MTG Salvation

Generally I think it's less about surprise and more about keeping your game reactive. Sure, that guy with 8 5/6 plant tokens off avenger of zendikar is threatening, but if he's not swinging at you, what's the harm? You can wait until absolutely necessary to wipe the board, or even threaten a wipe to coerce him to attack other people. Generally I would say the cost is worth it, but it's a meta call. Really fast decks might necessitate very fast answers, so *** might surpass rout in that case.

Quote from Moxnix

This thread makes no sense to me and I'm fairly certain I know exactly what you mean .
A) how is knowing this magical number going to help you collect them?
B) how are we not just pissing in the wind here who would take the time to go through every card and pass judgement and EVERY card would be disagreed on.
C) other than the guy who linked some weak stats where are we pulling these number other than our butts?
D) proportions if I want 70% of my deck to be tutors and my mana barrier is 15 diabolic tutor seems pretty optimal... But now you tell me my goal or strategy can't be cat tribal do you see the contradiction here?? Not competitive only but not noob is a pretty crap criteria for "optimal" and your line is not a Line at all ..,

A) Well I already mostly did, now. I just wanted to estimate what I was getting myself into.
B) You could estimate. Or take a statistical sample. Or look at every card. pick one.
C) I did go through every card, usually multiple times, ergo I'd say my number is pretty reliable at this point. But if you don't want to go to that trouble, see above.
D) You're going to need to edit that before I can really tell what you're saying, but mostly my point was to avoid people that say "I want to make a game of thrones theme deck, ergo X card is needed because it looks like geoffrey!" or "I want to make angel tribal (even though there are no angels that give bonuses exclusively to other angels (ok, arguably herald of war but that's hardly a deck), which sorta defeats the purpose of a 'tribe'), ergo X crappy angel is needed!".

Generally speaking, I'd include any strategy that has a general to support it. So cat tribal actually sort of works, with raksha. Angel tribal doesn't, though, because there aren't any commanders that give bonuses to angels (unless you count kaalia, but there's no reason not to use demons and dragons in that deck too, so sticking with angels only wouldn't be optimal). Obviously the line will always be sort of blurry with what strategy a commander supports, but I think if people actually look at the list of legends we'd probably come to similar results.

a few examples:
bruna, light of alabaster - supports aura voltron and self-mill in her colors, which in turn supports enchantress and recursion.
cabal patriarch - supports tokens, easily reusable creatures, and self-mill in his color.
cao ren, wei commander - supports voltron in his colors.

Obviously there's a lot of overlap.

Quote from Jusstice

I think that your collection @4000 cards is probably the most complete I've ever heard of. Well done and Congratulations.

just to be clear, 4000 is the number I want, eventually. Currently I'm at about 2000, with 1600 coming in the mail this week.

I'm still missing a lot of the most expensive ones, though, including imperial seal, workshop, timetwister, ravages of war, bazaar, capture, etc. So $-wise I'm probably only like 1/2 way there, sadly. Most of the really high-end ones aren't super gamechangers or anything, though, like ravages is just a duplicate for geddon and seal is a duplicate for vamp, etc.

Quote from JWK

It's cool you're still working on this. And as I said before, I'm not surprised that the number you come up with is larger than many would have anticipated.

I think the number from the first pass was in the 2000-2500 range, but there were a lot of unexpected entries for niche generals. It did give me a lot of wacky deck ideas, though, like an arcane the unspeakable deck, hua tuo, honored physician with call of the wild effects, or reveka, wizard savant with a ton of untappers, etc. So I'm looking forward to building some truly stupid stuff.

Quote from Wolfman

-For one, I don't run shocks or fetches. I am well aware of their power and how they thin out the deck, but I still find it very limiting to have my nonbasics provide only two different colors. My one five-color deck is heavy on multicolored spells, and a full contingent of two-color lands is still no guarantee for getting the colors you need. I always picture horror scenarios where you topdeck one of your pricey Hallowed Fountain when all you need is one more R to cast that Dragon. Having 10-20 lands in my deck dealing damage to me is also something I can do without.

See, here's where you're dead wrong though. While shocks and duals only produce 2 colors (hence why I usually limit my inclusion of them), fetches produce ANY (one) color (plus another that has to be of those 2). Drawing a dual, or especially a shock, is kind of "eh" in 5-color, but fetches are gods among men.

Also, it's kind of ridiculous to say "etbt is a no-no" and then recommend rupture spire. That's like...double etbt. I would run mirrodin's core over rupture spire in a second, ditto for any of the vivids. And I wouldn't run any of those.

wooooo necroing my own thread!!!!

In case anyone is curious, I've got a pretty good estimate based on actual factual data instead of half-assed guesses.

First, I looked at every card ever printed, and selected all the cards that looked generically good enough to play.
Then, I looked at every legendary creature and determined which sorts of strategies they would gravitate towards, and did targeted searches for cards that fit those strategies.
And yes, this process took a really, really long time, hence the necro.

Anyway, ultimately my number is around 4000 cards. I probably missed a few, and I definitely included a lot that are probably borderline playable in, like, one bad deck (such as a bunch of the druids I selected for Seton), but I'm giving 4000 as my final number. And as of next week or so, I'll have about 3600 of them, sleeved, ready to make any EDH deck under the sun. And it only cost me my sanity.

Oh, and, like, a lot of money too. Also the money.

Quote from TerminusEdge

I think the biggest pro for Strip Mine and Tectonic Edge is that they don't cost upwards of $100.

That's all I really have to say on the matter.

I'm talking purely in terms of effectiveness, not budget. Everyone's budget is going to be different, so there's no way to have a useful discussion on the matter.

I'm curious how people feel about rishadan port, especially in comparison to the other land-slaying lands.

Here's how I'd break it down:

LD lands:
+stop them from using the land entirely (they can't just always use it in response, at least not after the first time, which makes it much more effective vs volrath's stronghold, for example).
+can be recurred for value with lftl/crucible.
+don't encourage people to kill you to stop you from tapping down their land, and it works better as a rattlesnake.
+requires less investment to deal with a land (arguably not true of tec edge, although at least once it's been used you don't need to keep investing more mana)

port:
+doesn't slow your own mana development
+you can change targets (i.e. stop targeting cradle after a wrath, and start targeting coffers instead)

Are there any other factors to consider? Which do people generally prefer? I use strip mine is almost all my decks, and wasteland in some of them, but I haven't actually gone about acquiring a port or felt like I needed one. But maybe that's just my wallet talking.

Quote from cryogen

Quote from atlas_hugged

Quote from Sinfire Titan

Those situations are so few and far between that it makes very little difference. Remember that when comparing two things that involve variable factors you are supposed to compare the averages, not the extremes.

Then it isn't strictly better. Just off the top of my head, excommunicate is playable in a Gaddock Teeg meta and Unexpectedly absent isn't. The fact that some situations exist is enough that the term strictly better doesn't apply.

Well the generally accepted definition of 'strictly better' is that in most normal instances card A is better than card B. The fact that there are corner-case scenarios does not mean that the term does not apply. In this case, the fact that Absent is one less cmc, can hit any nonland permanent, and is instant speed makes the card much better.

Costing one less W isn't a "corner case". Anyone who plays limited knows there's a big difference in reliability between one and two specifically-colored mana.

Look, excommunicate is certainly worse than unexpectedly absent, no one is going to disagree with that. You can say "better", you can say "a LOT better", you can say "a holy crapton of a lot better than that stupid piece of crap", but it is simply not STRICTLY better. While excommunicate is inferior in every other way, it IS more flexible in its cost.

And if I was in a draft that...somehow...had both those cards in the pack, and I was splashing white for removal...I'd probably take excommunicate over unexpectedly absent (or at least think about it) for that reason. But this is EDH, and I spend irresponsible amounts of money on lands, so sure, WW in a 5-color deck, no problemo.

That aside, though, it's still not STRICTLY better. So stop using that word. It's just better, not strictly better.

As I think some have said, I like having a big box-o'-EDH from which I build all my decks. All the cards are sleeved in black dragon shields. My goal is to get every playable card in the format eventually. (playable meaning it fits in an optimized or mostly optimized decklist) Right now I'm at around 2K, but I'm getting 1650+ more this week (with a corresponding number of sleeves). Unfortunately, the ones I have left to buy range from a few bucks to OMFGBBQ levels of expensive. Especially for stuff like Nether Void which fits into, like, 2 decks in the format and costs 150 or so...it's sort of a bummer. I just keep the decklists together, so i can work on an old deck if I'm feeling nostalgic.

Anyway, I also think it's worth keeping one deck together at all times, so you have options. I have zirilan of the claw for this purpose - he's reasonably strong, kind of silly, and no one gets THAT mad when you win by obliterating them with armies of dragons. I also keep together a pauper wirewood symbiote, for pauper games and also against some regular EDH decks...it's got a surprisingly strong record (although it's pretty vulnerable to wraths, since it's not really made to play against them given how few are in pauper). Plus it's super cheap to keep together.

So between one stable deck, one rotating deck, and one pauper deck, I usually have my bases covered for most playgroups. Not sure if that idea works for you, but it's worked for me. I can't recommend rotating on the fly, though, it tends to take longer than you want it to, and it's annoying to wait.

I was never pleased with deputy of acquittals. whitemane lion is decent but deputy is just too conditional for too little benefit to be useful imo.

I'm going to recommend the INCREDIBLY OVERPOWERED (in this deck but literally zero other decks) saltskitter. Brimaz is also rad, as is hero of bladehold, and thraben doomsayer.

Quote from Sinfire Titan

Quote from Donald

I'm not arguing at all that Excommunicate isn't bad, that Unexpectedly Absent isn't good or anything like that just that UA isn't strictly better since you could run into a situation where you need to Time Ebb a dude and you don't have WW.

Those situations are so few and far between that it makes very little difference. Remember that when comparing two things that involve variable factors you are supposed to compare the averages, not the extremes.

That's when a card is just "better". Strictly better = better in all situations.

I wouldn't say there's any card that's better in ALL situations than another - sure, lightning bolt > shock 99.9% of the time, but what if you're at 3 and have a near-death experience on the field? Or what if your opponent is targeting your wingsteed rider with a last breath?

Anyway, I could forgive someone for saying lightning bolt is strictly better than shock since it requires specific card interactions to not be superior. But certainly in a budgety 5c deck, excommunicate could be a lot easier to cast.

Don't get me wrong, unexpectedly absent >>>>>>> excommunicate, but it's not STRICTLY superior.

Quote from cryogen

Quote from Rochester_

Derevi was my first Commander, and she is a little toughie lol. You want to cute her off from her own combos as fast as you can. Make sure you cut her off from Opal Palaceas soon as you can. I remember people would stop me with Iona, Shield of Emeria, Nevermoreis another good one. You just gotta be fats with heer and stop those tutors. I play with crazy Prossh players so they usualy got to me before I got to them with her lol

What is the interaction with Opal Palace? You don't cast her, so this will only produce colorless mana.

lol, also using nevermore against derevi seems like a massive waste of time, and Iona is unlikely to be a big problem vs a 3-color deck with removal is at least 2 colors (plus beast within). Pretty amusing post, though.

all that single-shot stuff is for peasants. And trying to get a body tacked onto your reanimation is sort of silly since it'll just get blown up. Anyway, here's your best-of-the-best from years of tuning handed to you on a platter.

corpse dance - the best. If you think child ever gets exiled you obviously have no idea how to build a child of alara deck. Get yourself a phyrexian tower, high market, and diamond valley (or miren, the moaning well if you're some kind of peasant) and nuke it up. Also maybe boseiju who shelters all because people are going to throw every counterspell they own at you for being excessively awesome. With a sac outlet and boseiju it's borderline impossible to stop.
gift of immortality - cheaper than corpse dance, but more fragile.
emeria, the sky ruin - requires a 1000+ dollar manabase, and lftl, ideally fetched off intuition. Alternately, a crappy manabase and a bunch of janky ramp or something.
genesis - expensive, but recurs other goodies, sometimes gets dredged, easy to fetch off entomb, and requires a different kind of hate from the other stuff.
volrath's stronghold - also expensive, also requires different sorts of removal to combat. Diversity is the key to success. Find the weak point of your enemies' countermeasures and abuse it.

honorable mentions:
fool's demise - got replaced by gift of immortality
diabolic servitude - gradually ratchets up child's cost, but it doesn't die and you can nuke twice for every time you put child in the CZ, so it's not awful.
recurring nightmare - if they ever unban this card, I'll have to clean myself up with a mop.

Be warned, though, this deck doesn't make friends.

-day of destiny: i only have a handful of legends, and they're not who i want to pump.
-caged sun: the mana boost probably isn't necessary and 6 mana is a lot.
-tithe: it's a good card, probably it should go in.
-terrain generator: I don't see it ramping me where i need it (mostly from 1 to 3 is where I want to go).