1) see question #2 also telepathy is amazing, mystical tutor lets you hit basically anything, and there are many 1-cmc removal spells if needed.
2) ramp isn't worth a slot imo, it's just not our game plan. but burgeoning and exploration let you ramp a lot and avoid discarding lands to hand size for low low cost, and give a lot of defensive speed in our starters. Kodamas I think would be a wasted card since we rarely ramp TO anything in particular. Especially in nasty metas you might not be able to safely ramp on 3, and then it's REAL slow.
3) I dislike permanent effects like that. Don't give people a reason to want you or your cards dead. If you're preventing their game plan, they're gonna aim hate your way. When you disrupt, you want to do it, then avoid leaving anything in play that makes you an ongoing problem for them. And You want the game a LITTLE out of control, so that other players are always distracted by someone else. Just make sure you have the right answers if things get too hairy.
4) there's enough instant-speed wipes I think. Most of the deck is instant already. Not worth a card. Alchemists refuge is ok though.
5) they won't be if the threats are aimed at you. And that's a risk when you're leaving ongoing problems for someone. Besides, the fewer actions you take, the more invisible you are, the better. Tapping stuff down all the time you look like a meany control player. Just kill it permanently. Also sidebar, if you lose the game with o-ring out, the perm doesn't even return.
6) I don't like niche cards. People doing reasonably Bomby things is fine. Just have the counterspell for the craterhoof or whatever. Think reactive control, not proactive. Don't try to control the whole game. Just block the most critical stuff.
7) yep. It's annoying, it attracts attention, and when played well we rarely need much card draw tbh.
1) see question #2 also telepathy is amazing, mystical tutor lets you hit basically anything, and there are many 1-cmc removal spells if needed.
2) ramp isn't worth a slot imo, it's just not our game plan. but burgeoning and exploration let you ramp a lot and avoid discarding lands to hand size for low low cost, and give a lot of defensive speed in our starters. Kodamas I think would be a wasted card since we rarely ramp TO anything in particular. Especially in nasty metas you might not be able to safely ramp on 3, and then it's REAL slow.
3) I dislike permanent effects like that. Don't give people a reason to want you or your cards dead. If you're preventing their game plan, they're gonna aim hate your way. When you disrupt, you want to do it, then avoid leaving anything in play that makes you an ongoing problem for them. And You want the game a LITTLE out of control, so that other players are always distracted by someone else. Just make sure you have the right answers if things get too hairy.
4) there's enough instant-speed wipes I think. Most of the deck is instant already. Not worth a card. Alchemists refuge is ok though.
5) they won't be if the threats are aimed at you. And that's a risk when you're leaving ongoing problems for someone. Besides, the fewer actions you take, the more invisible you are, the better. Tapping stuff down all the time you look like a meany control player. Just kill it permanently. Also sidebar, if you lose the game with o-ring out, the perm doesn't even return.
6) I don't like niche cards. People doing reasonably Bomby things is fine. Just have the counterspell for the craterhoof or whatever. Think reactive control, not proactive. Don't try to control the whole game. Just block the most critical stuff.
7) yep. It's annoying, it attracts attention, and when played well we rarely need much card draw tbh.
Thanks, I haven't really built like this before (I more play proactive control than reactive). Are the new friend/foe cards for Battlebond worth it for this deck (Pir's Whim is the only one that will really benefit this deck though)? It does seem in line with the controlled reaction that this deck is aimed for?
Also, what is the Citadel Siege for? Without Arcane Lighthouse, it is difficult to tap down their biggest threat (which is usually given shroud/hexproof via equipment) and I doubt the +1/+1 counter mode is that helpful.
How necessary is Field of Dreams to the deck's plan (given its current price tag of ~$100)? What would be a good replacement?
Thanks, I haven't really built like this before (I more play proactive control than reactive). Are the new friend/foe cards for Battlebond worth it for this deck (Pir's Whim is the only one that will really benefit this deck though)? It does seem in line with the controlled reaction that this deck is aimed for?
Also, what is the Citadel Siege for? Without Arcane Lighthouse, it is difficult to tap down their biggest threat (which is usually given shroud/hexproof via equipment) and I doubt the +1/+1 counter mode is that helpful.
How necessary is Field of Dreams to the deck's plan (given its current price tag of ~$100)? What would be a good replacement?
Pir's whim is definitely on my radar for this deck. It does have a lot of power, but 4 cmc sorcery that isn't particularly good at answering a particular threat...I'm not so sure, as much as I like it. It does get mileage with kor haven and such though. I think it depends how much you want the land tutor. Annoyingly giving the "friend" mode to other players kinda sucks. You probably can't set them up to be the archenemy by giving them something powerful (maybe if they have a cradle or coffers or something but it wouldn't be reliable at all) like you might be able to by letting them, say, recur an avenger of zendikar with the black one (which is my fav of course), so it's the sort of card that's probably just going to almost always go friend to yourself only, which is a little lame. If the black one could be played it'd be a lot more interesting, even with generally thin graveyards for phelddagrif. And yeah, unfortunately the W and U ones just don't really help us out much. You'd have to have a pretty different list before you'd consider them, I think. Although they do have more interesting choices for your opponents.
The other cards from battlebond I have my eye on for phelddagrif are: bramble sovereign - playing actual creatures isn't really this deck's style, but it does offer some amusing ability to help other players for a low cost. Overall probably a solid phelddagrif inclusion, though perhaps not for this particular version since we're trying to stay very low-permanent. brightling - the bounce ability is perfect for phelddagrif, but I think it probably doesn't really do enough. It fogs a creature for a lot, it games some life...but we're usually trying to win via 21 damage anyway. So I don't think it has a place here unfortunately. play of the game - love it. Potentially very low cost, exile-all wipe. Only thing I dislike it that it's sorcery, and it kills telepathy and such. Still, solid wipe. Whether you include it probably depends on meta (do people leave up mana and how helpful are they?) and how much you like tutoring for telepathy or other permanents that will get killed. spellseeker - grabs lots of useful spells for us. Could definitely have applications, either as a decent tutor with a speed bump creature, or potentially as some sort of powerful synergy setup card like intuition (although how you'd do that escapes me at the moment). fumble - removal that also might give you the tools to make phelddagrif a fast clock seems like a lot of fun. I could definitely see trying this out, although it's probably not going to see, like, HYPER competitive play. out of bounds - amazing card. As long as someone has 3 open, it's a 1 cmc counterspell against any game-winning spell. Obviously somewhat meta-dependent but I think this is exactly what phelddagrif wants to be doing. And if they refuse to contribute, just back it up and try again. You might even get free info if people are refusing to pay for what seems like a no-brainer. Maybe they're EOTing a combo piece or something. anyway, super cool card. Probably the best of the assist cards. bring down - i really wish this was an instant at least, then MAYBE. as-is, reprisal is an instant that only costs 2, and I don't even really seriously consider that card in this deck. So....definitely no.
new dual lands - Maybe make the cut, maybe don't, there are plenty of basically-no-downside duals at this point. These are probably among the better ones, though, the only risk is if it's down to 1v1 and for some reason you still care about lands.
As far as citadel siege, I'll confess the more up-to-date version of this list in the 2DH (budget) version because I can keep it together without using cards from my main collection, and it works nearly as well and is more satisfying to beat people with chaff. So citadel siege is a card I was testing and decided to remove ultimately. It's a very efficient control tool, and it can speed up the endgame considerably, but it does violate my whole no-ongoing-problems-that-people-want-to-remove rule, so I think it'd probably cut it.
Field of dreams was another experimental inclusion that I've since cut. In my experimentation, symmetrical information-giving like revelation is much much worse than telepathy. Once people KNOW you have a hand of answers, they often try to force you to use them, which is very very very bad. field might still be ok if you're some sort of god who can memorize everything everyone is drawing, and you're playing against idiots who don't remember anything YOU drew, but I would not bother personally. As far as replacement, you could add a tutor for telepathy (wargate maybe) or whatever you think your deck is lacking. Depending on play style you may want more wipes, counters, removal, or draw. The balance of the deck will always come down to personal preference to a certain extent, so I always highly encourage people to try shifting the balance around and see what works best for you.
As I said above, when I play control I have typically played more of proactive control decks (e.g. prison and stax) (my Narset deck above runs a bunch of brutal enchantments and eventually wins with Planeswalker ultimates, Chandra pings/Ugin bolts, Karn exiles and restarts (which usually results in more rage quitting than anything else)), which is the opposite of this. What sort of advice would you give to someone playing this type of control deck?
I think when you first start playing the deck, I'd recommend not using any answers unless it's actually going to kill you if you don't. You'd be amazed how out of control the game can seem, and then have someone else bring it back to balance. You also might be surprised how little hate goes your way if you're rarely the focal point of the game. The less you do, the better.
Don't forget that phelddagrif can be used to push the tides of the game without exhausting resources - offer tokens if they attack someone else, or tokens to their enemies if they attack you. You can keep people alive with the lifegain. And in a pinch you can even help an opponent draw into an answer for a game-ending threat that you aren't prepared for. Phelddagrif should always be your first line of defense for shaping the game to your advantage. There's really limitless possibilities to how you can abuse his political favors, I think I've gone into more detail in the OP. But suffice to say there is a reason why he's the commander of the deck, and I think he's one of the most skill-intensive cards in the entire format. Possibly THE most skill-intensive card in the format.
And finally - always have an upbeat, casual attitude. This is one I struggle with sometimes. If you're playing phelddagrif, a surprising amount of your power comes from people not taking you seriously. Don't ruin it by thinking for 5 minutes every time someone casts a spell before saying "OK", or by being a dick when you have a good answer that wrecks someone's strategy. Laugh, joke around, be silly, etc. Act like you're worried about someone else's threat (but don't be too transparent in how you manipulate the game - don't be the guy who's always going "omg look at that craw wurm that's really scary you guys don't worry about my paradox engine though it doesn't even do anything it's just a garbage card I picked up off the street"....you know the guy.). In many ways the strength of this deck is in how wide the delta is between how powerful it SEEMS to be, and how powerful it IS. In the wise words of disruptive pitmage, "Show weakness to hide your strength." And be patient. With this deck I really do think the game is virtually always yours to win, if you play it well enough.
Cleansing Nova looks great while the rest of the set is for other decks. I expect to see a lot of the nu-Elders around the shop.
Cleansing nova is a solid one, everything else looks meh. colossal majesty is the only other card I see much potential in, as a reasonable value engine that might not get TOO much attention.
Been working on a massive, primer-style guide for phelddagrif, like my zirilan one with oodles of card ratings but a lot more detail on deck construction and strategy. Hopefully done in a week or two, we'll see. There are lots of card options to sift through. So stay tuned, all three of you who care
Bumped to show off my fancy schmancy new alter. Made by my girlfriend, who is thinking about taking commissions!
The banner at the bottom was my idea (we sort of collabbed on the whole design). Inspired by actual stained glass that has biblical verses at the bottom. I think it turned out pretty awesome. Note the gifts he offers - blue book for the draw ability, hippo in a green cloth for the token ability, and the white heart for the lifegain ability.
Anyway, I'm pretty psyched about how it turned out. Obviously, seeing as it's my new avatar
Been working on a massive, primer-style guide for phelddagrif, like my zirilan one with oodles of card ratings but a lot more detail on deck construction and strategy. Hopefully done in a week or two, we'll see. There are lots of card options to sift through. So stay tuned, all three of you who care
primer when
Because every time I try to brew a blue-based control deck I get bored and keep coming back to this concept because it's more interesting.
Also, sweet alter. It could have more anime girls in bikinis, but otherwise a solid 9/10.
Because every time I try to brew a blue-based control deck I get bored and keep coming back to this concept because it's more interesting.
Also, sweet alter. It could have more anime girls in bikinis, but otherwise a solid 9/10.
Lol thanks.
Yeah, I'm a bastard. Primer got sort of slowed down by a lot of things - first my pendulum of limited/commander swayed towards limited for a bit and I wasn't as interested in commander, then it went back to commander but I had a bunch of other deck ideas (I've made 4 in the past month or so). I had like 1500 cards separated out for my phelddagrif primer and it was just a bit daunting.
The whole concept is fraught for a number of reasons.
1 - Because the goal isn't maximum power, but rather to find the sweet spot where you can fly under the radar while keeping control of the game, the swath of playable cards is enormous and depends a lot on meta and preference, rather than simply "which card has a higher power level?".
2 - Add to that, I think there are a lot of potential ways to go about building this deck that still have the same general strategy. If you're in a more casual meta, you might be able to get a lot of value from value-added answers like dismantling blow, and largely skip purely-value engines. But if you're in a more competitive meta you need fast, efficient answers with less value, and then you'll probably need some value engines to recoup the loss. So basically the scope of playable cards here is pretty stupid big.
3 - Of course, I don't actually have the time to play all those cards, so I'm going largely off my read of how they're going to work. Which is probably fine for simple answers, but gets a little dicier for complicated value engines, of which there are a lot of interesting avenues to go down. The more of them I play, the better my read gets for other ones, though.
4 - and then adding to that complexity, in contrast to other decks that can build towards whatever their goal is regardless of meta, or can assume a meta of cEDH, this deck, and the effect of every card in it, are going to be reliant on how the meta responds. So even if I try out every card, I'm still limited to my local meta(s) and how I tend to play. Even if a card works perfectly for me, in my local meta, it may play totally differently elsewhere with someone else.
5 - Final straw, this deck is definitely on the high end in terms of difficulty to play, and because it's my baby I tend to get more stressed about it than I probably should. On Wednesdays, after a long day of work, often I'm more interested in playing something a bit simpler (such as basically any deck ever) because I'm just tired, man.
Mostly it comes down to - I'm a bit of a perfectionist and it's really hard to create a complete guide to phelddagrif, given how integral politics is to his DNA. I think probably I need to just lower my standards and cut the list of cards down to a more reasonable number. It also doesn't help that I'm not entirely sure how wide the audience is - I thought people would be interested in my athreos list, but it hasn't really gotten any attention, my thoughts in the politics thread went largely unremarked, no one said anything (until now, thanks though) about my phelddagrif guide being in progress either...so I just don't know how hard I want to work when there's a good chance not many people will actually be interested.
Are really rare, and considering the amount of effort jusstice put into it, it has a pretty criminally low amount of attention paid to it. I think most people don't pay a ton of attention to politics and the nuts and bolts of multiplayer interaction, because it basically just doesn't apply outside of this casual little bubble. When people are trying to understand stuff like card advantage and tempo, there are loads of people writing on the subject for a competitive audience in 1v1 formats and they're widely understood and talked about so it's easy to pick up, but there's very little scrutiny on things that only apply in multiplayer, so most people ignore it, or at least simplify it.
Anyway, be the change you wish to see in the world, etc. I should probably just suck it up and finish writing the damn thing, even if few people end up reading it. I did have some nice distillation of ideas in that politics thread I could probably use to help me a bit on the structure. Right now I'm prepping for my traditional five prereleases for RTRTR, though.
Love the alter, and also love the deck. Have been playing my variant of it for a while now. It remains true to it's creators vision in that it's not built to appear scary. My version I designed to try and create the most interesting games of magic possible, because I was seeing an alarming discrepancy between power levels in my meta. We mostly frown on infinite shenanigans which has lead to some people making pretty optimized non infinite lists capable of bringing tables down while others are content running jank Dino tribal or something. Enter pheldy, the fun police. I've managed to sculpt some awesome games where everybody's deck gets to basically do what it wants. Except win, that's mostly for King pheldy who brings the beats. That's not to say I haven't lost yet, though the win rate is high. And most cases I lost due to my misplays. One time I negotiated a 5 card fact or fiction pile. In an attempt to be less scary I opted to still ditch the Misty tutor. Big mistake, turns out I could've reaaaaly used it. The deck is beauty. It's play style glory. I'll never break it, and I break lots of decks.
So thanks, I literally made this silly account in order to thank you. And upvote your girlfriend's alter. She's worth it, and I'm not much of a joiner so it was hard to make this account. Here I am on my phone doing this. It's irritating. But you're worth it too. I'd love to sit across a table from you one day as I believe we share similar visions of what a game of magic ought to be. One last thing. My girlfriend has been making me numerous amazing portraits of hippos doing people things to use for my tokens. I'll gladly post some when I figure this pile of crap out... All on my phone too. I'll gladly send you a set as well. In the meantime, stay magical friends.
Wow, thanks a ton, that really means a lot! I'm glad you're having success with the deck and using it as it was meant to be used, your meta sounds like the perfect application for Phelddagrif. Steal from the rich and give to the poor. Then slowly beat the poor to death with a flying hippo :P. And I do think it's great how nearly every loss can be attributed to misplay rather than the weakness of the deck, although that does make it more stressful to play sometimes lol. No one to blame but yourself.
I'd definitely love to see those hippo tokens! It's very disappointing that wotc hasn't released any official 1/1 hippo tokens yet. They got so close in amonkhet (with mouth // feed), but no cigar. Altered tokens are cooler anyway, though. I'm in the Seattle (at the moment, girlfriend is going to find out of she has a job in the UK on Monday!), what about you?
Anyway, thank you for the kind words. Pretty sure I have to go ahead with the full primer now Probably start pulling out cards again after work - this time I'll try to keep the list sub-1000 lol. Really it's the deck/play philosophy that's a lot more interesting than the specific card selection anyway.
Really it's the deck/play philosophy that's a lot more interesting than the specific card selection anyway.
This is what I'm more interested in than individual card analysis, though obviously both would be helpful. I've read the posts in the thread and somewhat collated the information but seeing it condensed and contextualized would allow the reader to analyze cards on their own.
Also, I'm going to buy a bunch of plastic mini hippo figures from alibaba for my tokens. I figure the cuter the tokens, the more likely I am to make successful deals.
I would also love to see a primer on this list. I have been running my own version for almost a year now, and it is by far my favorite deck. However i think my play group is starting to realize how high the decks win % is and Im starting to get foucused more often, I may need to change my card advantage engine. conqueror's galleon is starting to draw hate
Any way i love your deck ideas i have even been temped to try out your Kaervek build.
Thanks
/ edit
I also wanted to suggest some cheap removal with some political play
Soul snare a rattlesnake snake effect that no one seems to think much of, it dosnt have the bad rep that propaganda or ghostly prison has
Berserk more along the lines of Ezuri's Predation as a finisher that can only be used a few times, but it can kill a creature, mess up combat math. Or get the last few points of Phelddagrif beats in.
Alright! Sorry for the long delay in response. I've been pretty busy with crunch season at work and other domestic things. I also hate typing on my phone keyboard, but the good news is I picked up a chrome book so now maybe I can be an active member of the interweb rather than a watcher in the shadows lol. How fares the news of a job in the UK for your girlfriend? I'm located in the Boulder CO area. Not horribly far, and I do have friends in the PNW. It'll take me a couple weeks to get the hippo tokens ready to be printed professionally rather than just regular printer paper but when they are ready I will let you know. In the meantime I want to figure out how to post stuff here and get some feedback. I've been working at making Xantcha a winnable deck and it's proving quite interesting. So far it hasn't won, mostly due to playing numerous "star" games...where she absolutely does not shine and a stupid, ridiculous 4 hour long planechase game. In a way I'm happy WotC released the product, in another way I find myself unable to stop shaking my head and muttering WTAF under my breath. She absolutely murders in a 3 pod, and the one normal 4 pod was at my lgs and she was pretty interesting but lost to sliver shenanigans. Anyway, this isn't the place for her. This is Pheldy's house. What do you think of mission briefing? 2 extra mana to instant speed a boardwipe in the yard seems legit to me. Or the counter you need, you name it. I may try it out, got one at FNM last night. Hope you had a sweet prerelease weekend, I was camping for most of it and was able to get only one in but it was nice.
Update! I've written...holy crap, over fifty pages worth of card analysis thus far, which means I'm almost done with that part. That'll be by far the biggest part in terms of space, but I've still go some thinking to do about how I want to lay out the other elements. Spoiler alert - Telepathy gets five stars.
I've thought about releasing it in installments, but I kind of want to do it all in one go when it's complete. But if people want it in installments lmk. I'll probably want to change the title and such...also I'm not sure if there's a limit on post size, but if there is I might need a new thread where I can take the first couple of posts, because this thing is going to be LOOOOONG. In no way do I regret that I didn't use those pages I wrote on something more productive, such as the novel I've been slowly grinding on for years (but also kind of, yeah).
Hoping to finish the guide in a couple weeks, maybe? Luckily my girlfriend has gotten pretty addicted to Stardew Valley all of a sudden, so I've got plenty of free time to type until my fingers want to fall off. Speaking of, responses:
I would also love to see a primer on this list. I have been running my own version for almost a year now, and it is by far my favorite deck. However i think my play group is starting to realize how high the decks win % is and Im starting to get foucused more often, I may need to change my card advantage engine. conqueror's galleon is starting to draw hate
Any way i love your deck ideas i have even been temped to try out your Kaervek build.
Thanks
/ edit
I also wanted to suggest some cheap removal with some political play
Soul snare a rattlesnake snake effect that no one seems to think much of, it dosnt have the bad rep that propaganda or ghostly prison has
Berserk more along the lines of Ezuri's Predation as a finisher that can only be used a few times, but it can kill a creature, mess up combat math. Or get the last few points of Phelddagrif beats in.
Glad to hear you're enjoying it! Yeah, I've been down on Conqueror's Galleon after trying it a couple times. People tend to scoop to repeatable board wipes and/or counterspells. Really cool card in theory but not what we want in practice.
I would also recommend Kaervek, he's super fun. Phelddy, Kaervek, and Zirilan are probably my top 3 decks.
Soul snare and berserk are both reasonable depending on meta - they're pretty solid if your meta is pretty midrange-beatdown casual, but a lot less strong if your meta is combo-y, or token-y, or stax-y, or noncombat-massive-card-advantage-y...you get the gist. Removal that only works in combat isn't versatile enough for the main build, imo. Plus I'm a bit down on permanent-based removal, I think it encourages people to play around it, or at least to see you as more of a pillowfort-y threat. I think it's better play if you can convince people to go elsewhere purely from board state and some political maneuvering. But of course one of the things I like about Phelddagrif is that it can, and should, be personalized for your taste and your meta. So if they're working for you, there's no reason to change them.
Alright! Sorry for the long delay in response. I've been pretty busy with crunch season at work and other domestic things. I also hate typing on my phone keyboard, but the good news is I picked up a chrome book so now maybe I can be an active member of the interweb rather than a watcher in the shadows lol. How fares the news of a job in the UK for your girlfriend? I'm located in the Boulder CO area. Not horribly far, and I do have friends in the PNW. It'll take me a couple weeks to get the hippo tokens ready to be printed professionally rather than just regular printer paper but when they are ready I will let you know. In the meantime I want to figure out how to post stuff here and get some feedback. I've been working at making Xantcha a winnable deck and it's proving quite interesting. So far it hasn't won, mostly due to playing numerous "star" games...where she absolutely does not shine and a stupid, ridiculous 4 hour long planechase game. In a way I'm happy WotC released the product, in another way I find myself unable to stop shaking my head and muttering WTAF under my breath. She absolutely murders in a 3 pod, and the one normal 4 pod was at my lgs and she was pretty interesting but lost to sliver shenanigans. Anyway, this isn't the place for her. This is Pheldy's house. What do you think of mission briefing? 2 extra mana to instant speed a boardwipe in the yard seems legit to me. Or the counter you need, you name it. I may try it out, got one at FNM last night. Hope you had a sweet prerelease weekend, I was camping for most of it and was able to get only one in but it was nice.
We're still a month out before we move out, and then another month and a half of traveling before actually arriving in the UK. We're super excited, but it is a long and annoying process.
Xantcha is definitely a cool legend. I'm not super into the headlining commanders in the 2018 product, but the new legends that can't lead their own decks are all pretty rad design. Someone's having some fun over at WotC. I'm honestly pretty awful about actually looking at other peoples' decks, but if you write it up and shoot me a link I'll take a look.
Any chance you could link the tokens on this thread? It'd be fun for other people to be able to print them off at home (although of course if your girlfriend wants to keep her IP that's totally understandable).
I've always hated planechase lol, I think it's the tryhard in me. Nothing more frustrating than slowly grinding out card advantage, only to land on the plane where everyone draws a million cards a turn. I'm sure if you play enough there's some strategy to be had, but...eugh. I can't handle it. Star magic I also find kind of annoying, because I'm not really "allied" with the people next to me, I need to block them from winning just as much as the people across from me, it's just that I don't actually want their life total to go to zero. I guess I'm just a traditionalist when it comes to my chaotic multiplayer shenanigans.
Prerelease(s) was(were) fun, ended up 11-3-1 for the weekend. The 2hg was kind of a garbage fire, though, disinformation campaign was absolute misery to play against and I felt like a bastard when we won off it, too.
Seasons Past is basically my favorite Magic card. Would you say that including increases the win rate? I was thinking about building Karador next because I want a strong, grindy card advantage general, but I also love playing politics and control.
Seasons Past is basically my favorite Magic card. Would you say that including increases the win rate? I was thinking about building Karador next because I want a strong, grindy card advantage general, but I also love playing politics and control.
I've tried it, and my main feeling is that you don't want to run it in the same deck as Mystical Tutor, or any other tutor which can search it up (long-term plans is a bit of a grey area). Otherwise you get into a loop of being able to board wipe every turn, counter every turn, etc, and become the threat almost immediately.
In general I'm also not big on recursion for this deck either. You want your hand to be a mystery for two main reasons. Reason number one is that, when people know your hand is a bunch of nasty answers, you become significantly more threatening and more likely to get hated out. Reason number two is that, when people know what answers you have, they're more able to play around them, or hold back their combo or whatever until a later time when you no longer have the right answers.
I do really like the design of season's past, but I don't think it works for what the deck is trying to do. Of course you can still use it, but it leads to more games that become an archenemy situation against you, in my experience.
By contrast, I was a lot more favorable to Wildest Dreams because of the flexibility. Early/mid you can recur, say, one board wipe you need to use right now, and maybe a spot removal spell to rattlesnake with, or a draw spell. But if you have it late-game, when it's 1v1, you can happily throw 11 mana into it and have a crushingly powerful hand to win with. Season's Past is always really powerful, which I think is to its detriment when we're trying to be unobtrusive.
Guide still in progress, mostly done with the general strategy and working on the tips and tricks. And then at some point I need to create an actual decklist.
Anyway, while working on it there's been a few fun value engines that caught my eye and I wanted to try before passing judgment. Here's the ones I tried tonight (2-0 in 4-player games, naturally):
Chaos Wand - It's definitely a cool card. It was lame in the game I cast it, though, as I ended up in a mostly 2v1 scenario because one guy was so far behind (missed land drops from like turn 3 to turn 10) so I was the only reasonable target for the other player, so I had to play kind of hard-ish control...anyway, I got to activate it like 15 times thanks to Mirage Mirror, but I mostly hit removal spells when everyone else was out of creatures anyway after a board wipe. So, pretty lame. Eventually got a diabolic tutor and that was about it. I can see it doing good work in other scenarios, though, but because you can't save up the CA it's probably more a casual card, and not a perfect fit for the deck.
Primordial Mist - Only had it towards the end of the second game, but having the 2/2s was actually kinda nice even if they hit nothing. Definitely liked not having them taking up spots in my hand. Copied it with Mirror for value too, that was nice. Damn I love mirror.
Sylvan Library - I think I've used this before, but yeah it's definitely the nuts. Just lets you keep your hand as full as you like all the time, but can be a chill mirri's guile if you're already topped off, so it's not crazy scary. Kind of a meta call since it's an older, popular, expensive-ish card so it can draw hate, but it's definitely top-shelf.
Trail of evidence - ran it but didn't draw it. I feel like it has promise.
Sphinx's Revelation - drew it but never needed it. Knowing I had a big lifegain buffer in a pinch was nice, though.
Azor's Gateway - the looting was just ok, maybe because I wanted to flip it so I went a little hard on new cmcs. Did ultimately flip it but didn't really do anything with it because of the game dynamics. Maybe I should have gone with the hundred-hippo-army strat, though, that would have been funny even if I probably would have needed to board wipe immediately and had a solid chance of getting backstabbed. Worth pointing out that, by the time it flips, you probably don't really need that much mana unless you're going for the hundred-hippo-army strategy, or playing some huge X draw spell to win or kill someone. So it's cute but I don't think it's actually good. Hundred-hippo-army strat is bound to catch a lot more attention on subsequent games anyway since it's so telegraphed. Basically anything you do to get good value out of this will make it a huge slow telegraphed piece of garbage on later games.
Mirage Mirror - ran a lot of this one in brawl decks and it's just my favorite thing ever. It was a little underwhelming because of what people were playing, but I still found ways to abuse it.
Whispers of the muse - drew it game 2 when I was already choked on cards and just cycled it. I think it's a straightforwardly good option, though, and partly because it can cycle in a pinch.
Orzhov Advokist - this thing was hilarious. Basically no one had compelling reason to attack me so it just sat around building up counters everywhere while I had nothing to fear. Made Phelddagrif a 3-ish hit kill, which I used after helping one of the decks kill the other two with Ghalta. It's obviously not competitive material, but I think it's actually a really strong political card for a lower-powered group. So rarely do people REALLY want to attack you, this just guarantees it. And it gives you a big warning if they're going to come after you.
Mistmeadow Witch - I think this one is too threatening. The effect is too capable of shutting people down, and the fact that it's nearly unkillable makes it a big threat. Multiple people tried to kill it right away and eventually succeeded. I don't think it's ideal here. Plus the activation cost is so high, it's hard to use it and still feel in control.
Kumena's Awakening - strong enough to be very useful, but didn't draw a ton of attention (did get rec sage'd game 1, but I drew it and had it in play for many turns both games). It did sit in my hand for a few turns game 2, and eventually I played it with 9 perms out so I could hit my land drop on the next turn and make it good. Anyway I think it's quite solid, 4 mana for repeated draw is great and by the time you really need it, you'll have enough lands to get city's blessing.
I have been running alot of the flip artifacts, they are pseudo ramp and most of them are usful pre flip especially Thaumatic Compass and Primal Amulet.
Also i have noticed they give me a goal to work towards while im kinda doing nothing waiting for the game to unfold. Which for some reason makes all the untapped mana i leave open seem less threatening to the table.
"O nevermind him he is to busy trying to flip all his artifacts"
Then you know, someone gets blue sunned for like 100 twice
I have been running alot of the flip artifacts, they are pseudo ramp and most of them are usful pre flip especially Thaumatic Compass and Primal Amulet.
Also i have noticed they give me a goal to work towards while im kinda doing nothing waiting for the game to unfold. Which for some reason makes all the untapped mana i leave open seem less threatening to the table.
"O nevermind him he is to busy trying to flip all his artifacts"
Then you know, someone gets blue sunned for like 100 twice
Yeah, that's one thing I've noticed about how some people react to the deck that I don't have a great solution for. The people going "Hmm, he's not doing anything, he must be assembling some sort of devious plan!" I've found 2 kind-of-solutions but I don't love either.
One is to intentionally run out a value engine badly defended, let someone probably kill it, and then they feel like they've disrupted you and will go back to doing whatever without being so concerned, especially since you've shown that you're not invulnerable and that your cards can be dealt with. I think it's important to decide in advance that you're ok with the card being removed, and not to have a big think over whether you're going to counterspell it or something. If people know you have a counter and didn't use it because you've got more important stuff to do with it, they'll probably be suspicious. If they think you're just not THAT in control, then they'll hopefully bugger off. I've had amulet get killed a LOT because people are worried about it, and internally I'm usually thinking "yeah, whatever, it's not even that good here anyway".
The other option is just to spew out some of your removal on sub-par targets to lower your hand size and avoid the impression that you're sculpting a combo or something. This is obviously a lot safer if the meta is lower-powered, you don't want to jettison control pieces you might crucially need later.
The good thing about both is that they don't really need any extra cards included in the deck to work. The bad thing is that both of them do actually make us weaker in most circumstances, so it can be a risky proposition to basically put on a little stage play for the benefit of the other players. As with everything else about the deck, good judgment is key.
Kinda surprised people aren't more concerned about you flipping amulet, and especially (I'm assuming) azor's gateway? At least that's how I'm assuming you're getting anywhere near 100 mana. To be fair, people didn't freak out about it when I was using it last night either, but I feel like they really SHOULD have.
Haha o they do get blown for sure, but i just play politics, in trying to keep the table fairly even if someone is behind i will throw them some life or a hippo to chump with and say " remember this when you think a out destroying my ______" or if someone is becoming a problem i need to deal with anyway, threats usally work. Its wierd its not so much about the game, but a dumb little mini game.
Its like you said im running out a value engine, if they blow it up, fine i lost the mini game,
if im in a really good spot i may waste some resources on it to either make me seem less threating afterward or cripple the player who destroyed it. Depending
Idk i just like having mana sinks like Treasure Map or Arch of Orazca. Which has me lowering the cmc of the deck alot. Like swan song over Dismiss. Or nature's claim over sylvan reclamation.
I far prefer the flexablity over the raw power. Mainly being able to have multiple answers or answer / card advantage of some sort.
Haha o they do get blown for sure, but i just play politics, in trying to keep the table fairly even if someone is behind i will throw them some life or a hippo to chump with and say " remember this when you think a out destroying my ______" or if someone is becoming a problem i need to deal with anyway, threats usally work. Its wierd its not so much about the game, but a dumb little mini game.
Its like you said im running out a value engine, if they blow it up, fine i lost the mini game,
if im in a really good spot i may waste some resources on it to either make me seem less threating afterward or cripple the player who destroyed it. Depending
Idk i just like having mana sinks like Treasure Map or Arch of Orazca. Which has me lowering the cmc of the deck alot. Like swan song over Dismiss. Or nature's claim over sylvan reclamation.
I far prefer the flexablity over the raw power. Mainly being able to have multiple answers or answer / card advantage of some sort.
I've thought about this a little, and I'm not sure how I feel about "favor" politics, i.e. where you help someone out for no particular reason in the hopes that they'll be nicer to you in the future. It definitely can work, depending on the meta (sure works in my meta, though I rarely do it) but it feels more like abusing human niceties of reciprocity, more than actually using good strategy.
Arch of Orazca is a huge deal for the deck imo. The first land to give significant repeatable CA without any difficult build-around. One of my favorite utility lands, if not my actual #1. At least until library gets unbanned (please?). I've used treasure map and it's fun and can be good, but I think it's a little at-odds with how the deck operates, given how long it needs to sit on the field in order to get value. If you need to cast a hour of revelation it's going to be really hard to wait until you're done using the treasure.
I do generally agree about, for example, nature's claim over sylvan reclamation. Savvier player won't try to go off until they have some protection or backup, so being able to fight a counter war of some kind can be crucial. I'm not huge on dismiss, but I don't love swan song either because it's so narrow. My favorite counterspells are ones like disallow, cryptic command and commit // memory - a little expensive, but reaaally versatile. It's hard not to feel a cozy warm feeling when you're sitting on a disallow knowing that nothing can go too wrong. I think being versatile is a key to the deck, rather than cheaper, narrower answers, since we're usually playing draw-go anyway. Ofc for fast metas, low cmc can still be critical, though, and I'd still run cheap stuff it's good, like stp, pte, pongify, rapid hybridization, nature's claim, arcane denial, etc.
2) ramp isn't worth a slot imo, it's just not our game plan. but burgeoning and exploration let you ramp a lot and avoid discarding lands to hand size for low low cost, and give a lot of defensive speed in our starters. Kodamas I think would be a wasted card since we rarely ramp TO anything in particular. Especially in nasty metas you might not be able to safely ramp on 3, and then it's REAL slow.
3) I dislike permanent effects like that. Don't give people a reason to want you or your cards dead. If you're preventing their game plan, they're gonna aim hate your way. When you disrupt, you want to do it, then avoid leaving anything in play that makes you an ongoing problem for them. And You want the game a LITTLE out of control, so that other players are always distracted by someone else. Just make sure you have the right answers if things get too hairy.
4) there's enough instant-speed wipes I think. Most of the deck is instant already. Not worth a card. Alchemists refuge is ok though.
5) they won't be if the threats are aimed at you. And that's a risk when you're leaving ongoing problems for someone. Besides, the fewer actions you take, the more invisible you are, the better. Tapping stuff down all the time you look like a meany control player. Just kill it permanently. Also sidebar, if you lose the game with o-ring out, the perm doesn't even return.
6) I don't like niche cards. People doing reasonably Bomby things is fine. Just have the counterspell for the craterhoof or whatever. Think reactive control, not proactive. Don't try to control the whole game. Just block the most critical stuff.
7) yep. It's annoying, it attracts attention, and when played well we rarely need much card draw tbh.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Thanks, I haven't really built like this before (I more play proactive control than reactive). Are the new friend/foe cards for Battlebond worth it for this deck (Pir's Whim is the only one that will really benefit this deck though)? It does seem in line with the controlled reaction that this deck is aimed for?
Also, what is the Citadel Siege for? Without Arcane Lighthouse, it is difficult to tap down their biggest threat (which is usually given shroud/hexproof via equipment) and I doubt the +1/+1 counter mode is that helpful.
How necessary is Field of Dreams to the deck's plan (given its current price tag of ~$100)? What would be a good replacement?
The other cards from battlebond I have my eye on for phelddagrif are:
bramble sovereign - playing actual creatures isn't really this deck's style, but it does offer some amusing ability to help other players for a low cost. Overall probably a solid phelddagrif inclusion, though perhaps not for this particular version since we're trying to stay very low-permanent.
brightling - the bounce ability is perfect for phelddagrif, but I think it probably doesn't really do enough. It fogs a creature for a lot, it games some life...but we're usually trying to win via 21 damage anyway. So I don't think it has a place here unfortunately.
play of the game - love it. Potentially very low cost, exile-all wipe. Only thing I dislike it that it's sorcery, and it kills telepathy and such. Still, solid wipe. Whether you include it probably depends on meta (do people leave up mana and how helpful are they?) and how much you like tutoring for telepathy or other permanents that will get killed.
spellseeker - grabs lots of useful spells for us. Could definitely have applications, either as a decent tutor with a speed bump creature, or potentially as some sort of powerful synergy setup card like intuition (although how you'd do that escapes me at the moment).
fumble - removal that also might give you the tools to make phelddagrif a fast clock seems like a lot of fun. I could definitely see trying this out, although it's probably not going to see, like, HYPER competitive play.
out of bounds - amazing card. As long as someone has 3 open, it's a 1 cmc counterspell against any game-winning spell. Obviously somewhat meta-dependent but I think this is exactly what phelddagrif wants to be doing. And if they refuse to contribute, just back it up and try again. You might even get free info if people are refusing to pay for what seems like a no-brainer. Maybe they're EOTing a combo piece or something. anyway, super cool card. Probably the best of the assist cards.
bring down - i really wish this was an instant at least, then MAYBE. as-is, reprisal is an instant that only costs 2, and I don't even really seriously consider that card in this deck. So....definitely no.
new dual lands - Maybe make the cut, maybe don't, there are plenty of basically-no-downside duals at this point. These are probably among the better ones, though, the only risk is if it's down to 1v1 and for some reason you still care about lands.
As far as citadel siege, I'll confess the more up-to-date version of this list in the 2DH (budget) version because I can keep it together without using cards from my main collection, and it works nearly as well and is more satisfying to beat people with chaff. So citadel siege is a card I was testing and decided to remove ultimately. It's a very efficient control tool, and it can speed up the endgame considerably, but it does violate my whole no-ongoing-problems-that-people-want-to-remove rule, so I think it'd probably cut it.
Field of dreams was another experimental inclusion that I've since cut. In my experimentation, symmetrical information-giving like revelation is much much worse than telepathy. Once people KNOW you have a hand of answers, they often try to force you to use them, which is very very very bad. field might still be ok if you're some sort of god who can memorize everything everyone is drawing, and you're playing against idiots who don't remember anything YOU drew, but I would not bother personally. As far as replacement, you could add a tutor for telepathy (wargate maybe) or whatever you think your deck is lacking. Depending on play style you may want more wipes, counters, removal, or draw. The balance of the deck will always come down to personal preference to a certain extent, so I always highly encourage people to try shifting the balance around and see what works best for you.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
As I said above, when I play control I have typically played more of proactive control decks (e.g. prison and stax) (my Narset deck above runs a bunch of brutal enchantments and eventually wins with Planeswalker ultimates, Chandra pings/Ugin bolts, Karn exiles and restarts (which usually results in more rage quitting than anything else)), which is the opposite of this. What sort of advice would you give to someone playing this type of control deck?
Don't forget that phelddagrif can be used to push the tides of the game without exhausting resources - offer tokens if they attack someone else, or tokens to their enemies if they attack you. You can keep people alive with the lifegain. And in a pinch you can even help an opponent draw into an answer for a game-ending threat that you aren't prepared for. Phelddagrif should always be your first line of defense for shaping the game to your advantage. There's really limitless possibilities to how you can abuse his political favors, I think I've gone into more detail in the OP. But suffice to say there is a reason why he's the commander of the deck, and I think he's one of the most skill-intensive cards in the entire format. Possibly THE most skill-intensive card in the format.
And finally - always have an upbeat, casual attitude. This is one I struggle with sometimes. If you're playing phelddagrif, a surprising amount of your power comes from people not taking you seriously. Don't ruin it by thinking for 5 minutes every time someone casts a spell before saying "OK", or by being a dick when you have a good answer that wrecks someone's strategy. Laugh, joke around, be silly, etc. Act like you're worried about someone else's threat (but don't be too transparent in how you manipulate the game - don't be the guy who's always going "omg look at that craw wurm that's really scary you guys don't worry about my paradox engine though it doesn't even do anything it's just a garbage card I picked up off the street"....you know the guy.). In many ways the strength of this deck is in how wide the delta is between how powerful it SEEMS to be, and how powerful it IS. In the wise words of disruptive pitmage, "Show weakness to hide your strength." And be patient. With this deck I really do think the game is virtually always yours to win, if you play it well enough.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
Been working on a massive, primer-style guide for phelddagrif, like my zirilan one with oodles of card ratings but a lot more detail on deck construction and strategy. Hopefully done in a week or two, we'll see. There are lots of card options to sift through. So stay tuned, all three of you who care
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
The banner at the bottom was my idea (we sort of collabbed on the whole design). Inspired by actual stained glass that has biblical verses at the bottom. I think it turned out pretty awesome. Note the gifts he offers - blue book for the draw ability, hippo in a green cloth for the token ability, and the white heart for the lifegain ability.
Anyway, I'm pretty psyched about how it turned out. Obviously, seeing as it's my new avatar
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Because every time I try to brew a blue-based control deck I get bored and keep coming back to this concept because it's more interesting.
Also, sweet alter. It could have more anime girls in bikinis, but otherwise a solid 9/10.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
Yeah, I'm a bastard. Primer got sort of slowed down by a lot of things - first my pendulum of limited/commander swayed towards limited for a bit and I wasn't as interested in commander, then it went back to commander but I had a bunch of other deck ideas (I've made 4 in the past month or so). I had like 1500 cards separated out for my phelddagrif primer and it was just a bit daunting.
The whole concept is fraught for a number of reasons.
1 - Because the goal isn't maximum power, but rather to find the sweet spot where you can fly under the radar while keeping control of the game, the swath of playable cards is enormous and depends a lot on meta and preference, rather than simply "which card has a higher power level?".
2 - Add to that, I think there are a lot of potential ways to go about building this deck that still have the same general strategy. If you're in a more casual meta, you might be able to get a lot of value from value-added answers like dismantling blow, and largely skip purely-value engines. But if you're in a more competitive meta you need fast, efficient answers with less value, and then you'll probably need some value engines to recoup the loss. So basically the scope of playable cards here is pretty stupid big.
3 - Of course, I don't actually have the time to play all those cards, so I'm going largely off my read of how they're going to work. Which is probably fine for simple answers, but gets a little dicier for complicated value engines, of which there are a lot of interesting avenues to go down. The more of them I play, the better my read gets for other ones, though.
4 - and then adding to that complexity, in contrast to other decks that can build towards whatever their goal is regardless of meta, or can assume a meta of cEDH, this deck, and the effect of every card in it, are going to be reliant on how the meta responds. So even if I try out every card, I'm still limited to my local meta(s) and how I tend to play. Even if a card works perfectly for me, in my local meta, it may play totally differently elsewhere with someone else.
5 - Final straw, this deck is definitely on the high end in terms of difficulty to play, and because it's my baby I tend to get more stressed about it than I probably should. On Wednesdays, after a long day of work, often I'm more interested in playing something a bit simpler (such as basically any deck ever) because I'm just tired, man.
Mostly it comes down to - I'm a bit of a perfectionist and it's really hard to create a complete guide to phelddagrif, given how integral politics is to his DNA. I think probably I need to just lower my standards and cut the list of cards down to a more reasonable number. It also doesn't help that I'm not entirely sure how wide the audience is - I thought people would be interested in my athreos list, but it hasn't really gotten any attention, my thoughts in the politics thread went largely unremarked, no one said anything (until now, thanks though) about my phelddagrif guide being in progress either...so I just don't know how hard I want to work when there's a good chance not many people will actually be interested.
Threads like this:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/200326-guide-position-in-multiplayer-ffa-and-edh
Are really rare, and considering the amount of effort jusstice put into it, it has a pretty criminally low amount of attention paid to it. I think most people don't pay a ton of attention to politics and the nuts and bolts of multiplayer interaction, because it basically just doesn't apply outside of this casual little bubble. When people are trying to understand stuff like card advantage and tempo, there are loads of people writing on the subject for a competitive audience in 1v1 formats and they're widely understood and talked about so it's easy to pick up, but there's very little scrutiny on things that only apply in multiplayer, so most people ignore it, or at least simplify it.
Anyway, be the change you wish to see in the world, etc. I should probably just suck it up and finish writing the damn thing, even if few people end up reading it. I did have some nice distillation of ideas in that politics thread I could probably use to help me a bit on the structure. Right now I'm prepping for my traditional five prereleases for RTRTR, though.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
So thanks, I literally made this silly account in order to thank you. And upvote your girlfriend's alter. She's worth it, and I'm not much of a joiner so it was hard to make this account. Here I am on my phone doing this. It's irritating. But you're worth it too. I'd love to sit across a table from you one day as I believe we share similar visions of what a game of magic ought to be. One last thing. My girlfriend has been making me numerous amazing portraits of hippos doing people things to use for my tokens. I'll gladly post some when I figure this pile of crap out... All on my phone too. I'll gladly send you a set as well. In the meantime, stay magical friends.
I'd definitely love to see those hippo tokens! It's very disappointing that wotc hasn't released any official 1/1 hippo tokens yet. They got so close in amonkhet (with mouth // feed), but no cigar. Altered tokens are cooler anyway, though. I'm in the Seattle (at the moment, girlfriend is going to find out of she has a job in the UK on Monday!), what about you?
Anyway, thank you for the kind words. Pretty sure I have to go ahead with the full primer now Probably start pulling out cards again after work - this time I'll try to keep the list sub-1000 lol. Really it's the deck/play philosophy that's a lot more interesting than the specific card selection anyway.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Also, I'm going to buy a bunch of plastic mini hippo figures from alibaba for my tokens. I figure the cuter the tokens, the more likely I am to make successful deals.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
Any way i love your deck ideas i have even been temped to try out your Kaervek build.
Thanks
/ edit
I also wanted to suggest some cheap removal with some political play
Soul snare a rattlesnake snake effect that no one seems to think much of, it dosnt have the bad rep that propaganda or ghostly prison has
Berserk more along the lines of Ezuri's Predation as a finisher that can only be used a few times, but it can kill a creature, mess up combat math. Or get the last few points of Phelddagrif beats in.
I've thought about releasing it in installments, but I kind of want to do it all in one go when it's complete. But if people want it in installments lmk. I'll probably want to change the title and such...also I'm not sure if there's a limit on post size, but if there is I might need a new thread where I can take the first couple of posts, because this thing is going to be LOOOOONG. In no way do I regret that I didn't use those pages I wrote on something more productive, such as the novel I've been slowly grinding on for years (but also kind of, yeah).
Hoping to finish the guide in a couple weeks, maybe? Luckily my girlfriend has gotten pretty addicted to Stardew Valley all of a sudden, so I've got plenty of free time to type until my fingers want to fall off. Speaking of, responses: Glad to hear you're enjoying it! Yeah, I've been down on Conqueror's Galleon after trying it a couple times. People tend to scoop to repeatable board wipes and/or counterspells. Really cool card in theory but not what we want in practice.
I would also recommend Kaervek, he's super fun. Phelddy, Kaervek, and Zirilan are probably my top 3 decks.
Soul snare and berserk are both reasonable depending on meta - they're pretty solid if your meta is pretty midrange-beatdown casual, but a lot less strong if your meta is combo-y, or token-y, or stax-y, or noncombat-massive-card-advantage-y...you get the gist. Removal that only works in combat isn't versatile enough for the main build, imo. Plus I'm a bit down on permanent-based removal, I think it encourages people to play around it, or at least to see you as more of a pillowfort-y threat. I think it's better play if you can convince people to go elsewhere purely from board state and some political maneuvering. But of course one of the things I like about Phelddagrif is that it can, and should, be personalized for your taste and your meta. So if they're working for you, there's no reason to change them.
We're still a month out before we move out, and then another month and a half of traveling before actually arriving in the UK. We're super excited, but it is a long and annoying process.
Xantcha is definitely a cool legend. I'm not super into the headlining commanders in the 2018 product, but the new legends that can't lead their own decks are all pretty rad design. Someone's having some fun over at WotC. I'm honestly pretty awful about actually looking at other peoples' decks, but if you write it up and shoot me a link I'll take a look.
Any chance you could link the tokens on this thread? It'd be fun for other people to be able to print them off at home (although of course if your girlfriend wants to keep her IP that's totally understandable).
I've always hated planechase lol, I think it's the tryhard in me. Nothing more frustrating than slowly grinding out card advantage, only to land on the plane where everyone draws a million cards a turn. I'm sure if you play enough there's some strategy to be had, but...eugh. I can't handle it. Star magic I also find kind of annoying, because I'm not really "allied" with the people next to me, I need to block them from winning just as much as the people across from me, it's just that I don't actually want their life total to go to zero. I guess I'm just a traditionalist when it comes to my chaotic multiplayer shenanigans.
Prerelease(s) was(were) fun, ended up 11-3-1 for the weekend. The 2hg was kind of a garbage fire, though, disinformation campaign was absolute misery to play against and I felt like a bastard when we won off it, too.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
In general I'm also not big on recursion for this deck either. You want your hand to be a mystery for two main reasons. Reason number one is that, when people know your hand is a bunch of nasty answers, you become significantly more threatening and more likely to get hated out. Reason number two is that, when people know what answers you have, they're more able to play around them, or hold back their combo or whatever until a later time when you no longer have the right answers.
I do really like the design of season's past, but I don't think it works for what the deck is trying to do. Of course you can still use it, but it leads to more games that become an archenemy situation against you, in my experience.
By contrast, I was a lot more favorable to Wildest Dreams because of the flexibility. Early/mid you can recur, say, one board wipe you need to use right now, and maybe a spot removal spell to rattlesnake with, or a draw spell. But if you have it late-game, when it's 1v1, you can happily throw 11 mana into it and have a crushingly powerful hand to win with. Season's Past is always really powerful, which I think is to its detriment when we're trying to be unobtrusive.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Anyway, while working on it there's been a few fun value engines that caught my eye and I wanted to try before passing judgment. Here's the ones I tried tonight (2-0 in 4-player games, naturally):
Chaos Wand - It's definitely a cool card. It was lame in the game I cast it, though, as I ended up in a mostly 2v1 scenario because one guy was so far behind (missed land drops from like turn 3 to turn 10) so I was the only reasonable target for the other player, so I had to play kind of hard-ish control...anyway, I got to activate it like 15 times thanks to Mirage Mirror, but I mostly hit removal spells when everyone else was out of creatures anyway after a board wipe. So, pretty lame. Eventually got a diabolic tutor and that was about it. I can see it doing good work in other scenarios, though, but because you can't save up the CA it's probably more a casual card, and not a perfect fit for the deck.
Primordial Mist - Only had it towards the end of the second game, but having the 2/2s was actually kinda nice even if they hit nothing. Definitely liked not having them taking up spots in my hand. Copied it with Mirror for value too, that was nice. Damn I love mirror.
Sylvan Library - I think I've used this before, but yeah it's definitely the nuts. Just lets you keep your hand as full as you like all the time, but can be a chill mirri's guile if you're already topped off, so it's not crazy scary. Kind of a meta call since it's an older, popular, expensive-ish card so it can draw hate, but it's definitely top-shelf.
Trail of evidence - ran it but didn't draw it. I feel like it has promise.
Sphinx's Revelation - drew it but never needed it. Knowing I had a big lifegain buffer in a pinch was nice, though.
Azor's Gateway - the looting was just ok, maybe because I wanted to flip it so I went a little hard on new cmcs. Did ultimately flip it but didn't really do anything with it because of the game dynamics. Maybe I should have gone with the hundred-hippo-army strat, though, that would have been funny even if I probably would have needed to board wipe immediately and had a solid chance of getting backstabbed. Worth pointing out that, by the time it flips, you probably don't really need that much mana unless you're going for the hundred-hippo-army strategy, or playing some huge X draw spell to win or kill someone. So it's cute but I don't think it's actually good. Hundred-hippo-army strat is bound to catch a lot more attention on subsequent games anyway since it's so telegraphed. Basically anything you do to get good value out of this will make it a huge slow telegraphed piece of garbage on later games.
Mirage Mirror - ran a lot of this one in brawl decks and it's just my favorite thing ever. It was a little underwhelming because of what people were playing, but I still found ways to abuse it.
Whispers of the muse - drew it game 2 when I was already choked on cards and just cycled it. I think it's a straightforwardly good option, though, and partly because it can cycle in a pinch.
Orzhov Advokist - this thing was hilarious. Basically no one had compelling reason to attack me so it just sat around building up counters everywhere while I had nothing to fear. Made Phelddagrif a 3-ish hit kill, which I used after helping one of the decks kill the other two with Ghalta. It's obviously not competitive material, but I think it's actually a really strong political card for a lower-powered group. So rarely do people REALLY want to attack you, this just guarantees it. And it gives you a big warning if they're going to come after you.
Mistmeadow Witch - I think this one is too threatening. The effect is too capable of shutting people down, and the fact that it's nearly unkillable makes it a big threat. Multiple people tried to kill it right away and eventually succeeded. I don't think it's ideal here. Plus the activation cost is so high, it's hard to use it and still feel in control.
Kumena's Awakening - strong enough to be very useful, but didn't draw a ton of attention (did get rec sage'd game 1, but I drew it and had it in play for many turns both games). It did sit in my hand for a few turns game 2, and eventually I played it with 9 perms out so I could hit my land drop on the next turn and make it good. Anyway I think it's quite solid, 4 mana for repeated draw is great and by the time you really need it, you'll have enough lands to get city's blessing.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Also i have noticed they give me a goal to work towards while im kinda doing nothing waiting for the game to unfold. Which for some reason makes all the untapped mana i leave open seem less threatening to the table.
"O nevermind him he is to busy trying to flip all his artifacts"
Then you know, someone gets blue sunned for like 100 twice
One is to intentionally run out a value engine badly defended, let someone probably kill it, and then they feel like they've disrupted you and will go back to doing whatever without being so concerned, especially since you've shown that you're not invulnerable and that your cards can be dealt with. I think it's important to decide in advance that you're ok with the card being removed, and not to have a big think over whether you're going to counterspell it or something. If people know you have a counter and didn't use it because you've got more important stuff to do with it, they'll probably be suspicious. If they think you're just not THAT in control, then they'll hopefully bugger off. I've had amulet get killed a LOT because people are worried about it, and internally I'm usually thinking "yeah, whatever, it's not even that good here anyway".
The other option is just to spew out some of your removal on sub-par targets to lower your hand size and avoid the impression that you're sculpting a combo or something. This is obviously a lot safer if the meta is lower-powered, you don't want to jettison control pieces you might crucially need later.
The good thing about both is that they don't really need any extra cards included in the deck to work. The bad thing is that both of them do actually make us weaker in most circumstances, so it can be a risky proposition to basically put on a little stage play for the benefit of the other players. As with everything else about the deck, good judgment is key.
Kinda surprised people aren't more concerned about you flipping amulet, and especially (I'm assuming) azor's gateway? At least that's how I'm assuming you're getting anywhere near 100 mana. To be fair, people didn't freak out about it when I was using it last night either, but I feel like they really SHOULD have.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Its like you said im running out a value engine, if they blow it up, fine i lost the mini game,
if im in a really good spot i may waste some resources on it to either make me seem less threating afterward or cripple the player who destroyed it. Depending
Idk i just like having mana sinks like Treasure Map or Arch of Orazca. Which has me lowering the cmc of the deck alot. Like swan song over Dismiss. Or nature's claim over sylvan reclamation.
I far prefer the flexablity over the raw power. Mainly being able to have multiple answers or answer / card advantage of some sort.
Arch of Orazca is a huge deal for the deck imo. The first land to give significant repeatable CA without any difficult build-around. One of my favorite utility lands, if not my actual #1. At least until library gets unbanned (please?). I've used treasure map and it's fun and can be good, but I think it's a little at-odds with how the deck operates, given how long it needs to sit on the field in order to get value. If you need to cast a hour of revelation it's going to be really hard to wait until you're done using the treasure.
I do generally agree about, for example, nature's claim over sylvan reclamation. Savvier player won't try to go off until they have some protection or backup, so being able to fight a counter war of some kind can be crucial. I'm not huge on dismiss, but I don't love swan song either because it's so narrow. My favorite counterspells are ones like disallow, cryptic command and commit // memory - a little expensive, but reaaally versatile. It's hard not to feel a cozy warm feeling when you're sitting on a disallow knowing that nothing can go too wrong. I think being versatile is a key to the deck, rather than cheaper, narrower answers, since we're usually playing draw-go anyway. Ofc for fast metas, low cmc can still be critical, though, and I'd still run cheap stuff it's good, like stp, pte, pongify, rapid hybridization, nature's claim, arcane denial, etc.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6