I didn't include them because we don't do infinites in our playgroup. The person who does usually gets excluded. We usually would go "Ok, you win. We'll play for second." I would definitely include both the altar and ironworks if that wasn't the case and just go rambo on the infinites.
The minion reflector definitely has issues right now, since the only gimmick with it is that I copy myr battlesphere with it and swing immediately for a quick burn to the dome. I will probably replace it with conjurer's bauble. I do usually get access to tons of mana due to how the deck can always find birthing pod one way or another into crypt ghast into whatever else I'd need. Primeval bounty allows future artifacts played to buff glissa as an alternate win condition (it also grants life gain for lands, which this deck absolutely needs to sustain itself from its passive early game, should I be sitting beside an aggressive neighbour who can ignore glissa). The reason why I run mirrorworks is that it combos with panharmonicon for extreme value (though you'd need to have 4 mana open when you play panharmonicon after mirrorworks to copy it twice, thus quadrupling your ETB effects from that point on). It's a comboish interaction that I'm not willing to part with. I don't usually play them from my hand anyway since I grab them with kuldotha forgemaster (though if I have it in my hand, I will do what I can to have crypt ghast in play first to help with the mana, even if it means sacrificing glissa to pod). Palace Siege is for recycling with pod, should I have it out.
When I look at a card in a green black deck I am thinking if I top deck this later in the game is it good. In the case of my deck, is it good or does it draw a card OR does it synergise with my commander I always have access too. The exceptions are removal which are a nessasity, I'd never go anywhere without a krosan grip, perhaps your meta has much less blue counterspell decks but without it people will combo out on you.
Admittedly, the deck does take time to set up, since the center-piece is birthing pod (and the deck was designed to have as many ways as possible to tutor it). But from my perspective, glissa is more of a "grinder," thus she wants to outvalue the opponents via card advantage. She is more of a utility general, but artifact win cons for edh aren't all that common. They're powerful supports painted with targets on them, but very rarely would they be the nail in the coffin if you're playing non-infinites (for multiplayers at least, though I try to have as many of those high impact artifact creatures as I could). My playgroup doesn't have counterspell users, so krosan grip is a little heavy for artifact/enchantment removal. I do have it on the side in case. There are only a few cards I'd rather not see mid-late game, but the ones that I wouldn't want to see are usually my ramp stuff. Besides, our playgroup usually likes a slow game because that's where the interesting magic stories happen.
Edit 2: On the subject of top-decking, I really hate that situation, so I avoid it as much as possible, especially when you have fewer chances to actually draw your outs. Magic is a card game that basically has a third of your deck be "dead" draws late game because of lands. So I think that excluding cards based on that scenario isn't that great. Cards in all our decks all have a function and an optimal time to draw them, it's what we design our decks to be like in an optimal situation. However, this is not standard, and in a 99 card deck, consistency isn't as likely. So you have to design a portion of your deck to be powerful support cards with a huge upside, and some catchup or lead extending effects (such as ramp/card draw/card advantage). There will always be optimal times for everything, and there will be mistimed things (such as being a mana off casting a crucial card). So what I'm trying to say is, my deck-building philosophy is that we can't design everything around that top-decking moment.
So I have a Panharmonicon out. Now I play Cloud Key. Can I choose 2 different types and have both card types reduced by cloud key?
Also, from my understanding, even if the typing applies twice (ie: artifact and creature), the total cost is still only reduced by 1, correct?
Edit: Nvm, sorry, I just looked at the other panharmonicon thread and saw the rulings about the "as X enters the battlefield" not applying for Panharmonicon. I think that solves the issue if that's the case.
When you look at my decklist, you should immediately notice that there is no viridian longbow, thornbite staff or the like. I feel like those equipments are too costly to play + equip, and they slow you down more often than help. The general idea of the deck is to draw/tutor out birthing pod into more tutor/engines. Setting up is definitely an issue and takes time, but Glissa will usually stave off aggression herself because of her first strike and deathtouch making people think twice before attacking (especially if you have reusable trinkets in the yard or ready to pop). I will usually be able to stall long enough to get one of my engines going to search for birthing pod and start things rolling. With the addition of Kaladesh cards, I feel like Glissa got tons of love from that set, especially in an alternate finisher in Marionnette Master, who can slowly (or quickly if you have Panharmonicon out) start draining people away. Once she's out, she's generally going to wreak tons of havoc, especially if they try to board wipe. Note that I generally play in a 4+ player EDH group, and our decks usually start ramping up pressure in mid game, so you can get away with playing little early on (bar the people sitting beside the elf ball), we also discourage those infinite combos.
Mirrorworks (heaven forbid you have this out before bringing in the Panharmonicon and effectively making 3 of them since it procs the entrance trigger twice) or Minion Reflector has lots of funny shenanigans going on here. Things get really silly, really fast...and glissa can usually bring all the silliness back should it get broken.
And to make suggestion to Mercury's deck: Try adding in creatures. As a pod deck, you really want to be able to find your creatures to start the chain. Your high end seems to be fine, but you lack lower end creatures to start the chain. Also, I really dislike 1 for 1 instants unless they target a permanent, but even then, 1 for 1 isn't exactly the greatest in multiplayer commander. You'd rather have something they need to clear than you clearing their stuff.
Edit: To add onto helping Mercury's deck, try removing the following: Garruk Wildspeaker (it really doesn't help glissa that much, it's a 4 mana ramp more, or spew 3 tokens out, in which case, you're better off using garruk, primal hunter for card draw). Blade of Selves, I don't think you have that many targets for this card to feel extremely impactful, and it does slow you down quite a bit to get it out and THEN equip it onto the creature. I could see sword of feast and famine being good because glissa herself is a good card to equip it on, but blade of selves is kind of taking hate upon yourself without enough pressure warranted. Horizon Spellbomb is a good early card, but there are plenty of better options since it only puts it into your hand and not onto the battlefield like wayfarer's bauble. Hero's downfall and krosan grip are also something I'd remove for creature slots. You already have plenty of artifact and enchantment removal (some are recurring), so I feel like this is barring excessive, especially since it's just another destroy effect and not something like exile/tucking. Memory Jar doesn't fit that well with the deck I think. And I'd make the suggestion to be Nim deathmantle since you have a lot of spare mana for shenanigans. You could also consider cauldron of souls to be extra annoying with mikky.
I honestly feel that path to exile really limits the variety of the format. It's a 1 mana, instant speed forget-whatever-creature-they-had (bar hexproof/shroud creatures) kind of spell that really just invalidates a lot of creatures. For a single mana, there's literally little to no consequence (oh c'mon, don't tell me that basic land would have destroyed you more so than the creature you just removed) to playing it.
Isn't it a little too powerful? There are other solutions similar to path like journey to nowhere and chained to the rocks, but they all have a way for you to retrieve the lost creature (provided that you get rid of the enchantment). There's also a restriction to chained to the rocks requiring you to have a mountain. But compared to path...which the only counterplay is to either have protection from white or be untargetable (or be re-directed).
There are a lot of powerful cards in modern, but path to exile is not only a format defining card. I feel that it's a format degenerating card when every creature can basically be invalidated by a one mana instant spell.
Main idea: Stall the board until you drop Phenax. Then mill until you get punched in the face. If that fails...then just profane command them to oblivion.
Probably not going to beat any T1 decks. But hey, it's mill (repeatable so you don't normally just use cards for the sole purpose of milling since that means you spent a card just to do that and basically have crappy board position, you can at least stall with this to a degree).
I think it's the feeling that if you don't play cards that are resilient to lightning bolt/path to exile, you don't have a viable deck at all...and then you'd have to be fast enough to race combo(which just ignores bolts/paths in general)...(or hand disruption in general which can deal with mostly everything,hence Jund/Junk/tron)
Aggro just has nothing right now to work with other than affinity with cranial plating. And I'm not even sure if unbanning wild nacalt would help at all due to lightning bolts. It would just be another target to hit (which replaces whatever card would have been hit before, unless you're talking about tarmogoyf).
I think any creatures that are lower than 4 toughness is bad for the deck unless it generates some sort of CA (such as solemn simulacrum) because when you wildfire, you're killing off your own creatures as well. It's basically wasting a card when you could be using it for something else.
I do like the use of fulminator mage though. And maybe chandra, firebrand might be better off for the deck because the threat of multiplying your land destruction spells may be a lot more effective (although I don't know if 9 3cc purely land destruction spells would work that well if you're on the draw, especially when your only answer is bolt and liliana). As much as I like avalanche riders, they don't contribute much to the deck other than the occasional destroy a land and then block for a turn. Perhaps remove them for something like terminate?
Steelshaper's Gift? If you use those, you can just include a toolbox of equips and find whichever is best in your situation. I still say it would be best to use some flayer husks so you don't get screwed finding yourself with an entire hand of equips (also works well with Steelshaper's Gift).
Edit: I don't mean tempered steel, card escapes me for the moment.
I don't see how this would work against any aggro decks...and then I don't see how you can compete with combos (ie twin/eggs)...then I'm questioning the control/lockdown matchup. Heck, I'm wondering how you are going to stop tron since they will get online extremely fast...or even a wildfire deck...and you definitely won't be stopping a Geist of Saint Win...they'll just remand you to hell. You need 5 mana to get online...and this format is usually sealed in turn 4 without any interaction/disruption.
Well,I haven't touched this thread for a year...but I don't know what your local meta-game is but you'll have to adjust accordingly. This deck will probably get destroyed by splinter twin or geist of saint win or UWR control. And jund might be able to screw you over if they have inquisition/thoughtseize into liliana (along with a goyf or DRS).
Captain Nick:
Just a note, but I found it redundant to have both plow under and wildfire,along with boom//bust. There's just too many and it feels unnecessary at that point to have all 3 in your hand at once. (Hurts even more when you have multiple copies)
Might want to lower your cmc or have some sort of earlier interaction via lightning bolts/firespout/pyroclasm or else you'd just get blown out by aggro. The primal command is a fine choice but I don't necessarily agree with the primeval titan for this list.Perhaps a planeswalker like Garruk wildspeaker? Perhaps you should run a toolbox primal command along with eternal witness and acidic slime or the sort.
And the article was an interesting read. It might be better to go blue red for annex and serum visions along with some countermagic backup.
Although it may lack resilience, this deck works surprisingly quickly. The lightning maulers are the key to this deck's speed. And if they don't survive, then your other pieces are pretty well off since they didn't get rid of whatever else (example, a champion of the parish is definitely going to grow a lot more).
again: I think lightning mauler should be in. He's a creature that speeds up your deck by miles should you play him. Imagine the pressure when you cast him turn 2 and then a frontline medic or silverblade paladin turn 3. Monstrous things and pressure early. You could even hold up and soulbound him with hero of bladehold turn 4.
At this point, you should just cut lambholt. He's the only green card aside from gavony township and I don't think you need either of those. They are just too slow overall.
I have a similar list to bone_doc that I usually use to test stuff with and sometimes play a game or two with. However, just note that this list I'm using is more of a hybrid because it has control applications as well. Yours is purely aggro so it's a completely different story. I actually think that you have to reconsider your 2 drops because honestly, a mayor isn't very threatening and you probably won't swing with him often. He's just like a weaker anthem with an easy marker on his head in my opinion. I liked the lightning maulers more.
I didn't include them because we don't do infinites in our playgroup. The person who does usually gets excluded. We usually would go "Ok, you win. We'll play for second." I would definitely include both the altar and ironworks if that wasn't the case and just go rambo on the infinites.
Phyrexia's core, trading post, plague boiler, kuldotha forgemaster. Though, you do have a point about that there aren't many artifact sac outlets.
The minion reflector definitely has issues right now, since the only gimmick with it is that I copy myr battlesphere with it and swing immediately for a quick burn to the dome. I will probably replace it with conjurer's bauble. I do usually get access to tons of mana due to how the deck can always find birthing pod one way or another into crypt ghast into whatever else I'd need. Primeval bounty allows future artifacts played to buff glissa as an alternate win condition (it also grants life gain for lands, which this deck absolutely needs to sustain itself from its passive early game, should I be sitting beside an aggressive neighbour who can ignore glissa). The reason why I run mirrorworks is that it combos with panharmonicon for extreme value (though you'd need to have 4 mana open when you play panharmonicon after mirrorworks to copy it twice, thus quadrupling your ETB effects from that point on). It's a comboish interaction that I'm not willing to part with. I don't usually play them from my hand anyway since I grab them with kuldotha forgemaster (though if I have it in my hand, I will do what I can to have crypt ghast in play first to help with the mana, even if it means sacrificing glissa to pod). Palace Siege is for recycling with pod, should I have it out.
Admittedly, the deck does take time to set up, since the center-piece is birthing pod (and the deck was designed to have as many ways as possible to tutor it). But from my perspective, glissa is more of a "grinder," thus she wants to outvalue the opponents via card advantage. She is more of a utility general, but artifact win cons for edh aren't all that common. They're powerful supports painted with targets on them, but very rarely would they be the nail in the coffin if you're playing non-infinites (for multiplayers at least, though I try to have as many of those high impact artifact creatures as I could). My playgroup doesn't have counterspell users, so krosan grip is a little heavy for artifact/enchantment removal. I do have it on the side in case. There are only a few cards I'd rather not see mid-late game, but the ones that I wouldn't want to see are usually my ramp stuff. Besides, our playgroup usually likes a slow game because that's where the interesting magic stories happen.
Right now, my future next upgrades would be meren of clan nel toth, vorinclex, voice of hunger, cloud key, and demonic tutor. cauldron of souls may also get the in place of nim deathmantle since I'm not running infinites.
Edit 2: On the subject of top-decking, I really hate that situation, so I avoid it as much as possible, especially when you have fewer chances to actually draw your outs. Magic is a card game that basically has a third of your deck be "dead" draws late game because of lands. So I think that excluding cards based on that scenario isn't that great. Cards in all our decks all have a function and an optimal time to draw them, it's what we design our decks to be like in an optimal situation. However, this is not standard, and in a 99 card deck, consistency isn't as likely. So you have to design a portion of your deck to be powerful support cards with a huge upside, and some catchup or lead extending effects (such as ramp/card draw/card advantage). There will always be optimal times for everything, and there will be mistimed things (such as being a mana off casting a crucial card). So what I'm trying to say is, my deck-building philosophy is that we can't design everything around that top-decking moment.
Also, from my understanding, even if the typing applies twice (ie: artifact and creature), the total cost is still only reduced by 1, correct?
Edit: Nvm, sorry, I just looked at the other panharmonicon thread and saw the rulings about the "as X enters the battlefield" not applying for Panharmonicon. I think that solves the issue if that's the case.
3 Glissa, The Traitor
Creatures(14 artifacts/28)
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Myr Retriever
3 Foundry Inspector
3 Burnished Hart
3 Sylvok Replica
3 Junk Diver
3 Filigree Familiar
4 Solemn Simulacrum
5 Kuldotha Forgemaster
6 Steel Hellkite
6 Noxious Gearhulk
6 Wurmcoil Engine
7 Myr Battlesphere
0 Hangarback Walker
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Reclamation Sage
3 Eternal Witness
4 Nekrataal
4 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
4 Crypt Ghast
5 Acidic Slime
5 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
5 Thragtusk
6 Marionette Master
6 Demon of Dark Schemes
6 Greenwarden of Murasa
7 Sheoldred, Whispering One
7 Rune-Scarred Demon
0 Everflowing Chalice
1 Sol Ring
1 Executioner's Capsule
1 Expedition Map
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Skullclamp
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
2 Nim Deathmantle
2 Mind Stone
2 Golgari Signet
2 Ichor Wellspring
2 Armillary Sphere
3 Commander's Sphere
3 Mimic Vat
3 Plague Boiler
4 Birthing Pod
4 Panharmonicon
4 Trading Post
5 Minion Reflector
5 Mirrorworks
8 Possessed Portal
Enchantments(3)
5 Dictate of Erebos
5 Palace Siege
6 Primeval Bounty
3 Sudden Spoiling
3 Putrefy
Sorceries(7)
2 Deglamer
2 Regrowth
4 Diabolic Tutor
4 Languish
5 Primal Command
8 Decree of Pain
2 Black Sun's Zenith
Planeswalkers(2)
5 Garruk, Primal Hunter
5 Vraska the Unseen
Lands(38)
1 Opal Palace
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Temple of the False God
1 Inventors' Fair
1 Phyrexia's Core
16 Forest
17 Swamp
When you look at my decklist, you should immediately notice that there is no viridian longbow, thornbite staff or the like. I feel like those equipments are too costly to play + equip, and they slow you down more often than help. The general idea of the deck is to draw/tutor out birthing pod into more tutor/engines. Setting up is definitely an issue and takes time, but Glissa will usually stave off aggression herself because of her first strike and deathtouch making people think twice before attacking (especially if you have reusable trinkets in the yard or ready to pop). I will usually be able to stall long enough to get one of my engines going to search for birthing pod and start things rolling. With the addition of Kaladesh cards, I feel like Glissa got tons of love from that set, especially in an alternate finisher in Marionnette Master, who can slowly (or quickly if you have Panharmonicon out) start draining people away. Once she's out, she's generally going to wreak tons of havoc, especially if they try to board wipe. Note that I generally play in a 4+ player EDH group, and our decks usually start ramping up pressure in mid game, so you can get away with playing little early on (bar the people sitting beside the elf ball), we also discourage those infinite combos.
Mirrorworks (heaven forbid you have this out before bringing in the Panharmonicon and effectively making 3 of them since it procs the entrance trigger twice) or Minion Reflector has lots of funny shenanigans going on here. Things get really silly, really fast...and glissa can usually bring all the silliness back should it get broken.
And to make suggestion to Mercury's deck: Try adding in creatures. As a pod deck, you really want to be able to find your creatures to start the chain. Your high end seems to be fine, but you lack lower end creatures to start the chain. Also, I really dislike 1 for 1 instants unless they target a permanent, but even then, 1 for 1 isn't exactly the greatest in multiplayer commander. You'd rather have something they need to clear than you clearing their stuff.
Edit: To add onto helping Mercury's deck, try removing the following:
Garruk Wildspeaker (it really doesn't help glissa that much, it's a 4 mana ramp more, or spew 3 tokens out, in which case, you're better off using garruk, primal hunter for card draw).
Blade of Selves, I don't think you have that many targets for this card to feel extremely impactful, and it does slow you down quite a bit to get it out and THEN equip it onto the creature. I could see sword of feast and famine being good because glissa herself is a good card to equip it on, but blade of selves is kind of taking hate upon yourself without enough pressure warranted.
Horizon Spellbomb is a good early card, but there are plenty of better options since it only puts it into your hand and not onto the battlefield like wayfarer's bauble.
Hero's downfall and krosan grip are also something I'd remove for creature slots. You already have plenty of artifact and enchantment removal (some are recurring), so I feel like this is barring excessive, especially since it's just another destroy effect and not something like exile/tucking.
Memory Jar doesn't fit that well with the deck I think. And I'd make the suggestion to be Nim deathmantle since you have a lot of spare mana for shenanigans. You could also consider cauldron of souls to be extra annoying with mikky.
Isn't it a little too powerful? There are other solutions similar to path like journey to nowhere and chained to the rocks, but they all have a way for you to retrieve the lost creature (provided that you get rid of the enchantment). There's also a restriction to chained to the rocks requiring you to have a mountain. But compared to path...which the only counterplay is to either have protection from white or be untargetable (or be re-directed).
There are a lot of powerful cards in modern, but path to exile is not only a format defining card. I feel that it's a format degenerating card when every creature can basically be invalidated by a one mana instant spell.
3 Phenax, God of Deception (win con)
3 Tree of Redemption
4 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Profane Command (secondary win con)
Creatures (22):
4 Steel Wall
4 Wall of Roots
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Thallid Shell Dweller
4 Overgrown Battlement
2 Axebane Guardian
3 Simic Charm
4 Extirpate
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Primal Command
Main idea: Stall the board until you drop Phenax. Then mill until you get punched in the face. If that fails...then just profane command them to oblivion.
Probably not going to beat any T1 decks. But hey, it's mill (repeatable so you don't normally just use cards for the sole purpose of milling since that means you spent a card just to do that and basically have crappy board position, you can at least stall with this to a degree).
And nothing like a remand backing up a geist of saint traft.
Aggro just has nothing right now to work with other than affinity with cranial plating. And I'm not even sure if unbanning wild nacalt would help at all due to lightning bolts. It would just be another target to hit (which replaces whatever card would have been hit before, unless you're talking about tarmogoyf).
I do like the use of fulminator mage though. And maybe chandra, firebrand might be better off for the deck because the threat of multiplying your land destruction spells may be a lot more effective (although I don't know if 9 3cc purely land destruction spells would work that well if you're on the draw, especially when your only answer is bolt and liliana). As much as I like avalanche riders, they don't contribute much to the deck other than the occasional destroy a land and then block for a turn. Perhaps remove them for something like terminate?
Edit: I don't mean tempered steel, card escapes me for the moment.
Edit 2: Found it. Steelshaper's Gift
Captain Nick:
Just a note, but I found it redundant to have both plow under and wildfire,along with boom//bust. There's just too many and it feels unnecessary at that point to have all 3 in your hand at once. (Hurts even more when you have multiple copies)
Might want to lower your cmc or have some sort of earlier interaction via lightning bolts/firespout/pyroclasm or else you'd just get blown out by aggro. The primal command is a fine choice but I don't necessarily agree with the primeval titan for this list.Perhaps a planeswalker like Garruk wildspeaker? Perhaps you should run a toolbox primal command along with eternal witness and acidic slime or the sort.
And the article was an interesting read. It might be better to go blue red for annex and serum visions along with some countermagic backup.
1 Stonewright
4 Champion of the Parish
2 Student of Warfare
4 Lightning Mauler
4 Precinct Captain
2 Knight of the Holy Nimbus
2 Silverblade Paladin
4 Kessig Malcontents
3 Hero of Bladehold
2 Ranger of Eos
2 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
2 Boros Charm
Lands: 22
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Arid Mesa
2 Cavern of Souls
3 Clifftop Retreat
6 Plains
3 Mountain
Although it may lack resilience, this deck works surprisingly quickly. The lightning maulers are the key to this deck's speed. And if they don't survive, then your other pieces are pretty well off since they didn't get rid of whatever else (example, a champion of the parish is definitely going to grow a lot more).
4 Champion of the Parish
3 Soldier of the Pantheon
4 Precinct Captain
3 Knight of the Holy Nimbus
2 Mirran Crusader
4 Fiend Hunter
3 Hero of Bladehold
2 Angelic Overseer
4 Honor of the Pure
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
1 Spear of Heliod
2 Oblivion Ring
Instants
4 Path to Exile
Planeswalker
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Lands
20 Plains
2 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Nevermore
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Leonin Relic-Warder
2 Mirran Crusader