Just wanted to let you know that I'll be piloting a version of this in Armada Games' EDH league today +\- some cards. I've fallen out of competitive magic lately but this deck combining my love for pauper and EDH kept me playing. Hopefully the deck makes Sheldon's article! I've played 3 or 4 casual pickups and won them all.
changes I made were -5 artifact lands +1 of each basic, -Mind Extraction +1 Brainspoil
First off, awesome idea. I think you're right though in that there are not a lot of common-style global removal effects making it very difficult to find a working general.
Pics are up! Check the OP for scans of the deck, minus the 5 or so cards that are currently being altered. If anyone knows why MTGS resizes some pics but not others (and how to avoid that), please let me know. Otherwise, just ignore the fact that some cards are twice as big as others; I promise they're not like that in real life.
Quote from johnbolt »
Just wanted to let you know that I'll be piloting a version of this in Armada Games' EDH league today +\- some cards. I've fallen out of competitive magic lately but this deck combining my love for pauper and EDH kept me playing. Hopefully the deck makes Sheldon's article! I've played 3 or 4 casual pickups and won them all.
changes I made were -5 artifact lands +1 of each basic, -Mind Extraction +1 Brainspoil
Awesome, glad to hear your having some success with the deck! Please oh please let us know how it turns out in the league, for better or for worse. It sounds like Sheldon is piloting Rith, the Awakener next week, and usually this deck can handle tokens pretty well once you get off the ground.
I can understand cutting the artifact lands. I'm going to start keeping track of the number of times I want to Trinket Mage for them.
I can't imagine cutting Mind Extraction, though; that card is boss! Either way, good luck in the league!
Quote from Polizei »
First off, awesome idea. I think you're right though in that there are not a lot of common-style global removal effects making it very difficult to find a working general.
Darksteel Pendant -- Huh, this is kind of sweet. It might be a cool alternative to Mystic Remora or some card draw spell if I find I always have too many cards in hand. I can see myself playing this one day.
Frantic Search -- Excellent card, broken even, but I don't think that's what this deck wants. We win through card advantage, so going -1 card to just dig slightly deeper and (rarely) fix some mana isn't going to cut it. It does stock your graveyard, though... IDK, I'm just going to pass on this one.
Hull Breach -- a lot better than Relic Crush here because of the low CMC, but falls short under the same logic. Child of Alara easily deals with most things, and I'm trying to maximize the amount of utility with the few slots we have.
I'm not trying to downplay all of your suggestions, because they're all really good and would easily be playable in a pauper deck of any kind. Heck, they are viable choices for regular EDH decks too! The deck has just undergone so many revisions that I have to be super picky with my choices. I'd like to think the list is starting to get "tight," but maybe that's wishful thinking as long as I have any input here.
I only got to play most of a casual game against Sheldon (but the deck got a mention!) and he wants the list. I'll obviously give credit and everything. The deck ran really smooth and I was most likely going to win but we ran out of time in the league. unfortunately one of the points on the league kind of limits my options (playing the same spell 3+ times gets you -1 each time) so I only played it game 1, which was close but the Mayael player from sheldon's second match got us in a similar fashion. Hopefully we'll make it on starcity next week! I've got to re-add strip mine before then. mind extraction wasn't really missed(I was trying Brainspoil) but I'll probably add it again this week.
This deck continues to amuse me, especially the number of times I get called a douche for playing it. To be fair for crushing them with a pauper infinite, I probably deserve it. Anyway after playing this deck a fair amount against well... anybody who would play me (I'm not really picky). I find I don't like the following cards...
Ulamog's Crusher - This card isn't even a win condition, it's slower than Child at beating people down, it dies to more types of removal... and unlike Child people line up to kill it. (Child on the other hand might as well have Leprosy for how often people want to kill it.) And when I finally do get Crusher to hit the table, and by some amazing fluke it successfully attacks... them losing two permanents to it.. usually doesn't matter.
Tilling Treefolk - This card requires a lot of setup to even generate any kind of card advantage. But if there is one thing I've seen in this deck is that it simply has better card advantage tools. I'll admit I don't specifically dislike this card, but since I took out the cycle lands, it lost any value.
The Cycle Lands - Again simply better card advantage engines out there, I mean if I had Life from the Loam sure, but 9/10 I end up wanting the lands more than the cycle (this is a very mana hungry deck), so all they did was waste my time by coming into play tapped. Which in turn slowed down my clock considerably.
Mystic Remora/Rhystic Study - These two cards are really only good if my opponents are bad. Anybody who thinks it's a good plan to let me draw cards for every time they cast a spell, is either going to win on turn 3/4 or isn't even a threat at the table. At a good table, these two cards draw zero cards.
Also from what I've seen the deck seems to have serious color issues, I've lost count of the number of times I've had to sit on my hands wondering if I could get the colors I need to play stuff, even with aggressive mulligans. Admittedly I'm super unlucky, so I tend to prize consistency a lot over power. Anyway for those interested, here's what I've been sleeving up... and why...
Mana Fixing Differences...
Chromatic Star, Manamorphose - These card usually allows me to play early spells or transmute costs that require two of a color. Or even fix so I can drop an early Child. Worse comes to worse, they replace themselves so I'm not really out anything.
Edge of Autumn, Rampant Growth - Early mana fixing that puts me a turn ahead. Sounds good to me. Edge even cycles later.
Armillary Sphere - In my list I've restructured the mana base to favor UBG, the three colors that the deck basically runs on. These just lets me get duplicates if I need for double color costs, or it can pull a plains and a mountain for Child.
Alternate Win Condition
Krosan Restorer, Freed from the Real, and Elven Cache (for Freed recursion) - This alternate win condition requires just two cards, and after wiping my opponents boards enough times usually goes off unhindered. Even if it doesn't, it not like I try for it super early so I have counters and Elven Cache to keep trying. They'll run out of counters/kill before I run out the ability to play it. If left alone, I can win on turn 7...
Card Filtering
Careful Study, Frantic Search, Tolarian Winds - Cycle through cards for whatever I need, and as a bonus setup Threshold faster. Admittedly I'm not 100% certain about Winds, it's worked so far though.
Card Draw
Compulsive Research (I have 40 lands, pretty certain I can discard one)
Rush of Knowledge (pure insanity, draws 5 cards most of the time)
Other choices
Cavern Harpy - Reusing my enters the battlefield effects for a UB and a life sounds good to me.
Every 2-5 transmute card under the sun - Really I'd happily scribble transmute on blank cards with casting costs if people would let me.
Anyway that's what I've been playing, figured I'd share my experiences and see what you guys thought.
I only got to play most of a casual game against Sheldon (but the deck got a mention!) and he wants the list. I'll obviously give credit and everything. The deck ran really smooth and I was most likely going to win but we ran out of time in the league. unfortunately one of the points on the league kind of limits my options (playing the same spell 3+ times gets you -1 each time) so I only played it game 1, which was close but the Mayael player from sheldon's second match got us in a similar fashion. Hopefully we'll make it on starcity next week! I've got to re-add strip mine before then. mind extraction wasn't really missed(I was trying Brainspoil) but I'll probably add it again this week.
Some of the penalties in the league make me really sad. Worm Harvest and Praetor's Council get hit really hard, for example. Still, I'm glad the deck worked well for you!
Everyone has been having so much fun with Brainspoil, I think I might give it a shot. I've never felt like I needed it, but it looks solid enough.
If you simply don't feel like you need Mind Extraction, that's cool. It is certainly one of the more powerful haymakers in the deck, but we got along fine without it for a long time.
Quote from Nideovinja »
This deck continues to amuse me, especially the number of times I get called a douche for playing it. To be fair for crushing them with a pauper infinite, I probably deserve it. Anyway after playing this deck a fair amount against well... anybody who would play me (I'm not really picky). I find I don't like the following cards...
Business Spells:
Ulamog's Crusher -- I know what you mean. He's fun and all, but I can see cutting him.
Tilling Treefolk -- He does take some legwork to play for maximum value. For that reason, I play him a lot later than I normally would. However, that isn't the extent of his usefulness -- should our manabase get totally nuked by Armageddon or whatever, Treefolk is our only real out. In fact, I've won a few games because Treefolk let me recover quickly after Obliterate.
Lonely Sandbar et. al. -- Again, while the Tilling Treefolk engine is nice, I've always been mostly thankful for their ability to cycle when they're unneeded. Yes, we love lands, but we draw a lot of cards once we get going, and drawing more than one land per turn just doesn't help.
Mystic Remora/Rhystic Study -- Good players pay the 1. Very few players pay the 4, though some just skip playing stuff entirely. Lots of EDH players don't do either, though. These guys typically draw at least 2 or 3 cards, sometimes more. That's fine with me. Admittedly, maybe everyone around here is terrible... Cavern Harpy -- Looks pretty sweet. I'm going to test this guy in place of Ulamog's Crusher.
Also, if someone is going to combo out on turn 3 or 4, it's usually me. Otherwise, against fast combos, this deck usually rolls over and dies. I'm not really concerned about losing quickly -- I'm shooting for the long game. I do like the Freed from the Real combo, though.
Mana Fixing:
Do you really have problems with mana fixing? 40 lands + 13 mana fixers + tons of card draw and library manipulation seems like enough. I'm playing 41 lands + 12 mana fixers + lots of card draw. My manabase is also heavily slanted toward G//, splashing R/ for a few choice spells. I do the free mulligan about once every 4 or 5 hands and that usually fixes the problem.
Tolarian Winds and friends -- Hmm, this is an interesting direction to go. Milling cards is similar to drawing cards in this deck, so it could be worthwhile. The worst-case scenario is that you might have this and a useful Buyback spell in hand at the same time. Will you do me a favor and keep track of how often Careful Study actually gains you value? I'm only hesitant because even if you pitch another dead card for something useful, you only come out even on card advantage (all of these are -1 card themselves).
Bonus -- Free Sample Hands from deckstats.net, good or bad:
We randomly drew two ton white sources in this hand, but I would keep this in a hurry. We're set for colors and have enough flexibility to make the most of what we draw in the top 5. For the record, it doesn't seem like lands coming into play tapped make much of a difference.
Keep. We have 2 draw steps and a Halimar Depths to hit land, card draw, or castable mana fixer, and then we're set thanks to Sea Gate Oracle and Trinket Mage. This is one hand where casting Trinket Mage for an artifact land could be useful at some point. For fun, I approximated our odds of drawing land by computing a Binomial CDF with p=0.4. We are about 92.2% likely to get a land in time, not counting other fixers or card draw. CLOSE ENOUGH
Mulligan. It might work out (looking at Island + Trinket Mage in the Top 2 is cheating), but mainly I just look for lands, colors, and card draw in my openers. Better safe than sorry.
"Some of the penalties in the league make me really sad. Worm Harvest and Praetor's Council get hit really hard, for example. Still, I'm glad the deck worked well for you!"
I didn't know how to quote posts from my iPhone, but I took this week to protest the point by getting -14 points on purpose after not being able to play 4 cards in my hand(with Sheldon in game at that). A good % of players agree with me on that point, so it will hopefully be changed next week.
I'm not sold on Cavern Harpy. My version has only 7 creatures that I can bounce with it, most of which fall under the "cute" category. Do I really need to keep reusing Gravedigger and Cadaver Imp over and over? I also cut Momentary Blink because every time I drew it I wanted a removal spell instead.
I've been running Ponder and Preordain in addition to Brainstorm and I'm really liking them so far. I'm thinking of adding in Impulse as well. These spells really help with consistency.
I keep eying Swirling Sandstorm over Crypt Rats... am I the only one who finds the Rats only do more then 3 in the super late game? Child already does it better, and Sandstorm works even if Humility is in play... scratch that... it "especially works" if that's in play.
Actually I ask that question a lot... why am I running X when Child does it better?
Lonely Sandbar et. al. -- Again, while the Tilling Treefolk engine is nice, I've always been mostly thankful for their ability to cycle when they're unneeded. Yes, we love lands, but we draw a lot of cards once we get going, and drawing more than one land per turn just doesn't help.
Half of why I'm including filter spells like Frantic Search is to ditch the extra lands when I don't need them. Sure I'm down one card to do it, but I don't have to spend the mana that it would take to cycle them. And between the vast number of card advantage generating things in the deck, and the absurd card advantage machine that is Rush of Knowledge recursion.... It's not like I don't have to discard cards all too often just because I can't play them fast enough.
Do you really have problems with mana fixing? 40 lands + 13 mana fixers + tons of card draw and library manipulation seems like enough. I'm playing 41 lands + 12 mana fixers + lots of card draw. My manabase is also heavily slanted toward G//, splashing R/ for a few choice spells. I do the free mulligan about once every 4 or 5 hands and that usually fixes the problem.
The biggest problem I would encounter is either drawing the mana fixers with the wrong mana to cast them. Or being forced to wait on a playing a spell for a turn because the mana I need comes from a land that comes into play tapped. I will admit my luck is legendarily bad (enough to have it's own AOE according to some people)... But that aside, I think we simply have a different direction we're both trying to take the deck. I'm trying to speed it up so it can go toe to toe with anything, even bring down the super fast combos. And my lands coming into play tapped, really hurts that goal. If anything I'm trying to avoid playing for the long game, and even present a clear (hopefully uncounterable) threat to the table. Admittedly I'm still a ways away from that goal, but that won't stop me from trying.
If I wasn't looking to drop out Child ASAP and blow it up, I'd say Prophetic Prism is easily better than well Chromatic Star at any rate. But since I'm looking for quick mana fixing, and really only once... Chromatic Star actually ends up costing me one less since it filters the second mana. As for Manamorphose... it's pretty much leagues better here because it can provide double colors for transmutes, Yavimaya Elder, or even provide two colors for Child. Admittedly I'm just testing these cards at the moment, but my feeling is that if I can't find a card that's great in the slot, I might as well effectively play with 1 less card... *points at Gitaxian Probe* Still they're new additions, we'll see how well they do.
Tolarian Winds and friends -- Hmm, this is an interesting direction to go. Milling cards is similar to drawing cards in this deck, so it could be worthwhile. The worst-case scenario is that you might have this and a useful Buyback spell in hand at the same time. Will you do me a favor and keep track of how often Careful Study actually gains you value? I'm only hesitant because even if you pitch another dead card for something useful, you only come out even on card advantage (all of these are -1 card themselves).
One of the tricks with Tolarian Winds is that you can cast the Buyback spell, and with it on the stack cast Tolarians Winds, it's an instant. So you can avoid losing buyback stuff if need be. Still with Harpy, Capsize, Mnemonic Wall, and Izzet Chronarch I've never had trouble bringing them back. If anything I tend to rely on that a lot more than the creature recursion.
Still without Winds/Frantic/Careful I have been finding that all too often I draw recursion spells, with no creatures for them to hit. This so far has helped alleviate the problem, but I've only run about 8 games since adding them. I'll definitely let you know how often they prove useful.
I'm not sold on Cavern Harpy. My version has only 7 creatures that I can bounce with it, most of which fall under the "cute" category. Do I really need to keep reusing Gravedigger and Cadaver Imp over and over? I also cut Momentary Blink because every time I drew it I wanted a removal spell instead.
That's probably been my biggest problem with it.... not that it's not good at recurring things, mostly that the only creatures I want to reuse are Mnemonic Wall, Izzet Chronarch, and Mulldrifter... still Grave Digger and Imp do allow me to reuse transmute creatures. Not the worst purpose for them. I would however love to find other enters the battlefield effects to exploit.
I've been running Ponder and Preordain in addition to Brainstorm and I'm really liking them so far. I'm thinking of adding in Impulse as well. These spells really help with consistency.
I've just been looking for space really, pretty certain I'll end up tossing them in sooner rather than later.
I don't think any of these make the cut. They're all too weak on their own and not worth repeatably recurring with Cavern Harpy. Pretty much the only one I'd be interested in is Coiling Oracle.
You've convinced me to try Manamorphose out. In a similar vein, I've been using Harrow as one of my ramp spells. I haven't gotten a chance to play with it yet, but I have high expectations.
Just got back from a Commander tournament, and I'm exhausted. I'll post a more detailed response later, but I wanted to let you guys know this deck successfully crushed the dreams of everyone in the tournament, claiming first place. Too bad there was no prize support... just kidding, that was probably for the better.
Each still-living player receives 2 points for each other player eliminated from the game. There are a little over 20 people playing in pods of 4 or 5. I thought it was going to be 1v1 (I brought a pauper Clique deck just for the occasion), but I'm thrilled to hear it's going to be multiplayer.
I also get a free oversized promo just for signing up, and there is no entrance fee. I choose Edric, Spymaster of Trest as my starting pokemon free promo.
Ertai turns out to be a little land-light, and Sheoldred turns out to be full of Relentless Rats. On the other hand, Lorthos and I build up manabases, never missing a land drop the entire game. On turn six, I counter a Consecrated Sphinx from the Lorthos player. Soon after, Sheoldred sets Ertai to 10 with a Sorin Markov, so Ertai is playing defense the whole time. I randomly save him by using Capsize to bounce an attacker, which really pays off later on.
Two mono-blue decks? And one is the really good one from round 1? Arg! Everyone is reeling as Llawan gets turn 1 Sol Ring into turn 2 Jace the Mind Sculptor into turn 3 Reliquary Tower + Howling Mine + Rhystic Study. Things are not looking good as he drops Temple Bell and a HUGE Psychosis Crawler. Thankfully, Kaalia is going hardcore aggro with Hall of the Bandit Lord and just knocks Llawan out of the game. Lorthos has grown wary of my deck, but he has his hands full with Kaalia, who soon kills him as well.
I get to play a casual game with Kaalia, Llawan, and a Phelddagrif player from another table. I take Squee out for a spin. We don't get to finish, but let's just say it involved Eureka for maximum lulz.
The Rith player (aka the Phelddagrif player from earlier) and I are ahead on points, so at the start of the game he suggests, "I kill this guy, you kill that guy." Sounds fine to me, except I don't "kill" people so much as I "don't lose" to people. Working in my favor is the fact that Kaalia and Godo have a sort of vendetta against Rith, who apparently combo'd them out in the last pod.
Rith is playing a really good deck with loads of recursion -- he has Emeria online, by the way -- so after several iterations of Child of Alara, he and I are the only ones with any gas. He finishes off Kaalia, and I keep blowing up and/or Capsizing Godo's stuff. Eventually the alliance breaks down and we turn on each other, although we are still paying lip service to the truce. After I sweep the board again, Rith goes for Akroma, Angel of Wrath + Razia's Purification. I flashback Mystical Teachings and pray for a hard counter: YES, Muddle the Mixture is still in the deck. Rith is at 6, so I cast Mnemonic Wall and Rolling Thunder him out. Godo still has lots of life, but can't compete with my engine of Capsize, Crypt Rats, Mnemonic Wall, and Rolling Thunder.
Pauper deck get there! This place was lots of fun and the people were very friendly. I hope I can go back at some point.
I too played in a Commander tournament this weekend with Child. We were supposed to be doing the Commander Launch Party but the precons didn't come in in time, so we ended up doing just a regular EDH tournament. 3 points for being the last man standing, 2 points for being the runner up, 3 games, no time limit (big mistake on that one).
The game is going pretty slow to start, with the only real action coming from Kaervek who was playing a griefer deck. He and Arbiter are getting into it pretty hard while the rest of us just kind of sit back and watch. Eventually Karona comes into play, dishes out some serious general damage, and Kaervek + Augustin drop in successive turns. I have a pretty nutty hand with recursion, counterspell backup, and plenty of transmuters for whatever I need, so I start working on Doran with Child+Karona swinging for 17 a turn (avatar tribal, baby!). Eventually I kill Doran off, Rolling Thunder off Oona, and then go Capsize + Izzet Chronarch + Fireball to take down Karona's life in 13 point chunks.
This game was pure misery from the beginning. Turn 3 Windfall makes me discard land + Capsize, the follow up Burning Inquiry makes me discard 2 land + Far Wanderings, then the next turn I get Mind Twisted for 5 discarding 4 land and a Red Elemental Blast. I'm left with 4 land in play and 3 transmuters in hand, all of which cost BB that I don't have. Then, I get Bojuka Bog'd. Then, when I finally get Child in play, it gets successively stolen with Control Magic and then tucked with Hallowed Burial. And just to top it off, Planar Void gets played. So I have no general, 7 lands, 1 card in hand, and a third of my library is exiled.
In the meantime, Oona has out a Consecrated Sphinx for three turns around the table and fails to kill anyone. Then the Zur player gets Future Sight + Consecrated Sphinx going, and fails to kill anyone. The Scion player eventually keeps a Mana Reflection in play and then casts Scion, turns him into Hellkite Overlord, kicks a Rite of Replication on it, and takes out two people at once. Unfortunately, he can't take out Zur because of a Propaganda in play. Of course when Zur untaps he blows up the board (again, all the deck does is draw cards and kill stuff. I'm playing Child of Alara and even I was sick of all the removal). Zur is down to about 20 cards left in his library. Oona has the ability to exile 18 and then swing with Nemesis of Reason, but he opts instead to use Oona targeting someone else. Since Zur has an Eternal Witness on a Mimic Vat, on his turn he makes a token, gets back Time Spiral, uses it (I had just Brainspoiled up Child, so it gets tucked again), and we're all back where we started, except it's 1.5 hours later. At this point Scion concedes because he has to leave. Zur finally kills me off with Martial Coup tokens, and then he concedes because "I'm just making this game take too long, you guys can finish without me." It's down to Oona vs. Doran, but I didn't watch who won because it took another half an hour for them to finish.
We ended up not doing a round 3 because of time constraints. The last game took 2.5 hours and the shop was about to close. It's safe to say that it was one of the most miserable games of EDH I've ever played, largely because I was effectively a nonparticipant due to such massive hate early on and had to sit there watching everyone else do nothing either. Oh well, at least the first game was a good one.
Some observations on cards I ran:
I absolutely loved both Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast every time I drew them. When I added them I thought they'd be nothing more than removal for Child, but in the two games I countered both Zur and a Recurring Insight with them. They're very useful cards to have around to help win counter wars too. I don't think I can have enough counterspells in the deck.
I took Tilling Treefolk out for the tournament, but I'm not sure it was the right call. It might be just a safety blanket, but it's nice knowing that I have it in my deck so that I can get back lands after someone blows them up. There's a lot of random land hate in my group. There was one point in the first game where I thought I was going to be locked out of double red mana because I discarded my 2nd red source early on. It ended up not mattering though because of Darksteel Ingot. I'm on the fence about the Treefolk. I can't tell if it's too cute or reasonable insurance.
I didn't miss Crypt Rats or Ulamog's Crusher at all. Taking Crypt Rats out has actually helped the mana base out considerably. I don't have to concentrate on fetching out so much black mana now and can instead focus on blue sources. The Crusher is just so much weaker than Fireball, Rolling Thunder, and Child of Alara that it's not really missed. On a similar note, I took out Twisted Abomination because it's a crappy creature and swampcycling isn't something I really felt like I needed.
Ponder and Preordain are pretty solid. They're not nearly as good as Brainstorm, but I never regretted drawing them either. They're a good way to keep the action flowing at all points in the game.
Rush of Knowledge is pretty nutty. A 5-mana draw-5 is so good in pauper.
Ulamog's Crusher was pretty disappointing. I love playing that card, but I can't help but feel it's just the very definition of "win more." I'm going to replace it with Brainspoil, because in one of the games I played I really wished I had access to Mnemonic Wall.
Crypt Rats was good to me. It handles token generation like a champ and is much easier to recur + sac than Child of Alara. I ended up using it as a board sweep + universal burn spell to get everyone in Rolling Thunder range. The manabase thing isn't really an issue, because I rarely feel like I need to fetch up additional swamps, and because I usually use it in the uber-late game when I have 9 black sources anyway. Besides, it was so hard to find a foil Crypt Rats, I don't want to give them up anyway!
Tilling Treefolk was good. Not amazing, just good. Much like Overrule, I like how it gives our deck added functionality without forcing us to run some corner-case effect that is rarely useful. Because of mana issues, I cut Strip Mine for Command Tower, but it's fine; we still have Wrecking Ball and Capsize for reusable LD purposes, and we can access both fairly reliably.
I'm on the fence about Twisted Abomination. I love the swampcycling ability, but the last time I actually cast it was ages ago. It's not unusual for me to swampcycle it, then get it back with Cadaver Imp and continue the process until we get on our feet. If we want a similar effect, what do we run in it's place? Here is a list of the landcycling creatures:
Most other things with abilities similar to landcycling cost colored mana. Admittedly, this might be the Preordain slot. Man, and I haven't even tried fitting in Rush of Knowledge yet. Why are these decisions so haaaaarrrrdd-d-d-d?
Also, a list of what did and did not work yesterday:
What worked: 1. Politics. No, commons aren't a big deal. No, I haven't really played any threats. Then suddenly, I have 20+ mana with access to Capsize and recursion loops. Be friendly, play conservatively, and try to answer threats that scare the entire table -- everyone will thank you for your threat assessment. 2. Child of Alara. An alarming number of decks just fold to a repeatable board wipe. Board wipes with counterspell backup are even more effective. 3. Lack of graveyard hate. In round 1, I saw one early Bojuka Bog (aimed elsewhere) and a Leyline of the Void (which I countered). There may have been more elsewhere, but I feel like I got away with murder. 4. Effective preparation. I have spent a lot of time you folks tweaking this deck, so I was able to pack an answer for nearly every situation. Because I was very familiar with the inner workings of the deck, I was able to correctly assess when to cast spells, when to transmute them, and when to just hold back. Thanks for all your help.
What didn't work: 1. Ulamog's Crusher. He attacked once and was loads of fun to slam onto the table, but I had the game sealed up by then anyway. 2. Aether Spellbomb. Granted, even though I never used its first ability, it may have had a significant impact on the board state since people often chose to forgo equipping their creatures in favor of less risky lines of play. 3. Not eating. I was so hungry and sooo thirsty by the time the tournament was over. I had to stop by Jack in the Box for a Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger. I burnt my tongue.
If all you want to do is landcycle Twisted Abomination, Jhessian Zombies seems a straight upgrade. However, cutting it and adding in one of the cantrips is probably your best bet.
As far as finding space goes, I compared Nideovinja's list on the previous page to mine to see where the differences were and took a hard look at the differences. As a result of this, I cut Crypt Rats, Twisted Abomination, Horizon Spellbomb, Ulamog's Crusher, Momentary Blink, and Tilling Treefolk for underperforming. Another thing that is making your deck tight is that you're still running the Trinket Mage package. Seriously, just cut it already :D. It frees up so much space for cards that have more power behind them.
If all you want to do is landcycle Twisted Abomination, Jhessian Zombies seems a straight upgrade. However, cutting it and adding in one of the cantrips is probably your best bet.
As far as finding space goes, I compared Nideovinja's list on the previous page to mine to see where the differences were and took a hard look at the differences. As a result of this, I cut Crypt Rats, Twisted Abomination, Horizon Spellbomb, Ulamog's Crusher, Momentary Blink, and Tilling Treefolk for underperforming. Another thing that is making your deck tight is that you're still running the Trinket Mage package. Seriously, just cut it already :D. It frees up so much space for cards that have more power behind them.
Yeah, I guess I'll try Preordain in place of Twisted Abomination. Jhessian Zombies is so ugly... I don't want to flip through my graveyard and see that thing yawning back at me.
I can't believe Momentary Blink underperformed for you; that card has been amazing for me. I drew it twice yesterday and got tons of value from blinking Farhaven Elf, Sanctum Gargoyle, and Gravedigger while occasionally saving them from combat damage.
We've discussed Tilling Treefolk and Horizon Spellbomb at length, so I guess we'll just agree to disagree? I've been quite happy with both of them.
I can understand cutting Crypt Rats if you take your deck/manabase in that direction, but I won't be because it seems to be quite effective in several different scenarios. Just to recap:
+ More cost efficient than Child of Alara against tokens/utility guys
+ Effective removal for most planeswalkers
+ Backup Rolling Thunder, better at taking out multiple opponents
- Often weaker and less versatile than Child of Alara
- Can be unusable at low life totals
- Requires you to fetch up more swamps than normal when you draw it and want to exploit it
On Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast -- I'd say these are meta-dependent. The LGS I visited yesterday seemed to have tons of blue, so I'd slot one or both of these guys in quickly. However, my regular playgroup doesn't play a lot of blue, so more often than not these would be very conditional Terminates or something. I'll pass, but it's not because they aren't good enough.
On Trinket Mage -- This guy is boss! Even if I weren't playing him, I would still include Wayfarer's Bauble, Horizon Spellbomb, and Nihil Spellbomb. Dispeller's Capsule, while effective, is often too slow because double white mana is hard to come by early on, so I will consider cutting it. Aether Spellbomb is at least fine when you cycle it, good when you reuse an ETB trigger, and sometimes great as a deterrent/answer that requires very little investment. Lastly, using Trinket Mage as a Civic Wayfinder has been useful several times in the recent past, so I definitely won't be cutting the artifact lands any time soon (though I may later if people start hosing my manabase at some point down the road).
Mage gives lots of useful options and I'm always happy to draw it. With a streamlined package, all of the cogs are good on their own, and altogether Mage is consistently one of the best creatures in the deck. He also provides a useful link in the tutor chains and costs nothing except a couple deck slots. That's my reasoning, anyway.
reading this thread, I think that this deck is a brilliant idea. I've been wanting to get into edh however I've not been wanting to spend the money (I have a small collection.) Perhaps I should try my hand at making a pauper edh deck.
reading this thread, I think that this deck is a brilliant idea. I've been wanting to get into edh however I've not been wanting to spend the money (I have a small collection.) Perhaps I should try my hand at making a pauper edh deck.
Excellent! This deck has almost the lowest barrier to entry you could ever ask for, and it can regularly hang with the "big dogs" of the format thanks to the dynamics of multiplayer. Other pauper decks are viable, as well. I hope you find EDH/Commander to be as enjoyable as we do!
I played this deck twice yesterday at my FLGS' weekly EDH day, and pissed off two entire tables worth of players. Fast color fixing, insane luck in drawing combo pieces (capsize, disturbed burial, and grim harvest, mind extraction), and non-existent hand disruption/graveyard hate meant that there was very little keeping child shenanigans in check. One of the games, due to epic bullheadedness on the part of one player, clocked in at 3+ hours. I was the first eliminated in both games, but not before thoroughly dispiriting and disgusting the opposition.
One humorous observation I'd make about the deck is that even though my opponents were very annoyed by the constant board wiping, they were the ones most frequently setting it off. The child was rarely on the board for more than one turn, and not getting in face beats using the general was definitely the biggest contributor to losing.
Great deck! I think I'll have to wait a few weeks before busting it out again!
It seems like most of my wins with this deck (and it does win a very large amount) are on the back of grinding out out with Child board wipes.... Then the infinite backed by counters/recursion until it sticks. There is something kind of spiritual about a table congratulating you on getting them with an infinite they never saw coming. The last time I played this deck, the three people I was playing with actually cheered when I played out my deck suddenly one turn. I'm half tempted to write "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition" on Krosan Restorer.
On another note in testing here's what I've found...
1. Cavern Harpy can be quite the monster if Wall or Chronarch show up... but if all I'm getting is recurring Gravedigger or Imp... I'll pass. Perhaps if something else neat shows up in the future, it will get tossed back in. Then again I've been cutting creatures right and left from this deck... so er.. maybe it won't have any left (besides Wall and Chronarch) at some point.
2. Careful Study.... It's been average, never really bad, but predictably not insane. I'd probably get more value if I ran more guys, but ditching two useless cards isn't that bad either. Might become Preordain.
Cards I'm testing:
1. Impaler Shrike - This really just looks like a reusable draw 3 to me. I haven't tested it yet, but it seems promising.
2. Repulse - Sometimes... well okay a lot of times, my opponent(s) is/are just faster than me. And slowing them up a turn while drawing myself a card, especially when they try to rush out their general... seems to be working well so far. Worse comes to worse, bouncing one of my enters the battlefield effects has been okay as well. And if you're hard up, or have infinite mana, you can use it plus Wall or Chronarch to draw a card over and over.
Most other things with abilities similar to landcycling cost colored mana. Admittedly, this might be the Preordain slot. Man, and I haven't even tried fitting in Rush of Knowledge yet. Why are these decisions so [I]haaaaarrrrdd-d-d[/I]-[I]d?
Mystic Remora/Rhystic Study -- Good players pay the . Very few players pay the , though some just skip playing stuff entirely. Lots of EDH players don't do either, though. These guys typically draw at least 2 or 3 cards, sometimes more. That's fine with me. Admittedly, maybe everyone around here is terrible...
Really given that you only tend to net 2-3 cards off either of these cards, I'd say slot one out for Rush of Knowledge. You'll basically always draw 5 off it as few people want to wipe their board by killing Child to stop you. I know nobody has taken me up on the proposition so far, and really even if they did... I'd just thank them. I mean the deck as you have it now has no way to bring back Remora or Study, but two ways to get back Rush of Knowledge. And nothing says loving quite like transmute Brainspoil for Mnemonic Wall, Cast Wall getting back Brainspoil, transmute for Rush of Knowledge. Obviously not something you do over one turn but still.. card advantage machine with any of the recursion stuff.
If all you want to do is landcycle Twisted Abomination, Jhessian Zombies seems a straight upgrade. However, cutting it and adding in one of the cantrips is probably your best bet.
As far as finding space goes, I compared Nideovinja's list on the previous page to mine to see where the differences were and took a hard look at the differences. As a result of this, I cut Crypt Rats, Twisted Abomination, Horizon Spellbomb, Ulamog's Crusher, Momentary Blink, and Tilling Treefolk for underperforming. Another thing that is making your deck tight is that you're still running the Trinket Mage package. Seriously, just cut it already :D. It frees up so much space for cards that have more power behind them.
Don't suppose I could convince you to post your list? You seem to have gone in a different direction than d0su or I, running a lot less creatures from the sound of it. And I wouldn't mind having another list to bounce my ideas off of.
Between all the new commanders that have come out and the fact that my playgroup is starting to really hate playing against Child, I've sort of put this deck on the back burner for now. I'm not going to take it apart, but I'll definitely be seeing a lot less playtime with it in the near future. That said, here is my current list:
That card is like Reflecting Pool on crack. It's like an auto-include in every multicolor EDH deck, well, ever. MUST HAVE.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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changes I made were -5 artifact lands +1 of each basic, -Mind Extraction +1 Brainspoil
Some possible suggestions-
Darksteel Pendant (a Poor Man's Crystal Ball / Sensei's Top)
Frantic Search (heavily played in regular pauper)
Relic Crush
Hull Breach
RWU
Zedruu, the Greathearted
RGW Uril, the Miststalker
Awesome, glad to hear your having some success with the deck! Please oh please let us know how it turns out in the league, for better or for worse. It sounds like Sheldon is piloting Rith, the Awakener next week, and usually this deck can handle tokens pretty well once you get off the ground.
I can understand cutting the artifact lands. I'm going to start keeping track of the number of times I want to Trinket Mage for them.
I can't imagine cutting Mind Extraction, though; that card is boss! Either way, good luck in the league!
Darksteel Pendant -- Huh, this is kind of sweet. It might be a cool alternative to Mystic Remora or some card draw spell if I find I always have too many cards in hand. I can see myself playing this one day.
Frantic Search -- Excellent card, broken even, but I don't think that's what this deck wants. We win through card advantage, so going -1 card to just dig slightly deeper and (rarely) fix some mana isn't going to cut it. It does stock your graveyard, though... IDK, I'm just going to pass on this one.
Relic Crush -- Another solid card, and it would most likely be in here if Child of Alara wasn't the general. At the moment, Child is how I usually deal with those sort of problems, and in the cases where Child doesn't work (like against Leyline of the Void), I can chain tutors to get Dispeller's Capsule. (Trinket Mage, Drift of Phantasms, Perplex, Merchant Scroll, Muddle the Mixture, Mystical Teachings, Dimir House Guard, and boatloads of card draw and library manipulation to get it. Super inefficient if you start with House Guard, but it's doable in a pinch.)
Hull Breach -- a lot better than Relic Crush here because of the low CMC, but falls short under the same logic. Child of Alara easily deals with most things, and I'm trying to maximize the amount of utility with the few slots we have.
I'm not trying to downplay all of your suggestions, because they're all really good and would easily be playable in a pauper deck of any kind. Heck, they are viable choices for regular EDH decks too! The deck has just undergone so many revisions that I have to be super picky with my choices. I'd like to think the list is starting to get "tight," but maybe that's wishful thinking as long as I have any input here.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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Ulamog's Crusher - This card isn't even a win condition, it's slower than Child at beating people down, it dies to more types of removal... and unlike Child people line up to kill it. (Child on the other hand might as well have Leprosy for how often people want to kill it.) And when I finally do get Crusher to hit the table, and by some amazing fluke it successfully attacks... them losing two permanents to it.. usually doesn't matter.
Tilling Treefolk - This card requires a lot of setup to even generate any kind of card advantage. But if there is one thing I've seen in this deck is that it simply has better card advantage tools. I'll admit I don't specifically dislike this card, but since I took out the cycle lands, it lost any value.
The Cycle Lands - Again simply better card advantage engines out there, I mean if I had Life from the Loam sure, but 9/10 I end up wanting the lands more than the cycle (this is a very mana hungry deck), so all they did was waste my time by coming into play tapped. Which in turn slowed down my clock considerably.
Mystic Remora/Rhystic Study - These two cards are really only good if my opponents are bad. Anybody who thinks it's a good plan to let me draw cards for every time they cast a spell, is either going to win on turn 3/4 or isn't even a threat at the table. At a good table, these two cards draw zero cards.
Also from what I've seen the deck seems to have serious color issues, I've lost count of the number of times I've had to sit on my hands wondering if I could get the colors I need to play stuff, even with aggressive mulligans. Admittedly I'm super unlucky, so I tend to prize consistency a lot over power. Anyway for those interested, here's what I've been sleeving up... and why...
1 Child of Alara
Creatures
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Cadaver Imp
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Dimir House Guard
1 Gravedigger
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Izzet Chronarch
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Mulldrifter
1 Krosan Tusker
1 Dimir Infiltrator
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Krosan Restorer
1 Crypt Rats
Instants
1 Perplex
1 Rend Flesh
1 Soul Manipulation
1 Grim Harvest
1 Capsize
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Arcane Denial
1 Condescend
1 Counterspell
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Evolution Charm
1 Momentary Blink
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Terminate
1 Faerie Trickery
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Eyeblight's Ending
1 Frantic Search
1 Overrule
1 Tolarian Winds
1 Manamorphose
1 Shred Memory
1 Disturbed Burial
1 Mind Extraction
1 Death Denied
1 Rolling Thunder
1 Cultivate
1 Far Wanderings
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Deep Analysis
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Rush of Knowledge
1 Brainspoil
1 Elven Cache
1 Careful Study
1 Edge of Autumn
1 Rampant Growth
1 Compulsive Research
Lands
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Rupture Spire
1 Shimmering Grotto
1 Bojuka Bog
10 Forest
9 Island
7 Swamp
3 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Esper Panorama
1 Naya Panorama
1 Jund Panorama
1 Bant Panorama
1 Grixis Panorama
1 Freed from the Real
Artifacts
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Chromatic Star
1 Armillary Sphere
Mana Fixing Differences...
Chromatic Star, Manamorphose - These card usually allows me to play early spells or transmute costs that require two of a color. Or even fix so I can drop an early Child. Worse comes to worse, they replace themselves so I'm not really out anything.
Edge of Autumn, Rampant Growth - Early mana fixing that puts me a turn ahead. Sounds good to me. Edge even cycles later.
Armillary Sphere - In my list I've restructured the mana base to favor UBG, the three colors that the deck basically runs on. These just lets me get duplicates if I need for double color costs, or it can pull a plains and a mountain for Child.
Alternate Win Condition
Krosan Restorer, Freed from the Real, and Elven Cache (for Freed recursion) - This alternate win condition requires just two cards, and after wiping my opponents boards enough times usually goes off unhindered. Even if it doesn't, it not like I try for it super early so I have counters and Elven Cache to keep trying. They'll run out of counters/kill before I run out the ability to play it. If left alone, I can win on turn 7...
Card Filtering
Careful Study, Frantic Search, Tolarian Winds - Cycle through cards for whatever I need, and as a bonus setup Threshold faster. Admittedly I'm not 100% certain about Winds, it's worked so far though.
Card Draw
Compulsive Research (I have 40 lands, pretty certain I can discard one)
Rush of Knowledge (pure insanity, draws 5 cards most of the time)
Other choices
Cavern Harpy - Reusing my enters the battlefield effects for a UB and a life sounds good to me.
Every 2-5 transmute card under the sun - Really I'd happily scribble transmute on blank cards with casting costs if people would let me.
Anyway that's what I've been playing, figured I'd share my experiences and see what you guys thought.
Score one for Pauper, and two for d0su. One for making the deck, and two for convincing so many people to play it.
What an awkward rule, does it apply to generals as well? If so it almost seems against the spirit of the format.
Some of the penalties in the league make me really sad. Worm Harvest and Praetor's Council get hit really hard, for example. Still, I'm glad the deck worked well for you!
Everyone has been having so much fun with Brainspoil, I think I might give it a shot. I've never felt like I needed it, but it looks solid enough.
If you simply don't feel like you need Mind Extraction, that's cool. It is certainly one of the more powerful haymakers in the deck, but we got along fine without it for a long time.
Business Spells:
Ulamog's Crusher -- I know what you mean. He's fun and all, but I can see cutting him.
Tilling Treefolk -- He does take some legwork to play for maximum value. For that reason, I play him a lot later than I normally would. However, that isn't the extent of his usefulness -- should our manabase get totally nuked by Armageddon or whatever, Treefolk is our only real out. In fact, I've won a few games because Treefolk let me recover quickly after Obliterate.
Lonely Sandbar et. al. -- Again, while the Tilling Treefolk engine is nice, I've always been mostly thankful for their ability to cycle when they're unneeded. Yes, we love lands, but we draw a lot of cards once we get going, and drawing more than one land per turn just doesn't help.
Mystic Remora/Rhystic Study -- Good players pay the 1. Very few players pay the 4, though some just skip playing stuff entirely. Lots of EDH players don't do either, though. These guys typically draw at least 2 or 3 cards, sometimes more. That's fine with me. Admittedly, maybe everyone around here is terrible...
Cavern Harpy -- Looks pretty sweet. I'm going to test this guy in place of Ulamog's Crusher.
Also, if someone is going to combo out on turn 3 or 4, it's usually me. Otherwise, against fast combos, this deck usually rolls over and dies. I'm not really concerned about losing quickly -- I'm shooting for the long game. I do like the Freed from the Real combo, though.
Mana Fixing:
Do you really have problems with mana fixing? 40 lands + 13 mana fixers + tons of card draw and library manipulation seems like enough. I'm playing 41 lands + 12 mana fixers + lots of card draw. My manabase is also heavily slanted toward G//, splashing R/ for a few choice spells. I do the free mulligan about once every 4 or 5 hands and that usually fixes the problem.
Are Manamorphose and Chromatic Star really better than Prophetic Prism? My gut tells me no, but they're more than fine in any case.
Rampant Growth and Edge of Autumn are good. I played Rampant Growth in here a few months ago and it was solid.
Tolarian Winds and friends -- Hmm, this is an interesting direction to go. Milling cards is similar to drawing cards in this deck, so it could be worthwhile. The worst-case scenario is that you might have this and a useful Buyback spell in hand at the same time. Will you do me a favor and keep track of how often Careful Study actually gains you value? I'm only hesitant because even if you pitch another dead card for something useful, you only come out even on card advantage (all of these are -1 card themselves).
Bonus -- Free Sample Hands from deckstats.net, good or bad:
Hand 1:
We randomly drew two ton white sources in this hand, but I would keep this in a hurry. We're set for colors and have enough flexibility to make the most of what we draw in the top 5. For the record, it doesn't seem like lands coming into play tapped make much of a difference.
Hand 2:
Easy mulligan. Forget color screw; we simply do not have enough mana sources.
Hand 3:
Keep. We have 2 draw steps and a Halimar Depths to hit land, card draw, or castable mana fixer, and then we're set thanks to Sea Gate Oracle and Trinket Mage. This is one hand where casting Trinket Mage for an artifact land could be useful at some point. For fun, I approximated our odds of drawing land by computing a Binomial CDF with p=0.4. We are about 92.2% likely to get a land in time, not counting other fixers or card draw. CLOSE ENOUGH
Hand 4:
Mulligan. It might work out (looking at Island + Trinket Mage in the Top 2 is cheating), but mainly I just look for lands, colors, and card draw in my openers. Better safe than sorry.
Hand 5:
Keep. This hand has all the colors and a good plan: cast Child of Alara with Diabolic Edict mana up, milking it for maximum value as always.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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I didn't know how to quote posts from my iPhone, but I took this week to protest the point by getting -14 points on purpose after not being able to play 4 cards in my hand(with Sheldon in game at that). A good % of players agree with me on that point, so it will hopefully be changed next week.
I've been running Ponder and Preordain in addition to Brainstorm and I'm really liking them so far. I'm thinking of adding in Impulse as well. These spells really help with consistency.
Teneb, the Harvester: Let there be life!
Drafting Aggro in the Cube: A Primer for Beginners
Actually I ask that question a lot... why am I running X when Child does it better?
Half of why I'm including filter spells like Frantic Search is to ditch the extra lands when I don't need them. Sure I'm down one card to do it, but I don't have to spend the mana that it would take to cycle them. And between the vast number of card advantage generating things in the deck, and the absurd card advantage machine that is Rush of Knowledge recursion.... It's not like I don't have to discard cards all too often just because I can't play them fast enough.
The biggest problem I would encounter is either drawing the mana fixers with the wrong mana to cast them. Or being forced to wait on a playing a spell for a turn because the mana I need comes from a land that comes into play tapped. I will admit my luck is legendarily bad (enough to have it's own AOE according to some people)... But that aside, I think we simply have a different direction we're both trying to take the deck. I'm trying to speed it up so it can go toe to toe with anything, even bring down the super fast combos. And my lands coming into play tapped, really hurts that goal. If anything I'm trying to avoid playing for the long game, and even present a clear (hopefully uncounterable) threat to the table. Admittedly I'm still a ways away from that goal, but that won't stop me from trying.
If I wasn't looking to drop out Child ASAP and blow it up, I'd say Prophetic Prism is easily better than well Chromatic Star at any rate. But since I'm looking for quick mana fixing, and really only once... Chromatic Star actually ends up costing me one less since it filters the second mana. As for Manamorphose... it's pretty much leagues better here because it can provide double colors for transmutes, Yavimaya Elder, or even provide two colors for Child. Admittedly I'm just testing these cards at the moment, but my feeling is that if I can't find a card that's great in the slot, I might as well effectively play with 1 less card... *points at Gitaxian Probe* Still they're new additions, we'll see how well they do.
One of the tricks with Tolarian Winds is that you can cast the Buyback spell, and with it on the stack cast Tolarians Winds, it's an instant. So you can avoid losing buyback stuff if need be. Still with Harpy, Capsize, Mnemonic Wall, and Izzet Chronarch I've never had trouble bringing them back. If anything I tend to rely on that a lot more than the creature recursion.
Still without Winds/Frantic/Careful I have been finding that all too often I draw recursion spells, with no creatures for them to hit. This so far has helped alleviate the problem, but I've only run about 8 games since adding them. I'll definitely let you know how often they prove useful.
That's probably been my biggest problem with it.... not that it's not good at recurring things, mostly that the only creatures I want to reuse are Mnemonic Wall, Izzet Chronarch, and Mulldrifter... still Grave Digger and Imp do allow me to reuse transmute creatures. Not the worst purpose for them. I would however love to find other enters the battlefield effects to exploit.
I've just been looking for space really, pretty certain I'll end up tossing them in sooner rather than later.
I don't think any of these make the cut. They're all too weak on their own and not worth repeatably recurring with Cavern Harpy. Pretty much the only one I'd be interested in is Coiling Oracle.
You've convinced me to try Manamorphose out. In a similar vein, I've been using Harrow as one of my ramp spells. I haven't gotten a chance to play with it yet, but I have high expectations.
Teneb, the Harvester: Let there be life!
Drafting Aggro in the Cube: A Primer for Beginners
Each still-living player receives 2 points for each other player eliminated from the game. There are a little over 20 people playing in pods of 4 or 5. I thought it was going to be 1v1 (I brought a pauper Clique deck just for the occasion), but I'm thrilled to hear it's going to be multiplayer.
I also get a free oversized promo just for signing up, and there is no entrance fee. I choose Edric, Spymaster of Trest as my
starting pokemonfree promo.Round 1 versus Ertai, the Corrupted, Lorthos, the Tidemaker, and Sheoldred, the Whispering One:
Ertai turns out to be a little land-light, and Sheoldred turns out to be full of Relentless Rats. On the other hand, Lorthos and I build up manabases, never missing a land drop the entire game. On turn six, I counter a Consecrated Sphinx from the Lorthos player. Soon after, Sheoldred sets Ertai to 10 with a Sorin Markov, so Ertai is playing defense the whole time. I randomly save him by using Capsize to bounce an attacker, which really pays off later on.
I finally make a move by casting Child of Alara and using Mind Extraction to hose the Lorthos player. Lorthos uses Sensei's Divining Top into a card draw spell to dig into Kozilek, the Butcher + Lighting Greaves. Lol?! I get some lands Annihilated and he looks to seal the deal by playing Lorthos, but Ertai swoops in to save me with a Day of Judgment. Woohoo! Ertai is soon eliminated, the 1 1/2 hour time limit is up, and I stall it out on turns with Child of Alara, Oblivion Ring, and Capsize.
Round 2 versus Kaalia of the Vast, Lorthos, the Tidemaker, and Llawan, Cephalid Empress:
Two mono-blue decks? And one is the really good one from round 1? Arg! Everyone is reeling as Llawan gets turn 1 Sol Ring into turn 2 Jace the Mind Sculptor into turn 3 Reliquary Tower + Howling Mine + Rhystic Study. Things are not looking good as he drops Temple Bell and a HUGE Psychosis Crawler. Thankfully, Kaalia is going hardcore aggro with Hall of the Bandit Lord and just knocks Llawan out of the game. Lorthos has grown wary of my deck, but he has his hands full with Kaalia, who soon kills him as well.
Now that it's down to a 1v1 basis (it's only turn 8 or 9), here comes Child of Alara + Mind Extraction. Now we can play Magic, except I have twice as much mana and 7 cards in hand. Kaalia? Terminate. Kaalia? Counterspell. I drop Ulamog's Crusher and go to town, sealing the deal with a Rolling Thunder.
I get to play a casual game with Kaalia, Llawan, and a Phelddagrif player from another table. I take Squee out for a spin. We don't get to finish, but let's just say it involved Eureka for maximum lulz.
Round 3 versus Godo, Bandit Warlord, Kaalia of the Vast (a different one), and Rith, the Awakener:
The Rith player (aka the Phelddagrif player from earlier) and I are ahead on points, so at the start of the game he suggests, "I kill this guy, you kill that guy." Sounds fine to me, except I don't "kill" people so much as I "don't lose" to people. Working in my favor is the fact that Kaalia and Godo have a sort of vendetta against Rith, who apparently combo'd them out in the last pod.
This game starts out rough. I keep an opener with Plains, Barren Moor, Wayfarer's Bauble, and Moriok Replica. I have to really fight to establish a manabase, but Rith stays true to his word and sends Terastodon et. al. elsewhere. I *mostly* keep the deal, although an occasional Nihil Spellbomb (on Survival of the Fittest) or Oblivion Ring (on Primeval Titan) help keep things from getting too out of hand.
Rith is playing a really good deck with loads of recursion -- he has Emeria online, by the way -- so after several iterations of Child of Alara, he and I are the only ones with any gas. He finishes off Kaalia, and I keep blowing up and/or Capsizing Godo's stuff. Eventually the alliance breaks down and we turn on each other, although we are still paying lip service to the truce. After I sweep the board again, Rith goes for Akroma, Angel of Wrath + Razia's Purification. I flashback Mystical Teachings and pray for a hard counter: YES, Muddle the Mixture is still in the deck. Rith is at 6, so I cast Mnemonic Wall and Rolling Thunder him out. Godo still has lots of life, but can't compete with my engine of Capsize, Crypt Rats, Mnemonic Wall, and Rolling Thunder.
Pauper deck get there! This place was lots of fun and the people were very friendly. I hope I can go back at some point.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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Game 1: I'm matched up against Karona, False God, Doran, the Siege Tower, Kaervek the Merciless, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, and Oona, Queen of the Fae (yeah, 6 person game with no time limit :rolleyes:)
The game is going pretty slow to start, with the only real action coming from Kaervek who was playing a griefer deck. He and Arbiter are getting into it pretty hard while the rest of us just kind of sit back and watch. Eventually Karona comes into play, dishes out some serious general damage, and Kaervek + Augustin drop in successive turns. I have a pretty nutty hand with recursion, counterspell backup, and plenty of transmuters for whatever I need, so I start working on Doran with Child+Karona swinging for 17 a turn (avatar tribal, baby!). Eventually I kill Doran off, Rolling Thunder off Oona, and then go Capsize + Izzet Chronarch + Fireball to take down Karona's life in 13 point chunks.
Game 2: Doran, Kaervek, Oona, Scion of the ur-Dragon, Zur the Enchanter
This game was pure misery from the beginning. Turn 3 Windfall makes me discard land + Capsize, the follow up Burning Inquiry makes me discard 2 land + Far Wanderings, then the next turn I get Mind Twisted for 5 discarding 4 land and a Red Elemental Blast. I'm left with 4 land in play and 3 transmuters in hand, all of which cost BB that I don't have. Then, I get Bojuka Bog'd. Then, when I finally get Child in play, it gets successively stolen with Control Magic and then tucked with Hallowed Burial. And just to top it off, Planar Void gets played. So I have no general, 7 lands, 1 card in hand, and a third of my library is exiled.
In the meantime, Oona has out a Consecrated Sphinx for three turns around the table and fails to kill anyone. Then the Zur player gets Future Sight + Consecrated Sphinx going, and fails to kill anyone. The Scion player eventually keeps a Mana Reflection in play and then casts Scion, turns him into Hellkite Overlord, kicks a Rite of Replication on it, and takes out two people at once. Unfortunately, he can't take out Zur because of a Propaganda in play. Of course when Zur untaps he blows up the board (again, all the deck does is draw cards and kill stuff. I'm playing Child of Alara and even I was sick of all the removal). Zur is down to about 20 cards left in his library. Oona has the ability to exile 18 and then swing with Nemesis of Reason, but he opts instead to use Oona targeting someone else. Since Zur has an Eternal Witness on a Mimic Vat, on his turn he makes a token, gets back Time Spiral, uses it (I had just Brainspoiled up Child, so it gets tucked again), and we're all back where we started, except it's 1.5 hours later. At this point Scion concedes because he has to leave. Zur finally kills me off with Martial Coup tokens, and then he concedes because "I'm just making this game take too long, you guys can finish without me." It's down to Oona vs. Doran, but I didn't watch who won because it took another half an hour for them to finish.
We ended up not doing a round 3 because of time constraints. The last game took 2.5 hours and the shop was about to close. It's safe to say that it was one of the most miserable games of EDH I've ever played, largely because I was effectively a nonparticipant due to such massive hate early on and had to sit there watching everyone else do nothing either. Oh well, at least the first game was a good one.
Some observations on cards I ran:
I absolutely loved both Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast every time I drew them. When I added them I thought they'd be nothing more than removal for Child, but in the two games I countered both Zur and a Recurring Insight with them. They're very useful cards to have around to help win counter wars too. I don't think I can have enough counterspells in the deck.
I took Tilling Treefolk out for the tournament, but I'm not sure it was the right call. It might be just a safety blanket, but it's nice knowing that I have it in my deck so that I can get back lands after someone blows them up. There's a lot of random land hate in my group. There was one point in the first game where I thought I was going to be locked out of double red mana because I discarded my 2nd red source early on. It ended up not mattering though because of Darksteel Ingot. I'm on the fence about the Treefolk. I can't tell if it's too cute or reasonable insurance.
I didn't miss Crypt Rats or Ulamog's Crusher at all. Taking Crypt Rats out has actually helped the mana base out considerably. I don't have to concentrate on fetching out so much black mana now and can instead focus on blue sources. The Crusher is just so much weaker than Fireball, Rolling Thunder, and Child of Alara that it's not really missed. On a similar note, I took out Twisted Abomination because it's a crappy creature and swampcycling isn't something I really felt like I needed.
Ponder and Preordain are pretty solid. They're not nearly as good as Brainstorm, but I never regretted drawing them either. They're a good way to keep the action flowing at all points in the game.
Rush of Knowledge is pretty nutty. A 5-mana draw-5 is so good in pauper.
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Crypt Rats was good to me. It handles token generation like a champ and is much easier to recur + sac than Child of Alara. I ended up using it as a board sweep + universal burn spell to get everyone in Rolling Thunder range. The manabase thing isn't really an issue, because I rarely feel like I need to fetch up additional swamps, and because I usually use it in the uber-late game when I have 9 black sources anyway. Besides, it was so hard to find a foil Crypt Rats, I don't want to give them up anyway!
Tilling Treefolk was good. Not amazing, just good. Much like Overrule, I like how it gives our deck added functionality without forcing us to run some corner-case effect that is rarely useful. Because of mana issues, I cut Strip Mine for Command Tower, but it's fine; we still have Wrecking Ball and Capsize for reusable LD purposes, and we can access both fairly reliably.
I'm on the fence about Twisted Abomination. I love the swampcycling ability, but the last time I actually cast it was ages ago. It's not unusual for me to swampcycle it, then get it back with Cadaver Imp and continue the process until we get on our feet. If we want a similar effect, what do we run in it's place? Here is a list of the landcycling creatures:
Most other things with abilities similar to landcycling cost colored mana. Admittedly, this might be the Preordain slot. Man, and I haven't even tried fitting in Rush of Knowledge yet. Why are these decisions so haaaaarrrrdd-d-d-d?
Also, a list of what did and did not work yesterday:
What worked:
1. Politics. No, commons aren't a big deal. No, I haven't really played any threats. Then suddenly, I have 20+ mana with access to Capsize and recursion loops. Be friendly, play conservatively, and try to answer threats that scare the entire table -- everyone will thank you for your threat assessment.
2. Child of Alara. An alarming number of decks just fold to a repeatable board wipe. Board wipes with counterspell backup are even more effective.
3. Lack of graveyard hate. In round 1, I saw one early Bojuka Bog (aimed elsewhere) and a Leyline of the Void (which I countered). There may have been more elsewhere, but I feel like I got away with murder.
4. Effective preparation. I have spent a lot of time you folks tweaking this deck, so I was able to pack an answer for nearly every situation. Because I was very familiar with the inner workings of the deck, I was able to correctly assess when to cast spells, when to transmute them, and when to just hold back. Thanks for all your help.
What didn't work:
1. Ulamog's Crusher. He attacked once and was loads of fun to slam onto the table, but I had the game sealed up by then anyway.
2. Aether Spellbomb. Granted, even though I never used its first ability, it may have had a significant impact on the board state since people often chose to forgo equipping their creatures in favor of less risky lines of play.
3. Not eating. I was so hungry and sooo thirsty by the time the tournament was over. I had to stop by Jack in the Box for a Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger. I burnt my tongue.
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As far as finding space goes, I compared Nideovinja's list on the previous page to mine to see where the differences were and took a hard look at the differences. As a result of this, I cut Crypt Rats, Twisted Abomination, Horizon Spellbomb, Ulamog's Crusher, Momentary Blink, and Tilling Treefolk for underperforming. Another thing that is making your deck tight is that you're still running the Trinket Mage package. Seriously, just cut it already :D. It frees up so much space for cards that have more power behind them.
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Yeah, I guess I'll try Preordain in place of Twisted Abomination. Jhessian Zombies is so ugly... I don't want to flip through my graveyard and see that thing yawning back at me.
I can't believe Momentary Blink underperformed for you; that card has been amazing for me. I drew it twice yesterday and got tons of value from blinking Farhaven Elf, Sanctum Gargoyle, and Gravedigger while occasionally saving them from combat damage.
We've discussed Tilling Treefolk and Horizon Spellbomb at length, so I guess we'll just agree to disagree? I've been quite happy with both of them.
I can understand cutting Crypt Rats if you take your deck/manabase in that direction, but I won't be because it seems to be quite effective in several different scenarios. Just to recap:
+ More cost efficient than Child of Alara against tokens/utility guys
+ Effective removal for most planeswalkers
+ Backup Rolling Thunder, better at taking out multiple opponents
- Often weaker and less versatile than Child of Alara
- Can be unusable at low life totals
- Requires you to fetch up more swamps than normal when you draw it and want to exploit it
On Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast -- I'd say these are meta-dependent. The LGS I visited yesterday seemed to have tons of blue, so I'd slot one or both of these guys in quickly. However, my regular playgroup doesn't play a lot of blue, so more often than not these would be very conditional Terminates or something. I'll pass, but it's not because they aren't good enough.
On Trinket Mage -- This guy is boss! Even if I weren't playing him, I would still include Wayfarer's Bauble, Horizon Spellbomb, and Nihil Spellbomb. Dispeller's Capsule, while effective, is often too slow because double white mana is hard to come by early on, so I will consider cutting it. Aether Spellbomb is at least fine when you cycle it, good when you reuse an ETB trigger, and sometimes great as a deterrent/answer that requires very little investment. Lastly, using Trinket Mage as a Civic Wayfinder has been useful several times in the recent past, so I definitely won't be cutting the artifact lands any time soon (though I may later if people start hosing my manabase at some point down the road).
Mage gives lots of useful options and I'm always happy to draw it. With a streamlined package, all of the cogs are good on their own, and altogether Mage is consistently one of the best creatures in the deck. He also provides a useful link in the tutor chains and costs nothing except a couple deck slots. That's my reasoning, anyway.
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Sweet! You're a champ, John Bolt.
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Excellent! This deck has almost the lowest barrier to entry you could ever ask for, and it can regularly hang with the "big dogs" of the format thanks to the dynamics of multiplayer. Other pauper decks are viable, as well. I hope you find EDH/Commander to be as enjoyable as we do!
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One humorous observation I'd make about the deck is that even though my opponents were very annoyed by the constant board wiping, they were the ones most frequently setting it off. The child was rarely on the board for more than one turn, and not getting in face beats using the general was definitely the biggest contributor to losing.
Great deck! I think I'll have to wait a few weeks before busting it out again!
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
On another note in testing here's what I've found...
1. Cavern Harpy can be quite the monster if Wall or Chronarch show up... but if all I'm getting is recurring Gravedigger or Imp... I'll pass. Perhaps if something else neat shows up in the future, it will get tossed back in. Then again I've been cutting creatures right and left from this deck... so er.. maybe it won't have any left (besides Wall and Chronarch) at some point.
2. Careful Study.... It's been average, never really bad, but predictably not insane. I'd probably get more value if I ran more guys, but ditching two useless cards isn't that bad either. Might become Preordain.
Cards I'm testing:
1. Impaler Shrike - This really just looks like a reusable draw 3 to me. I haven't tested it yet, but it seems promising.
2. Repulse - Sometimes... well okay a lot of times, my opponent(s) is/are just faster than me. And slowing them up a turn while drawing myself a card, especially when they try to rush out their general... seems to be working well so far. Worse comes to worse, bouncing one of my enters the battlefield effects has been okay as well. And if you're hard up, or have infinite mana, you can use it plus Wall or Chronarch to draw a card over and over.
Really given that you only tend to net 2-3 cards off either of these cards, I'd say slot one out for Rush of Knowledge. You'll basically always draw 5 off it as few people want to wipe their board by killing Child to stop you. I know nobody has taken me up on the proposition so far, and really even if they did... I'd just thank them. I mean the deck as you have it now has no way to bring back Remora or Study, but two ways to get back Rush of Knowledge. And nothing says loving quite like transmute Brainspoil for Mnemonic Wall, Cast Wall getting back Brainspoil, transmute for Rush of Knowledge. Obviously not something you do over one turn but still.. card advantage machine with any of the recursion stuff.
Don't suppose I could convince you to post your list? You seem to have gone in a different direction than d0su or I, running a lot less creatures from the sound of it. And I wouldn't mind having another list to bounce my ideas off of.
1 Cultivate
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Far Wanderings
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Harrow
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Krosan Tusker
1 Manamorphose
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Yavimaya Elder
Recursion
1 Cadaver Imp
1 Death Denied
1 Disturbed Burial
1 Evolution Charm
1 Gravedigger
1 Grim Harvest
1 Izzet Chronarch
1 Mnemonic Wall
Counterspells
1 Arcane Denial
1 Condescend
1 Counterspell
1 Faerie Trickery
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Soul Manipulation
Removal
1 Capsize
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Eyeblight's Ending
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Rend Flesh
1 Reprisal
1 Terminate
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Wrecking Ball
1 Brainspoil
1 Dimir House Guard
1 Dimir Infiltrator
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Perplex
1 Shred Memory
Draw
1 Brainstorm
1 Compulsive Research
1 Deep Analysis
1 Moriok Replica
1 Mulldrifter
1 Mystic Remora
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Rush of Knowledge
1 Sea Gate Oracle
Miscellaneous
1 Fireball
1 Mind Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Rolling Thunder
1 Sun's Bounty
Land
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Bant Panorama
1 Esper Panorama
1 Grixis Panorama
1 Jund Panorama
1 Naya Panorama
1 Barren Moor
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Secluded Steppe
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Polluted Mire
1 Remote Isle
1 Slippery Karst
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Command Tower
1 Halimar Depths
1 Rupture Spire
7 Forest
6 Island
4 Swamp
2 Mountain
2 Plains
Teneb, the Harvester: Let there be life!
Drafting Aggro in the Cube: A Primer for Beginners