I find that you’re not alone in finding difficulty in using the ult. A lot of the Aminatou players I’ve gone against have said the same thing – “don’t worry about the ult, because it sucks for me”. I will say though that I consider it a highly underrated ult.
First of all, it’s very easy to achieve. Her coming down on Turn 3 and she can ult on Turn 7 when the coast is all clear. It always seems very early in the game I’m eyeing her for the ult.
Second, it’s great as a deterrent effect. If somebody is holding a bomb like Rite of Replication, then it is tempting fate to use it as long as she is sitting at high loyalty.
And even when deliberately set up, it is not hard to play a permanent-light strategy in these colors, and then having a good chunk of spot removal instead of wipes to sculpt around the player whose stuff you want to steal. Theoretically, it could be a strong backup win-condition if somewhat reliant on an opponent not playing too much of a spell-based deck.
I will say, I have seen once or twice that I played in apprehension of a 6-loyalty Aminatou going ultimate next turn, and then for some inexplicable reason the pilot chose not to pull the trigger. A couple may have been to avoid causing an unpleasant experience, but others I suspect the pilot may have just missed it. I know one player in particular whose deck seems to have Approach of the Second Sun as the main win condition, they often pass up on the ult.
They can be good if you understand the dynamics. Aside from the inflexibility to you, the fact of not being able to wait until the last moment that others have mentioned, there is also the fact that multiplayer is a game of primarily tempo. With removal, the opponent(s) have spent mana on the thing getting removed. With discard, they didn’t. That is an issue for discard generally, not just the one-shot pinpoint kind.
There is also the tempo cost to you. The more impact, the more mana you pay, but generally you will still have zero tempo impact with discard. Even with Mindslicer and Sire of Insanity, you have to wait until the next turn and hope the lack of cards causes your opponents to start wasting mana. If that doesn’t happen, you often will not make any headway in that game.
Thoughtseize et al can be situationally the best of the options, for that reason. You cost your opponent zero tempo, but at least it only costs you one mana. If you have enough card flowing to support it, that can be great.
Of course, it takes very good judgment to use these, and so many wheels showing up in this format make it a challenge. But, I have used it in decks like Skittles, Kalitas, Skullbriar, and other such non-Blue, non-Red decks that try to shake disruption.
Basically, if you see a combo that draws the deck, you can understand that there is one of the above things that will actually end the game. I find LabManiac a little uninspired, and prefer combo-pieces that do things when drawn naturally, so my go-to is Rings of Brighthearth, Basalt Monolith for infinite mana then Blue Sun's Zenith. An arbitrarily large Zenith on the other players to deck them, Zenith goes back into library. Academy Ruins if one of the artifact pieces is gone. Time Warp effect if you already used your land drop.
I find points accumulation for ancillary objectives to be very self-defeating. What people actually want is an EDH game they don’t have to worry about abruptly ending without watching their life total gradually roll down. They don’t want a game where you get as many points for winning instead of second as you do for being the first to deal combat damage (first blood), or saving someone from an attack.
Also, negative points for undesirable behavior is just as fruitless. For even the best constructed sets of rules (which if anyone had them would probably be the format’s standard rules), there is still always collusion. That one fact makes it impossible to tie prizes to this game. Even the groups who play cEDH, and there are more than people think, have to approach the game with integrity on that point. The only way to do prizes, imo, is for participation only.
Saheeli struck me as the most powerful of all the new PW generals, with really only Lord Windgrace competing. And, she is easily the best to put into the 99 of another deck.
Compare to Elspeth, Knight-Errant. They have the same +1 ability (token types notwithstanding), and the same ability costs and starting loyalty. Elspeth’s second +1 ability is to pump a creature, with limited upfront rewards for so doing in EDH. So, most of what she is used for is creating tokens. Meanwhile, Saheeli’s does that too, with a second +1 ability that gets you something every deck in the format wants as much as it can get – mana.
Now that understood, consider that mana producing planeswalkers (Garruk 1.0, Xenagos, Freyalise) are proportionately higher valued in EDH for that reason.
Third point, most of the mana-producing PW’s are now in Green, not UR. Two of the Tezzerets, Dack Fayden when he steals an artifact, and Teferi are the only ones I can think of. And all except Teferi are not going to produce the amount of mana that Saheeli can, with Teferi costing 6.
Very good card that I look forward to slotting into a bunch of decks.
Good card. Like many Black beaters in the format, comes with a lot of punch in a small package. I have used him in a Ravos Soultender deck along with other creatures with defensive ETBs. He wasn’t top of the pack there, but was a great second fiddle to mount up pressure on my side.
Two things make him better, kill spells and recursion. Kill spells to get more energy, and recursion so you can stockpile some energy and bring him back later to use it.
I am surprised that no one has mentioned the Sword series - [c]Sword of Feast and Famine[/e] et al. Strong cards that show up a lot of places in their own right, and seem very good in this deck because you only need to get through one person. Usually one person at a 4-player table will be playing creatures of a color where you can get through them.
This card has all the signs of a format staple - tutors for something, doesn't cost 4 or more, is a creature.
I like the comparison to Trinket Mage, and know that a lot of decks run it just for Sol Ring. Cyclonic Rift is a card every Blue deck runs also, on top of Mana Drain for those who have it. Merchant Scroll is generally better, but honestly you will be packing this and any other tutor in this tier if you are playing EDH control or combo.
There are two kinds of decks, ones that need to make a land every turn until they win, and those that don’t.
Those that don’t, they are generally highly synergetic (combo) setups, where something like Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal combine, or you need no more than 4-5 mana to execute a Doomsday pile. Those decks would run about 30 or so land, and also include Mox Diamond, and generally all the Turn 1 ramp available in the format. And after about Turn 2, they don’t want to see any more land, and every card in the hand needs to be able to play, or it’s a liability.
Needless to say, most decks are not in this category. For the others, about half or more of your deck won’t be playable if you are stuck on 3 mana, to include the part of your deck that’s most capable of winning the game. That means that you need to make a land drop every turn or your chances to win start falling dramatically. With that kind of deck, the absolute lowest I would go is 33 land. But also, the closer I could get to 33 with the cards available to those colors, the better I believe the deck is likely to perform. That kind of a deck generally is not doing anything Turn 1-2, so filling those cmc’s with small draw and ramp is just better mathematically than having a steady supply of your second to last land in hand.
Point being, there is more than one way to ensure land drops than just your land count. Draw spells at 3 mana or less will help you greatly. Having more expensive draw is possible, but only if your deck has a lot of ramp cards at 3 and less mana, such that you could often use one to play a 4cmc draw spell on Turn 3 when you are needing a land. You want to be using those cards that get you better performance out of your deck in general.
Taken another way, you can generally only count on 3-4 land from your deck in the first few turns, no matter what you do. Any deck will want a 3 hand land to be otherwise keepable, and a lot of 2 land hands also, and then after your opener there is a good chance to draw only 1 or 0 lands in your first 3 or 4 cards. And for land counts in the thirties that most people run, there is not a very large magnitude of difference mathematically in how often your deck gives you a chunk of 3-4 off the top with no land. You can add or drop a land or two, and you don’t just become immune against flood or screw. Draw and tutors are really the only way to consistently get what you want from your deck.
I like Vial Smasher for this. You just need a lot of get-me-there to make Spellslinger work, I think. For Partners, I have tried both Tymna and Ravos. I think either of the Boros commanders take you in a creature-oriented direction that you are going to be thin on for support.
Tymna works, but I find that you need Evasive creatures and hexproof granting equips to get damage through blockers in metas where you would be playing this. That puts you very thin on deck space. Also, she tends to alert the table in a way that resources get pointed at you.
Ravos has impressed me a bunch so far. For spellslinger type builds, there are always token-making spells that work well with his Anthem ability, such as Secure the Wastes. In a casual non-combo EDH game, these can be some of the strongest cards White has. And, you do not have to have that many creatures in order for his Palace Siege ability to be worthwhile. If you are considering the Aikido type deck, there are creatures like Selfless Squire that do well, and are very strong when their effects can be repeated. Otherwise, just getting back the creatures like Tyrant of the Cliffs, Windborn Muse, or Guttersnipe is very rewarding of the attrition game that ensues when you are building mana count for your spell deck.
There’s an argument to be made that Library of Alexandria interacts badly with the rules of the format, specifically that every player including the player to play first also draws a card. So every time Library is in the opener, the player can lay it down, draw immediately, then discard to hand size. Turn 2, they can lay a land, then draw, so on. And even after the first spell played, the player just alternates to activating the draw ability before they play the land or cast anything. So basically a Phyrexian Arena effect from Turn 1 for a static upkeep of 1.
In duel by contrast, the player to play first can only activate the Library Turn 2 and on, and then it deactivates after the first spell played.
The multiplayer draw rules only affect the first player, but this does make Library roughly twice as good in Multi as in Duel.
That and PBtE is real when you are talking about a card that costs $1000+, makes literally 100% of all decks, and doubles early draw quality when it’s in the opener. Just not something that the format needs.
1) I am 33 years old and have been playing for many years. I was blessed to have learned from, played with, and occasionally beaten some of the greatest players in the history of the game. However, I will be the first to admit that I am not a very good deck builder or brewer. My strength is in understanding m play lines, my outs, playing my opponent as much as my deck, predicting the meta, and evaluating card quality/threats.
So, while it nice to say that I should just build my own deck, I have a long experience of mostly building unfun garbage. The best I can do is make something that would probably qualify as a 75% deck at best... yet it wouldn't have been my intention. When my goal is to build something slow and consistant, I can do that. When it comes to building something that can compete at high powered tables, I am lost... which is related to this topic.
You’re in kind of a tough spot then when it comes to the Commander format. From my experience, most players like the format because they love brewing decks. The lines of play can be very complicated also, if that is your thing, but there is also an element of brewing even for the most competitive decks, because altering 1 card of a singleton deck is something even the most refined builds have the flexibility to do.
My advice, continue to watch games until you find a deck that looks really interesting for you to pilot, then invest in getting to know that deck.
2) I know that this isn't the place to talk about deck lists, and I wanted to talk about a general topic, but please allow me to give a couple examples of what I am specofically working with: Mizzix spell combo, and Breya artifacts combo.
I like to rebuild lists from magic top 8 and primers I find on Magic Workstation. I can then use the test deck mode to draw as many test hands as I want and trust in computer shuffling and randomizing even more than my human hands and how many shuffles it takes to truly randomize a deck between games. With that, I get so many gabage hands. Hands of two lands and Mox Diamond, or five lands and the higher casting cost game winning spells that you want to curve into, but not start with. Again, forcing me to ask if I am just unlucky, or what?
Draw simulators are a great tool, and I was actually going to suggest one if you hadn’t tried it yet. But also, there can be strong perception biases. You will tend to sluff off bad results from a draw simulator as part of the game and forget about them, but then when a bad draw in real play causes you to sit idle for an hour, you will linger on the memory of that.
Or, just accept that you are cosmically unlucky and move on.
3) When I watch youtube game play and read threads, and watch other matches, I cannot help but ask, "Does nobody play with insant speed spot removal and answers?"
I noticed when people talked about how nast Narset is. I read primers and saw videos where Narset would land a fast mana rock or two so she could be cast on turn two or three, and then by turn four the game was locked up with the attack step and chaining turns and free spells. I jut thought... she is tapped out, unless she has Force of Will, someone just needed some targeted spot removal and that would have been dealt with. How did nobody at a 4 or 5 player game have an answer? Also, how often is she getting one or both of those mana rocks... like... really? I never see that kind of consistancy.
Narset has Hexproof. It is either counterspell, wipe, or let her do her thing.
To the broader point, people do run spot removal, but the chances are that you won’t draw it are as high as any other card. The deck I have run the most at cEDH pods is an Azorius deck with Grand Arbiter or Bruna, and I put up to 18 counterspells in it at various points, and most of the White spot removal. But, I still remember being frustrated with games where I either a) didn’t access even the first removal spell in time, b) stopped the first combo but could not access the second answer despite all the draw I was running, or c) did not have enough mana to cast the counterspell I drew before another player assembled insurmountable redundancy with something like Survival.
4) On the other end of the spectrum, I do hav a mono black control deck that I have a very high win ratio at my local gaming stores, but I know that has a lot to do with the lower power level of the group and slower speed of games. That is to say that when mono black is allowed to durdle into turn 5 or later, it tends to win games with a high level of consistancy.
A combination of mana production from cabal coffers, the strength of game changing spells like Myojin of Night's Reach which just wreack a table, then massive Drain Life effects or otherwise closing out games.
My instant speed removal and graveyard hate tends to stop combos in their tracks, discard wipes people clean out, and then a combo or raw beat downn with zombie tokens or big demons tends to give me a high win loss ratio... so long as I am not facing a turn 3-4 combo deck.
HOWEVER, oitside of mono black, I am swiniging in the dark in terms of deck building. I just want something interesting and different and NOT terrible. I am frutrated with my "not black" decks, and in a hobby that is supposed to be an escape has turned into a point of stress for me. My consistant failures with these decks (going back to 2015) has me consistantly just giving up and shelving them and not playing for months at a time, then digging them back out and starting the circle again.
The thing that attracts me to Mizzix is how it makes unplayable or strange cards suddenly fun and cool. I love Mystic Retrival + Runic Repitition + any instant or sorceery. I love it even more when Mizzix makes it only cost the single colored pips to cast, and I get spell triggers off of things like Guttersnipe, Young Pyromancer, Docent of Protection, or Metallurgic Summonings. I also love using Looter Jace to discard Enter the Infinite and then cast Mizzix's Mastery for a single red pip to cast EtI for free, then draw my deck, play free mana rocks, cast Lab Man and free card draw like Probe and Tezzeret's Gambit to win. In another game, I can just durdle with spells, then cast Firemind's Foresight for two mana, then Reiterate combo all at EoT.
Breya always excites me with the promise of Esper artifacts + red for goblin welder effects and other fun red splash.
Regarding the performance of Mono-Black, I for one am not surprised. Laying low under the radar and using disruption when ahead are two key ingredients of success in Commander. In my experience, mana-heavy Black decks are among the best at playing while ahead.
Mizzix is fun, sure, but is a recipe for frustration when things don’t go well. She is really easy to kill, and then the deck tends to be extremely slow without her running. Maybe for a change of pace, try a similar deck maybe adding Green or Black, that has Mixxiz in the 99 and then can tutor her out. Those colors can get her out of the grave if something happens, and winning the game with Reiterate combo is something that you can do if your creatures are all killed.
Breya is a solid deck, particularly if other players are using Zur, Arcum, or some other general-centered decks. Breya has the medicine. Her combo’s are also very lean and hard to stop.
With effects that let you put more than one land per turn into play Abundance is pretty good.
(Abundance is also very good with Sylvan Library which you should run in any green deck )
Anyhow, I was also extremely excited about Tatyova when she was first spoiled but now after thinking about a deck for her I think that she will get removed pretty often, no?
I mean even an unexperienced player will realise how powerful her abilites are.
Which means the we a) have to dedicate a lot of deck space to cards that are protecting her or b) cast her only on a combo turn.
What do you think?
I think that things that just generate value are only a target in the very early stages of the game. Pretty quickly, there is not enough removal at the table to kill all of the things that are actually melting your face off.
If it is something like Mizzix of the Izmagnus and somebody has a Sword of Fire and Ice trigger to spend, that is another story. Butin playing other generals like Rashmi, Eternities Crafter, nobody really feels compelled to launch something like a Putrefy at it, or actually spend their own resources. Especially when there are more threatening things like Skullclamp, Consecrated Sphinx or Greater Good that actually do go away for good after you kill them, rather than a general that is just going to be cast again for 2 mana more.
Now if you are trying to combo for some reason with the general itself, that’s a target. Much easier though IMO to just assemble one of Blue’s many, many options for infinite mana/draw, and use the general’s draw ability to get you into your deck faster for it.
She reminds me of Gitrog, only with Blue. People are definitely underestimating her right now. As if it needed an explanation why any deck is better with Blue.
The strongest I can think of is probably some sort of Palinchron finisher, with or without Lab Maniac. Infinite turns is also available in these colors. Pretty easy to find the strongest win conditions in the format though. Unlike Gitrog, you could literally do anything you wanted.
Seriously, playing draw pass and staring at one another until somebody draws their 1-card’er is the name of the game of cEDH. It is no coincidence that most all of the decks claiming to be the fastest are some variation of GBx. All the tutor density you can get from B, then G for the best 1 card’er in the format – Survival of the Fittest. Or if your general is the combo, then Food Chain.
So, literally 75% of your games among equal powered decks will see you drawing your combo later than somebody else, and then hoping whatever else your deck gave you was some sort of hate card against the combo that the other player has. Then the other 25%, you get to your combo first, then cross your fingers none of the other 3 players has a hate card.
It is just a strange experience for some people to be holding their cards and wondering how their super-tuned deck didn’t give them the goods sooner. In a good chunk of games too, nobody get the goods on any kind of early pace at all, and the game ends up finishing at about the same turn window that a well-built conventional deck could have decided it.
That, and variance and sample size. EDH decks are about the highest variance I can imagine in a game, and the 1+ hour long gameplay makes for the lowest sample size also. To boot, a lot of people only play EDH 2-3 times a month. All that combined, you can go months without knowing how a deck really functions. The only way to have an idea is to play for so long that you just know ahead of time what effect certain land ratios, draw densities, etc, will have.
First of all, it’s very easy to achieve. Her coming down on Turn 3 and she can ult on Turn 7 when the coast is all clear. It always seems very early in the game I’m eyeing her for the ult.
Second, it’s great as a deterrent effect. If somebody is holding a bomb like Rite of Replication, then it is tempting fate to use it as long as she is sitting at high loyalty.
And even when deliberately set up, it is not hard to play a permanent-light strategy in these colors, and then having a good chunk of spot removal instead of wipes to sculpt around the player whose stuff you want to steal. Theoretically, it could be a strong backup win-condition if somewhat reliant on an opponent not playing too much of a spell-based deck.
I will say, I have seen once or twice that I played in apprehension of a 6-loyalty Aminatou going ultimate next turn, and then for some inexplicable reason the pilot chose not to pull the trigger. A couple may have been to avoid causing an unpleasant experience, but others I suspect the pilot may have just missed it. I know one player in particular whose deck seems to have Approach of the Second Sun as the main win condition, they often pass up on the ult.
There is also the tempo cost to you. The more impact, the more mana you pay, but generally you will still have zero tempo impact with discard. Even with Mindslicer and Sire of Insanity, you have to wait until the next turn and hope the lack of cards causes your opponents to start wasting mana. If that doesn’t happen, you often will not make any headway in that game.
Thoughtseize et al can be situationally the best of the options, for that reason. You cost your opponent zero tempo, but at least it only costs you one mana. If you have enough card flowing to support it, that can be great.
Of course, it takes very good judgment to use these, and so many wheels showing up in this format make it a challenge. But, I have used it in decks like Skittles, Kalitas, Skullbriar, and other such non-Blue, non-Red decks that try to shake disruption.
Also, negative points for undesirable behavior is just as fruitless. For even the best constructed sets of rules (which if anyone had them would probably be the format’s standard rules), there is still always collusion. That one fact makes it impossible to tie prizes to this game. Even the groups who play cEDH, and there are more than people think, have to approach the game with integrity on that point. The only way to do prizes, imo, is for participation only.
Compare to Elspeth, Knight-Errant. They have the same +1 ability (token types notwithstanding), and the same ability costs and starting loyalty. Elspeth’s second +1 ability is to pump a creature, with limited upfront rewards for so doing in EDH. So, most of what she is used for is creating tokens. Meanwhile, Saheeli’s does that too, with a second +1 ability that gets you something every deck in the format wants as much as it can get – mana.
Now that understood, consider that mana producing planeswalkers (Garruk 1.0, Xenagos, Freyalise) are proportionately higher valued in EDH for that reason.
Third point, most of the mana-producing PW’s are now in Green, not UR. Two of the Tezzerets, Dack Fayden when he steals an artifact, and Teferi are the only ones I can think of. And all except Teferi are not going to produce the amount of mana that Saheeli can, with Teferi costing 6.
Very good card that I look forward to slotting into a bunch of decks.
Two things make him better, kill spells and recursion. Kill spells to get more energy, and recursion so you can stockpile some energy and bring him back later to use it.
I am surprised that no one has mentioned the Sword series - [c]Sword of Feast and Famine[/e] et al. Strong cards that show up a lot of places in their own right, and seem very good in this deck because you only need to get through one person. Usually one person at a 4-player table will be playing creatures of a color where you can get through them.
Also, Mutavault seems great in here.
I like the comparison to Trinket Mage, and know that a lot of decks run it just for Sol Ring. Cyclonic Rift is a card every Blue deck runs also, on top of Mana Drain for those who have it. Merchant Scroll is generally better, but honestly you will be packing this and any other tutor in this tier if you are playing EDH control or combo.
Those that don’t, they are generally highly synergetic (combo) setups, where something like Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal combine, or you need no more than 4-5 mana to execute a Doomsday pile. Those decks would run about 30 or so land, and also include Mox Diamond, and generally all the Turn 1 ramp available in the format. And after about Turn 2, they don’t want to see any more land, and every card in the hand needs to be able to play, or it’s a liability.
Needless to say, most decks are not in this category. For the others, about half or more of your deck won’t be playable if you are stuck on 3 mana, to include the part of your deck that’s most capable of winning the game. That means that you need to make a land drop every turn or your chances to win start falling dramatically. With that kind of deck, the absolute lowest I would go is 33 land. But also, the closer I could get to 33 with the cards available to those colors, the better I believe the deck is likely to perform. That kind of a deck generally is not doing anything Turn 1-2, so filling those cmc’s with small draw and ramp is just better mathematically than having a steady supply of your second to last land in hand.
Point being, there is more than one way to ensure land drops than just your land count. Draw spells at 3 mana or less will help you greatly. Having more expensive draw is possible, but only if your deck has a lot of ramp cards at 3 and less mana, such that you could often use one to play a 4cmc draw spell on Turn 3 when you are needing a land. You want to be using those cards that get you better performance out of your deck in general.
Taken another way, you can generally only count on 3-4 land from your deck in the first few turns, no matter what you do. Any deck will want a 3 hand land to be otherwise keepable, and a lot of 2 land hands also, and then after your opener there is a good chance to draw only 1 or 0 lands in your first 3 or 4 cards. And for land counts in the thirties that most people run, there is not a very large magnitude of difference mathematically in how often your deck gives you a chunk of 3-4 off the top with no land. You can add or drop a land or two, and you don’t just become immune against flood or screw. Draw and tutors are really the only way to consistently get what you want from your deck.
Tymna works, but I find that you need Evasive creatures and hexproof granting equips to get damage through blockers in metas where you would be playing this. That puts you very thin on deck space. Also, she tends to alert the table in a way that resources get pointed at you.
Ravos has impressed me a bunch so far. For spellslinger type builds, there are always token-making spells that work well with his Anthem ability, such as Secure the Wastes. In a casual non-combo EDH game, these can be some of the strongest cards White has. And, you do not have to have that many creatures in order for his Palace Siege ability to be worthwhile. If you are considering the Aikido type deck, there are creatures like Selfless Squire that do well, and are very strong when their effects can be repeated. Otherwise, just getting back the creatures like Tyrant of the Cliffs, Windborn Muse, or Guttersnipe is very rewarding of the attrition game that ensues when you are building mana count for your spell deck.
In duel by contrast, the player to play first can only activate the Library Turn 2 and on, and then it deactivates after the first spell played.
The multiplayer draw rules only affect the first player, but this does make Library roughly twice as good in Multi as in Duel.
That and PBtE is real when you are talking about a card that costs $1000+, makes literally 100% of all decks, and doubles early draw quality when it’s in the opener. Just not something that the format needs.
You’re in kind of a tough spot then when it comes to the Commander format. From my experience, most players like the format because they love brewing decks. The lines of play can be very complicated also, if that is your thing, but there is also an element of brewing even for the most competitive decks, because altering 1 card of a singleton deck is something even the most refined builds have the flexibility to do.
My advice, continue to watch games until you find a deck that looks really interesting for you to pilot, then invest in getting to know that deck.
Draw simulators are a great tool, and I was actually going to suggest one if you hadn’t tried it yet. But also, there can be strong perception biases. You will tend to sluff off bad results from a draw simulator as part of the game and forget about them, but then when a bad draw in real play causes you to sit idle for an hour, you will linger on the memory of that.
Or, just accept that you are cosmically unlucky and move on.
Narset has Hexproof. It is either counterspell, wipe, or let her do her thing.
To the broader point, people do run spot removal, but the chances are that you won’t draw it are as high as any other card. The deck I have run the most at cEDH pods is an Azorius deck with Grand Arbiter or Bruna, and I put up to 18 counterspells in it at various points, and most of the White spot removal. But, I still remember being frustrated with games where I either a) didn’t access even the first removal spell in time, b) stopped the first combo but could not access the second answer despite all the draw I was running, or c) did not have enough mana to cast the counterspell I drew before another player assembled insurmountable redundancy with something like Survival.
Regarding the performance of Mono-Black, I for one am not surprised. Laying low under the radar and using disruption when ahead are two key ingredients of success in Commander. In my experience, mana-heavy Black decks are among the best at playing while ahead.
Mizzix is fun, sure, but is a recipe for frustration when things don’t go well. She is really easy to kill, and then the deck tends to be extremely slow without her running. Maybe for a change of pace, try a similar deck maybe adding Green or Black, that has Mixxiz in the 99 and then can tutor her out. Those colors can get her out of the grave if something happens, and winning the game with Reiterate combo is something that you can do if your creatures are all killed.
Breya is a solid deck, particularly if other players are using Zur, Arcum, or some other general-centered decks. Breya has the medicine. Her combo’s are also very lean and hard to stop.
I think that things that just generate value are only a target in the very early stages of the game. Pretty quickly, there is not enough removal at the table to kill all of the things that are actually melting your face off.
If it is something like Mizzix of the Izmagnus and somebody has a Sword of Fire and Ice trigger to spend, that is another story. Butin playing other generals like Rashmi, Eternities Crafter, nobody really feels compelled to launch something like a Putrefy at it, or actually spend their own resources. Especially when there are more threatening things like Skullclamp, Consecrated Sphinx or Greater Good that actually do go away for good after you kill them, rather than a general that is just going to be cast again for 2 mana more.
Now if you are trying to combo for some reason with the general itself, that’s a target. Much easier though IMO to just assemble one of Blue’s many, many options for infinite mana/draw, and use the general’s draw ability to get you into your deck faster for it.
The strongest I can think of is probably some sort of Palinchron finisher, with or without Lab Maniac. Infinite turns is also available in these colors. Pretty easy to find the strongest win conditions in the format though. Unlike Gitrog, you could literally do anything you wanted.
Also for fun, cards like Wave of Vitriol and Scapeshift are things you want to check out.
Seriously, playing draw pass and staring at one another until somebody draws their 1-card’er is the name of the game of cEDH. It is no coincidence that most all of the decks claiming to be the fastest are some variation of GBx. All the tutor density you can get from B, then G for the best 1 card’er in the format – Survival of the Fittest. Or if your general is the combo, then Food Chain.
So, literally 75% of your games among equal powered decks will see you drawing your combo later than somebody else, and then hoping whatever else your deck gave you was some sort of hate card against the combo that the other player has. Then the other 25%, you get to your combo first, then cross your fingers none of the other 3 players has a hate card.
It is just a strange experience for some people to be holding their cards and wondering how their super-tuned deck didn’t give them the goods sooner. In a good chunk of games too, nobody get the goods on any kind of early pace at all, and the game ends up finishing at about the same turn window that a well-built conventional deck could have decided it.
That, and variance and sample size. EDH decks are about the highest variance I can imagine in a game, and the 1+ hour long gameplay makes for the lowest sample size also. To boot, a lot of people only play EDH 2-3 times a month. All that combined, you can go months without knowing how a deck really functions. The only way to have an idea is to play for so long that you just know ahead of time what effect certain land ratios, draw densities, etc, will have.