Ok thanks for the feedback. Going aggro with a control general does sound intriguing and possibly more likely to work. I've been wanting to make a Thassa, God of the Sea aggro deck for awhile...
I am in the process of completely rebuilding my Skullbriar, the Walking Grave deck that has been gathering dust. After struggling to find a way to build it to make it fun and unique, I had the following insight: big mana BG. Green for ramp and black for tutoring to get my mana production out of control ASAP, then start slinging the big spells I love: drain life, exsanguinate, hurricane. Fun times! The best part is that hopefully people will be expecting a Voltron strategy and will drop their guard on the mana ramping allowing me to completely take over the game.
What do people think of this kind of strategy? Do you run any commanders that put people off their guard or make them defend wrong against what your deck actually does? Would love to hear about it.
The least fun game of EDH: Competitive UGx player ramps hard, clearly heading toward degenerate board state or combo. New/non-competitive players sit by in frustration or just don't notice what's going on. You (low to mid-level competitive/thematic focused deck) sit there deciding whether to focus on reigning in UGx or try to get your own game plan going. If you don't reign them in it's going to be an un-fun, short game for the newbies and yourself. If you do, you're expending disproportionate effort at the expense of your own game plan but hopefully will give the newbies a better game. MLD is just one method of trying to even the tables in that scenario, see also discard, counterspells, etc. I think it's context dependent and depends on how the rest of the table will take it, but I always have the least sympathy for the UGx player (even if they are nice) because they should know better that if they are leaning heavily on the most powerful strategy in EDH they they deserve to be targeted.
There is that 5CC mini-Insurrection where you get one creature from each opponent, forget the name though. Sometimes you don't need Insurrection when you get the 3 best creatures on the board three turns earlier, plus it can be copied by Fork, Reverberate etc.
I would honestly prefer the simplest version - 5 new commanders with 4-6 converted mana cost and all 4 colors in the mana cost. However, Wizards is due to let me down so I predict a new gimmick will be unveiled.
Let's not forget the scenario where someone is way ahead and another player casts a tempt spell. The rest of the table who is behind might all prefer a boost even if one player (who wasn't already ahead) gets an advantage. Particularly if they have good reason to believe the tempt caster will go after the player who was previously ahead.
My favorite decks to play against are unique decks. It can have powerful, staple cards like eternal witness, but if you're just gonna doomsday the table, cutthroat zur/derevi prison, generic stock list of a tier 1 deck, or your deck is focused on getting out a 2 card combo (or worse, a 1-card combo), etc., it's generally boring after a few games. You can use tier 1 generals, but build the deck in an interesting and unique way, something that I haven't seen before.
This is the correct answer. Do something unique with a "competitive" or "top tier" general and I will smile. Or play an unusual general in an extremely competitive way. Just make it interesting. Cutthroat, foiled out decks that win the same way every game do not make new players or casual players want to come back and show me their interesting decks, and make me look for a new store to play in.
I think about Root Maze all the time. It can suffer from the problems of the deck not working well if you don't draw it in your opening hand and multiples being useless. Got me thinking about other T1 plays to complement such an approach. Oath of Nissa is a nice, recently printed card that is a bit above your budget, but does make a reasonable T1 play. Unfortunately it does not find Root Maze. However, it does sit on the battlefield and lend itself to being sacced to pay costs like Crack the Earth. Crack the Earth also has nice synergy with Root Maze because the Fetchland player spends multiple turns getting an untapped land in play only to lose it to a 1 mana sorcery. So much better if you can sac a 1 mana enchantment that has already served its purpose such as a Root Maze in the later turns or an Oath of Nissa. Both work well with Strangleroot Geist for the same reason. Going RG also opens up some other possibilities like Atarka's Command (although that is also a pricier card), which lets you cheat around Root Maze a bit too (bolt them for 3 while putting a land into play on T2, start T3 with 3 mana open to their 1-2). Then you can start Stone Raining, Acid-Mossing, etc.
Don't know if it has been mentioned, but the art on Warped Landscape appears to be showing a corrupted Nahiri and some pink tendrils. The land taps for <> and the flavor text suggests that some corruption is going on...clues that Emrakul is involved somehow?
Maybe Garruk will be cured of his curse while simultaneously becoming a Werewolf and losing his planeswalker's spark. Then we can have an RG Werewolf commander!
What do people think of this kind of strategy? Do you run any commanders that put people off their guard or make them defend wrong against what your deck actually does? Would love to hear about it.
This is the correct answer. Do something unique with a "competitive" or "top tier" general and I will smile. Or play an unusual general in an extremely competitive way. Just make it interesting. Cutthroat, foiled out decks that win the same way every game do not make new players or casual players want to come back and show me their interesting decks, and make me look for a new store to play in.