Had two epic games of EDH the other week, both involving my Xiahou-Dun Pox deck.
First game saw me piloting Xiahou-Dun against Azami, Roon and Derevi. Won the roll for first turn, kept a hand of 1 Swamp, Dark Ritual, Necropotence, Waste Not, and two other cards I can't remember. On the play for turn 1: Swamp, Dark Ritual, Necropotence. Azami pitches a counterspell and Vedalken Aethermage to Commandeer it. Epic play for my group, since that was literally the only card in all 4 decks capable of stopping a turn 1 play like that.
Second game involved Kytheon (me), my cousin borrowing my Pox deck and Derevi. Cousin has never seen Pox play or the deck before, and asked me how it ran before game started up. Pox got off to a good start with a turn 1 Dark Ritual into Liliana of the Veil, turn 2 Waste Not, turn 3 Noxious Vapors. Absolutely brutal.
Dismantle works nicely with Surge Node, as do copy effects, but I'm not sure myself if that's enough to justify including it in a list. Maybe paired with Darksteel Reactor?
Trading Post. Slid it into one deck as a neat little value engine. Now I can't stop myself from jamming it into every deck I build. Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient loves Trading Posts. Having Strionic Resonator and Rings of Brighthearth out, and paying 7RRRR + cost for 5 goats, 5 cards, 20 life or recurring 5 artifacts feels great.
Pithing Needle for all your planewalker-neutering needs. Tormod's Crypt shuts down graveyards quick. Relic of Progenitus as above but for everyone, provided you don't mind exiling your own graveyard.
I feel like Kheru Lich Lord would make for an interesting commander; a sort of BUG counterpart to Sedris, the Traitor King who could give monstrous ETB creatures evasion and haste. Paying 2B to reanimate a Terastodon and tap it sideways sounds lovely.
@ProfessorWhen - Yeah, I think you have a point with Karador, Ghost Chieftain. None of the other Abzan legendaries really lend themselves to the strategy, and he pairs nicely with Karametra, God of Harvests. I actually think I have a lot of those cards laying around in my trade binder, so I'll definitely try out as many as I can. I like the x-spells as wincons - that seems really cool!
@Gashnaw - I had forgotten about the moonfolk; that's solid landfall tech. But I ended up choosing GWB due to personal bias. [cards]Exploration[/card] is definitely something I need in there.
Thanks guys! How do people feel about Boundless Realms and Worm Harvest? I can see Realms being pretty solid, but I'm not sure if Worm Harvest does enough without support from cards like Baru, Fist of Krosa. Thoughts?
A friend of mine recently challenged me to go outside my comfort zone and build a casual deck with my least favorite colors, green and white. While I've thought about building decks of either color before, I've just never found a deck concept or general I liked enough to carry through with it. I was looking through my trade binder the other day though, and found Overgrown Estate.
While OE might be pretty subpar on it's own, it got me thinking about the myriad ways white and green like to use and abuse lands. I'd considered building Titania before, but ultimately passed on the idea, (someone else at our shop runs Titania, and I just can't get excited about mono-green). Splashing in white and black renewed my interest - I could tutor and ramp with Weathered Wayfarer and Knight of the Reliquary, steal lands with Gilt-leaf Archdruid and Herald of Leshrac, sacrifice lands with Scapeshift and Reprocess to generate board presence with Titania, Protector of Argoth, and power out incremental advantage with landfall cards. I could even make it a theme deck, using cards that suggest decay and renewal.
Has anyone had success with this kind of build before? Or is it too narrow a concept?
Have you considered the Innistrad curses? I think thematically they fit the flavor of what you want to do pretty well, and many of the best ones are in Grixis colors;
Bitterheart Witch will tutor up whichever curse you need. Of course, to get the most out of them you need some way of getting them back, and there aren't very many ways to do that without access to white or green.
Gurzigost is a good one - I hadn't even thought about his graveyard trimming ability. I think I have one laying around somewhere, so that might make it in for the next round of games.
Heartstone I'm not sure about - I have a limited number of creatures with activated abilities, so I'm not sure it'd really pull its weight, but I'll sit it in my maybe board for now.
I haven't tried Rise of the Dark Realms yet; that would make for another suitable win-con. What edges out Living Death for me between the two is that Living Death can work as a wrath too. I do have to be careful that what I'm supplying the rest of the table with isn't even worse, but I do have some narrow graveyard hate in Pharika, God of Affliction to try and tip things in my favor more. I'll give it a try though
Hi everyone! I've been challenging myself with a deck design and thought I'd ask around for advice and suggestions. The challenge was for me to try and create a Sultai-styled deck that incorporated quality delve cards alongside self-mill, recursion and creature-matters cards. My current build is a little-control oriented, attempting to stabilize the board until I can set up a win condition. My creature count is around 35-40, to synergize as well as possible with cards like Sidisi, Brood Tyrant and Kessig Cagebreakers. Where possible, I've been trying to incorporate creatures with ETB control-effects.
Obviously the deck is going to be more casual than competitive, and I'm fine with that; as much as I respect DirkGently's control Tasigur build, I'd rather try something different and see what I can do with it. So are there any obvious cards I've been forgetting? Obscure cards that might fit the theme?
Something that theflow touched on that I don't think has been fully explored yet is that Daghatar is potentially a more political general than Ghave. Both Ghave and Daghatar can donate counters to other players' creatures, for 2 and 3 mana respectively, but Daghatar has a built-in method of retrieval as well. What this means is that Daghatar, unlike Ghave, can interact politically with other counter-based decks by alternately enabling/disabling cards like Spike Weaver, etc. Seedborn Muse and Hunter of Eyeblights on the field with Daghatar the Adamant out is an effective deterrent without painting a giant target on your head, moving a counter from threat-to-threat every upkeep. Its a situational aspect of the card, but interesting, and its something Ghave can't do as well.
First, love the concept. My playgroup has been playing EDH exclusively for a while now, so my poor 60 card R/G werewolf deck hasn't seen any play - this sounds like the perfect way to reintroduce them, so I hope you don't mind if I put together a deck based off these suggestions
Second, my suggestions for the build:
Flash enablers:
Quicksilver Amulet: while you shouldn't have any trouble casting creatures, the amulet gives you a bit more control over when your werewolves flip or not. Playing creatures on other player's turns is fantastic with werewolves; they're free to attack on your turn, and you get to save spells for the combat phase.
Yeva, Nature's Herald: Gives your green 'wolves flash. Effectively QA #2, if somewhat more limited.
Wolves & Friends:
-Wolfir Avenger/Silverheart: While not technically werewolves, the Wolfir do complement them pretty well; a Silverheart/Outlaw pairing is pretty nasty.
-Master of the Wild Hunt: Somewhat on-theme spot removal and token generation. Not essential, but handy in a pinch.
Mana/Spell interference:
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed: you absolutely want to provide as many disincentives for players to cast spells, and Ruric ensures anyone who tries to flip your wolves is going to take a hefty amount of damage to do so. Add in damage doublers like Furnace of Rath, Dictate of the Twin Gods, etc. to really make them sweat.
Tectonic Instability: forces the table to decide between land drops and spells. Ramp into an early-game lead on mana, and the rest of the table will have to tap themselves out at end of turn to try and keep up. Underdeveloped board or no untapped lands for counterspells, etc. - that's pretty win-win for you.
Price of Glory: PoG is a bit more limited than other land-destruction effects, but it is effective at punishing people for playing counterspells. Whether that justifies its inclusion or not I'll leave up to you.
Lastly, with all those MLD effects, I highly suggest running a good number of mana-rocks. 4-6 would be ideal I think, since Radha helps you out.
First game saw me piloting Xiahou-Dun against Azami, Roon and Derevi. Won the roll for first turn, kept a hand of 1 Swamp, Dark Ritual, Necropotence, Waste Not, and two other cards I can't remember. On the play for turn 1: Swamp, Dark Ritual, Necropotence. Azami pitches a counterspell and Vedalken Aethermage to Commandeer it. Epic play for my group, since that was literally the only card in all 4 decks capable of stopping a turn 1 play like that.
Second game involved Kytheon (me), my cousin borrowing my Pox deck and Derevi. Cousin has never seen Pox play or the deck before, and asked me how it ran before game started up. Pox got off to a good start with a turn 1 Dark Ritual into Liliana of the Veil, turn 2 Waste Not, turn 3 Noxious Vapors. Absolutely brutal.
Tormod's Crypt shuts down graveyards quick.
Relic of Progenitus as above but for everyone, provided you don't mind exiling your own graveyard.
@mageslay3r - I like a lot of those suggestions. I'll have to see if I can get a Wave of Vitriol from my green buddies.
@seriph0 - lots of good suggestions! I'd found Ob Nixilis, the Fallen while researching the idea, but I completely overlooked Baru, Fist of Krosa. In he goes! Squandered Resources seems pretty solid, as does Planar Birth.
@ProfessorWhen - Yeah, I think you have a point with Karador, Ghost Chieftain. None of the other Abzan legendaries really lend themselves to the strategy, and he pairs nicely with Karametra, God of Harvests. I actually think I have a lot of those cards laying around in my trade binder, so I'll definitely try out as many as I can. I like the x-spells as wincons - that seems really cool!
@Gashnaw - I had forgotten about the moonfolk; that's solid landfall tech. But I ended up choosing GWB due to personal bias. [cards]Exploration[/card] is definitely something I need in there.
Thanks guys! How do people feel about Boundless Realms and Worm Harvest? I can see Realms being pretty solid, but I'm not sure if Worm Harvest does enough without support from cards like Baru, Fist of Krosa. Thoughts?
While OE might be pretty subpar on it's own, it got me thinking about the myriad ways white and green like to use and abuse lands. I'd considered building Titania before, but ultimately passed on the idea, (someone else at our shop runs Titania, and I just can't get excited about mono-green). Splashing in white and black renewed my interest - I could tutor and ramp with Weathered Wayfarer and Knight of the Reliquary, steal lands with Gilt-leaf Archdruid and Herald of Leshrac, sacrifice lands with Scapeshift and Reprocess to generate board presence with Titania, Protector of Argoth, and power out incremental advantage with landfall cards. I could even make it a theme deck, using cards that suggest decay and renewal.
Has anyone had success with this kind of build before? Or is it too narrow a concept?
Tariel, Reckoner of Souls stax/MLD - "'If there isn't enough left of Jamuraa to stand on, I will still claim it for Keld.' - Latulla, Keldon Overseer" (Keldon Firebombers)
Chainer, Dementia Master reanimator/control - "'Death, an outmoded concept. We sleep, and we change' - Sitrik, Birth Priest" (Exhume)
Tasigur, the Golden Fang self-mill - "The Sultai would rebuild the empire on the backs of the dead." (Empty the Pits)
Very cool idea for a thread. I had to think pretty hard for some of these.
In red:
Curse of Bloodletting
Curse of Chaos
Curse of the Nightly Hunt
Curse of Stalked Prey
In blue:
Curse of Echoes
Curse of Inertia
In black:
Curse of Death's hold
Curse of Thirst
Curse of Misfortunes
Bitterheart Witch will tutor up whichever curse you need. Of course, to get the most out of them you need some way of getting them back, and there aren't very many ways to do that without access to white or green.
*EDIT* Bonus flavor points if you run Curse of the Cabal and Curse of the Swine
Gurzigost is a good one - I hadn't even thought about his graveyard trimming ability. I think I have one laying around somewhere, so that might make it in for the next round of games.
Heartstone I'm not sure about - I have a limited number of creatures with activated abilities, so I'm not sure it'd really pull its weight, but I'll sit it in my maybe board for now.
I haven't tried Rise of the Dark Realms yet; that would make for another suitable win-con. What edges out Living Death for me between the two is that Living Death can work as a wrath too. I do have to be careful that what I'm supplying the rest of the table with isn't even worse, but I do have some narrow graveyard hate in Pharika, God of Affliction to try and tip things in my favor more. I'll give it a try though
Obviously the deck is going to be more casual than competitive, and I'm fine with that; as much as I respect DirkGently's control Tasigur build, I'd rather try something different and see what I can do with it. So are there any obvious cards I've been forgetting? Obscure cards that might fit the theme?
Current decklist: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/17-01-15-treachery/
Second, my suggestions for the build:
Flash enablers:
Quicksilver Amulet: while you shouldn't have any trouble casting creatures, the amulet gives you a bit more control over when your werewolves flip or not. Playing creatures on other player's turns is fantastic with werewolves; they're free to attack on your turn, and you get to save spells for the combat phase.
Yeva, Nature's Herald: Gives your green 'wolves flash. Effectively QA #2, if somewhat more limited.
Wolves & Friends:
-Wolfir Avenger/Silverheart: While not technically werewolves, the Wolfir do complement them pretty well; a Silverheart/Outlaw pairing is pretty nasty.
-Master of the Wild Hunt: Somewhat on-theme spot removal and token generation. Not essential, but handy in a pinch.
Mana/Spell interference:
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed: you absolutely want to provide as many disincentives for players to cast spells, and Ruric ensures anyone who tries to flip your wolves is going to take a hefty amount of damage to do so. Add in damage doublers like Furnace of Rath, Dictate of the Twin Gods, etc. to really make them sweat.
Tectonic Instability: forces the table to decide between land drops and spells. Ramp into an early-game lead on mana, and the rest of the table will have to tap themselves out at end of turn to try and keep up. Underdeveloped board or no untapped lands for counterspells, etc. - that's pretty win-win for you.
Price of Glory: PoG is a bit more limited than other land-destruction effects, but it is effective at punishing people for playing counterspells. Whether that justifies its inclusion or not I'll leave up to you.
Lastly, with all those MLD effects, I highly suggest running a good number of mana-rocks. 4-6 would be ideal I think, since Radha helps you out.
Also: Nature's Will