MTG Salvation

Quote from squiggleart »

Lol, you sound a lot like me.
I am used to be targeted and "picked on". The reason is probably similar to yours, especially if you started in Blue/White; our decks are too good and everyone knows the only way to win is to team up on you, otherwise you (or I) will win every single time.
There are several solutions...
2. Weaken your deck, or make it more fun. By more fun I mean Not Blue... Blue is great, but it generally isn't fun. Control is generally not fun. Aggro-control can be fun, but you may want to look into some GR/WR/RW/GRW/BR/etc deck that is more aggressive, with some control but not nearly as much as UW.
3. Try to help others make their decks better. One of the rules I always liked in my shop, was we want to play against the player, not their wallet. Let them use Proxies. They have to be 'decent' proxies, no sharpies on cards, but print out a card on paper cut it out and slip it in is fine. That way full oracle text and art is visible. That way they can build their decks more powerfully so they won't necessarily feel the only way to win is by taking you out first...

I appreciate the thought but I don't think you're understanding the situation- I probably wasn't clear. My deck doesn't have jerky or overly expensive cards in it. It just doesn't. There is no consecrated sphinx, no bribery, no mana crypt, no Jace tMS, and only one counterspell (as filler). My Daxos the Returned friend has FAR more effort and money put into his deck than me, and his card quality is higher. None of us have mana crypt for example or anything REALLY expensive but I'm definitely not "that guy" in our group. If there is one it's Daxos guy but again even he's not that bad just so you know. In our group we have always allowed proxies for people testing cards that they plan to put in for real eventually, and I use that privilege as much as the next guy in the group.

What is the "high man" rule?

Thanks guys! (well except for that first guy, swift2210...)

I have a few follow up questions and remarks based on the feedback you all gave me. First, someone mentioned prison effects. My friends hate those. Whenever they see them they go out of their way to attack the "jailer" if you will. Next someone mentioned Derevi... I've thought about him but how do you build around him? The only primers and lists I see seek to use his ability to form combos, whereas I'd prefer some more generic synergies with cards that are already good.

Finally I did mention the new Leovold... does anybody think he would work? Thanks again

First a bit of backstory. When I first started playing Magic I did not like the idea of commander/EDH. The reason for this was that commander was always described to me as a more casual format- the starting life total of 40 and the singleton deck construction made efficient, linear decks far less effective than in other formats. Rather, all sorts of jank and nonsense that wasn't possible/effective in other formats became possible as a result of this. I like my jank as much as the next guy but I like effective jank. Not strange, hard to assemble combos, and synergies that are in short not worth the pain it is to make them work. I was told that in commander you could get away with playing wierd enchantments that had no immediate effect on the board and would have some sort of lategame synergy. Basically the raw efficiency of cards was devalued. I think we need a healthy balance of efficiency/power and creativity but commander was taking it too far. However, my magic friends were all active edh players or starting to get into it so I decided what the heck, I'll loosen up a bit. I did grow to enjoy commander but for different reasons. The singleton and 100 card construction made every game unique and presented the ultimate deck building challenge. I still don't like the 40 life though. I'd want to at least test it at 30 if my playgroup was willing.

So I looked around for a commander that had seemed like a cool, fun build around, one that also represented a color combination that had access to powerful tools. I came up with Daxos of Meletis. I wanted a commander that wanted to be turned sideways but didn't care about commander damage and he also fit that bill. The deck was a sort of voltron-control deck utilizing powerful auras plus draw spells like Sphinx's Revelation and Jace's Ingenuity, and a healthy suite of O-ring effects and board wipes. All sewn together with a jank synergy that I came up with- take some of the the most efficient cards that put permanents or spells on top of a players library, some fateseal effects like Precognition, etc., and that would be hilarious with Daxos. I used some cards I already had, traded for some others, and spent about 30 bucks on Amazon and got this deck together. It was pretty cool- there would be games where my card advantage gave me access to answers while other players were topdecksing and hoping for the best, and meanwhile I'd be manipulating everyone's topdecks, stealing the best one with Daxos, and sending everybody else's to the bottom or the graveyard or whatver as a pleased. I realized fairly early on what the decks strength's and weaknesses were- it was great at dominating a single player and was significantly faster than everyone else's deck, but it was bad on defense and could not survive when targeted early on. Therefore, politically in a 4 player game my tactics were to try and dominate a single player and ignore the other two, and convince them that it was in my best interest to let me do their work for them and not interfere. My deck is actually really bad when it has to deal with multiple opponents and they all knew that/had chances to learn it, yet another friend (who plays Daxos the Returned enchantress) would always convince them that if I was left untouched I would eventually become impossible to deal with despite not posing an immediate threat. Whenever we discuss it my friends always admit that this is not true- no matter how good I look at the moment I can almost always be brought down if players cooperate- it's a fairly fragile strategy.

I eventually decided to switch the general to Geist of Saint Traft as he was just a superior version of Daxos. I removed the top of your library shenanigans and went for a straightforward control deck that would eventually close it out with a suited-up Geist. Now I'll cut to the chase on that one- it was only a little better. My opponents decks are mostly creature based so I relied on a critical mass of sweeper effects and card draw to find them on time. I was however very vulnerable to combos and "out of nowhere" tactics. And despite not having the most powerful deck I'm still ganged up on. I don't have mana crypt or jace the mind sculptor etc, so I don't have any obvious annoying cards for them to complain about. I don't have any win the game combos or infinities either. I'm also purposely not annoying in commander. I try to make more friends than enemies and I try to play passively in some situations. it doesn't work. I'm used to it however, we're in high school and ever since elementary school I've always been ganged up on no matter what. In Risk, and Monopoly, and NintendoLand, and sports you name it. I'm naturally competitive and I'm also really good at a lot of the things we compete in so I guess I'm a natural target. They also think it's funny that I get annoyed when they gang me. They just say "you're annoying" when I really am not and they can't name any specific, recent examples when I ask what I do that is annoying.

Essentially I need these criteria in a deck:

Wants:
-A deck that wants to, be it early or late, turn creatures sideways repeatedly.
AND
-A deck that has a good balance of making good use of the general and not relying on him
AND
-A sort of midrangey feel... not mindless beatdown or draw go control, something that results in every game playing differently, and a balance of proactive play and interactive play
AND
-A deck/general that is naturally great in multiplayer for whatever reason and gives players incentives to focus other people etc
AND/OR
-A deck/general that doesn't look threatening until it's about to win (comes out of nowhere)
OR
-A deck that's so good that no matter if I'm ganged up on or what I'll still win at least 1/4 games. (I think that's fair, there are 4 players after all)

Don't Want
-A combo deck or any infinites that aren't incidental (if a card or a few cards are already really good in general and happen to combo with other cards in the deck, I'm fine with that, but no food chain or reanimator or turn 4-5 wins etc you get it)
-A deck that absolutely relies on the commander and can't ever compete without it OR a goodstuff deck with little or no general synergies
-A deck that would annoy others to the point where they'd want to gang me or has glaring weaknesses that can be exploited if it's ganged up on
-A deck that relies on expensive cards

Now a little about my meta to help you advise me:

Daxos the Returned - Enchantment synergies, assorted BW goodstuff, wins more than anybody else but nobody ever learns to gang it before it's too late despite me frantically pointing it out. For him I want access to hate and brutal borderline unfair cards (at least against him) like Peace and Quiet, Polis Crusher, Primeval Light, Spring Cleaning, Back to Nature etc. Basically a green deck or a color combination with access to cards like these, as he's too resilient to beat otherwise and I've given up on getting help from the others to gang him.

Ezuri, Claw of Progress - He has some cheap shenanigans like free wins off of Sage of Hours and Blighted Agent etc, but he's mostly jut a weenies deck that more or less relies on the commander. I don't usually have a problem with him when he's not part of a team ganging me because all I have to do is repeatedly remove his commander and occasionally wipe his board. It would be nice if I ended up in colors that could continue to do this, in addition to having more cheap instant speed answers to his combos.

Omnath, Locus of Rage - I also don't really have a problem with him because my deck is fast and his deck does little more than ramp until he can cast his commander. All I need is some early lines of play, and I just have to avoid being too durdley.

These are my primary opponents. While I know that we may have a problem outside of just Magic and commander, I would appreciate deck ideas rather than just advice on how to deal with them as people. I'll take a little of that sure but I don't think there's a good solution other than don't play with them.

Currently I'm thinking about the new Leovold, Edric, and some sort of Bant deck as those just seem like good colors based on what I want.

Bottom line: what deck/general should I play? Thanks

My bushwhacker zoo list runs 2 boros charm in the main over mutagenic growth and that has made all the difference against sweepers.

Why are all zoo decks combined on here? There's at least three different versions of it (regular, company, and bushwhacker). Also bushwhacker zoo is definitely tier 1. The others are not very well positioned right now but I can see them here in tier 2.

Young Pyro was not what I wanted from a creature. I had three and gradually cut them down to 0 over the last year. That's one thing overturf definitely got right. However, I'm an 18 land deck because I want to be agressive. Sure I have snapcaster and kolaghan's command in the deck, but I'm not supposed to be a slower-midrangey build like what's currently popular. I see that as the wrong approach. I'm a tempo deck with a top end. I'd rather never get to 5 lands in a game. 3 is where it's at, and 4 is fine, and we can certainly operate on 2 for most of the game. My deck is based on the decks that were around following PT fate reforged.

Probe still fuels delve early on, and I really need a turn 2 delve creature or a turn 1 delver to win most of the time.

Edit: my point of this post was to state my opinion that overturf (and I guess jones as well) was wrong in his analysis of the archeype. This statement and the points that back it up are not connected to my results. Having minimal experience in actual modern tournaments (I've played the deck against friends for a year but only one other time in a tournament) and having zero gauge of the metagame meant I had to fight and play extremely tight to even get my 3-3 finish. Only 2 out of 57 showed up with affinity, which I thought would be one of the more popular decks compared to all the blue control decks and combo decks that turned out to be the popular choices. Stuff like that can't be helped. I had my "MTG gods hate me" round against one of my good matchups, etc. Anyway, overturf and jones view the deck as grixis control with delver in it. I don't. We're still a tempo deck that shoves in random powerful cards and hard answers to back up that plan. My approach to delver didn't lose me those rounds- if anything to do with deck choice was a factor, it was simply playing grixis.

On Saturday I competed in a PTPQ using this list:



Here is my report, round by round of the event.

Round 1 - Living End
Obviously this was irritating as I had consciously not put graveyard hate into the board, choosing instead to focus on other matchups.
In game one I sucessfully beat him down to 8 before living end was cast, despite holding a totally dead spell snare all game. I had no counters for living end in hand so he got three fatties. I nearly beat through this as I followed up with delver and immediately flipped it, then terminated faerie macabre in order to attack with no chance of him blocking, and then bolted him to two. However, he (having played two fulminator mages already that game) used a third mage to blow up my last red source, and i scrambled to use my two islands and hand of cantrips to find one, but in the end the lethal bolt in my hand did no good. In game two I boarded in all of my discard but had to mulligan to six to get lands so I couldn't prioritize them. Despite two fulminators resolving against me I was able to mana leak living end but he had a simian spirit guide to exile and pay.

Round 2 - Elves
This was a friend of mine (of whom I know the tendencies of so well) and favorable matchup so I thought I was in the clear. However, clutch topdecks of 2 shamans of the pack in a row and me drawing all three tasigurs over the course of the game made it an unwinnable one. I brought in thoughtseize and both angers. Game two a delver backed up by mana leak, mana leak and snapcaster easily tempo-ed him out. Unfortunately in game three a combination of a mulligan to six, a start for him of dork into heritage druid, dwynen's elite, archdruid, and a delver that refused to flip (in addition of course to not getting access to the sideboard tech) made that game similarly unwinnable.

Round three - BW Tokens
Lingering souls is your worst enemy as a delver player (burn and tron are harder matchups but no individual card is so annoying as souls), so I wasn't looking forward to the games ahead (I saw him next to me during my last round). However, he mulliganed to five game one and had only an inquisition in the first two turns, using which he took one of my two snapcasters. I played a t1 delver, flipped it, attacked, and had remand for his t3 souls. His t4 souls were electrolyzed, and his t5 flashback of souls were snap-electrolyzed. I boarded in chandra, the visions and all sorts of nonsense but ultimately a turn two tasigur and a turn 3 staticaster (neither of which were answered) made the rest of the board irrelevant.

Round 4 - Some sort of kiki-chord/hatebear deck with eldritch evolution (apparently this is a thing?)
The first game went really long but ultimately a timely mana leak for eldritch evolution, bedlam reveler and lethal burn (not to mention a terminate for ruric thar, at which, as soon as I saw it with probe, I immediately shouted "In the main?!?!" which almost got me a warning).
In game two I had a great agressive start but my plans were almost foiled by thragtusk and obstinate baloth, then later a reveillark that I actually had kill at that point, bringing back a voice and a pia and kiran with two thopters. Luckily I already had an anger in my hand and after that the game was fairly easy to close out despite him being at a healthy 30-some life.

Round 5 - Temur delver
Also a friend of mine. I had a pretty bad draw game one and faced early pressure from a goyf. when I was at 1 life I almost got back in it with a topdecked bedlam reveler, but it only drew two fetches and a thought scour while he on the other hand proceeded to topdeck a goyf. On the play in game two I fetched for a swamp and duressed his hand of 6, seeing misty rainforest, mandrills, stubborn denial, bolt, mana leak and thought scour. I look the leak. He played the forest, got a breeding pool and thought scoured away a land and a goyf. I played turn 2 delver backed by dispel while he continued to struggle on lands. I then snap duressed on turn three seeing more cantrips and took the bolt. He was able to at that point cast a mandrills. It dealt me 4 while I continued to pack in with delver and snapcaster on the backswing. When it attacked again I delved four and cut it, which was leaked, which was dispelled. In game three it went back and forth until I electrolyzed him which drew bolt, and then I topdecked bolt to kill him. At that point though he was inevitably going to lose anyway, the two points of burn necessary would have come somehow sooner or later and neither of us had creatures on board.

Round 6 - Nahiri Jeskai

at 3-2 with 50-60 entrants and tiebreakers up in the air this was for a possible top 8. It was a tough one. Despite efficiently dealing with every nahiri played, he continually burned face until I was within range of a single colonnade attack.
Game two was equally hard- I game out of the gates fast and had counters for all his removal. But somehow he gained incremental card advantage and ground me out, this time winning with emrakul but it didn't really matter, the game was lost once I had no creatures and no card in hand with him at a life total above 10.

Bottom line: ryan overturf is a lucky... well you know what I mean. 4 snaps was too much with the amount of quick pressure I was forced to apply to get wins, and also too many with 4 delve spells and only 18 lands. It also occasionally shut off Bedlam Reveler, but I feel snapcaster was still the problem there. Young pyromancer admittedly would probably not have been any better so we really need to find another idiot to fill the slot, as a low threat density makes us just a worse grixis control. Might as well take out the delvers and stick in ancestral vision, right? I have little idea where to go from here, but I'm considering bitterblossom and or death's shadow (or both, considering the synergy between the two). I also think the future of successful delver rests in an aggressive shell, that is, when they eventually do print the "idiot" we need. That's pretty much all I got, I hope this can spur some ideas.

Well yes, the sideboard is a big deal, but as I said I want advice for a blind metagame. I have a sideboard(s) of course but I'd rather see what is suggested. I don't have and can't get arid mesas for zoo in time.

So I'm heading down to a modern PTPQ this Saturday and I have access primarily to two different decks:

1) Grixis Delver

2) Naya Bushwhacker Zoo

I have my thoughts about each of these decks and their effectiveness in a "blind" metagame, but I admit I'm not entirely sure of all the matchup and metagaming stuff.

Grixis Delver - low number of "blowout" matchups, has roughly even or slightly positive matchups against the majority of the field, but has a really hard time against burn and tron. Unexpected choice. The thing I'm concerned about is that since burn is cheap to build that it might be popular.

Zoo - This is definitely the better deck right now, I've even thrown a couple Boros Charms into the main which has made the deck quite resilient against sweepers. The problem is that I don't have goblin guides. Not sure how big of a deal that is, but it's something.

I'm going to post both of my lists and I'd like advice on which deck to play, also what card choices to make and what to put in the board.

Delver:





Thoughts? Thanks!

YESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe you guys are hating on this so much. I literally wanted this more than anything else for the next block, and I will hype it nonstop until release.

I made this deck the day the last spoilers were released, and since then I have subtracted a Wasteland Strangler for a Dust Stalker, and added Ghostfire Blade (somehow I forgot that one originally). My list includes the ingest mechanic, which I feel is worth having to run the lame ingest creatures.

Here is what I feel DOES NOT belong in the deck (at least the main), and why:

Fathom Feeder: Typhoid Rats for 2 mana is unplayable. Sure, it's good vs Siege Rhino and friends, but the amount of times it will be otherwise useless by the time you can activate the ability is well, every time. It also makes my mana sad when I w=have both that and Forerunner in the deck.

Barrage Tyrant: Whoever thought that with this in the main, you would survive vs aggro, you are very mistaken.

Ulamog's Nullifier: having to process 2 cards is its downfall. I would put this in the board for sure though.

Nettle Drone and Molten Nursery are a lot worse than Burning Vengeance. BV was used in constructed for a short time, before what I call Woofman (Wolfir Silverheart) came out, but the deck always stank in all but the control matchup.

Vile Aggregate: I don't see swarming you opponent out as the goal of this deck. Therefore, I restrict it to the board.



So that's the list. It has done well vs Hangarback Abzan, Mardu Aggro, UWx control and RDW.

Thoughts appreciated.