcaster Mage and Torrential Gearhulk - I run a lot of answers still and even just like hitting a Midnight Haunting isn't so bad. They have flash so they probably pick me up another draw off Ephara as well as giving me access to a lot of things at instant speed. I was counting something like 14 targets I would want just in the instants so I think it will be ok. If they prove to be a problem I can always cut them.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I was doing my Lin Sivvi set review for the new set when I started doing a writup on Djeru, With Eyes Open and I realized that Call the Gatewatch is a card. This deck is a spellslinger deck and honestly both of the planeswalkers I have in here seem like really good targets. For now I will probably put it on a short list of cards that I need to consider. Tomorrow I should get to play this deck so I will see if I can get any decent testing / feedback from the list as it stands.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Ok, I had one long ass 3.5 hour game in which I feel I actually did quite well. At the end of it all I have some changes I am going to make but I do not feel that this one game by any means was a very good test of the deck. I managed to find only one creature in the first 2 hours and it felt like all of my instants came instead so I am going to chalk it up a little to perhaps some need for more shuffling.
One big thing i did find was that the one shot make a token or two things just underperformed. The continuous tokens were all great and I always wanted things that generated me more draw. Every time I drew into spot removal / counters I felt great. Grip of Phyresis and Hour of Need were both very surprising in their usefulness as I cast both and then with both I recast them from grave later. Through the entire game I wish I had better grave hate so I will make a few adjustments to incorporate that better.
In the end of the 3.5 hour game I ended up losing in part because I got greedy with a Gearhulk play that tapped me out. In large part grave hate was something that was needed as all three opponents were abusing their graveyard the whole game.
DECK CHANGES:
Whitemane Lion -> Stonecloaker for a decent portion of the game I had Sacred Mesa and I found it a little hard to manage. I felt like Whitemain for a card for 2 mana might be a little similar. I did need to pick up some grave hate so I felt that Stonecloaker might be a little more per loop but that grave hate portion of it might just push it a little more to being playable.
Chasm Skulker -> Trinket mage I am adding some grave hate in my artifacts and I also wanted a little more access to ramp so this does both a little.
Funeral Pyre -> Crook of Comdemnation moving a weaker grave hate to a stronger grave hate. Crook is very strong grave hate and while it doesnt have card advantage on it, I think I can cover with my commander.
Spiritual Visit -> Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir weak token producer out for a flash hatebear. I really love Teferi in Ephara as it lets me play draw / go even more.
Rapid Hybridization -> Swords to Plowshares I had been thinking I might use some of my spot removal on myself. Rapid for instance could be used on Ephara when she is a creature to just spawn a 3/3 for a single mana. I found myself using all of my spot removal so lets just go to the good stuff.
This change takes some of my cute tricks out and brings in a little more solid of enablers. Bringing the quality of the spells up should be good as if I have a token producer based on spellcast it will make a token with a good spell instead of combining bad token making spells with token making on the creatures. It should also bring up the value of Snapcaster and the Gearhulk as well.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Also, seeing as you really like your spell triggered tokens, buyback seems to be a straight up win for you. Forbid and Capsize are classic, Invulnerability helps you live longer, Worthy Cause might be good lifegain if you're interested, Allay because destroying stuff is good.
Also, seeing as you really like your spell triggered tokens, buyback seems to be a straight up win for you. Forbid and Capsize are classic, Invulnerability helps you live longer, Worthy Cause might be good lifegain if you're interested, Allay because destroying stuff is good.
Relic vs Crook - Crook is the stronger graveyard hate effect between the two of them. Relic is nice in that it cycles if its not relevant but if you are looking for the one that is the stronger grave hate it is Crook. Because I have so much card advantage in Ephara I felt I could justify the stronger grave hate in this case.
Rest in Peace - my issue with rest in peace is that I still use my own graveyard some. Crook gives precision grave hate to the point that its hard to utilize graveyard resources for my opponents but in most cases I can still use my own. I did consider adding Rest in Peace as well but I felt that instead adding Trinket Mage gave me access to more of my ramp but also gave me the option of grave hate. Rest in Peace is the strongest grave hate option but for now I want to see how my own graveyard abuse package is as I still have a number of cards that utilize it.
Buyback spells - I find that in a lot of cases buyback spells are more important when you are not drawing as many cards. They give psudo card advantage in that they stay. Forbid could be something to look at but I like keeping my counters cheaper when I can. Of the buyback spells you mentioned I think Forbid fits the deck the best. When you have good card draw going it can be harder to get around to using buybacks normally but Forbid is kind of the outlier of them in that its buyback is not mana dependent but cards in hand dependent. I played a Grand Arbiter Augustine IV deck before which had less draw to it but the cost reduction of the commander made buybacks better. Generally speaking as the amount of cards you draw goes up the value of mana for buyback spells goes down.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
So I played my second game of Ephara this week. I dont think I got very good test results as the game was entirely too brief. I kept an opening hand of 3 lands + Monastery Mentor (I cant remember the rest of the hand). This was a new unknown meta to me so I dont know how much information to take from this game either.
The game was kind of normal with me playing the Mentor on turn 3, Ephara turn 4. The issue is that there was a goblin build Queen Marchesa who ramped his commander in and then proceeded to swarm with goblins. I managed to get out Teferi but what I was doing was drawing some attention from him so he was beating me up decently. He managed on his turn 7 my 6 to assemble Krenko with haste who tapped for 12 more tokens. I threw up some defenses which slowed him down by being late to the party on spot removing his haste outlet. He managed to put me to the low to mid 20s though.
The problem is then the next player played a 2 mana spell, and then cast Fall of the Titans for 15 choosing me and one more player and then copying it (Rosheen Meanderer deck had only ramped that game). He domed me for 30 on turn 7....
Soooooo, I have a fast swarm that was mostly pointed at me followed by a dual face bolting that murdered me. I honestly dont know what all I can generate from this testing other than.... move faster I guess. I am looking at possibly adding some cost reduction and moxes to the list. I dont know what I would be considering cutting as of right now but I feel like I need to speed some things up. This deck can replace some tempo ramp so lets start by ramping and then see where things look after we get moving a little faster.
Right now, I am taking a look at these mana ramp options:
I considered the idea of like mana dork myrs but honestly I would rather just move faster than worry about drawing a card from them after the fact. I will see what I can work out to push some of this into the list. I might have to mess with my spot removal a little to make room as I dont want to remove too much of the core concept of the deck when I am still a bit early on testing.
Like I said though, I really dont know how much to really give this game credit for. I think I might want to consider some of the cost reduction cards from the standpoint that I retain very good card draw with a deck that can continue to draw more cards. I considered something like Grand Arbiter but I think its hitting a little too late for what I want. I would like to ideally curve into Ephara sooner and make my mana go further.
I think at least one of the medallions should be in there. Helm might be good too though I'd probably put both medallions in before that.
As it stands you have 24 instants/sorceries. Do you think that number would be enough to justify cards like Baral to give your spells discounts or you'd need a higher spell number?
You definitely want about 10 pieces of ramp that put Ephara out early in any Ephara deck in my experience. The white medallion and Stormscape Familiar always overperform for me.
I can really feel the pull of artifacts, since the artifact ramp package would be so powerful and synergizes pretty well with a lot of angles of attack (e.g. voltaic key + myr turbine + clock of omens / unwinding clock / etc).
The issue with most of the spellslinger tokens and enchantment token makers is they are quite expensive to activate and don't benefit a lot unless ramping hard and if ramping hard you probably can find better stuff to do. Also a big white sun's at end step will end the game a lot of times whether it cantrips or not.
My thinking is the big mana intensive token generation spells having "draw a card" attached to them is not an ideal build for Ephara. It's probably better to play fewer of these effects and more control spells in a spellslinging build. And avoid stuff with X--
I think at least one of the medallions should be in there. Helm might be good too though I'd probably put both medallions in before that.
As it stands you have 24 instants/sorceries. Do you think that number would be enough to justify cards like Baral to give your spells discounts or you'd need a higher spell number?
I am going to try out the medallions and Stormscape Familiar for now. We will see how they perform.
Baral - Honestly I think its a little narrow. Part of wanting to cost reduce is to get Ephara into play a turn sooner not to mention when I can play a creature + have spells up. I think its more valuable for a global cost reduction effect whenever possible if you are going to run cost reduction effects you want them to be as broad as possible in what they affect of your deck.
I have been tempted to try out the cheap self clones. My only concern for them is that they only give me clones of my own things. Given that a deck like this can really push out a lot of card advantage I am trying to keep my cost / card low and so while I think a lot of those seem like great effects, my preference is to keep costs low. I have had plenty of issues already with my hand being full and not having enough mana to push things around. When you get more draw going per turn you want to keep the costs low and rely on multiple effects per turn over one big one.
You definitely want about 10 pieces of ramp that put Ephara out early in any Ephara deck in my experience. The white medallion and Stormscape Familiar always overperform for me.
I can really feel the pull of artifacts, since the artifact ramp package would be so powerful and synergizes pretty well with a lot of angles of attack (e.g. voltaic key + myr turbine + clock of omens / unwinding clock / etc).
The issue with most of the spellslinger tokens and enchantment token makers is they are quite expensive to activate and don't benefit a lot unless ramping hard and if ramping hard you probably can find better stuff to do. Also a big white sun's at end step will end the game a lot of times whether it cantrips or not.
My thinking is the big mana intensive token generation spells having "draw a card" attached to them is not an ideal build for Ephara. It's probably better to play fewer of these effects and more control spells in a spellslinging build. And avoid stuff with X--
X mana token gen - I think I am in agreement for now. I am going to try to cut back on them. I dont know if I need more other options but for now I will just see how the deck does with a little more ramp and a little less expensive stuffs.
Spelljack - I am running Desertion for now. I will probably hold off on any going with any more expensive ones for the time being.
DECK CHANGES:
Secure the Wastes -> Stormscape Familiar the big cost of the X token generators is a little slow. The familiar can ramp me into a faster start with my commander or be dropped in as a chump blocker + draw me a card.
White Sun's Zenith -> Comeuppance cutting more of the big X tokens. I wanted another wrath of some sort and in the end I just needed another way to protect myself from swarm so I decided to go this route. I have enough spot removal to protect me from single target threats but when it came to swarm I needed something else to add in.
Decree of Justice -> Pearl Medallion cutting more of the big x tokens. I wanted some cost reduction to ramp Ephara into play and or chain some playes a little easier.
Anointed Procession -> Sapphire Medallion I like Anointed Procession still but its a card I need to set up in combination with another token generator to make it do anything. I think there is room to circle back to this card later perhaps but for now I was trying to push hard to move faster and maintain enough cards that make tokens in my deck.
Synthetic Destiny -> Mirror-Sigil Sergeant I like Synthetic Destiny in theory but it means I need to have a handful of creatures in play and to hold up 6 mana instead of improving on that or trying to win with it. I think Mirror-Sigil Sergeant can be quite threatening on its own and it is enabled off of my commander alone.
Angel of Jubilation -> Angel of Invention I am just moving an anthem to another anthem here. I liked how the the 5 mana angel came with two bodies too and the vigilance + lifelink is kind of cool too. I think that Angel of Jubilation is a cool card but for one more mana getting two extra bodies out of really the same effect instead of a niche hatebear effect seems useful to me.
Stonecloaker -> Honor the Fallen I just wanted to move my grave hate to a slightly stronger effect. I like that Honor leaves me with my spells in grave for Snapcaster and Gearhulk and in most cases I need grave hate for creatures. The bit of lifegain is nice too and I like that this is kind of a surprise no to rez.
So I had a few changes I wanted to make. Several of these cards are more of just cards that have not been functioning to the level I want them to. In many cases the cards coming in are just cards I think could work and want to test out.
OUT:
Trinket Mage I really thought Crook of Condemnation was a 1 mana artifact lol. The fact that its a two mana artifact really throws me off on some of why I added the mage. Without a diversity of targets for this guy I just don't like him enough here. Its possible if I added Top or some grave hate that I could bring him back in but for now it makes more sense to cut him.
Recruiter of the Guard There are some great targets for this guy but honestly, I just don't find there to be a single creature that he can tutor that I am needing to toolbox. Adding three mana to playing most of what he can get me has not been impressive to me.
Heliod, God of the Sun I like the vigilance Heliod gives I just havent had the time and mana to play him not to mention the time and mana to make tokens from him. I do really like his buff but things have been moving a little too fast of late so I think I will cut him for now.
Cathars' Crusade I like the idea of this card and I think there is a lot it can do in this deck. Its just been too hard to set it up and stick it to be honest.
IN:
Cackling Counterpart I have really wanted to squeeze this card in being that its a clone + is instant speed + triggers on instant / sorcery casts. I think I have some great targets for this and I like being able to keep up some mana to respond. Plus, it draws me a card if it goes through on someone else's turn which is nice. It seems interesting to me.
Teferi's Protection I like that its so versatile in what it can do. Its token friendly to boot.
March of Souls I really felt I needed one more wrath in the deck and honestly there are a lot of options. I felt that with the anthems in the deck that giving opponents a few spirits isn't so bad. It does have some concern vs a swarm style token deck but I want to try it out for now.
Time Warp I have been asking myself if I should be adding some extra turns so I will start light and see how it goes for me. I have a good amount of value over time considering Ephara often draws me additional cards on my turns I am tempted to see how this pans out. Its likely to give me additional draw and land drops. The five mana extra turns are just so brutal.
The Commander 2017 Teferi's Protection will be when it shows up or possibly I might proxy test it before they show up next week.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I did a bit of thinking about Ephara and I wanted to try my hand with tokens. You will see I push hard on cheap token creators especially at instant speed. I have a good number of instant speed cards that are cheap and generate tokens as well as creatures that generate more tokens off of spellcasts. I figured if I can generate bodies at instant speed plus draw a card from them, in a lot of cases that should just keep my hand moving.
I went for somewhat of a swarm and buff tactic here with answers mixed in. Let me know what you think of it. As of my posting this deck it has not been tested and is still a theory I am putting together.
1 Ephara, God of the Polis
CREATURES (22)
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Stormscape Familiar
1 Walking Atlas
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
1 Mirror Entity
1 Monastery Mentor
1 Thraben Doomsayer
1 Clever Impersonator
1 Emeria Angel
1 Faerie Artisans
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Hero of Bladehold
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Saltskitter
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Angel of Invention
1 Docent of Perfection
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Mirror-Sigil Sergeant
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
ARTIFACT (8)
1 Mana Crypt
1 Crook of Condemnation
1 Sol Ring
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Pearl Medallion
1 Sapphire Medallion
1 Thought Vessel
1 Eldrazi Monument
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Marshal's Anthem
1 Opposition
1 Dictate of Heliod
1 Metallurgic Summonings
INSTANT (20)
1 Path to Exile
1 Pongify
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Arcane Denial
1 Counterspell
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Honor the Fallen
1 Mana Drain
1 Negate
1 Unexpectedly Absent
1 Cackling Counterpart
1 Forsake the Worldly
1 Grip of Phyresis
1 Hour of Need
1 Rootborn Defenses
1 Teferi's Protection
1 Comeuppance
1 Return to Dust
1 Desertion
SORCERY (6)
1 Curse of the Swine
1 Martial Coup
1 Not Forgotten
1 March of Souls
1 Time Warp
1 Austere Command
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
LAND (36)
1 Arid Mesa
1 Command Tower
1 Flooded Strand
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Irrigated Farmland
7 Island
1 Kor Haven
1 Prairie Stream
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Mystic Gate
1 Nimbus Maze
7 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Strip Mine
1 Terrain Generator
1 Tundra
1 Windswept Heath
EXCLUSIONS:
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Hatebears can lock down the game or counter spells, but tokens can't really do that, and without the game-controlling power it's much more difficult to protect Ephara and promise your card draw.
What I'd do instead of you is tone down on the token making effects, and start looking for more ways to utilize them (a good example you have is Opposition - I'm going to be including it in my deck as well).
Silumgar Sorcerer seems strong in your build, Martyr's Cause, Unified Will screams for inclusion here, Fanatical Devotion, Knight-Captain of Eos if you have enough soldiers, Martyred Rusalka...
Cards I think could be cut: Hero of Bladehold, Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Spiritual Visit, maybe more.
Please update on how Angel of Jubilation functions in your deck! I've had my eye on that card since forever and I really want to know how it works out.
Another point: you have both Snapcaster Mage and Torrential Gearhulk. What will you cast with them? The best thing is obviously Mana Drain, but other than that things look more grim.
Stuff you probably won't cast with Snapcaster: Synthetic Destiny, Desertion, Cyclonic Rift.
Stuff you probably won't cast with Gearhulk: White Sun's Zenith, Unexpectedly Absent, Secure the Wastes.
Also, a ton of your instants and sorceries are spells that do nothing but get you a token or two, and that's not worth casting with either of these creatures, so that severely weakens their synergy.
I still like the idea, however, and I'd like to see where you take this.
Ephara Reliant - I agree it is reliant on her. My meta really doesn't run that much that can disrupt gods especially as the commanders so I am not that worried about it right now. Most removal is scarce and its my commander so I should be able to just flip her back out and be ready to go again. I was a little more worried about theft but it felt like it was down to like I could run Blatant Thievery or just decent spot removal so I opted for the spot removal in case she does get stolen. I did in fact build the deck with the assumption that I for the most part can stick Ephara though.
Token Abuse - I will look into it. For the most part I wanted to run the deck as a swarm and buff plan. Some of them get fairly good stat lines when you start buffing them + their tokens. Hero of Bladehold with the tokens it generates swings for 7 already on its own and if you drop like any other anthem in there it starts growing quite well how much output it has. I could see having more things to use the tokens for but in a lot of cases I didnt quite like them. Fanatical Devotion is probably at the top of the list of things you mentioned because it could help vs voltron tactics but for the most part right now I just wanted to see if I could get like a beatdown token style to it.
Angel of Jubilation - I will let you know how it does. I liked that it had decent stats itself plus gave a big anthem while also hating on some opposing strategies.
Snapcaster Mage and Torrential Gearhulk - I run a lot of answers still and even just like hitting a Midnight Haunting isn't so bad. They have flash so they probably pick me up another draw off Ephara as well as giving me access to a lot of things at instant speed. I was counting something like 14 targets I would want just in the instants so I think it will be ok. If they prove to be a problem I can always cut them.
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One big thing i did find was that the one shot make a token or two things just underperformed. The continuous tokens were all great and I always wanted things that generated me more draw. Every time I drew into spot removal / counters I felt great. Grip of Phyresis and Hour of Need were both very surprising in their usefulness as I cast both and then with both I recast them from grave later. Through the entire game I wish I had better grave hate so I will make a few adjustments to incorporate that better.
In the end of the 3.5 hour game I ended up losing in part because I got greedy with a Gearhulk play that tapped me out. In large part grave hate was something that was needed as all three opponents were abusing their graveyard the whole game.
DECK CHANGES:
Whitemane Lion -> Stonecloaker for a decent portion of the game I had Sacred Mesa and I found it a little hard to manage. I felt like Whitemain for a card for 2 mana might be a little similar. I did need to pick up some grave hate so I felt that Stonecloaker might be a little more per loop but that grave hate portion of it might just push it a little more to being playable.
Chasm Skulker -> Trinket mage I am adding some grave hate in my artifacts and I also wanted a little more access to ramp so this does both a little.
Funeral Pyre -> Crook of Comdemnation moving a weaker grave hate to a stronger grave hate. Crook is very strong grave hate and while it doesnt have card advantage on it, I think I can cover with my commander.
Spiritual Visit -> Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir weak token producer out for a flash hatebear. I really love Teferi in Ephara as it lets me play draw / go even more.
Raise the Alarm -> Counterspell low impact token producer out for a cheap counter.
Midnight Haunting -> Negate low impact token producer out for a cheap counter.
Rapid Hybridization -> Swords to Plowshares I had been thinking I might use some of my spot removal on myself. Rapid for instance could be used on Ephara when she is a creature to just spawn a 3/3 for a single mana. I found myself using all of my spot removal so lets just go to the good stuff.
This change takes some of my cute tricks out and brings in a little more solid of enablers. Bringing the quality of the spells up should be good as if I have a token producer based on spellcast it will make a token with a good spell instead of combining bad token making spells with token making on the creatures. It should also bring up the value of Snapcaster and the Gearhulk as well.
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If you were to use a 2 CMC grave hate it would have to be Rest in Peace in my opinion.
Also, seeing as you really like your spell triggered tokens, buyback seems to be a straight up win for you. Forbid and Capsize are classic, Invulnerability helps you live longer, Worthy Cause might be good lifegain if you're interested, Allay because destroying stuff is good.
Relic vs Crook - Crook is the stronger graveyard hate effect between the two of them. Relic is nice in that it cycles if its not relevant but if you are looking for the one that is the stronger grave hate it is Crook. Because I have so much card advantage in Ephara I felt I could justify the stronger grave hate in this case.
Rest in Peace - my issue with rest in peace is that I still use my own graveyard some. Crook gives precision grave hate to the point that its hard to utilize graveyard resources for my opponents but in most cases I can still use my own. I did consider adding Rest in Peace as well but I felt that instead adding Trinket Mage gave me access to more of my ramp but also gave me the option of grave hate. Rest in Peace is the strongest grave hate option but for now I want to see how my own graveyard abuse package is as I still have a number of cards that utilize it.
Buyback spells - I find that in a lot of cases buyback spells are more important when you are not drawing as many cards. They give psudo card advantage in that they stay. Forbid could be something to look at but I like keeping my counters cheaper when I can. Of the buyback spells you mentioned I think Forbid fits the deck the best. When you have good card draw going it can be harder to get around to using buybacks normally but Forbid is kind of the outlier of them in that its buyback is not mana dependent but cards in hand dependent. I played a Grand Arbiter Augustine IV deck before which had less draw to it but the cost reduction of the commander made buybacks better. Generally speaking as the amount of cards you draw goes up the value of mana for buyback spells goes down.
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The game was kind of normal with me playing the Mentor on turn 3, Ephara turn 4. The issue is that there was a goblin build Queen Marchesa who ramped his commander in and then proceeded to swarm with goblins. I managed to get out Teferi but what I was doing was drawing some attention from him so he was beating me up decently. He managed on his turn 7 my 6 to assemble Krenko with haste who tapped for 12 more tokens. I threw up some defenses which slowed him down by being late to the party on spot removing his haste outlet. He managed to put me to the low to mid 20s though.
The problem is then the next player played a 2 mana spell, and then cast Fall of the Titans for 15 choosing me and one more player and then copying it (Rosheen Meanderer deck had only ramped that game). He domed me for 30 on turn 7....
Soooooo, I have a fast swarm that was mostly pointed at me followed by a dual face bolting that murdered me. I honestly dont know what all I can generate from this testing other than.... move faster I guess. I am looking at possibly adding some cost reduction and moxes to the list. I dont know what I would be considering cutting as of right now but I feel like I need to speed some things up. This deck can replace some tempo ramp so lets start by ramping and then see where things look after we get moving a little faster.
Right now, I am taking a look at these mana ramp options:
I considered the idea of like mana dork myrs but honestly I would rather just move faster than worry about drawing a card from them after the fact. I will see what I can work out to push some of this into the list. I might have to mess with my spot removal a little to make room as I dont want to remove too much of the core concept of the deck when I am still a bit early on testing.
Like I said though, I really dont know how much to really give this game credit for. I think I might want to consider some of the cost reduction cards from the standpoint that I retain very good card draw with a deck that can continue to draw more cards. I considered something like Grand Arbiter but I think its hitting a little too late for what I want. I would like to ideally curve into Ephara sooner and make my mana go further.
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As it stands you have 24 instants/sorceries. Do you think that number would be enough to justify cards like Baral to give your spells discounts or you'd need a higher spell number?
UBarrin, Master WizardU
USticher GeralfU
UIxidor, Reality SculptorU
UWNoyan Dar, Roil ShaperUW
Curious if you considered any of the following cards or, given your experience, how they would play out:
I can really feel the pull of artifacts, since the artifact ramp package would be so powerful and synergizes pretty well with a lot of angles of attack (e.g. voltaic key + myr turbine + clock of omens / unwinding clock / etc).
The issue with most of the spellslinger tokens and enchantment token makers is they are quite expensive to activate and don't benefit a lot unless ramping hard and if ramping hard you probably can find better stuff to do. Also a big white sun's at end step will end the game a lot of times whether it cantrips or not.
My thinking is the big mana intensive token generation spells having "draw a card" attached to them is not an ideal build for Ephara. It's probably better to play fewer of these effects and more control spells in a spellslinging build. And avoid stuff with X--
Play more spells like Clone Legion and Cackling Counterpart or similar I think and less Secure the Wastes.
I'd also consider Spelljack and Desertion to be pretty critical in this build. Give 'em some serious thought anyway.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I am going to try out the medallions and Stormscape Familiar for now. We will see how they perform.
Baral - Honestly I think its a little narrow. Part of wanting to cost reduce is to get Ephara into play a turn sooner not to mention when I can play a creature + have spells up. I think its more valuable for a global cost reduction effect whenever possible if you are going to run cost reduction effects you want them to be as broad as possible in what they affect of your deck.
I have been tempted to try out the cheap self clones. My only concern for them is that they only give me clones of my own things. Given that a deck like this can really push out a lot of card advantage I am trying to keep my cost / card low and so while I think a lot of those seem like great effects, my preference is to keep costs low. I have had plenty of issues already with my hand being full and not having enough mana to push things around. When you get more draw going per turn you want to keep the costs low and rely on multiple effects per turn over one big one.
Stormscape Familiar - thanks for the reminder as I forgot that was a thing.
X mana token gen - I think I am in agreement for now. I am going to try to cut back on them. I dont know if I need more other options but for now I will just see how the deck does with a little more ramp and a little less expensive stuffs.
Spelljack - I am running Desertion for now. I will probably hold off on any going with any more expensive ones for the time being.
DECK CHANGES:
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OUT:
IN:
The Commander 2017 Teferi's Protection will be when it shows up or possibly I might proxy test it before they show up next week.
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