If you want to play more infinite combo stuff you can play Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind as your Commander who wins if enchanted with Curiosity or Ophidian Eye. The Locust God also works well with all those draw effects that where already mentioned.
Had a blast at the Prerelease in my local gamestore today, had a crazy good deck with The Scarab God among other things. I also opened an Invocation Counterspell. Went 3-1, wich was second place and the only games I lost where because of flood and screw respectively (and even those games where close).
But now the reason for wich I'm posting, I want your opionions. I also pulled a Dreamstealer today, wich already made the list, switched it in for Liliana's Specter. But I am also wondering what other stuff I should put in. I opened Bontu's last Reckoning and recently picked up a Fire Covenant and I think both are good playables. I put in Attrition recently but couldn't play it that often till now, but the one time I had it out it was good. But maybe I could try one of the other mentioned cards instead?
Other cards I want to try are Whip of Erebos and The Scarab God because I think both give me more options in the lategame. But I don't know what to cut, I don't really want to increase my mana curve. The most expensive cards in my deck are Decree of Erebos, Living Death, Voldaren Pariah, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Puppeteer Clique, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Urabrask the Hidden, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Flayer of the Hatebound. And of those I only really consider Voldaren Pariah and Living Death as possible cuts, also Faerie Artisans, I couldn't play it very often till now but it hasn't really done much for me yet the times that I could get it out.
What are your experiences and opinions? And what are your cool prerelease stories?
I wouldn't play Tolaria West. With transmute costing 3 mana it's really slow and a land that comes into play tapped is really not what an aggro deck wants.
Dreamstealer
2B
Menace
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, that player discards that many cards.
Eternalize
1/2
Not bad.
This made me do a search for creatures that have similar effects and would scale well with +1/+1 counters on them. Besides the Cephalid Constable that Tev already mentioned and that I am also still testing, there are a lot of creatures that are powerful but too expensive imho. The few interesting ones that are not that expensive are Needle Specter and Grenzo's Ruffians. The Specter is kinda the same as Dreamstealer. I think I will probably exchange my Lilianas Specter for Dreamstealer, because of the Wizards synergies and potential lategame option with Eternalize.
Grenzo's Ruffians is powerful, but not what the deck wants. Our deck is made to only attack a single player each combat to get the +1/+1-counters and also not damage and dethrone multiple player's at once.
Other interesting cards are Shocker and it's big brother Barbed Shocker, wich can disrupt your opponents or help them depending on their cards in hand and their draws. I like the effect of Barbed Shocker better, but not its mana cost.
What does everyone else think?
Yes, exiling a creature and returning it to the battlefield means it enters the battlefield (from exile). That will cause Ephara to trigger during the next upkeep, no matter how long you controlled that creature before you blinked it.
Hi there, I haven't kept in touch with the deck for quite a while but I think that as a one-of Cartouche of Strenght could be ok, especially with an Open the Armory in the deck. Back when OtA was new people tried Gelid Shackles, what are your opinions on the card? Better than Cartouche as a removal? Is Gelid Shackles an alternative to Path to Exile?
Your list looks pretty standard except you switched out Chromatic Stars for Somber Hoverguard. I just recently started to play Pauper and haven't played that many games with Affinity yet, but putting in more colored spells with affinity but cutting artifacts and mana fixing for them is a bad idea. Chromatic Star is super important to the deck imho and for several reasons: It fixes mana, it makes the deck flow better because of the card draw and it is a cheap artifact, wich gives the deck quick starts together with Frogmite, Myr Enforcer and early Metalcraft.
I see you removed Sultai Emissary from your list. I just added it to mine, because I wanted to lower my curve and it seemed a nice fit for the deck. It reminds me of Treasure Keeper and Matter Reshaper. I couldn't test it yet but I am excited to do so.
There are other cards in your list like Helm of Possession or Death Render that fit the deck well, but I am always reluctant to cut creatures from the deck.
Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist is like Edric, Spymaster of Trest except that he only draws one card. But if a player wants to hurt you they can still do so and also draw a card if they hit an opponent with at least one creature, Edric gives people a good reason to go all in on another player. People usually don't want to hit us, because that lets us dethrone someone and Ludevic could reinforce the decision to attack another playere, not sure...?
I guess Ludevic will make people attack more often with a single guy, rather than keep that one for blocking or makes them rather attack someone other than us if the are unsure. But I am not sure If I want to play him? As Central Command said, he let's opponents draw cards. He is a bit better than Howling Mine but how often do I put that card into my decks?
Shreds of Sanity: This card is used by other Zada players as more of a toolbox piece. It can recover an instant and/or sorcery that was exiled for whatever reason and return it to your hand. This is great for recovering Mizzix's Mastery or for getting an important arcane card into your hand when using cards like Spark of Creativity.
Read that card again. It's still a good card to have.
And just reducing the overall cost of artifacts. My friend had a spare Mycosynth Golem and Mycosynth Lattice, so we also tossed in March of the Machines and paired it with a Darksteel Forge. In case you're scratching your head, this makes all lands artifacts (with lattice). Then All artifacts become artifact creatures with power and toughness equal to cmc (MotM). Then Darksteel Forge makes all your artifacts indestructible. All your lands survive, all of their lands are blown away. then you just continue to turn and burn with Marchesa.
The combination of Mycosynth Lattice and March of the Machines turns all lands into 0/0 creatures and a creature with a thoughness of 0 dies, even if it's indestructible. If you want your lands to stay on the battlefield you need to give them +X/+1 somehow. But destroying all lands and preventing further landdrops is still a good way too win a game if you are already ahead on board.
About Panharmonicon: I thought it would surely be great in this deck and then I looked through it and realized only 17 cards in my deck synergize with it. I am not sure if that is enough for me. But I also didn't get around to update my deck with new cards or even playtest any. So maybe Panharmonicon gets more useful in the future.
during my research i found Doomed Necromancer isn't that just a great card in this deck? With so many ETB triggers and the creature toolbox approach it seems like a perfect piece of glue.
The biggest problem with Doomed Necromancer is, that it needs to tap to reanimate something. This means that you have to choose between attacking and getting a +1/+1 counter on him or reanimating something. Having him attack for the counter and reanimate the next turn is incredibly slow. This is the reason that almost no creatures with tap-abilities make it into the deck.
Had a blast at the Prerelease in my local gamestore today, had a crazy good deck with The Scarab God among other things. I also opened an Invocation Counterspell. Went 3-1, wich was second place and the only games I lost where because of flood and screw respectively (and even those games where close).
But now the reason for wich I'm posting, I want your opionions. I also pulled a Dreamstealer today, wich already made the list, switched it in for Liliana's Specter. But I am also wondering what other stuff I should put in. I opened Bontu's last Reckoning and recently picked up a Fire Covenant and I think both are good playables. I put in Attrition recently but couldn't play it that often till now, but the one time I had it out it was good. But maybe I could try one of the other mentioned cards instead?
Other cards I want to try are Whip of Erebos and The Scarab God because I think both give me more options in the lategame. But I don't know what to cut, I don't really want to increase my mana curve. The most expensive cards in my deck are Decree of Erebos, Living Death, Voldaren Pariah, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Puppeteer Clique, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Urabrask the Hidden, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Flayer of the Hatebound. And of those I only really consider Voldaren Pariah and Living Death as possible cuts, also Faerie Artisans, I couldn't play it very often till now but it hasn't really done much for me yet the times that I could get it out.
What are your experiences and opinions? And what are your cool prerelease stories?
Are your refering to Razaketh?
This made me do a search for creatures that have similar effects and would scale well with +1/+1 counters on them. Besides the Cephalid Constable that Tev already mentioned and that I am also still testing, there are a lot of creatures that are powerful but too expensive imho. The few interesting ones that are not that expensive are Needle Specter and Grenzo's Ruffians. The Specter is kinda the same as Dreamstealer. I think I will probably exchange my Lilianas Specter for Dreamstealer, because of the Wizards synergies and potential lategame option with Eternalize.
Grenzo's Ruffians is powerful, but not what the deck wants. Our deck is made to only attack a single player each combat to get the +1/+1-counters and also not damage and dethrone multiple player's at once.
Other interesting cards are Shocker and it's big brother Barbed Shocker, wich can disrupt your opponents or help them depending on their cards in hand and their draws. I like the effect of Barbed Shocker better, but not its mana cost.
What does everyone else think?
Why so complicated? Trinket Mage is a card most lists play and besides Walking Ballista it also fetches silver bullets like Relic of Progenitus or Pithing Needle.
Your list looks pretty standard except you switched out Chromatic Stars for Somber Hoverguard. I just recently started to play Pauper and haven't played that many games with Affinity yet, but putting in more colored spells with affinity but cutting artifacts and mana fixing for them is a bad idea. Chromatic Star is super important to the deck imho and for several reasons: It fixes mana, it makes the deck flow better because of the card draw and it is a cheap artifact, wich gives the deck quick starts together with Frogmite, Myr Enforcer and early Metalcraft.
There are other cards in your list like Helm of Possession or Death Render that fit the deck well, but I am always reluctant to cut creatures from the deck.
Other than that the only card coming to my mind right now is Dragon-Style Twins.
I guess Ludevic will make people attack more often with a single guy, rather than keep that one for blocking or makes them rather attack someone other than us if the are unsure. But I am not sure If I want to play him? As Central Command said, he let's opponents draw cards. He is a bit better than Howling Mine but how often do I put that card into my decks?
Read that card again. It's still a good card to have.
The combination of Mycosynth Lattice and March of the Machines turns all lands into 0/0 creatures and a creature with a thoughness of 0 dies, even if it's indestructible. If you want your lands to stay on the battlefield you need to give them +X/+1 somehow. But destroying all lands and preventing further landdrops is still a good way too win a game if you are already ahead on board.
The biggest problem with Doomed Necromancer is, that it needs to tap to reanimate something. This means that you have to choose between attacking and getting a +1/+1 counter on him or reanimating something. Having him attack for the counter and reanimate the next turn is incredibly slow. This is the reason that almost no creatures with tap-abilities make it into the deck.