Correct. Here's where it gets whack, though. Eldrazi with the devoid mechanic are colorless, but have to be cast with colored mana. So if you include a devoid eldrazi, you will either have to have a Commander with that color identity, or else stock lands and/or mana rocks that can produce any color of mana *AND* don't have a disallowed color symbol or basic land type on the card.
Example: you have Kozilek, Butcher of Truth as Commander. You want to include World Breaker, which is colorless due to devoid but requires green mana to cast. Forest and Moss Diamond can't be used. So an option that works is City of Brass or Darksteel Ingot. The cards don't refer to a prohibited land type or mana symbol (meaning they aren't in the prohibited color identity.) You can use them to create any color. Some people may say such a card would produce only colorless in a Kozilek deck or red in a Bosh deck. Not so. The rule they refer to in this case was abolished. "Rule #4" was eliminated, so these types of cards now allow you to produce any color they would in normal Magic. See discussion: http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18057
Sen Triplets can therefore be used as normal when Commander.
In your case with Bosh, you can use World Breaker, but you can also use Spine of Ish Sah and Duplicant better because Bosh can chuck them. Spine is Bosh's special pet. Repeatable destruction = eep!
Only legendary creatures and a select few planeswalkers are useable as a Commander. Artifacts = no.
If the Commander is colorless, then the deck does have to be colorless. However, any mana color symbols (even activated abilities) counts as color identity.
Welcome back. I've been playing since Antiquities, but I'm hopelessly out of date on what's hot. Most people here go for some form of optimization, so keep that in mind if you're not necessarily looking to be ultra-competitve. A lot of recommendations will send you toward the competitve side of the spectrum. But, there is a lot of card knowledge to draw on here. I sometimes make suggestions that I think are fun, but others are more current on trends, so I'm not an authority on much here, lol.
Boros_Blendo, thanks but with Trostani, Selesnya's Voice I gain 20 life per Marit Lage I copy. So taking up a slot wouldn't be worth it too me.
No worries, it looks like a fun deck. It got me pumped to put one back together for smaller team games. It's mono-black and uses discard effects to remove any removal that can take Marit Lage out, but uses Grim Discovery to get the Hexmage and DD back. It's just such a fun card and the token is just so Lovecraftian. Oooo, shiny....Good luck!
I get where you're coming from. Simply put, it's designed to be what it needs to be as the game goes on. It is a center deck in the Emperor's format.
If there's a rout on one of my wings, I have fog-in-a-frog, Ovinize, Mystic Snake, and Omnibian to wreck the attack calculus. If it's a single big threat, the same cards can work (unless the target has shroud), but at least Spore Frog can slow it down. If my wings need a buff, I can repeatedly buff them. If non-creatures are an issue for my wings, I use Acidic Slime to take that out and then swing it out to defend the flanks. I have card draw, recycling, and the self-bounce mechanic to keep all of that stuff coming back while also acting as a large attacker in conjunction with Rancor. Game-wrecking bomb spells can be stopped. Finally, Plaxcaster Froglings and the Kraj distribute +1/+1 counters to my side's key creatures so I can protect them with shroud. Omnibian, Ovinize, and Desert will all serve to make attack math really complicated for the other side, which will lead to mistakes I can exploit.
Ultimately, the goal is to keep my wings afloat, the enemy disrupted, and then let my wings win. This all assumes I'm not mana hosed (why I added Desert and why I need to hold the Species Gorger later once my hand is emptier) and my wings have a decent deck themselves.
I am wondering if Polymorphist's Jest would be a good answer somewhere since it will humble even untargetable creatures so they can be dealt with.
Well.... if Gorger is the focus of your deck then you need to feed him proper. I suggest Tokens. Akroan Horse would be the first card I looked at. It's a wall but you get your tokens for free each turn to feed the Gorger.
You look like you like counters so Animation Module should be an option. The tokens are a bit crunchy but certainly edible. Awakening Zone tokens pulls double duty for colorless mana if the frog isn't out yet. Even better, enchantments are harder to destroy.
I can probably remember more cards later....
That brings up a good question. What do I actually with the deck? My meta plays a lot of linear decks that basically run the same every game. I built a Simic deck first because I did want a quasi-frog tribal, but also added in other stuff to do devious Simic stuff. After all, turning a Blightsteel Colossus closing in for a kill into a sheep so that it dies in the desert or gets eaten by a frog is just hilarious. The Species Gorger is indeed the engine that bounces etb value cards so they can be re-used, as opposed to just throwing tokens at the Gorger. While they also can serve as finishers with Rancor, the main idea here with the entire deck is to nimbly shift and move with the flexibility to handle a lot of varied threats as the game progresses. So goes the plan. It should work, but success has been elusive up to now.
I have a deck that has some is-ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!!! <ribbit>, some issues with in-game performance. Jokes aside, it has had mana issues not just with the amount of it at a given time, but just a general lack of free mana when I need it, yet has tested fine when goldfishing.
One problem is that I cast Species Gorger too early, leading to my hand getting too large and then I stubbornly refuse to bounce it. I have to drop more of my hand before bringing him out and then I should be fine.
The next issue is just straight mana. To even out some shortages and synergize with Ovinize, I added a playset of Desert to address this.
So I don't fully know at this time if it's just the mana and how I'm playing the Gorgers, or if there is something else wrong with the lineup for smaller MP games. It should allow me to do fun stuff and keep people guessing. Maybe I've just had some bad shuffles? Any thoughts?
My signature has the link to my Xenagos, God of Revels hydra deck. It's a gruul deck that really goes after other people's resources to disrupt their gameplan well into mid-game while ramping itself into big hydras. To date, it's the only deck of mine that has never swapped a single card because it works in my meta, which is decidedly non-Spike. It's simple but effective.
Actually, my meta does have a lot creatures, and if my Emperor Wings were getting too pummeled, I would send the little extorters out to the wings and let them die in combat before dropping Merciless Eviction to then Return to the Ranks. If I go Basilica Shrieker over the pontiffs, I will then swap out Obzedat for two more Return to the Ranks.
The main point in favor of the pontiffs is their size and they give extorters extra extort triggers (if I'm understanding it right with creatures with multiple instances of extort triggering separately). If so, two pontiffs out late game with one other creature would allow six extort triggers per spell. I would only want to cast a single spell per turn and then drain as much as the mana allows.
I see merits to both and I like both options. Your insights have been very good. I'll run some sims and see which is going to work best for the meta.
Thanks to everyone's input, the decklist looks like this below, with 16 sources of extort and even a couple ways to bring back the little guys along with Karlov. The pontiffs should really supercharge the extortion, too. NOW I'M EXCITED.
Karlov works best in multiplayer with repeatable lifegain such as Soul Warden & Soul's Attendant. You want turn 1 repeatable lifegain (Authority of the Consuls is good too), turn 2 Karlov, turn 3 swing for a bunch and/or remove the biggest threat on the board. I have 2 Karlov decks that share a lot of cards but do different things. One has red & us a Norin the Wary, Impact Tremors, Purphoros, God of the Forge deck where Karlov gets ridiculously gigantic if you get Norin & a Soul Sister out, and the other is more a straight up life gain deck that also uses Ajani's Pridemate & wins with Felidar Sovereign if it doesn't just push combat damage through. If you're going to use extort, I'd go with Thrull Parasite over Knight of Obligation because you want to be extorting early & often, if the extort guys ever swing that's just a bonus.
Ups count to twelve extort sources, and drops curve. Is Blood Baron good here, as a late game ender? Since I have wing meatshields as the Emperor, I really don't need to worry about combat. I could up the extort to 16. Even so, Blood Baron might be good as a beater. On the fence about him.
I was looking into maybe an edh deck for Karlov of the Ghost Council, but I might instead prefer a 65 card Emperor's support deck. What's below is the first draft, was looking for feedback outside of my meta. Tear it apart if you wish, I'm not married to any card, but did still want to rock with Karlov firing off exiles like crazy.
Example: you have Kozilek, Butcher of Truth as Commander. You want to include World Breaker, which is colorless due to devoid but requires green mana to cast. Forest and Moss Diamond can't be used. So an option that works is City of Brass or Darksteel Ingot. The cards don't refer to a prohibited land type or mana symbol (meaning they aren't in the prohibited color identity.) You can use them to create any color. Some people may say such a card would produce only colorless in a Kozilek deck or red in a Bosh deck. Not so. The rule they refer to in this case was abolished. "Rule #4" was eliminated, so these types of cards now allow you to produce any color they would in normal Magic. See discussion:
http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18057
Sen Triplets can therefore be used as normal when Commander.
In your case with Bosh, you can use World Breaker, but you can also use Spine of Ish Sah and Duplicant better because Bosh can chuck them. Spine is Bosh's special pet. Repeatable destruction = eep!
If the Commander is colorless, then the deck does have to be colorless. However, any mana color symbols (even activated abilities) counts as color identity.
Official rules here:
http://mtgcommander.net/rules.php
If there's a rout on one of my wings, I have fog-in-a-frog, Ovinize, Mystic Snake, and Omnibian to wreck the attack calculus. If it's a single big threat, the same cards can work (unless the target has shroud), but at least Spore Frog can slow it down. If my wings need a buff, I can repeatedly buff them. If non-creatures are an issue for my wings, I use Acidic Slime to take that out and then swing it out to defend the flanks. I have card draw, recycling, and the self-bounce mechanic to keep all of that stuff coming back while also acting as a large attacker in conjunction with Rancor. Game-wrecking bomb spells can be stopped. Finally, Plaxcaster Froglings and the Kraj distribute +1/+1 counters to my side's key creatures so I can protect them with shroud. Omnibian, Ovinize, and Desert will all serve to make attack math really complicated for the other side, which will lead to mistakes I can exploit.
Ultimately, the goal is to keep my wings afloat, the enemy disrupted, and then let my wings win. This all assumes I'm not mana hosed (why I added Desert and why I need to hold the Species Gorger later once my hand is emptier) and my wings have a decent deck themselves.
I am wondering if Polymorphist's Jest would be a good answer somewhere since it will humble even untargetable creatures so they can be dealt with.
That brings up a good question. What do I actually with the deck? My meta plays a lot of linear decks that basically run the same every game. I built a Simic deck first because I did want a quasi-frog tribal, but also added in other stuff to do devious Simic stuff. After all, turning a Blightsteel Colossus closing in for a kill into a sheep so that it dies in the desert or gets eaten by a frog is just hilarious. The Species Gorger is indeed the engine that bounces etb value cards so they can be re-used, as opposed to just throwing tokens at the Gorger. While they also can serve as finishers with Rancor, the main idea here with the entire deck is to nimbly shift and move with the flexibility to handle a lot of varied threats as the game progresses. So goes the plan. It should work, but success has been elusive up to now.
One problem is that I cast Species Gorger too early, leading to my hand getting too large and then I stubbornly refuse to bounce it. I have to drop more of my hand before bringing him out and then I should be fine.
The next issue is just straight mana. To even out some shortages and synergize with Ovinize, I added a playset of Desert to address this.
So I don't fully know at this time if it's just the mana and how I'm playing the Gorgers, or if there is something else wrong with the lineup for smaller MP games. It should allow me to do fun stuff and keep people guessing. Maybe I've just had some bad shuffles? Any thoughts?
4 Spore Frog
4 Coiling Oracle
4 Plaxcaster Frogling
4 Eternal Witness
4 Omnibian
4 Mystic Snake
4 Species Gorger
4 Acidic Slime
1 Experiment Kraj
4 Rancor
4 Ovinize
Land:
4 Simic Guildgate
4 Simic Growth Chamber
6 Forest
6 Island
4 Desert
The main point in favor of the pontiffs is their size and they give extorters extra extort triggers (if I'm understanding it right with creatures with multiple instances of extort triggering separately). If so, two pontiffs out late game with one other creature would allow six extort triggers per spell. I would only want to cast a single spell per turn and then drain as much as the mana allows.
I see merits to both and I like both options. Your insights have been very good. I'll run some sims and see which is going to work best for the meta.
4 Karlov of the Ghost Council
4 Thrull Parasite
4 Tithe Drinker
4 Pontiff of Blight
4 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
Spells:
4 Vindicate
2 Tsabo's Decree
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Necropotence
4 Blind Obedience
Artifacts:
4 Chalice of Life (to flip to Chalice of Death ASAP)
4 Pristine Talisman
Land:
4 Orzhov Basilica
6 Plains
6 Swamp
4 Orzhov Guildgate
4 Desert
Edited 11/21/17 to show latest list.
Maybe:
+4 Thrull Parasite
+4 Tithe Drinker
-4 Knight of Obligation
-4 Vampire Nighthawk
Ups count to twelve extort sources, and drops curve. Is Blood Baron good here, as a late game ender? Since I have wing meatshields as the Emperor, I really don't need to worry about combat. I could up the extort to 16. Even so, Blood Baron might be good as a beater. On the fence about him.
Uh oh, is Karlov by himself oppressive to play against? With prison effects, I could see it being heavy-handed.
4 Karlov of the Ghost Council
4 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
4 Knight of Obligation
2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
Spells:
4 Vindicate
2 Exsanguinate
2 Merciless Eviction
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Necropotence
4 Blind Obedience
Artifacts:
4 Chalice of Life (to flip to Chalice of Death ASAP)
4 Pristine Talisman
Land:
4 Orzhov Basilica
6 Plains
6 Swamp
4 Orzhov Guildgate
4 Desert