So I finally decided to post my horde deck online to get some much needed feedback.
I was first introduced to this variant when a friend brought a zombie horde to our weekly Edh night. To make a long story short the deck was super thematic and cool but our playgroup absolutely destroyed it every single time we played.
So I decided I wanted a horde fearsome enough that no deck could feel safe while sitting at the same table...But what horde could that be?
As it turned out later that night I logged onto Netflix and my fate was revealed to me.
What other race is as focused and powerful as the mighty Golems? What other race inspires fear like the Cybermen? So without further ado:
Disclaimer: This deck was deliberately structured to be quite tough to beat.
Setup
1: Shared life total and free turns for the horde's opponents are calculated via:
2 Players - Three free turns - 125 Starting Life
3 Players - Two free turns - 100 Starting Life
4 Players - Two free turns - 75 Starting Life
5 Players - One free turn - 50 Starting Life
6+ Players - Untested, I highly recommend 3-4 players for better gameplay.
2: Additionally one person may elect to become the "Horde Commander". In which case he takes charge of running the horde deck and makes attacking decisions for the horde but does not play an opposing deck that round. If there is no "Horde Commander" then the horde acts independently as specified below.
Gameplay
1: The regular players take their free turns while the horde gathers its forces.
2: After the end of the players last free turn the horde deck takes its first turn.
3: The following effects take place after X player turns have been taken:
A) After the players have had six turns the horde deck begins to flip until it hits two nontoken cards.
B) After the players have had eight turns all horde creatures gain haste.
4: Gameplay goes on as normal until one or more of the following occurs:
A) The horde deck begins a turn with no cards in its library.
B) The players life total goes to zero.
C) The players gain ten or more infect counters.
D) Any other effect that causes one or more of the regular players to lose the game.
5: After one or more of the conditions in #4 are met the game ends and the victor(s) is/are declared.
Rulings
General
1: The horde decks turn proceeds as follows:
A) Untap all horde permanents.
B) Reveal cards from the top of the library until a non token card is revealed. Put all tokens revealed this turn onto the battlefield and then cast all non token cards revealed without paying their mana cost. (Repeat this step a second time if the players have had at least six turns)
C) All creatures with the sub-type Golem must attack the regular players if able.
D) Pass turn to the players.
2: The regular players turn proceeds as normal with all players simultaneously moving through each step and phase.
3: If damage would be dealt to the horde deck that many cards are put into its graveyard instead.
4: The horde deck has unlimited mana for paying the costs of any triggered abilities.
5: If the horde deck has any cards in hand after revealing its cards for the turn it then casts them without paying the mana cost. (Or in the case of tokens places on the battlefield)
6: If the horde deck has a pilot he may choose which nontoken creatures, if any, attack each turn as well as whether to direct some or all attacks to planeswalkers. (The horde deck ignores planeswalkers otherwise)
7: Horde creatures cannot be prevented from attacking.
8: If at any point there are 50 or more cards in the horde deck's graveyard then all creatures controlled by the horde gain haste.
Varient: Commander of the Horde
If the players so choose when there is a person in control they may use jhoira of the ghitu as the commander of the horde with the following rules.
1: Jhoira is never present on the field but as commander her ability may be activated up to once per turn.
2: Jhoira's pool of suspendable cards included a single copy of each "Captain" and "Relic" cards.
3: If the horde reveals a card that is suspended via Jhoira's ability or is already on the battlefield it is shuffled back into the deck and the horde continues to reveal cards as normal.
4: Jhoira cannot suspend a card if it is currently on the battlefield.
Specific Card Rulings
The Golem Tokens - The golem tokens contained in the horde deck function as creature cards with casting cost 0. This clears up any issues involving bounce and allows them to remain in the graveyard.
Vital Splicer - He comes into play with charge counters equal to the number of Golems in play. Each counter represents one activation of his ability. (The horde auto casts them to save Golems)
Brass Herald - Always names Golem. Revealed cards of that type are cast.
Arcbound Reclaimer - Always Uses his ability immediately before dying or the horde losing and targets in the following order:
General --> Lieutenant --> 9/9 --> 3/3. If there is a player in charge of the horde they get to make all decisions with him.
Scourglass - Will activate on the upkeep after it comes out. (gives players fair warning and chance to react to it)
Karn Liberated - Without a commander he will exile permanents until he dies. Targetting priority will go to the most dangerous permanent to the horde such as a large creature that is blocking the golems, something destroying artifacts, ect... This takes a certain amount of honesty on behalf of the players if there is no commander of the horde present.
Golem's Heart - Healed cards come from the bottom of the graveyard and shuffle back into the library.
Colossus of Akros - Rolls a D4 and puts that many "suspend" counters on his activated ability.
Banned Cards
Life Drain/Setting Effects - Composed of Golems and upgraded beings the horde cannot be drained of life nor can it be set via effects like Sorin Markov.
Hellkite Tyrant - The ability is the only problem here. I let players use him as a large flying dragon with trample if they wanted.
Darksteel/Blightsteel - After a few infinite combos against the horde I threw in four blightsteel colossi. Guaranteed hasty blightsteels turned out to be a bit too much so it became a 50/50 chance. Now it adds a nice end stage to the deck where the players have to deal with the four colossi without letting them shuffle back into the deck in order to win.
Sundering Titan - Depending on who is in the game/piloting the horde this can either be a vanilla 7/10 or his usual annoying self.
Coat of Arms - Sometimes there are things that just require an opponent to have an answer. This is one of them.
Darksteel Forge - As the deck has few ways to interact with the players permanents outside of combat this oftentimes makes that both ways.
Thoughts
My original goal when I set out to create a fun, flavorful horde deck that also retains a fairly high difficulty level.
Looking back at that goal after some experience playing with and against the deck I see some problems:
1: Oftentimes the game is decided on the first few horde flips. If it hits too many tokens it overwhelms the players. Too few tokens and it falls too far behind.
2: Theme. I envisioned the Cybermen from Doctor Who the television show marching in ordered ranks to "upgrade" all sorts of beings from across the multiverse. Unfortunately apart from the Golem creature type I have been unsuccessful in finding on theme cards for Doctor Who that also merit inclusion into an artifact horde deck.
Possible Changes
I have been considering a few changes for awhile now and I was wondering if anyone else has tried these or similar, and how they turned out.
1: Has anyone tried giving the players one "free" nuke that puts all non land permanents straight into the owners graveyard? I was thinking maybe make it unusable beyond the horde decks turn five or something like that.
As always I love to get as much feedback as possible especially if you have any suggestions/revisions/constructive criticism for me. I am always looking to improve my decks and my skill in building them.
Thanks for reading,
Eps.
12/20/2013
-2 Beast of Burden
-3 Sundering Titan
------
+2 Scourglass
+2 Golem's Heart
+1 Colossus of Akros
------
Change to haste and multicasting rules
your horde seems very powerful, more powerful than the average horde.
take zombies as the base default. and that the players get 3 turns to set up.
1) zombie tokens, for the most part, are 2/2. your tokens are 3/3. Already a bit more powerful than the standard, but that's ok because it makes it a challenge. I think your token to non-token ratio is just slightly too high for this horde. maybe drop 10 of the tokens.
2) darksteel and blightsteel need card specific rulings that prevent their reshuffle trigger, otherwise expect them to come back again and again. I wouldn't run more than one blightsteel, regardless, and even 2 darksteel seems like much.
3) every card in your horde is a threat. there should be some wraths that just clear everything, including the horde. nevinraal's disk with rules to activate next turn, scourglass and all is dust would be powerful sweepers, etc.
What other race is as focused and powerful as the mighty Golems? What other race inspires fear like the Cybermen? So without further ado:
Daleks. BRB going to make a horde built out of Antiquities Triskelion's altered to look like Daleks.
In all seriousness though, this looks awesome. Most of the problems with hordes I've played is that they either get run over or people try too hard to ramp up the power and build a deck that is basically a blow out casting Plague Winds left and right. This looks strong and with the potential to be a blow out but not to the same level. I'll give this a whirl!
your horde seems very powerful, more powerful than the average horde.
Ill give you my thought process on each of those points, maybe that will clear up any confusion.
1: The tokens, The ratios are actually higher than when I first built the deck because it does not actually interact with the players creatures outside of combat. The players tend to amass sizable blockers quite quickly so oftentimes I need the extra tokens just so that the Horde continues to be a threat.
2: Darksteel/blightsteel, I mentioned this a little in the main post but they mainly try to prevent the combo players from going off on turn three-four because that results in their death more often than not. Aside from that my logic is that any player using an EDH deck should have one or more answers to things like this whether that be instant grave hate, exile, bounce, or steal effects. This has been proven correct more often than not when it reaches that stage of the game. Bribes are particularly common.
3: I actually have never thought about scourglass. My main intention when not including sweepers was that the Cybermen, thematically, do not want to blow up their opponents world but instead overcome their opponents by force and numbers, then upgrade them. I think I would like to try one or two at some point but I expect I would have to change the deck as per your first two suggestions in order to then prevent it from being unfair.
4: This is a card?? Definitely going in right now! Thanks! =D
This looks strong and with the potential to be a blow out but not to the same level. I'll give this a whirl!
Thanks for the feedback Sims! As I mentioned above I was definitely trying to make a deck that while tough is possible to beat and yet does not play out as a typical horde deck does.
have u been able to beat it though actually? I think it'd completely whoop our decks we play with here hands down without help...
maybe to make it a little bit more doctor who like you can put in a jhoira of the ghitu (the only one i can think of that is remotely timey-wimey like) and have protecting her as your objective against the horde? So she'd act like a planeswalker, so the horde opts to attack her randomly, but the players can use her suspend ability.
i struggle a bit to come up with anything better, really... your deck is pretty tight!
It's built to be pretty difficult but currently I think we go about 50/50 with my current playgroup on it. It takes at least one or two decks that play big creatures or recur them like Karador, Mayael, Ect... and some tricky footwork but it is definitely possible.
I really like the Jhoira idea! I have a sweet foil version that I will try that out with tonight. Maybe have the doctor come in when the horde starts attacking and make her the focus of the attacks with the communal life total. I will probably have to reconsider the free turn calculations but this seems sweet thanks!
Thanks lol, I'm actually looking to take out the Golem's Heart's at the moment as I go back and forth on if they count as a token for purposes of flipping or not with one side being too powerful and the other underwhelming. Probably adaptive automaton or colossus of akros will go in there.
by the way, i was trying to make something vaguely similar to your horde, except with these 6/12 trampling tokens.. cuz i dont have any 9/9 ones.. for us, jhoira was a bit too awesome of a help if she started with 50 life, since we were able to float a bunch of awesome dudes, then board wipe after board wipe till a bunch of eldrazi and friends hit. also, one of the players had a heartstone, which kinda made suspending stuff that much easier! not that we won though, but i think without jhoira we'd have died much faster.
we also made a semi-rule where whenever a splicer came into play, someone'd have to say 'upgrade' in that cyberman voice..
Sorry about the late response, I usually go off of the notifications that trigger when someone replies to my posts so I didnt realize you responded right away.
I actually found Jhoira to be a pretty fun change of pace. I definitely see where your coming from on her power level if players have a huge amount of expensive things to suspend though. My experience was that unless your deck is built around having alot of very high cost spells in hand she really is only useful to suspend one or two things before its more profitable to just cast them yourself than wait four turns.
It's definitely a risk reward balance on if you want to suspend something and hopefully be able to board wipe enough to not die or if the horde will outright win with the double "cascade" and haste before the suspend ends.
Currently i'm going to try and get 8-10 games with jhoira as the de facto "commander" before I add it in as part of the post. (I've used her 4 or 5 times so far)
i know its been awhile, but have you still been making improvements to the horde? is jhoira of the ghitu still a viable doctor?, is there anyone else that can be substituted out so we can have variance in the doctors we have to protect? kinda like old school vanguard, but for the "doctor"
i know its been awhile, but have you still been making improvements to the horde? is jhoira of the ghitu still a viable doctor?, is there anyone else that can be substituted out so we can have variance in the doctors we have to protect? kinda like old school vanguard, but for the "doctor"
I do indeed still have it together. Unfortunately I rarely get to pull the deck out these days since my local playgroups aren't huge fans of the concept.
There were some changes I had made awhile back that didn't get pushed over to this thread though. I can go over those for sure:
Deck Changes: (Some of this stuff's detail is covered in my "Rules Changes:" section below)
-1 Golem's Heart - Two of these were actually completely overwhelming in the situations they both came into play and there was no gravehate available.
+1 Colossus of Akros - This was alot more fun than I originally Anticipated with the delayed trigger so I bumped it up one.
+2 Arcbound Reclaimer - This proved to be a fun alternative to the Heart and gave the commander of the horde some additional options to have some fun. Has the status of "lieutenant" so two in deck.
-2 Beast of Burden - too underwhelming of a card to be honest so he got cut. There was just such minimal impact on the board when he was cast.
+2 Adaptive Automaton - On theme and a fair/fun/good card. He gets to be a lieutenant as well.
+1 Karn, Liberated - Didn't really get a feel for it tbh since the targeting was weird as a npc but it was a needed piece of interaction.
Rules Changes:
[b]Commanders[/c] - As per the thread I tried both Jhoira, Bosh, Iron Golem, and karn as generals of the army. Bosh proved to be too powerful no matter what restrictions we put on his ability and without it whats the point.
Jhoira on the other hand was quite interesting. We never really settled on a final set of rules for her but the most fun seemed to be something like the following:
1- Jhoira only commands the horde when there is a player in charge of the deck.
2- Jhoira is never present on the field but the commander of the horde may activate her ability up to once per turn.
3- Jhoira's pool of suspendable cards included a single copy of each "Captain" and "Relic" cards. Also we toyed around with giving her one all is dust as well but our only game with it showed it to be quite powerful so we never tried it again.
4- If the horde reveals a card that is suspended via Jhoira's ability or is already on the battlefield it is shuffled back into the deck and the horde continues to reveal cards as normal. Likewise Jhoira cannot suspend a card that is currently on the field.
This was actually a blast since it gives the controller so many options and makes them much more active in the game.
Individual Rulings:
Brass Herald - No longer counts splicers as golems. This was unnecessarily powerful and caused issues.
Chalice of the Voide - A clever player in our group took advantage of it since I declared the CMC of the horde tokens as 0 he played chalice on T1 and I had to rule chalice as banned.
Brain Freeze - Aforementioned player came up some more tech. Results were funny though since the deck dropped blight-steel with haste and none of them had instant speed exile.
___________________________
That's pretty much a summary of everything I've done with the deck. The core structure has held up as sound since the number of tokens to non-token cards represents a fair amount of flips with a fairly low chance to flip >5. I have made the relevant changes to the primer above as well.
At the end we were also contemplating setting a cap on the number of flips allowed so if the deck flipped 6 then it would consider the 6th a non-token card and move on with its turn as normal. We only did a few games like that though so I cant really say if it was overall an improvement.
Finally, I would like to thank you for posting in this thread after so long I had pretty much given it up as lost since there was not much interest in the variant of edh overall. Are you building your own personalized horde? This one? I would love to hear your thoughts if you are.
Cheers,
Eps.
EDIT: The life totals were not quite right but we never really came up with a great system. Likely what has to happen is the horde should be tuned for a specific amount (This one works best with 4) and left at that.
we're still whipping out hordes (mostly the werewolf and zombie hordes), but not so often either..
i'd def give your cybermen themed one a try, but i dont have any of the cards you listed! or at least none of the pricier cards..
to me, if it feels like players actually go out of their way to tech their decks up against the horde, there are probably better things to be doing with your/their time. i dont think we've ever had that problem with any of our horde games (or normal edh games either); when one of us draws into a card we know would be unfair against the horde, we just reveal it, then exile-cycle it. its a bit tragic for you that its had to come to banning certain cards i feel.
i've been thinking about building a non-fantasy-forest-creatures horde. so only things like bears, wolves and the like, no dragons or elves. its not very well thought through yet, but we'll see how it goes.
This is probably the best Horde deck I've seen. Definite kudos!
Thanks a ton! Actually since I saw someone had posted awhile back I decided to dust it off and try to get a group together to do battle with it again. So far results are good with a possibility I had overvalued arcbound reclaimer.
we're still whipping out hordes (mostly the werewolf and zombie hordes), but not so often either..
i'd def give your cybermen themed one a try, but i dont have any of the cards you listed! or at least none of the pricier cards..
its a bit tragic for you that its had to come to banning certain cards i feel.
i've been thinking about building a non-fantasy-forest-creatures horde. so only things like bears, wolves and the like, no dragons or elves. its not very well thought through yet, but we'll see how it goes.
Yeah the people i'm around got really into it awhile back and then it gradually seemed to fade away. I do have a friend that finished a soldier horde recently and the way he set it up is super flavorful though. I'm hoping to get him to post about it at some point.
Yeah it kinda sucks to just ban stuff but the playgroups are generally understanding since its all in the interest of better gameplay.
I would love to see that horde when your finished! I dont usually visit the general variant subforum but I would love to stop by your thread if you want to pm me once its up = )
So I finally decided to post my horde deck online to get some much needed feedback.
I was first introduced to this variant when a friend brought a zombie horde to our weekly Edh night. To make a long story short the deck was super thematic and cool but our playgroup absolutely destroyed it every single time we played.
So I decided I wanted a horde fearsome enough that no deck could feel safe while sitting at the same table...But what horde could that be?
As it turned out later that night I logged onto Netflix and my fate was revealed to me.
What other race is as focused and powerful as the mighty Golems? What other race inspires fear like the Cybermen? So without further ado:
60 Golems- (3/3)
5 Golems- (9/9)
The Captains
1 Sundering Titan
1 Platinum Emperion
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Karn Liberated
4 Brass Herald
2 Adaptive Automaton
2 Colossus of Akros
2 Arcbound Reclaimer
2 Wing Splicer
2 Master Splicer
2 Blade Splicer
2 Vital Splicer
2 Maul Splicer
2 Scourglass
4 Tempered Steel
The Relics
1 Darksteel Forge
1 Coat of Arms
1 Golem's Heart
Disclaimer: This deck was deliberately structured to be quite tough to beat.
Setup
2: Additionally one person may elect to become the "Horde Commander". In which case he takes charge of running the horde deck and makes attacking decisions for the horde but does not play an opposing deck that round. If there is no "Horde Commander" then the horde acts independently as specified below.
2: After the end of the players last free turn the horde deck takes its first turn.
3: The following effects take place after X player turns have been taken:
4: Gameplay goes on as normal until one or more of the following occurs:
5: After one or more of the conditions in #4 are met the game ends and the victor(s) is/are declared.
1: The horde decks turn proceeds as follows:
2: The regular players turn proceeds as normal with all players simultaneously moving through each step and phase.
3: If damage would be dealt to the horde deck that many cards are put into its graveyard instead.
4: The horde deck has unlimited mana for paying the costs of any triggered abilities.
5: If the horde deck has any cards in hand after revealing its cards for the turn it then casts them without paying the mana cost. (Or in the case of tokens places on the battlefield)
6: If the horde deck has a pilot he may choose which nontoken creatures, if any, attack each turn as well as whether to direct some or all attacks to planeswalkers. (The horde deck ignores planeswalkers otherwise)
7: Horde creatures cannot be prevented from attacking.
8: If at any point there are 50 or more cards in the horde deck's graveyard then all creatures controlled by the horde gain haste.
Varient: Commander of the Horde
If the players so choose when there is a person in control they may use jhoira of the ghitu as the commander of the horde with the following rules.
1: Jhoira is never present on the field but as commander her ability may be activated up to once per turn.
2: Jhoira's pool of suspendable cards included a single copy of each "Captain" and "Relic" cards.
3: If the horde reveals a card that is suspended via Jhoira's ability or is already on the battlefield it is shuffled back into the deck and the horde continues to reveal cards as normal.
4: Jhoira cannot suspend a card if it is currently on the battlefield.
Specific Card Rulings
The Golem Tokens - The golem tokens contained in the horde deck function as creature cards with casting cost 0. This clears up any issues involving bounce and allows them to remain in the graveyard.
Vital Splicer - He comes into play with charge counters equal to the number of Golems in play. Each counter represents one activation of his ability. (The horde auto casts them to save Golems)
Brass Herald - Always names Golem. Revealed cards of that type are cast.
Adaptive Automaton - Always names golem as you might expect.
Arcbound Reclaimer - Always Uses his ability immediately before dying or the horde losing and targets in the following order:
General --> Lieutenant --> 9/9 --> 3/3. If there is a player in charge of the horde they get to make all decisions with him.
Scourglass - Will activate on the upkeep after it comes out. (gives players fair warning and chance to react to it)
Karn Liberated - Without a commander he will exile permanents until he dies. Targetting priority will go to the most dangerous permanent to the horde such as a large creature that is blocking the golems, something destroying artifacts, ect... This takes a certain amount of honesty on behalf of the players if there is no commander of the horde present.
Golem's Heart - Healed cards come from the bottom of the graveyard and shuffle back into the library.
Colossus of Akros - Rolls a D4 and puts that many "suspend" counters on his activated ability.
Banned Cards
Life Drain/Setting Effects - Composed of Golems and upgraded beings the horde cannot be drained of life nor can it be set via effects like Sorin Markov.
Hellkite Tyrant - The ability is the only problem here. I let players use him as a large flying dragon with trample if they wanted.
Chalice of the Void - Not normally played in EDH and is degenerate here.
Brain Freeze - Same as Chalice of the Void above.
Sundering Titan - Depending on who is in the game/piloting the horde this can either be a vanilla 7/10 or his usual annoying self.
Coat of Arms - Sometimes there are things that just require an opponent to have an answer. This is one of them.
Darksteel Forge - As the deck has few ways to interact with the players permanents outside of combat this oftentimes makes that both ways.
Looking back at that goal after some experience playing with and against the deck I see some problems:
1: Oftentimes the game is decided on the first few horde flips. If it hits too many tokens it overwhelms the players. Too few tokens and it falls too far behind.
2: Theme. I envisioned the Cybermen from Doctor Who the television show marching in ordered ranks to "upgrade" all sorts of beings from across the multiverse. Unfortunately apart from the Golem creature type I have been unsuccessful in finding on theme cards for Doctor Who that also merit inclusion into an artifact horde deck.
Possible Changes
I have been considering a few changes for awhile now and I was wondering if anyone else has tried these or similar, and how they turned out.
1: Has anyone tried giving the players one "free" nuke that puts all non land permanents straight into the owners graveyard? I was thinking maybe make it unusable beyond the horde decks turn five or something like that.
As always I love to get as much feedback as possible especially if you have any suggestions/revisions/constructive criticism for me. I am always looking to improve my decks and my skill in building them.
Thanks for reading,
Eps.
12/20/2013
-2 Beast of Burden
-3 Sundering Titan
------
+2 Scourglass
+2 Golem's Heart
+1 Colossus of Akros
------
Change to haste and multicasting rules
2/1/2016
-1 Golem's Heart
-1 Platinum Emperion
-1 Darksteel Colossus
-1 Blightsteel Colossus
-2 Beast of Burden
------
+1 Colossus of Akros
+2 Arcbound Reclaimer
+2 Adaptive Automaton
+1 Karn Liberated
------
Revised card rulings, updated Primer, Updated Banned Cards, Added Commander variant
GUGEdric, Spymaster of Trest - Elfball
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic- Doomsday!
RWUEphara, God of the Polis - Blink + Control
GBGGlissa, the Traitor - Stax & Lands
URGMaelstrom Wanderer - Goodstuff RUG
RGWMayael the Anima - Timmy
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher - The One Hit Wonder
RGWMarath, Will of the Wild - Old-school Enchantress Hate
RWRAurelia, the Warleader - Equipment Aggro
GGGReki, the History of Kamigawa - Legends + Banding
UBRSedris, the Traitor King - Creatures with : Ability
BUBPhenax, God of Deception - Mill
*Sidenote, I specifically excluded infinite combos from all these decks with the exception of Marath and the squirrel nest + Earthcraft combo.
Looking for something Aggressive in modern? Try - BR Aggro
take zombies as the base default. and that the players get 3 turns to set up.
1) zombie tokens, for the most part, are 2/2. your tokens are 3/3. Already a bit more powerful than the standard, but that's ok because it makes it a challenge. I think your token to non-token ratio is just slightly too high for this horde. maybe drop 10 of the tokens.
2) darksteel and blightsteel need card specific rulings that prevent their reshuffle trigger, otherwise expect them to come back again and again. I wouldn't run more than one blightsteel, regardless, and even 2 darksteel seems like much.
3) every card in your horde is a threat. there should be some wraths that just clear everything, including the horde. nevinraal's disk with rules to activate next turn, scourglass and all is dust would be powerful sweepers, etc.
4) adaptive automaton would be a good addition.
My Blog - contains my decklists
Uril, The Miststalker
Frankie Peanuts - needs to move to multiplayer.
Daleks. BRB going to make a horde built out of Antiquities Triskelion's altered to look like Daleks.
In all seriousness though, this looks awesome. Most of the problems with hordes I've played is that they either get run over or people try too hard to ramp up the power and build a deck that is basically a blow out casting Plague Winds left and right. This looks strong and with the potential to be a blow out but not to the same level. I'll give this a whirl!
Ill give you my thought process on each of those points, maybe that will clear up any confusion.
1: The tokens, The ratios are actually higher than when I first built the deck because it does not actually interact with the players creatures outside of combat. The players tend to amass sizable blockers quite quickly so oftentimes I need the extra tokens just so that the Horde continues to be a threat.
2: Darksteel/blightsteel, I mentioned this a little in the main post but they mainly try to prevent the combo players from going off on turn three-four because that results in their death more often than not. Aside from that my logic is that any player using an EDH deck should have one or more answers to things like this whether that be instant grave hate, exile, bounce, or steal effects. This has been proven correct more often than not when it reaches that stage of the game. Bribes are particularly common.
3: I actually have never thought about scourglass. My main intention when not including sweepers was that the Cybermen, thematically, do not want to blow up their opponents world but instead overcome their opponents by force and numbers, then upgrade them. I think I would like to try one or two at some point but I expect I would have to change the deck as per your first two suggestions in order to then prevent it from being unfair.
4: This is a card?? Definitely going in right now! Thanks! =D
Thanks for the feedback Sims! As I mentioned above I was definitely trying to make a deck that while tough is possible to beat and yet does not play out as a typical horde deck does.
GUGEdric, Spymaster of Trest - Elfball
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic- Doomsday!
RWUEphara, God of the Polis - Blink + Control
GBGGlissa, the Traitor - Stax & Lands
URGMaelstrom Wanderer - Goodstuff RUG
RGWMayael the Anima - Timmy
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher - The One Hit Wonder
RGWMarath, Will of the Wild - Old-school Enchantress Hate
RWRAurelia, the Warleader - Equipment Aggro
GGGReki, the History of Kamigawa - Legends + Banding
UBRSedris, the Traitor King - Creatures with : Ability
BUBPhenax, God of Deception - Mill
*Sidenote, I specifically excluded infinite combos from all these decks with the exception of Marath and the squirrel nest + Earthcraft combo.
Looking for something Aggressive in modern? Try - BR Aggro
have u been able to beat it though actually? I think it'd completely whoop our decks we play with here hands down without help...
maybe to make it a little bit more doctor who like you can put in a jhoira of the ghitu (the only one i can think of that is remotely timey-wimey like) and have protecting her as your objective against the horde? So she'd act like a planeswalker, so the horde opts to attack her randomly, but the players can use her suspend ability.
i struggle a bit to come up with anything better, really... your deck is pretty tight!
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
I really like the Jhoira idea! I have a sweet foil version that I will try that out with tonight. Maybe have the doctor come in when the horde starts attacking and make her the focus of the attacks with the communal life total. I will probably have to reconsider the free turn calculations but this seems sweet thanks!
Thanks lol, I'm actually looking to take out the Golem's Heart's at the moment as I go back and forth on if they count as a token for purposes of flipping or not with one side being too powerful and the other underwhelming. Probably adaptive automaton or colossus of akros will go in there.
GUGEdric, Spymaster of Trest - Elfball
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic- Doomsday!
RWUEphara, God of the Polis - Blink + Control
GBGGlissa, the Traitor - Stax & Lands
URGMaelstrom Wanderer - Goodstuff RUG
RGWMayael the Anima - Timmy
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher - The One Hit Wonder
RGWMarath, Will of the Wild - Old-school Enchantress Hate
RWRAurelia, the Warleader - Equipment Aggro
GGGReki, the History of Kamigawa - Legends + Banding
UBRSedris, the Traitor King - Creatures with : Ability
BUBPhenax, God of Deception - Mill
*Sidenote, I specifically excluded infinite combos from all these decks with the exception of Marath and the squirrel nest + Earthcraft combo.
Looking for something Aggressive in modern? Try - BR Aggro
by the way, i was trying to make something vaguely similar to your horde, except with these 6/12 trampling tokens.. cuz i dont have any 9/9 ones.. for us, jhoira was a bit too awesome of a help if she started with 50 life, since we were able to float a bunch of awesome dudes, then board wipe after board wipe till a bunch of eldrazi and friends hit. also, one of the players had a heartstone, which kinda made suspending stuff that much easier! not that we won though, but i think without jhoira we'd have died much faster.
we also made a semi-rule where whenever a splicer came into play, someone'd have to say 'upgrade' in that cyberman voice..
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
I actually found Jhoira to be a pretty fun change of pace. I definitely see where your coming from on her power level if players have a huge amount of expensive things to suspend though. My experience was that unless your deck is built around having alot of very high cost spells in hand she really is only useful to suspend one or two things before its more profitable to just cast them yourself than wait four turns.
It's definitely a risk reward balance on if you want to suspend something and hopefully be able to board wipe enough to not die or if the horde will outright win with the double "cascade" and haste before the suspend ends.
Currently i'm going to try and get 8-10 games with jhoira as the de facto "commander" before I add it in as part of the post. (I've used her 4 or 5 times so far)
Seems awesome lol, glad your enjoying the deck =D
GUGEdric, Spymaster of Trest - Elfball
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic- Doomsday!
RWUEphara, God of the Polis - Blink + Control
GBGGlissa, the Traitor - Stax & Lands
URGMaelstrom Wanderer - Goodstuff RUG
RGWMayael the Anima - Timmy
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher - The One Hit Wonder
RGWMarath, Will of the Wild - Old-school Enchantress Hate
RWRAurelia, the Warleader - Equipment Aggro
GGGReki, the History of Kamigawa - Legends + Banding
UBRSedris, the Traitor King - Creatures with : Ability
BUBPhenax, God of Deception - Mill
*Sidenote, I specifically excluded infinite combos from all these decks with the exception of Marath and the squirrel nest + Earthcraft combo.
Looking for something Aggressive in modern? Try - BR Aggro
Edit: Also, do I get a flavor win if I use Aurification or Gild?
Ooh I like Mindslaver Not sure how I missed that.....
And totally on the flavor win...Though they will probably overrun you soon after =P
GUGEdric, Spymaster of Trest - Elfball
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic- Doomsday!
RWUEphara, God of the Polis - Blink + Control
GBGGlissa, the Traitor - Stax & Lands
URGMaelstrom Wanderer - Goodstuff RUG
RGWMayael the Anima - Timmy
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher - The One Hit Wonder
RGWMarath, Will of the Wild - Old-school Enchantress Hate
RWRAurelia, the Warleader - Equipment Aggro
GGGReki, the History of Kamigawa - Legends + Banding
UBRSedris, the Traitor King - Creatures with : Ability
BUBPhenax, God of Deception - Mill
*Sidenote, I specifically excluded infinite combos from all these decks with the exception of Marath and the squirrel nest + Earthcraft combo.
Looking for something Aggressive in modern? Try - BR Aggro
I really need to try a horde.
Cheers!
Krichaiushii on PucaTrade.
I do indeed still have it together. Unfortunately I rarely get to pull the deck out these days since my local playgroups aren't huge fans of the concept.
There were some changes I had made awhile back that didn't get pushed over to this thread though. I can go over those for sure:
Deck Changes: (Some of this stuff's detail is covered in my "Rules Changes:" section below)
-1 Golem's Heart - Two of these were actually completely overwhelming in the situations they both came into play and there was no gravehate available.
+1 Colossus of Akros - This was alot more fun than I originally Anticipated with the delayed trigger so I bumped it up one.
-1 Platinum Emperion - I ranked him up to one of the "Captains" of the horde so there is only one in the deck.
-1 Darksteel Colossus - See Above
-1 Blightsteel Colossus - See Above
+2 Arcbound Reclaimer - This proved to be a fun alternative to the Heart and gave the commander of the horde some additional options to have some fun. Has the status of "lieutenant" so two in deck.
-2 Beast of Burden - too underwhelming of a card to be honest so he got cut. There was just such minimal impact on the board when he was cast.
+2 Adaptive Automaton - On theme and a fair/fun/good card. He gets to be a lieutenant as well.
+1 Karn, Liberated - Didn't really get a feel for it tbh since the targeting was weird as a npc but it was a needed piece of interaction.
Rules Changes:
[b]Commanders[/c] - As per the thread I tried both Jhoira, Bosh, Iron Golem, and karn as generals of the army. Bosh proved to be too powerful no matter what restrictions we put on his ability and without it whats the point.
Jhoira on the other hand was quite interesting. We never really settled on a final set of rules for her but the most fun seemed to be something like the following:
1- Jhoira only commands the horde when there is a player in charge of the deck.
2- Jhoira is never present on the field but the commander of the horde may activate her ability up to once per turn.
3- Jhoira's pool of suspendable cards included a single copy of each "Captain" and "Relic" cards. Also we toyed around with giving her one all is dust as well but our only game with it showed it to be quite powerful so we never tried it again.
4- If the horde reveals a card that is suspended via Jhoira's ability or is already on the battlefield it is shuffled back into the deck and the horde continues to reveal cards as normal. Likewise Jhoira cannot suspend a card that is currently on the field.
This was actually a blast since it gives the controller so many options and makes them much more active in the game.
Individual Rulings:
Brass Herald - No longer counts splicers as golems. This was unnecessarily powerful and caused issues.
Colossus of Akros - Switching his ability to a D4 played better.
Chalice of the Voide - A clever player in our group took advantage of it since I declared the CMC of the horde tokens as 0 he played chalice on T1 and I had to rule chalice as banned.
Brain Freeze - Aforementioned player came up some more tech. Results were funny though since the deck dropped blight-steel with haste and none of them had instant speed exile.
___________________________
That's pretty much a summary of everything I've done with the deck. The core structure has held up as sound since the number of tokens to non-token cards represents a fair amount of flips with a fairly low chance to flip >5. I have made the relevant changes to the primer above as well.
At the end we were also contemplating setting a cap on the number of flips allowed so if the deck flipped 6 then it would consider the 6th a non-token card and move on with its turn as normal. We only did a few games like that though so I cant really say if it was overall an improvement.
Finally, I would like to thank you for posting in this thread after so long I had pretty much given it up as lost since there was not much interest in the variant of edh overall. Are you building your own personalized horde? This one? I would love to hear your thoughts if you are.
Cheers,
Eps.
EDIT: The life totals were not quite right but we never really came up with a great system. Likely what has to happen is the horde should be tuned for a specific amount (This one works best with 4) and left at that.
GUGEdric, Spymaster of Trest - Elfball
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic- Doomsday!
RWUEphara, God of the Polis - Blink + Control
GBGGlissa, the Traitor - Stax & Lands
URGMaelstrom Wanderer - Goodstuff RUG
RGWMayael the Anima - Timmy
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher - The One Hit Wonder
RGWMarath, Will of the Wild - Old-school Enchantress Hate
RWRAurelia, the Warleader - Equipment Aggro
GGGReki, the History of Kamigawa - Legends + Banding
UBRSedris, the Traitor King - Creatures with : Ability
BUBPhenax, God of Deception - Mill
*Sidenote, I specifically excluded infinite combos from all these decks with the exception of Marath and the squirrel nest + Earthcraft combo.
Looking for something Aggressive in modern? Try - BR Aggro
i'd def give your cybermen themed one a try, but i dont have any of the cards you listed! or at least none of the pricier cards..
to me, if it feels like players actually go out of their way to tech their decks up against the horde, there are probably better things to be doing with your/their time. i dont think we've ever had that problem with any of our horde games (or normal edh games either); when one of us draws into a card we know would be unfair against the horde, we just reveal it, then exile-cycle it. its a bit tragic for you that its had to come to banning certain cards i feel.
i've been thinking about building a non-fantasy-forest-creatures horde. so only things like bears, wolves and the like, no dragons or elves. its not very well thought through yet, but we'll see how it goes.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Building: Varina
Thanks a ton! Actually since I saw someone had posted awhile back I decided to dust it off and try to get a group together to do battle with it again. So far results are good with a possibility I had overvalued arcbound reclaimer.
Yeah the people i'm around got really into it awhile back and then it gradually seemed to fade away. I do have a friend that finished a soldier horde recently and the way he set it up is super flavorful though. I'm hoping to get him to post about it at some point.
Yeah it kinda sucks to just ban stuff but the playgroups are generally understanding since its all in the interest of better gameplay.
I would love to see that horde when your finished! I dont usually visit the general variant subforum but I would love to stop by your thread if you want to pm me once its up = )
GUGEdric, Spymaster of Trest - Elfball
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic- Doomsday!
RWUEphara, God of the Polis - Blink + Control
GBGGlissa, the Traitor - Stax & Lands
URGMaelstrom Wanderer - Goodstuff RUG
RGWMayael the Anima - Timmy
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher - The One Hit Wonder
RGWMarath, Will of the Wild - Old-school Enchantress Hate
RWRAurelia, the Warleader - Equipment Aggro
GGGReki, the History of Kamigawa - Legends + Banding
UBRSedris, the Traitor King - Creatures with : Ability
BUBPhenax, God of Deception - Mill
*Sidenote, I specifically excluded infinite combos from all these decks with the exception of Marath and the squirrel nest + Earthcraft combo.
Looking for something Aggressive in modern? Try - BR Aggro