The entire point of this deck is to get everyone else to kill each other and then have the last person compliment you for beating them. Interested? Then please, keep reading. However, I would like to put a little disclaimer here. This deck was designed to be multiplayer only (4+ players or more) and played against strangers on MTGO who have never seen your deck. I have not tested it against a “playgroup” of people in real life, nor has it been played extensively against the same people. If you do choose to play with a consistent group, there is a good chance that the part about your opponents complimenting you won't happen as often or at all. I guess I’m taking the risk that anyone who reads this thread might also not compliment a victory as well. I partly made the deck to feed my ego, so while kind of a catch-22, this has its own purpose. Feel free to replace any cards with “strictly better” cards such as original dual lands. This is the actual deck as I have it built, and I don’t feel like splurging $6 per card. However, this means that the entire deck is buildable for less than $20 on MTGO which is great if you just want to try it out or if you’re a new player and don’t want to make a large commitment. I would also like to hope that by the end of this thread, you might see that there is a deeper and fun style of gameplay intrinsic to the deck beyond just getting your opponents to compliment you that is rewarding in its own way. Really though, this deck is meant to be fun for you and your opponents hopefully.
Like most worthwhile pursuits in life, this baby got started from playing with a Phelddagrif deck. The original point of that deck was to get everyone else to kill each other while you finished off the last one. After I posted it, it went through quite a few changes, so both the strategy you see there and some of the cards may be old. It was moderately successful, but nothing spectacular. It was my first EDH deck, but like most first loves, it was both fleeting and memorable. I thought that if I was going to be playing multiplayer games against strangers, they could easily be just as good of a player, have just as good of a deck, or both. Or they could be even better and have better decks. So, I figured I had no chance from the get go if I wanted to win more than 25% of the time, all things being equal. Multiplayer has the added benefit of “politics” though which is what I thought I should use to my advantage. I’d like to talk about politics for a minute before I get back to the deck’s origin since I feel that if you don’t agree with or want to incorporate any of the following into your gameplay, then you might not like the deck.
Surprisingly, I’ve found that a lot of people define politics differently here. The common wisdom is that “politics=power”, but I’m going to have to explain more than that. To me, “good” politics is not tricking your opponent, tactically staying out of a feud between two players, or making alliances and breaking them. Good politics is not Zedruu the Greathearted (Take that, she-goat!). There’s a philosophy in chess that you should never try to trick your opponent because it won’t work if they’re as good as you or better. Instead, you should force them to make moves which are rationally the move that they should make. This is exactly how I view playing good politics in Magic. You should try to create board situations where a truly good player would rationally decide to not attack you and to spend their resources on other players. You shouldn’t be too heavy handed about it though. I don’t like the Vows such as Vow of Duty or Vow of Malice because they don’t fulfill the above condition. Do you see why? It’s the part about a truly good player rationally deciding to attack you or someone else. I’ll mention this again later in the strategy section since it bears repeating. Regardless, this view of politics will shape the strategy and recommended play style of the deck. As a side note, when interacting verbally with other players, feel free to be yourself and have fun for the best results of course.
So, I decided that I’d use politics to turn the tides in my favor (while realizing that others would do the same anyway). I quickly found that the Rattlesnake and Pillow Fort archetypes fit this goal relatively well. For those who don’t know, Rattlesnake decks are supposed to function like the animal they’re named after. In real life, a rattlesnake will shake its tail like a rattle when confronted with a potential predator. This sound and movement is used as a warning to say, “OI! I’M GONNA BITE’CHA IF YOU GET CLOSE!” As such, these decks play “rattles” such as Soul Snare or No Mercy. Both of those cards both say, “Attack me, and you’ll pay for it. You’re much better off attacking someone else.” Isperia, Supreme Judge is a good example of a Rattlesnake general.
Similarly, Pillow Fort decks attempt to do everything they can to not get hurt in any way, often making themselves or their permanents untargetable with cards like Privileged Position and Witchbane Orb. Additionally, they might play cards like Ghostly Prison or even be as forceful as Lightmine Field so that they aren’t attacked. Some Pillow Fort decks may try to be as non-interactive as possible while building up to a combo, others might try to mill you behind their fluffy fortress. Angus Mackenzie is a good example of a Pillow Fort general. While slightly different (Rattlesnake is a threat of vengeance while Pillow Fort is pure defense), both types of cards say, “You should really attack someone else. Don’t waste your time here”. So at first, the Phelddagrif deck had strong Rattlesnake and Pillow Fort subthemes. Then one day, something amazing happened.
Alright. It’s down to me and a 32/32 Kresh the Bloodbraided with trample. He’d taken out all of the other opponents (hooray!), but now I had to deal with him (:/). All of my enchantments and artifacts that had been protecting me had been destroyed. Like usual, I’ve got no creatures on the field besides Phel, and he’s looking mighty lonely. I top-deck Mirror Strike. Heh. I pass the turn. Kresh attacks right into it. I slam down Mirror Strike dramatically on the field (in my mind anyway, we’re still on MTGO). There’s a pause. “Well played, sir” is the response. And then the game ends. I thought it was a pretty fun game, and I think my opponent did too. I wondered if I could get that to happen again. It turns out, yes, I could. You can engineer situations which result in your opponents complimenting you. To (greatly) misquote Mr. Momir Vig, Simic Visionary on his greatest achievement (Experiment Kraj): “Of course you’ll unexpectedly have the exact right card to amaze your opponent. It was designed to do so!” So, I ended up stripping away the blue and green in favor of black and red, kicking Phel to the curb, and plopping Tariel in the cockpit.
When people pick up a deck to start playing, it's helpful for them to know "This deck is reanimation" or "This deck is tokens". Most people have a fairly good idea of what to expect from a deck once they hear the type, and they'll play it accordingly. Many decks fall into more than one category though, including this one. Based on the deck list, there are a few different ways that you could think of playing this deck, but there's one way in particular that I think of it.
I think of the Pillow Fort that the deck contains as more of a means to an end. If you aren't alive, then you can't pull off an awesome win. While you will be playing defensively, stuffing yourself inside comfy, protective walls is not your ultimate goal. In fact, the best Pillow Fort cards aren't even in this deck because the goal of the Pillow Fort is not to lock everyone out of attacking. You want everyone to attack, just not attack you. That's one reason we're not playing Humility, Lightmine Field, or Dovescape (even if we could).
Once again, the Rattlesnake shell is just a cog in the machine. If someone can't attack you, they will probably attack someone else. You will not use deterrents to build overwhelming card advantage like Isperia, Supreme Judge is capable of, but you will be able to draw cards and keep your hand full for the most part hopefully. Rattlesnake cards serve the dual purpose of protecting you as well as generally being cards that an opponent knows they can "deal with" later. And for the most part, they're right, but that's fine because you want that later to happen. Because when they bring out the big guns later, that's when you do too.
As a means to accomplishing our goal, it is, but no more than it is a Pillow Fort or Rattlesnake deck. You will hold cards like Boros Fury-Shield in your hand until you either need to play it or preferably end the game. However, you'll also notice that there are some cards that don't fit that theme such as Acidic Soil or Blood Oath. The reason for this is that turning your opponent's cards against you (without stealing them) is one of the ways this deck can be effective, but it's actually part of a bigger theme.
Politicking your way to victory is certainly an option, but don't count on it. The reason you shouldn't count on it is because if you find yourself against only one opponent left, there's not much you can do to convince them to attack anyone else...because there isn't anyone else. I use the term as I've described it above, meaning that you should be making plays which force a rational player to not spend resources or turns on you, but I guess that the traditional definition of "convincing another player to attack someone else through guile or trickery" applies here as well. I don't like tricking people or lying to them because it generally comes back to bite you, especially if you end up playing them again.
Is this a gimmick deck? You said that the point of this deck is to get your opponent to compliment you when you beat them: Yes, that is the point of the deck, but it's not what the spirit of the deck is. Okay, that probably makes little to no sense, so I guess I should just say what kind of deck I think this is.
First off, I've omitted one thing from the Deck History section because I feel that it belongs more in this section. And that is that I didn't just decide randomly on White, Black, and Red when I scrapped Phelddagrif. There was another deck I was working on at the time that never even made it to the playtesting stage. It was a Kaervek the Merciless deck, and the tentative name for it was "Meta Punisher". The goal of this deck was to specifically punish players for playing the cards that I saw EVERYONE playing. Boundless Realms, combos that allowed someone to draw their whole deck, combos that made infinite tokens, and combos that made 100/100 creatures were all on the world's worst offenders list. So, I kept the white from Phelddagrif, stripped him of Blue and Green, and strapped Kaervek's colors onto the deck. This just happens to have overlap with another theme though because of the nature of the EDH format. That theme as well as the idea I have in my head when I pick up this Tariel deck to play is that:
This is a deck that punishes excess. This is one of the only formats where this kind of deck can work probably due to EDH being singleton, multiplayer (mandatory for this deck), and many players having preconceived notions of what cards are acceptable (and good) in the format. When playing this deck, you should be asking yourself as you eye your opponents,
Hopefully it makes sense now that while you will be playing elements of Pillow Fort, Rattlesnake, reflect damage, politics, and the goal of the deck is to get them to compliment you at the end, the "mindset" of the deck (is this tokens, aggro, combo, sac and recur, etc.?) is to punish excess and overabundance. You'll be flipping the amazing and the outlandish on their heads, creating a situation that is even more amazing and outlandish.
She’s not Kaalia of the Vast or Oros, the Avenger. Honestly, Tariel, Reckoner of Souls just happened to fit the colors of the cards I thought could be best used to implement the strategy. In many circles, Kaalia is marked “kill on sight” and lends herself to a very linear play style which involves attacking others. Attracting attention and attacking others should be about the last thing on your to-do list when playing this deck. Oros is neat, but he’s somewhat threatening to aggro decks, and we REALLY don’t want to make an enemy out of them early on. In all honesty, if a new WBR general comes along that’s better suited for the deck, I might swap her for it. But let’s not be too hard on old Tari and take a closer look at her.
One of the nice things about Tariel is that unlike many generals, she doesn’t necessarily lend herself to any one play style. I’ve seen Angel themed Tariel decks, board wipe themed Tariel decks (these tend to be the most common I think given that the color combination has access to pretty much all of them), and “Punisher” themed Tariel decks which add a dab of white to an otherwise Kaervek the Merciless deck. This means your opponent doesn’t necessarily have any preconceived notions of what’s going to be in your deck and is likely to treat is as nonthreatening (assuming your opponents aren’t Barktooth Warbeard and Skeleton Ship) until you show yourself to be otherwise, all things being equal.
Tariel can also take care of herself pretty well as a plan B. The deck doesn’t rely on Tariel by any means, but it certainly helps a lot. In fact, Tariel is often the final push the deck needs to win if the game doesn’t shape up the way you want it to. Since she’s better towards the end of the game than towards the beginning, she lends herself well to a strategy that enjoys the game going on into the wee hours of the night which is what we’ll be playing. With only 4 power, you’ll need to get in 6 hits with her to finish someone off with commander damage, but her 7 toughness has been useful on more than one occasion. The ability to fly and not tap when attacking is just icing on the cake as far as saying to your opponents, “I’m prepared to snatch something from your ‘yard as soon as you look at me funny”. In that respect, we’ve still got a rattle.
I've thought about this a lot. I really have. But there are only three other Commanders I'd even consider (at the moment) to run this deck. And they're not a crazy woman with a bunch of demon, angel, and dragon groupies or a borderline racist draco-tyrant. This means that we're going to have to either add or remove colors. So we'll do both. I wouldn't want to remove or replace White as it's the only color that stayed when I switched the deck over from Phelddagrif. I think of White as the core of the deck that holds it together. Without White, Black and Red would suffer greatly from the loss of defensive cards such as Norn's Annex, Reverence, and especially the Runes such as Rune of Protection: Green which have driven the game in the right direction more times than I can count. So getting rid of White is pretty much out of the question. I would also not get rid of Red. Despite having less cards in the deck than the other two colors, Red makes itself more than worth it. While Black has about the same amount of game ending cards (if not one or two more), Red provides two important victory conditions than Black doesn't. The loss of Acidic Soil and Sudden Impact would be painful as they are deathblows to Green and Blue respectively. So, if I had to get rid of a color, I'd get rid of Black. While it provides both offense (Netherborn Phalanx) and defense (No Mercy), I feel that Red and White naturally fulfill those roles more effectively. Getting rid of Black does mean losing access to punishing token decks with Rakdos Charm as well as punishing life gain decks with Repay in Kind. It also eliminates Backlash and Batwing Brume, so Black does work fairly well with the other colors in this deck which is why I'm using it and not the other Commanders I'm about to suggest. However, if you want a different flavor than Tariel (who would though, despotic angels are delicious!) then you've come to the right place.
Ugh, that nasty goat woman. My distaste for Zedruu stems from the fact that when I see her across the table, I know that she's either playing a monstrously controlling deck, something similar to what I'm playing, or both. So I guess it's fitting that if Tariel wasn't sitting on the throne that Ms. Bleats-for-Brains be in charge. I appreciate her card advantage and life gain which is something that this deck could certainly benefit from. Ruhan of the Fomori might be interesting, but I'd rather be refilling my hand than watching him run face first into a 0/10 Doran, the Siege Tower. Numot, the Devastator just screams, "I'M GONNA NUKE YOUR LANDS" to everyone, and we don't want that. What Zedruu really brings to the table here is the ability to take the deck in a more "ethereal" direction. Blue/Red gives us access to Swerve, Essence Backlash, and Cerebral Vortex. As long as we're there, we might try running Parallectric Feedback, Reiterate, and Fork. This way, you can punish a Consuming Aberration before it hits play or a Genesis Wave for 22 quite handily. What Blue/Red lacks in hitting hordes of creatures, it makes up for in messing with spells. The addition of White/Blue will give us access to some defensive staples. Teferi's Moat might be a good replacement for No Mercy but it slightly goes against the theme of the deck of giving your opponents the idea that they have some choice of whether to attack you. I know that Reverence is slightly similar in concept, but it's a lot less restrictive. Cloud Cover is another solid card that would dissuade opponents from touching your stuff hopefully. Hanna, Ship's Navigator can bring back key defensive pieces that have been blown up by a painful Austere Command. Isperia, Supreme Judge is a wonderful replacement for Dread. Wild Research can help get you the right defense or offense when you need it. In addition to the above, the "traditional Zedruu suite" can still be run to take more advantage of Zedruu's ability. Let me reiterate though: Zedruu can suck a hoof.
With the printing of Commander 2013, Gahiji makes a suitable general in Green as lukemercer points out. The age old question of "Will my opponents be less incentivized to attack me if I prevent 1 damage from each creature or help them deal an additional 2 damage to each other per creature?" need not be answered since you can now run both effects quite handily! The most obvious contribution Green brings is the excellent mana fixing and acceleration. I'm thinking that Mana Reflection, Mirari's Wake, and other mana doublers would be preferable to Boundless Realms since it will make us less susceptible to Acidic Soil. However, if you want to thin out your deck and have a way to prevent the damage to yourself, Boundless Realms may still be acceptable. Traditional Green acceleration cards like Kodama's Reacharound and Cultivate will help ensure that you don't get stuck at four mana and that you always have the right colors. Green also brings a nice amount of defense as well in the form of cards such as Dawnstrider, Constant Mists, Spike Weaver, Radiant Kavu (meta game call?), and Briar Patch. Also, Arboria would be amazing if it didn't possibly prevent people from attacking each other. Privileged Position can also ensure that our defenses don't suffer spot removal as easily. "Staple" Gahiji cards like Akroan Horse can be fit in as well. Unfortunately, Green doesn't have Black's desire to punish people for having a lot of creatures (go figure). Green is big and stupid. So, it makes sense to play big and stupid stuff and put that extra mana to use. For instance, for the low, low price of GGGRRRR8, you can use Chord of Calling to flash in Stormbreath Dragon and make it monstrous dealing (hopefully) massive damage to your opponents and a possible additional 7 damage if you played it on your turn. Also, the incredibly disturbing sound you just heard was Nekusar, the Mindrazer's jaw detaching and hitting the floor while spontaneously sprouting eyeballs and a throat so that he can properly cry and scream respectively. Of course, the old standby Storm Seeker is available as well should you want a fourth Sudden Impact variant. Certain enormous card advantage bombs such as Praetor's Counsel are also available to you now. You may also sub in some of the spell punishing or manipulating cards such as Parallectric Feedback in Red from the recommendations for the Zedruu sleeve while leaving Green to do the housekeeping since it doesn't provide many turnaround cards itself.
The only reason I don't run her already is that I've just never needed to. She's now on my list of cards to try out after cbrook824 brought her up. Since we're not running Black or Blue with her, we'd have to take advantage of some more direct damage probably. The "redirection" cards like Reiterate, Wild Ricochet, and Fork can still be run, but we'll have to fill the card advantage void some other ways. I would actually probably run Gisela as my general over Tariel if she was White/Black/Red since she fits the theme of the deck much more. Not only does she make it not as attractive to hit you, she makes it more attractive for your opponents to hit each other. Cards like Acidic Soil are now absolutely lethal if they weren't before. Don't forget that your Rune of Protection: Red can save you from that one, although Gisela will attempt to help prevent your own damage as well. She's both defensive and a kill spell enabler, and she can deliver the final blow herself if needed fairly easily. This would lead me down the path of possibly using some more life gain oriented cards coupled with cards that deal damage to everyone. Chain Reaction certainly becomes more powerful as well as making Price of Progress uber playable. Silly cards like Flame Rift become effective although I'm not sure I'd run it. Something like Molten Disaster becomes very appealing. Unfortunately, those kind of cards don't have much synergy with cards like Spitemare or Mogg Maniac when Gisela is out because even though you're dealing double damage, the damage is being dampened to your creatures by Gisela. I'm sure there are plenty of other ways you could go about making a Gisela build of this deck, but that's probably how I'd do it. The only thing I'm not sure of is the opponents' reactions to being killed by a spell aided with Gisela versus one that wasn't aided by her. The reason is that you're no longer beating an opponent purely by punishing them for overextending which is somewhat of a pertinent point that will be made more clear in the "Making Them Stroke Your Ego" section. However, I think the "hit everyone, only get hurt half amount" bit is pretty powerful and the general strategy remains intact.
Sheldon has a Ruhan of the Fomori deck which you can find here. While not exactly alike in nature, it's certainly comparable given the overlap in cards. No inspiration was taken from the deck as I didn't know about it until 7/5/13, but it looks like it would be fun to play. We even both saw Kresh the Bloodbraided and Mirror Strike! While his deck was designed to create epic, memorable moments, this one was designed to get my opponents to compliment me. I guess that's what using Black instead of Blue should do though!
1. You like the challenge of navigating your way out of seemingly impossible situations consistently.
2. You like being inconspicuous and not throwing down 10/10 creatures like it’s nobody’s business.
3. You like longer (but fun) games.
4. You like feeding your ego.
5. You like other players not hating you.
6. You don’t mind letting the strategies of other players determine the flow of the game and don’t mind not knowing how you’ll win the game when you draw your hand.
7. You like taking a passive role in the game.
8. You like piloting a deck that takes a lot of skill.
1. You like dominating the game early on and being an imposing presence throughout the game.
2. You like to end games quickly so that you can move onto the next one.
3. You enjoy playing for the sole sake of winning in the most effective and efficient way possible.
4. You hate having to deal with any social or political aspect of multiplayer and would rather just attack someone.
5. You like to play out a specific strategy uninterrupted by other players where you know what your win conditions will be each game.
6. You really like winning with combo, aggro, or control.
7. You like attacking people.
8. You want your cards to win on their own just by playing them as opposed to having to decide how to play them.
For those who already have the cards or don't mind spending a bit more, the following is an optimized version of the deck. Most cards that fit this deck's style aren't that expensive in the first place, so a lot of the replacements have to do with the mana base or are "strictly better" cards. All discussion in this post assumes I'm using the current version of the deck, so this is more just for show. If you don't see something, it's because I either don't know what to take out or I don't want to add the card because it's more likely to draw hate/attention than a card already in the deck.
Before reading the individual card explanations, it’s probably a good idea to get a feel how the overall deck functions. Thus far, I’ve explained the goals of the deck and its history, but getting there is another story. While you don’t have to adhere to this section, I would think that the deck won’t work nearly as well or at all if you don’t follow most or all of the following guidelines. However, they are just guidelines, so feel free to put your own spin on playing the deck.
Yes, that’s right, do not attack. Well, mostly. There are really only four situations in which you will ever attack. The first is if there’s only one opponent left. In that case, by all means, let the cannons loose. The second situation is if there are two players who are clearly locked in a feud with each other and will stop at nothing to kill each other. In that case, it’s fine to kill the third player, but only if you think you can do it quickly. Most of the time, this will not be the case, so you will not attack at all. The third situation is if there are three players left and you NEED to kill the stronger one or you risk losing the game. If you do not think you are in danger of losing, do not attack. The final situation is if there are all four players still left and the board state is such that attacking a player will not garner their hate towards you. This will happen very rarely, so don’t count on it.
So, why are we not attacking even when we possibly should? Well first, you only have less than 10 creatures including Tariel of which almost half aren’t even meant to be attackers. Therefore, there’s a good possibility you might not be able to at any given time. But that’s okay. We didn’t want to attack anyway. The real reason though is because whoever you attack will hate you. Probably. When sitting down with strangers, you just don’t know if they’re one of “those” people who will mercilessly do everything in their power to make sure you don’t win even if it costs them the game because you tapped them with a 1/1 mana dork on turn 2. Even if they aren’t the vengeful type, if they are a rational player and everyone appears to be about the same threat level, they have every reason to attack you. Or they might also be (rightly) thinking that there’s a good chance that you’ll continue to attack them or hurt them if they don’t kill you first. Either way, attacking never made a friend of anyone. Don’t do it until the time is right. Of all the guidelines to break though, this would be the one. Dealing four damage to an opponent at the right moment can be the deciding factor at the end of the game, especially because of how the deck usually wins (more on that in the Winning section).
What to people hate more than getting dealt damage? When you blow up their stuff. It’s just not nice. You wouldn’t want it done to you, now would you? There’s actually more to this than just not getting on the bad (badder?) side of your opponents though. White and Red aren’t exactly known for their card advantage, and I’ve chosen not to run any reanimation besides Tariel herself or Black card draw. Instead, all of the card draw will come from your artifacts or enchantments. This means that having your opponents waste their spot removal or even mass removal on your other opponents is that much more important. Just think of every Path to Exile they play on an opponent’s creature as a card you just drew. Well, not really, but it’s a “phantom” form of card advantage nonetheless, especially if they’re not able to draw enough cards to keep up with the amount they're casting. I do run Hallowed Burial, but like most cards in the deck, it should be saved for exactly the right time. Oh, and don’t play pretty much all of your instants and sorceries either if you don’t have to. You’ll need them all for the last guy unless you can spend one of them to instantly kill someone. Even then, make sure it’s at the “right” time. Really, the only things you should be playing are lands, artifacts (except for one or two), and enchantments.
What do people hate more than getting their stuff blown up? When they don’t even get to play it or use it. It’s an awful feeling, right? Let’s give people a break please. They play against Azami, Lady of Scrolls control and Zur the Enchanter stax all day, and this is what they come home to? I don’t think so. For the most part though, people hate not having choices. This is why the Vows mentioned earlier (Vow of Malice, etc.) are not used. Most artifacts and enchantments in the deck do not outright prevent all damage that would be dealt to you or make it impossible to hit you. They just make it very not preferable for you to be the target of your opponent’s attacks. And that’s all you really need honestly until you’re down to just one opponent. Thunderstaff may not be the best card ever, but all things being equal, a rational player will choose to attack someone else because they feel they’re getting more value out of their creatures by hitting for more damage.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, you should be less offensive than a bunny crossed with a kitten made out of sprinkles and stardust. However, you want everyone else to be threatening, and in order to do that, they can’t be scared to attack. This is why I don’t play Royal Assassin. You might notice that I do run Spurnmage Advocate. Spurnmage is less offensive because the opponent knows you’ve got to give something back to someone. In fact, the only card in the deck that really draws any hate is Soul Conduit. You should only play it when the time is right though. I keep saying “when the time is right”, and you’ll know when it is. And if you’re wrong, you’ll definitely lose and have learned that it wasn’t actually the right time. Out of all the reasons someone is ever attacked, "they were threatening" has to be among the top. I've heard of people that say you don't want to be the strongest player at the table or the weakest. Usually they say it's good to be the second strongest. When playing this deck, you will usually be the weakest in terms of board presence, but that's okay. If you set up some deterrents, other players won't want to attack the "weakest" player anymore when they have threats to deal with usually.
Pretty much every card in the deck except for non-utility lands can be divided into one of four types. The first type is your “turnaround” card which will both often be your win condition and the cards that make your opponents compliment you. I’ll talk about them more in a bit, but examples would be Batwing Brume and Sudden Impact. The second type of card is meant to play defense. Examples of these would be Thunderstaff and No Mercy. The third type of card is for deck acceleration. These are cards like Armillary Sphere or Seer's Sundial. The final type of card is meant to give the deck the competitive edge it needs when it needs it. These are cards like Allay and Hallowed Burial. You’ll become accustomed to holding the turnaround cards in your hand until the end of the game, playing every single defense and acceleration card you can, and using the competitive cards only when absolutely needed.
What I’m really referring to here is four different ways that people perceive threats and then how they decide to attack (if they choose to attack at all). Many people often switch between these four ways of thinking during the game, so watch out for who is doing what at the moment. The most common type is the rational player who will attack the person who they believe is the biggest threat based on board presence, commander, revealed cards in the deck, and hand size. These people are your best friend because most likely, that person is not you. Also, being not in Blue and Green just by itself is somewhat nonthreatening. The second type of player is the vengeful type that I’ve mentioned earlier. They’ll pick a person at the beginning of the game to focus on and attack no one else until they’re dead. Or if they’re attacked before they can attack, they’ll go after their attacker until they’re dead. These people are also usually your friend because they will waste their resources on your opponents so you don’t have to. Sit back and watch them hurl all the fireballs they can as you develop card advantage. The third type of player is the one who attacks everyone equally until a better opportunity presents itself. These people are your friends too because they’re likely to piss off the second type of player and then get their hands full. The fourth type of player is the one who is like you and won’t attack anyone. These people are not your friends, and you should be worried about them. The word “attack” that has been used throughout this paragraph can be substituted with “did something to the other person they didn’t like” since some decks like Zedruu the Greathearted will not win through attacking, but they will still make enemies of people.
You might have skipped to this paragraph immediately after reading the first one. If so, you’ll be happy to know that this is just a decoy paragraph and the real way to make them compliment you is buried in some other paragraph. Just kidding. Here’s how you do it. It all has to do with how the person loses.
If there’s one thing people hate more than losing, it’s losing for five minutes. This means that the first condition is that it has to be quick, sudden, and decisive. How quick? If they have time to realize what happened, it’s too slow. Soul Conduit in your hand with 12 mana open while you’re at 0 life because of Phyrexian Unlife is…too slow. Why? First you have to play Soul Conduit AND BAM that’s it, it should have been over right there. The fact that you have to tap it and pay six more mana is enough time for the opponent to become depressed at their loss. At least it works that way online. You might be able to slickly put it onto the table already tapped in real life and it might work. Sometimes Soul Conduit IS fast enough, but it’s just an example of exactly how quick your victory needs to be. You shouldn’t even have time to play an activated ability.
A second condition is that the card is situational and unusual. It makes the victory that much more amazing that you had just the right card for that one situation where it could be used effectively. “How did you possibly do that!” they exclaim. Easy. You have just the right card for EVERY unusual situation. 500/500 creature? Mirror Strike and Reflect Damage. 80 cards in hand? Sudden Impact and Blood Oath. Every single land in their deck on the battlefield (Boundless Realms anyone?)? Acidic Soil. Seven thousand Goblin tokens? Rakdos Charm and Batwing Brume. This is the real secret of the deck. It expects that these unusual situations will occur. And in EDH, they more often than not do, especially depending upon your meta.
A third condition is that the victory has to have been preventable had the opponent not overextended themselves. Sure, I’ve won plenty of games swinging with Tariel, but that’s never gotten me any thanks. The opponent’s resources must be used against them without actually stealing them. I’m looking at you Insurrection (on a related note, this card is WAY too slow and gives your opponent plenty of time to watch themselves get killed by their own creatures). Anyone can beat face with a 10/10 creature with Infect and win, but it takes just the right timing, skill, and luck to Backlash it right in their face after they’ve killed your other opponents.
So in summary, your victory must be quick, sudden, decisive, unusual, situational, and not attainable by using your cards alone (your cards must interact with their cards to cause the victory).
There are also some things you should absolutely avoid doing. The first thing is the reason we don't play Druidic Satchel which is that revealing the cards in your hand or deck is not preferable. It's not very amazing when someone sees a Batwing Brume in your hand before you play it. The second thing we want to avoid is tutoring for our kill spells. I know, I know, the deck would be much more consistent. However, I've found that opponents are not impressed by your ability to have the right card in your hand because you plucked it from your deck. The third thing you want to avoid is using any of your kill spells when it won't end the entire game that turn. If they've seen you be quiet the entire game and then throw down a Rakdos Charm to opportunistically finish someone off, they're not going to be impressed when you later beat them with a Netherborn Phalanx or even a Backlash.
Also, you may notice that we really don't run much removal. If you've been wondering why I haven't mentioned the R word until now, it's because it doesn't have much of a place in this deck. Why would you Path to Exile their 32/32 when you can Backlash it? Creature removal is somewhat counterproductive to the deck. We do run Hallowed Burial as an out though in case things get way too out of control.
So how do you win with this deck? The first, most obvious, and most preferable way is with your turnaround cards. You have to save them for the end of the game though so that you can fire them off all at once. Unfortunately, when the game begins you might not know which one it will be, so you’ll have to hold them all. The good news is that there’s quite a variety of ways in which the turnaround cards can be played. I’ve had both Blood Reckoning and Hissing Miasma out and used Captain's Maneuver for two on an opponent who was swinging with their untargetable Bruna, Light of Alabaster when they were at six life. Bruna was also attacking with a random 4/4 and Bruna had Celestial Mantle on her. I knew that he had a Counterspell (he told me for some reason earlier), and he cast it on the Captain’s Maneuver. In response, I cast Boros Fury-Shield on the 4/4, earning a Dave Chapelle-esque “Coooooold Bloooooded” from a spectator.
The second way is to just beat face with Tariel and take their creatures. That’s kind of boring though. You do have a few quick ways to win that aren’t necessarily too “combo-ish”. The first is Soul Conduit or Repay in Kind with Phyrexian Unlife. Oh, and we do NOT run things like Wall of Blood with it because it ruins condition three of winning coolly which is the part about your victory being interactive with your opponent’s cards. Repay in Kind and most any burn spell will also win you the game if you’ve got a large amount of mana open or something that can hit everyone at once.
In either case, you MUST make it to the end game. That's why it's so important not to make enemies of people and play the Pillow Fort and Rattlesnake cards. There are two major victory conditions that the end game brings. The first is that players have probably already beaten each other down a lot. When I see a player at around 10 life or less, they have entered the DANGER ZONE. Once there, as long as they don't have a way to get around my turnaround card, they're dead at least 90% of the time. Once all players are in the DANGER ZONE, a quick Rakdos Charm will knock most out of the game. The second is that outrageous board states are more common in the end game. This is the time when those 200/200 creatures and hordes of 2,000 goblins are likely to come out of the woodwork. Or at least, it's as good a time as any. Both of those things mean that the longer the game goes on, the better. When I say "end game", I mean a board state where people are playing their best stuff. The game can obviously end prematurely due to a combo or never get there due to a lock out.
So, that's how the deck wins. Here's why the deck wins. There are two primary reasons, one related to offense and one related to defense. The reason the deck is offensively well positioned is because EDH is a format with big card advantage, big creatures, big hand sizes, big boards, and big egos. It's just big. In a format where Boundless Realms and Praetor's Counsel are good cards, it might be tempting to play spells the take advantage of the large amount of mana or cards you have access to that you couldn't normally play otherwise. That's why I run Acidic Soil and Sudden Impact. More often than not, games will get explosive in EDH in some way or another. Have you ever designed an EDH deck with the thought in mind "Okay, how can I make this deck as mediocre as possible?". Of course not, everyone wants their EDH deck to do big, explosive things. When resources of all kinds are abundant, you should take advantage of that one way or another. That's why you have to have big, explosive explosions for those big, explosive things.
The reason this deck is defensively well positioned is because in multiplayer, I believe that cards that are either a threat or cause the opponent to not have fun are the leading cause of being attacked. If I view someone as a threat, I am likely to attack them so that they don't kill me. If I'm not having fun because of someone's card (I'm looking at you Possibility Storm and Knowledge Pool), then I am very likely to try to kill them. That's why pretty much every card in the deck has to either not be unfun or not be threatening. I don't believe that the corollary of the "unfun" rule is true though. If you're attempting to cause an opponent to have fun, this does not necessarily mean that they won't try to attack you. The primary reason is that if you've spent more than a day playing Magic, you'll see that different players have different ideas of what they consider fun. This is why it's just easier to avoid playing anything that might be unfun for someone. This is why group hug and chaos decks sometimes get hated off the table. Unfun things are generally things that attack people, destroy, restrict, or threaten. Sound familiar? In fact, you don't have to "give" your opponents fun things. They already have them. That's why they built their deck. Their deck is their fun thing, so just don't mess with it and let them play it out. All of this means that the permanents we play can't be unfun, so we have to save all of the firepower in our hand. That's a trick (and potential weakness) of the deck. All of the firepower is in your hand, so you don't look as threatening on the surface.
I’ll say straight up that this deck is not equipped to deal with infinite combos that go off turn three. It only does well if the game is allowed to go on for a respectable length. Another weakness is if someone is consistently blowing up your defenses. Usually this won’t happen because someone would rather Krosan Grip a Mimic Vat than your Thunderstaff, but hey, it can happen. Perhaps the deck’s biggest weakness is mediocrity. If an opponent has not been dealt significant damage and is laying down three or four 8/8 creatures with flying, then that is a problem. There are not enough to punish them for playing too many creatures, and they’re not quite big enough to punish them for playing gigantic creatures. It’s just in that special space you need to be careful. If the game has been progressing in a way that everyone has been taking damage about equally and they’re low on life though, you can use one of the 8/8 creatures to kill them with a turnaround card.
On a related note, if one opponent is not losing life while the other two are, this is also a problem. You have to do your best to guide the game in a way so that there’s a back and forth between all players, even if it hurts your own life total. The deck can also suffer if for whatever reason you can’t target something with your turnaround card. There are answers to artifacts and enchantments in the deck though, so it is possible to get around this. If your opponent can sacrifice the creature you’d target at instant speed though then that’s a real problem. Additionally, the game really gets messed up if a player drops or concedes from the game early on. Since there are now only you or one other guy for each opponent to target, your chances of surviving into the late game just got cut. I cannot stress this enough. Anything that prevents playing spells during combat or on an opponent's turn such as Grand Abolisher or Basandra, Battle Seraph can also hinder your ability to use cards like Mirror Strike. Finally, be extremely wary of URG Goodstuff decks.
I think this deck plays an interesting and unique role in the Commander-verse. The role you play is well represented by the colors.
WWWYou're a SpectatorWWW: You'll always be removing yourself from the various to and fros that will go on between the rest of the board if possible. When you get hit by someone, you'll turn the other cheek and not retaliate. You'll pay more attention to how the other players are viewing you and each other than you will to your own board or advancing your own schemes. This is fairly easy to do because for the most part, you won't have much of a board to speak of. Instead, you'll watch each opponent for current levels of hostility or how they perceive everyone else as threats. Think of yourself almost as a watcher instead of a player. In that case, you get to "play" the other decks in your head with the unfortunate disadvantage of not knowing their hand.
BBBYou're a PunisherBBB: As mentioned in the "What Kind of Deck is This?" section, the mindset of the deck is to punish excess in any form that it takes. You're going to usually only have one shot though. Instead of sitting through all of the smaller fireworks, you'll save them all for the big finale at the end where they can all go off at once in a gigantic explosion. With just 12 mana open, you could potentially deal easily upward of 100 damage to the board between an Increasing Vengeance targeting Acidic Soil followed by a flashbacked Increasing Vengeance targeting a Rakdos Charm. Often the answer to combating GreenOnSteroids.dec is some type of stax, MLD, or combo. You'll be able to serve the same purpose but with none of the ill will from your opponents that sometimes is created from these strategies. In fact...
RRRYou're an EntertainerRRR: They'll love you for it! Hopefully anyway. Never forget that you're here to provide a good time. As also stated above, I've found that "fun" in Commander is inherently a selfish concept. People generally don't have fun playing against other decks, they have fun playing THEIR deck against other decks. For the most part, you'll allow this to happen. Not getting in their way is sometimes the most fun you can give an opponent IF their deck performs in a way that they enjoy. Your coupe de grace will also provide what many commander players are prone to loving: awesome, unlikely, and memorable plays that seem surreal in the moment and epic upon reflection. Just don't tell them that it was all an engineered game of odds that you expect to happen from time to time because a magician never reveals how he does his tricks...well, except in this thread.
When discussing the match-ups, I'll be referring to the styles of play from Blackjack68's wonderful guide to building a Commander deck, specifically the second section "Choosing a play style". If you're unfamiliar with any of the strategies discussed below, you can read up on them there. In fact, I'd recommend reading the entire thread as long as you're in town. Take most of the below with a grain of salt as well since the deck is meant for at least a four player free for all. Oftentimes (for any deck), it's not the match-up of you and the other final player that determines these games but rather the play styles of all four players interacting with each other. On top of that, another factor you have to take into account when analyzing "match-ups" is that the easiest way for this deck to win is by the opponent overextending their final threat. Aggro decks will almost always do this, but control and combo decks will only sometimes do this, and when they do, they have an extremely large list of finishers to pick from. All of that means that the type of deck may make the majority of the game harder or easier for you, but sometimes it's how the opponent is actually trying to win that can determine whether you have an easy victory or not. Additionally, all card recommendations which are not in the deck list are meant to be offered as possible solutions for specific match-ups, but I would not recommend any of them under normal circumstances as many of them go against the principles of the deck.
Against Aggro:
Aggro is by far your best match out of the three main play styles. In fact, if you're able to influence the game's direction, you would probably prefer to be left alone with an aggro player in the end game. They'll be happy to oblige you as they love rushing the control and combo players before they can set up their engines and assemble their combo pieces. As Blackjack's guide says, they usually have more threats than answers which is good for two reasons. The first is that your opponent's threats are your bread and butter for winning because what's a turn-around card without anything to turn? The second is that if they aren't running as many answers, you're more likely to keep up what defenses you have or use your turn-around cards uninterrupted. The aggro decks will act as your muscle to take out your opponents, so be nice to them. Out of all the games I've played, I've also had the most victories over aggro decks as opposed to the other two types.
Against Control:
Control decks are generally trickier, and out of the three types are the least desirable to be left alone with after the dust has settled because odds are that you won't be able to outrace a polished BUG deck once it's online and alone with you. Control decks sometimes use some kind of beefy finisher such as Consuming Aberration which can be turned against them IF you can get around their counter-magic. Sudden Impact is especially useful against control since they often have large hands if you can catch them with their pants down and tapped out. On the other hand, they're good because they offer slower games which gives you more time to set up defenses and assemble kill cards. Overmaster will help if you're having real problems with them or are functioning in a control-heavy meta.
Against Combo:
I'll be honest, our deck kind of rolls over and dies to a finely tuned combo deck. We don't have the ability to rush them like aggro decks and we don't have the ability to counter their spells like control decks. I think combo has an interesting advantage in EDH because of being a singleton and 100 card format. Unlike Standard where you can meta-game against the most popular combo decks, you don't have that luxury in EDH where your opponents can pull anything on you. Even if you are running cards like Nevermore, a good combo deck might not even be obvious that it is a combo deck until it's too late since you might not know what combo pieces they're playing unless you search their library. Even if you did know, you'd have to be able to fetch your answers which I think is a lot harder to pull off than a combo deck fetching their pieces usually. If you do know what decks you'll be playing against ahead of time though, Black, White, and Red each offer their own strategies for fighting combo. Black has Sudden Spoiling which is already in the deck as well as many cards like Praetor's Grasp which will let you surgically remove cards from their library. White has the aforementioned Nevermore as well as Rule of Law to slow them down. Red has hand disruption such as Reforge the Soul and Molten Psyche to trash their combo pieces while they're still in their hand. However, many of those tactics go against the spirit of the deck, so use them with caution if you feel you need to. Combo decks are also extremely situational as far as being able to beat them. If their combo gives them infinite creatures or attempts to deal a large amount of damage from a single source, you might be okay with Rakdos Charm or Reflect Damage. But if their combo functions in a way that gives them infinite turns, you're out of luck. MAYBE a well timed Wild Ricochet could prolong your life there, but there are some combos that you just can't interact with. I personally don't enjoy playing against combo in the first place because I don't find them fun, so I try to avoid playing with and against (only in EDH, I'm totally down with combo in a normal 60 card game) them in the first place.
Against Tokens:
Tokens are a fairly good match-up for this deck. As a variant of aggro, you'll want to take a similar stance of hoping they make it to the end game with you. There are plenty of tools in the deck to deal with them in the early game such as Crawlspace and Thunderstaff. A good token deck will be packing some artifact removal though, but probably won't use it on you until they can clear away the rest of the threats. You've got Rakdos Charm, Netherborn Phalanx, Batwing Brume, and Stronghold Discipline as kill cards here, so you should be able to eliminate a token player without much trouble. If they're able to sacrifice their tokens at instant speed though then you'll be in for a much tougher game. If their sac engine is an artifact or enchantment, then you can use Shattering Pulse or Allay to get rid of them, but if it's a creature then you're in a much more disadvantageous position. At this point, Tariel's reanimation ability can sometimes help while you're holding off the token horde. Additionally, forcing them to sac their tokens by playing your kill cards allows you some time to swing with Tariel because they generally don't have tokens with flying unless they're Angel or Pegasus tokens.
Against Reanimator:
Reanimator decks are usually alright match-ups because they generally make for some nice threats to the other players. Unless they can reanimate something like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur immediately, they'll need some time to fill up their own and possibly others' graveyards. And time is good. Some of the time, they'll be reanimating beefy creatures which can be hit with a Backlash. Fortunately, if they're reanimating other players' creatures, they won't be able to steal too much from you. Unfortunately, if they play Living Death you're going to be the odd man out. This is where a Hallowed Burial might be a necessary evil. If all else fails, you can also benefit from them wanting to fill up their graveyards with Tariel's ability and play their own game a little. Since reanimator decks generally come in many flavors (Karador, Ghost Chieftain, The Mimeoplasm, and maybe something mono-Black like Chainer, Dementia Master), the game can go many directions against these decks.
Against Sac and Recur:
I have a soft spot in my heart for Sac and Recur decks because of my like of the Golgari. However, when they're played against us, they can be trouble. There will be a similar game plan as against the Reanimator decks except that Tariel becomes arguably more important because of the possible inability to stop the "sac" part. If your meta has a strong Sac and Recur deck in it, you may consider running reanimation of your own such as Necromancy or Animate Dead. However, I dislike meta gaming for one particular deck type, so I'd recommend looking to shut down their sacrifice engines with artifact and enchantment removal because if they can sacrifice their creatures at instant speed for free, most or all of your turnaround cards will be ineffective. The good thing about these decks is that they generally take a lot longer to set up than a pure play reanimation deck which will give you time to make any preparations you might need for the end game. They're also generally not in Blue so you probably won't have to worry about counter-magic since some combination of White, Black, and Green is what you'll probably be facing.
Against Blink:
Blink is a difficult match-up for this deck because of it's ability to disrupt your turnaround cards. Thankfully, it tends to draw a lot of hate when I see it played which should help you a little. Against a Blink deck, something like Grand Abolisher would be very helpful in dealing the final blow. Ironically, Grand Abolisher also is a great card to use against this deck as it shuts down Reflect Damage, Batwing Brume, and a few other turnaround cards. Grand Abolisher and effects like it such as Abeyance or Aurelia's Fury might be too "restrictive" though and go against the spirit of the deck. It's a very fine line where you can either make the deck more competitive and be disliked a little or run the risk of being unable to use your kill cards against this type of deck at all. Just be aware that by using effects like that, you're straying from the "spirit" of the deck, but you do increase your chances of winning in this situation. This is another scenario where Tariel being able to slowly reanimate an army becomes a good looking backup plan if you just need to win because some decks like this won't be able to be taken out under amazing circumstances because of their ability to disrupt kill spells.
Against Dredge:
Dredge is a very uncommon deck in Commander given the inconsistency of it in this format. It will play a little like Reanimator or Sac and Recur most likely, and may even be some kind of hybrid deck that uses features of both of them. Either way, Dredge is another long game deck which gives us lots of time to set up both our defenses and assemble our turnaround cards. Since Dredge decks can bring their creatures back more easily than about any other deck, it might not be uncommon for them to take advantage of this and run lots of mass creature removal which is great, because we don't run a lot of creatures. A cycle of death and rebirth that keeps wiping the field is exactly the kind of situation you want to find yourself in. Your opponents' resources are being either stalled or depleted while you can build yours up.
Against Thievery:
Thievery is not a terrible match-up. You don't have a lot of creatures to steal whether they be on the battlefield or in the graveyard. It also makes enemies out of other players since they usually don't like having their stuff taken which should draw some heat off of you. If your opponent is Thada Adel, Acquisitor, Reverence and Rune of Protection: Blue will be very useful since you do have some artifacts that they could steal. As far as stealing spells, a lot of them are situational, and they won't be able to be cast at the correct time. Some of them like Acidic Soil and Backlash can be used by them, but usually to your advantage as well. As these decks are mainly Blue and Black, enchantments are generally untouched unless it's something that gains control of a permanent. Thievery decks tend to draw a LOT of attention to themselves though, so expect some turmoil focused around them one way or another.
Against Toolbox:
Toolbox strategies can be fairly tricky to play against as a good one will have some nice artifact and enchantment destruction with your name on it somewhere in the deck. While they're very good at breaking down your defenses, their answers are generally more permanent based, so they might have some trouble with your spells. Scion of the Ur-Dragon is an example of a very good toolbox commander as it has access to all five colors and can search for an answer or threat at instant speed. These decks tend to be much weaker without their toolbox enablers though, so don't feel too bad if you let off a Hallowed Burial while one of them is on the field. Alternatively, if there's a Blue player in the game, you can bet they'll be saving their Spin into Myth for something just like that as opposed to using it on Tariel. Out of all the styles of play, this one is by its nature the most versatile, so expect surprises when playing them.
Against Voltron:
Voltron can be a very good or bad match-up depending upon the commander you're up against as it can be considered a form of aggro. Uril the Mistwalker and other ones that come with built in protection can be a pain since your Backlash or Mirror Strike won't work on them. You can consider running something like Glaring Spotlight, but it will probably be a dead card most of the time. If you know you're up against him though then you may want to do it. Most Voltron decks will try to protect their general in some way, but most players will also be trying to de-boot or de-greave them as well. If they're unprotected, a 50/50 Omnath, Locus of Mana can be your best friend. Voltron decks are also usually weak to having their general tucked or pacified in some way, so they'll be watching out for that. More than anything, Voltron decks will usually make a splash early in the game somehow which can often set the tone for how players feel about each other for a good portion of the game in terms of who is a threat and who isn't.
Against Lifegain:
The major weakness of any Lifegain deck is Commander damage, so Tariel might be getting a workout here. However, most Lifegain decks expect this and will also probably be playing some defenses as well. Since Lifegain decks are generally more passive, they sometimes don't get as much hate because they don't appear to be a threat which is a very bad thing for us. Some players know that Felidar Sovereign is lurking around the corner in some Lifegain decks though, so it depends on the meta. Our deck does have some built in answers to Lifegain such as Repay in Kind followed by a burn spell or Soul Conduit which can give them fits. If it's a Lifegain deck of the Extort or White/Black variety, it will usually draw a lot more hate to itself though and be a bit more vulnerable politically. I've entertained the idea of running False Cure before, but it's just so situational. However, if there is a Lifegain deck in your meta, False Cure is PERFECTLY on theme for this deck and should be an auto-include as using it after a player tries to do a Beacon of Immortality is priceless.
Against Stax:
Stax decks are good match-ups if the stax deck doesn't end up winning the whole thing. They're also good if they're more focused on keeping creatures off the field than anything else. If a Stax deck is able to set itself up successfully and lock down the game, there's not much you can do as your lands, artifacts, and enchantments slowly get put into the graveyard. If the Stax deck makes an attempt to lock the board but gets triple teamed (which will often be the case), all they've ended up doing is slowing down the game a bit which is good for this deck. At the very least, you will not want to be aligned with them in any way socially during the game as they will be enemy of the state almost no matter what. Thankfully, since resources are so abundant in EDH and many decks are very explosive with their ramping, Stax decks can sometimes have a harder time making a quick lock. Your best opportunity here is if they try to pull a finisher like Avenger of Zendikar.
Against Ramp:
Ramp is a great match-up depending upon what they are ramping into. Great big beasties or hordes of tokens are obviously wonderful for this deck, and the plethora of lands they'll be putting out are perfect for Acidic Soil. If the player ramps too quickly, it might make them look a lot more dangerous than you, so that's good. If there's a control player at the table with some mass removal, that's even better. The cycle of ramp-wrath-ramp-wrath is exactly what this deck can need to get set up while not drawing hate. The only thing to be careful of is if they're ramping with Blue in their general because once those get going, they can be pretty hard to stop. This is why the deck works best when the power levels of the decks are about equal and a back and forth goes on between most of the players.
Against Big Mana:
As a similar deck to ramp, our attitude is mostly the same towards Big Mana decks. The main difference is that a card like Parallectric Feedback might be more valuable in this situation. It's a card that I've thought about including in the main deck for quite a bit now but I just never seen Genesis Wave or Exsanguinate as much as I used to see them. Big Mana usually makes big creatures like hydras which are great for Boros Fury-Shielding or Mirror Strike. They also tend to make big token armies which Rakdos Charm and Batwing Brume do wonderfully against. A weakness against Big Mana can be if they're not using it for those purposes but rather to set up a control engine which will be harder to deal with, but most people prefer to make big, explosive plays that can only be made with large amounts of mana. Often the players with the most cards in hand, threatening board state, and available mana are the threats at the table, so Big Mana will usually draw hate off of you as well since it will likely have all three.
Against Land Destruction:
Possibly the most universally hated strategy in Commander (if not the game). There's good news and bad news with this deck. The good news is that you probably won't have to ever worry about being attack (except by the Land Destruction player) for as long as the Land Destruction player is in the game. The bad news is that Land Destruction is usually really effective against most decks as they are not prepared to deal with it. If you have to meta game against Land Destruction, nothing is much better than Sacred Ground as most Land Destruction decks are in Black and Red. Sometimes they'll be in Green which does have enchantment removal, but if it's not, a card like that will usually shut down their whole deck until they can whip out their Steel Hellkite or Spine of Ish Sah. By then, it should be too late for the Land Destruction player though as no one usually wants them at the table for long as they realize the extreme threat they pose.
Against Artifacts:
I don't see this strategy too often, but when I do, it's a fairly interesting match. More often than not, people underestimate how good these decks can be until it's way too late because they appear to be so unusual. Since artifacts are capable of going in most directions, the deck might be unpredictable. It could have Lifegain elements with Venser's Journal, theft elements with Memnarch, or just go full blown combo with Sharuum the Hegemon or Arcum Dagsson. Shattering Pulse is probably the most destructive thing in the deck that we have against artifacts, but Vandalblast is a fair alternative. However, good artifact decks will likely be running things that can make their artifacts indestructible such as Darksteel Forge or using equipment such as Darksteel Plate, so you might look at Return to Dust for meta gaming against these decks as well. Unfortunately, since we run a lot of artifacts ourselves, Ancient Runes is not in the deck list, however you can run it with something like Personal Sanctuary if you really want to. Also, Personal Sanctuary is a great card against this deck for that matter. The ever underplayed Rune of Protection: Artifacts (usually nice against a Wurmcoil Engine in a normal game) will also do you good here.
Against Mill:
Mill is a troublesome deck to play against because it doesn't do any of the things that are usually good for using our turnaround cards on. Sometimes Mill decks will mill themselves in the process in order to abuse some of their own reanimation abilities in which case Guiltfeeder (a card that was formerly in the deck) is a card that punishes large graveyards. Additionally, Tariel herself benefits from a mill deck sometimes as you can be assured that there will almost always be reanimation targets. This is another strategy that is very slow usually and even slower in multiplayer which will give you time to set up defenses. Running some type of recursion against these decks might be okay, and any of the Eldrazi that shuffle your graveyard into your library when they hit it will stunt most mill decks unless they're playing something like Praetor's Grasp which can surgically remove cards. Elixir of Immortality is also usually good against mill decks. As an alternate finisher, some mill decks run Consuming Aberration which is perfect for Dong Zhou, the Tyrant to do his thing. What you have to watch out for with these decks is that since we don't run a lot of recursion, they can permanently get rid of some of your answers if they run too wild. Thankfully, most people don't like being milled and this strategy is somewhat hated for that reason sometimes.
Against Infect:
Have you ever seen a Blightsteel Colossus eat a Mirror Strike or a pumped Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon get Backlashed? If you play against an Infect deck, you just might. To be fair, pure Infect/Poison decks are fairly rare because they don't like to be too obvious about showing their fangs too quickly. More often than not, you might see an infected creature as quick win attempt in something like a The Mimeoplasm Reanimator build. When you do see a pure Infect deck though, watch out because they won't want to give you time to set up any defenses. On the other hand, they rarely make it to the late game because it's still hard to beat three opponents with infected dudes if everyone is trying to make sure that they don't win. Watch out for Infect decks with Red in them that might be able to make their infected creatures deal direct damage somehow as they may attempt to go for win that takes out all three opponents at once. You're more likely to see Infect or Poison decks in a 1 vs. 1 game though as they know as well the difficulties of facing down three opponents at once.
Against Enchantress:
Like the Artifacts strategy, Enchantress decks are another type of play style that seem to have the effect of drawing the attention of opponents away from the massive card advantage it's generating and towards the novelty and superior mechanical theme of the deck. Allay is your best friend here if they're not running Blue for counterspells. They'll likely try to draw out the game so they can set up all of their defenses, but they can probably do it a little more quickly than us with their access to Green. Since we run so many enchantments ourselves, something like Austere Command is a little difficult to run for the deck, so something like Devout Witness or Return to Dust might be effective here in the late game. If you have an aggro player at the table, they won't wait for the enchantments to all get put into place, so you may see some help from them. They'll likely be running Aura Shards so you should probably tutor for that Allay as soon as possible as it will wreck our defenses more than anything else. Like always, try not to make an enemy out of them though if possible.
Against Punisher:
This one's a piece of cake. Not only are Punisher decks generally not that great in a multiplayer environment because they draw so much hate, but you'll look like a saint standing next to them. Most of the time you don't have to do anything to the Punisher player because your other two opponents will focus all of their attention on them. This almost guarantees that you'll survive relatively unhindered for a bit, so make use of those turns to start getting some card advantage through Mind's Eye or Seer's Sundial and set up those defenses. Watch out though for the "Wheel of Pain" variation that UBR sometimes plays as that one is a little less suspicious as it revolves around things like Underworld Dreams followed by things like Wheel of Fortune. The Seizan, Perverter of Truth versions will help your card advantage, but at the same time, we'd rather the other opponents not get that boost in card advantage too depending upon if they're playing aggro or control. Old fashioned Kaervek the Merciless decks can be powerhouses, but are usually the most obvious about the whole hating everyone thing.
Against Group Hug:
Be very, very afraid. This is bad, real bad. If you see Phelddagrif or possibly Zedruu the Greathearted across from you at the table, start worrying a bit. The first thing we don't like about these decks is that they give your other opponents way too much card advantage which can set up a game state that enables them to ramp much faster than you can set up your defenses and end the game prematurely. The second reason we don't like these decks is that they often have a combo win condition (if any) that might not be stoppable by a turnaround card. The third reason we don't like these decks is that if they're successful in lulling your opponents into a false sense of security and your other opponents don't know to immediately take out the group hug player, that means that as far as "threat assessment" goes, you're really looking at a three player game if they don't want to hurt the group hug player which is NOT good. It effectively makes the game go "faster" as it will take on the pace of a three player game threat-wise except it will be turbo-boosted by the hug player. You can almost think of it as if one player has conceded immediately and you're playing in magical turbo-threat land. Thankfully, many players know now that group hug usually does have a win condition, to take the cards that they get from the player, and then kill them with them. When you do see a group hug deck, do not attack it if the other players aren't. If they are attacking it, this is one of the rare occasions where you can do what you can to finish them off quickly if it doesn't waste your own resources. Even if the Zedruu player isn't a group hug deck, the same almost applies to them as well.
Against Pillow Fort:
It's somewhat fitting that the two worst decks for this deck to probably play against be Group Hug and Pillow Fort. Like above, if you see Angus Mackenzie staring you down, you know you're in for a rough game. Pillow Fort decks usually have that same footprint of not a lot you can use your turnaround cards on, attempting to be even less of a threat than you and making you look worse by comparison, and sometimes winning with an unstoppable combo. It doesn't help that if it is Angus that he'll have access to counterspells as well. The same thing applies to "Rattlesnake" decks that say, "If you attack me, you're in for a world of hurt". Most of the time, a Pillow Fort player will be allowed to ramp up and start spitting out defenses as everyone else is usually ramping up and spitting out threats at the time. We know that the immovable object is often much stronger than the unstoppable force though if played right because the threat playing players may not have the ability to penetrate all of the defenses that the Pillow Fort player can set up. And unlike our defenses which are meant to dissuade more than anything, their defenses are meant to be absolute. Tariel's reanimation may come in handy here, but otherwise, you're in for a tough game unless the other two opponents decide that they really don't like Pillow Forts...in which case you may be in for a Pyrrhic victory.
Backlash: What a nice card. I’ve won countless games because of this one. People love to play big creatures and Backlash loves when they do too.
Batwing Brume: There’s been more than one horde of goblins that have walked right into this one. 30 point life swings are not uncommon here.
Blood Oath: This card provides more flexibility than it first appears. It can finish someone off after a mass bounce, punish artifact/enchantment/land/creature-centric decks, and even check to see if an opponent has a counterspell in their hand.
Boros Fury-Shield: I’ve always had a soft spot for this one. Something about the idea of a shield being used for offense is just so…Boros. At three mana, it’s hard to pass up.
Captain's Maneuver: The ability to not have to target a creature makes this very valuable. However, you’ve got to be playing it late game. It seems like one of those cards that shouldn’t be “that good”, but from experience, it’s saved my butt many times.
Divine Deflection: Captain’s Maneuver’s sexier sister who you’re never going to make it with. Not like you really have any creatures to protect, but it gets the job done for one less mana and one less color.
Dong Zhou, the Tyrant: What a funny looking fellow. I guarantee that most of your opponents have never been Donged out of a game before. He’s nice in that he can both eliminate a player and then attempt to finish off another.
Mirari: Instead of having to hold one of your copy spells, you can have one on the field ready to go. It'll be harmless for most of the game.
Mirror Strike: The card that started this whole deck really. Simple and effective. You have to pick a target though so watch out for things wearing boots.
Netherborn Phalanx: This is for all of those Saproling/Goblin/Soldier decks. If need be, it also can fetch Soul Conduit on the fly.
Phthisis: I don’t know how to spell this card, let alone say it. But it sure is useful against Eldrazi. Always hard-cast it for maximum damage.
Rakdos Charm: This one is usually a game winner or severely cripples opponents. For only two mana, it’s a steal. It can also get rid of a pesky artifact in the event that your opponents decks aren’t creature-heavy.
Reflect Damage: Slightly more expensive than Mirror Strike, but it gets around targeting and bypasses an opponent’s shroud or hexproof. It can also hit burn spells. Someone once tried to pull a Runeflare Trap on me one time and got this instead.
Repay in Kind: What a dirty, dirty card. This goes well with any direct damage and can be used differently in a variety of situations (burn someone, cast it, then burn the rest of them).
Soul Conduit: Punishes an opponent for attacking you too much or gaining too much life. Perfect late game against an Extort deck.
Stronghold Discipline: This won’t hurt you too much because you shouldn’t be running that many creatures.
Blood Reckoning: Even though there aren’t any Planeswalkers in the deck, it makes opponents likely to attack others before you.
Crawlspace: Fairly useless at the beginning, but towards the end, it can help you fend off an army while you use Turnaround cards on their biggest and dumbest brutes.
Dread: Doubles as both an evasive beater and a No Mercy with legs.
Forcefield: While a major deterrent by itself, it can also create a one way soft combat lock with Thunderstaff or any other card that negates one damage being dealt. It won't get around a pair of boots or greaves, but otherwise it's pretty solid.
Hissing Miasma: It costs one less than Blood Reckoning and when paired with it can overwhelm opponents quickly.
Mouth of Ronom: This card was really put in here to get rid of Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir should he show up, but it can also act as a deterrent against other smaller creatures.
Mystifying Maze: I won’t spend the money on a Maze of Ith. It can also take back a stolen Tariel potentially.
No Mercy: This will almost always ensure you’re the last to be attacked. It sets people back way too much to kill you first.
Norn's Annex: If a deck isn't playing white, this plus can greatly deter a damaged opponent from attacking.
Reverence: It stops the smaller tokens right in their tracks. Most token decks have a way to pump themselves though, so this is mainly used to stay alive in the beginning until you can pull a Rakdos Charm.
Righteous Cause: I've found that the amount of hate this card draws if fairly negligible. Giving the deck access to life gain puts it in a much more powerful position. Additionally, it works well with Forcefield by making a soft combat lock as long as you have mana and Sun Droplet by raising the maximum life you can gain with it.
Rune of Protection: Artifacts (and the other five Runes): These are probably the cards I get questioned about the most. First, I like them over the Circles of Protection because they can be cycled if you’re not playing against the right colors and are never a dead draw. Second, they’re kinda cute. Third, I like them over Story Circle because if I don’t need defense and need that Turnaround card, I can cycle it. And no, I won’t play Rune of Protection: Lands. Most of the time, they’re not dead draws and basically say, “You’re not killing me through general damage”. I’ve also never found myself wishing that I had more white mana (a disadvantage they have compared to the Circles of Protection and Story Circle which only need colorless to activate) because the threat of being able to prevent an opponent’s damage is enough.
Spurnmage Advocate: A cheap rattlesnake that can also return a card to an opponent’s hand that you really want them to have for whatever reason.
Sudden Spoiling: This card can be used offensively as well, but it can stop Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and others for a turn while the rest of the board punishes them for trying to combo off.
Sun Droplet: This is an all-star right here. Who wants to attack someone when they’ll just gain it right back?
Thunderstaff: Not bad at all against weenies. It’ll also cause opponents to attack others since they aren’t getting as much bang for their buck against you.
Deck Acceleration Cards:
Armillary Sphere: It turns a two land hand into a four land hand with colors of your choice.
Burnished Hart: This noble beast sacrifices itself for two lands into play. He's a solid color-fixer that can double as a blocker too. In our colors, we'll take what we can get.
Chromatic Lantern: Some much needed mana acceleration and fixing. For non-Green decks, it doesn't get much better than this.
Gift of Estates: I think this is an often overlooked card outside of mono White. Simply put, it's a 3 for 1 deal that costs two mana and will ensure consistent land drops until your sixth land.
Gilded Lotus: Three mana of any color is very helpful to a three color deck. It'll also send you straight from five mana to potentially nine on the next turn if you hit a land drop.
Journeyer's Kite: An obligatory non-Green land search card. Helps thin the deck.
Mind's Eye: An enormous card advantage engine. Without Blue or Green in the deck, that draw power has to come from somewhere.
Overmaster: This will allow you to hopefully play around those pesky Blue mages. If not playing against Blue, it replaces itself.
Scrying Sheets: A little extra possible draw at the end of turn doesn't hurt. It's most likely to draw you a few cards a game at the least which isn't bad for a land.
Seer's Sundial: It helps ensure that lands are usually not dead draws.
Solemn Simulacrum: He'll ramp you up some land (something not in our colors) and draw you a card when he dies (also not usually in our colors).
Staff of Nin: The way to ensure amazing plays is to ensure you have the best chance of drawing the cards that you need. This does that.
Thawing Glaciers: Probably one of the more effective non-Green options for land search.
Weathered Wayfarer: He can fetch you any land in your deck and comes out turn 1. What's not to love? Being not in green, other players will frequently have more land than you probably, so he can usually be activated.
“Competitive” Cards:
Allay: For the most part, you’ll be counting on your opponents to do the enchantment destruction. But once you have Allay, it can mean the end of an Enchantress deck.
Buried Ruin: Since most of our strong card draw is artifact based, this will allow you to recover from something like a Staff of Nin or Mind's Eye getting destroyed.
Hallowed Burial: Tucks the opposing generals and can swing the tide in your favor once there’s only one opponent left.
Lightning Greaves: Okay, I’m guilty of playing this card too. It’ll pretty much almost always go on Tariel.
Reliquary Tower: If you find yourself not wanting to discard anything because you're drawing an unusual amount of kill spells (which we'll never really be playing until we can win most of the time), this card is your man-tower.
Shattering Pulse: Allay’s sister. Great for exploding those pieces of scrap.
Tectonic Edge: An opposing Maze of Ith can stunt your chances of victory if Tariel is your only hope. It should primarily be used on the lands that prevent damage.
I’m sure that I’ve missed plenty that fit the theme of the deck, but if you bring them up, I’ll either put them in the deck or add them to this list if I think they’re interesting.
Angelheart Vial: It seems a bit expensive, but I’d be willing to try it someday.
Culling Dais: Definitely an interesting alternative to Carnage Altar. While the ability to not have to pay anything to sacrifice your creature is nice, you can only do one at a time. The main reason I like the altar better is that you never have to sacrifice the altar whereas using the dais means getting rid of it. I would also rather get my cards immediately rather than wait until I've decided I'm done using my artifact.
Delirium: I’d rather take the disadvantage of having to target an untapped creature with Backlash than play it only on an opponent’s turn.
Eye for an Eye: This actually used to be in an earlier version of the deck. I took it out in favor of Reflect Damage or Divine Deflection because I painfully realized once that I'd rather have dealt the damage back to them AND prevented it.
False Cure: Perfect against Lifegain decks, but too situational to be used anywhere else. If there is a strong Lifegain presence within your meta, this is an auto-include for the deck.
Fork: While the deck doesn't currently use this card, it might someday. The ability to copy your own or other spells can be deadly.
Ghostly Prison: Mana is too prevalent in many of the games I play for this to be that useful for long.
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight: I'm not sure if this card is too "win-more" or not. I'll have to try it out eventually.
Gossamer Chains: Great for deterring potential attackers. People don't like having to over-commit their resources and this makes them send two creatures at you to just deal damage with one.
Grab the Reins: I don’t like the idea of stealing other people’s things except from the graveyard where they’ve already gotten to use them once probably.
Grand Abolisher: If you're playing against decks that can sacrifice, blink, or bounce their creatures at instant speed, this is definitely a card you might want to consider (as a necessary evil) as it might be the only way to use your turnaround spells on them. Use with caution as this is not what I'd consider on theme for the deck, however I'm presenting it because it is a solution to some problems which are very hard to deal with otherwise. In actual play, I would never run the card and would probably attempt to win without creature-based turnaround spells if I was in a situation where I was unable to use them as effectively.
Grisly Spectacle: Used to be in the deck. The variants that do damage equal to the creature's power are probably more likely to kill them than milling them.
Honorable Passage: Used to be in the deck. Was taken out because it wasn't used as often as other kill spells.
Karmic Justice: Maybe. I’ve been playing around with it for quite a bit. I like Martyr's Bond better because it can hit more than just one target (and doesn’t have to target).
Necromancer's Covenant: If you're playing against creature-heavy decks but they've been wiped off the board already, this may be something that can turn the game around quickly.
Nova Pentacle: A tricky little card that can make for some fun times. It can put the blame on others, and it doesn't cost too much to activate.
Parallectric Feedback: I haven't seen enough X spells lately, but this could be a thing later.
Reiterate: This may be one of the more mana intensive cards of the spell copy spells. Worth a shot.
Runeflare Trap: I’d rather have the assured 4 CMC than a possible 6 CMC.
Searing Rays: I'd rather just run something less specific that doesn't care about the color like Rakdos Charm.
Shriveling Rot: A very interesting card. At some point I’ll try this probably if I see the situation come up enough.
Sphere of Safety: Maybe. I'll have to test it. Still kinda iffy on it for the same reason as Ghostly Prison, but it could be good. Depends on how many enchantments I can get out obviously.
Terminus: A fair replacement for Hallowed Burial. I'd rather pay one mana less than have the chance to play it for W or be forced to pay six. You could easily run both though.
Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts: It's Dread but with protection from creatures, vigilance, costs one more, and can potentially make you some tokens. I'll think about it.
Toil // Trouble: I'd rather have this type of spell be an instant if possible.
Vandalblast: An alternative to Shattering Pulse. I like the ability to reuse Pulse a bit better, but this will do nicely as well.
Vengeful Pharaoh: Even though he's harder to get rid of than No Mercy, I'd just as soon play the enchantment because of being forced to draw the Pharaoh repeatedly.
Viashino Heretic: He drew too much hate. He used to be in an early version of the deck.
In: Norn's Annex, Out: Dawnglare Invoker - 6/20/13. Wanted to try the card out. It turns out that the 2 life adds up very quickly if they attack you. As a creature, Dawnglare Invoker is also more fragile.
In: Journeyer's Kite, Out: Traitor's Roar - 6/25/13. Needed more late game acceleration. Traitor's Roar was cut over others because of sorcery speed.
In: Thawing Glaciers, Out: Honorable Passage - 6/25/13. It was a dead draw most of the time unlike pretty much every other turnaround card. Also, needed more mana fixing.
In: Wild Ricochet, Out: Grisly Spectacle - 7/5/13. Spectacle just wasn't killing anyone anyway. Ricochet should help with that.
In: Increasing Vengeance, Out: Mountain - 7/5/13. I can see situations where this will ensure the kill where I couldn't before.
In: Increasing Ambition, Out: Tower of Fortunes - 7/5/13. Tower didn't get used too much, and I'd rather have specific cards more often than not.
In: Sunforger, Out: Carnage Altar - 8/6/13. I figure I'm switching out one card that needs a creature to work for another, so there isn't really a net loss in usability. The Sunforger engine is just too good. A Batwing Brume pulled from it might look slightly less awesome than one from the hand maybe, but if the Sunforger sticks, it really does help win games. Also, it makes Tariel (who it will usually be equipped to) a 3 turn clock instead of 6.
In: Solemn Simulacrum, Out: Ragged Veins - 8/9/13. Yeah, I guess I'll use him too. He makes the deck look like it's participating slightly more, and he's much needed ramp, draw, and chump blocker. Ragged Veins was pretty funny at times but never won me any games.
In: Mind's Eye, Out: Jayemdae Tome - 8/9/13. I was already seeing the Tome get blown up some games so I figured I might as well try an upgrade. So far, the Mind's Eye hasn't gotten blown up that much at all and provides much better card advantage.
In: Blood Oath, Out: Gaze of Adamaro - 8/16/13. I still feel that card advantage is prevalent enough in the format to run a double of Sudden Impact, but Oath provides a lot more flexibility than Gaze even though it isn't as consistent sometimes. It can punish artifact/creature/enchantment/land heavy decks, finish someone off after a mass bounce, or check to see if someone is holding a counterspell before you go in for the kill.
In: Forcefield, Out: Predator, Flagship - 9/7/13. Forcefield is a soft one way combat lock with Thunderstaff as well as being fairly effective by itself. The flagship drew more hate than I wanted because it had the potential to blow up other people's stuff and didn't function that well as a deterrent.
In: Gilded Lotus, Out: Guiltfeeder - 9/7/13. Gilded Lotus will provide a little more acceleration to the deck. Not having enough mana to cast a combination of kill spells is a problem, and this fixes it. Although Guiltfeeder provided a way to hate on big graveyards, it was never fast enough to get that "wow" reaction. Maybe someday they'll print an instant or sorcery that says "Each player loses 1 life for each card in their graveyard" or something like that.
In: Buried Ruin, Out: Archon of Justice - 9/10/13. It officially got to the point where Archon was actually be Rite of Replicationed, copied some other way, or reanimated more than he was doing me good. Besides for that, swinging with him isn't how you're supposed to end games, so I figured I'd take away the temptation. Buried Ruin provides the dual purpose of a little more mana plus the ability to recur one of our artifacts after being destroyed. Since most of our powerful card draw comes from artifacts, it can potentially bring the deck back online after it's lost some juice.
In: Reliquary Tower, Out: Hoard-Smelter Dragon - 9/10/13. It was between the Tower and Terrain Generator although the generator still might find a place later. With all the additional card draw, I found myself needing to sometimes discard. If you're accumulating kill spells, you don't really want to get rid of them if possible, and the more you have access to, the better. The dragon was just kind of a placeholder anyway and had little to do with the deck besides for provide extra artifact destruction. In the future, I may need to readjust the deck to handle a more artifact and enchantment heavy meta, but I don't feel that I need him at the moment.
In: Righteous Cause, Out: Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs - 9/10/13. I've been playing with both Cause and Orim's Prayer for a bit now, and I think the amount of potential hate that Cause draws over the Prayer compared to the benefits it gives is marginal. Providing the deck with life gain is a huge plus, and it creates a soft combat lock against you when combined with Forcefield. Kazuul was okay, but he never felt like he made a huge impact in protecting me, especially once the late game got going and people could pay his toll or if they had fliers.
In: Weathered Wayfarer, Out: Increasing Ambition - 9/10/13. I've decided that tutors and this deck should just not go together. The "wow" factor completely disappears when you tutor for your amazing trick. Wayfarer helps our non-green, non-blue deck with acceleration and can fetch any land. It also comes out turn one. In EDH, someone will usually have more land than you to activate it.
In: Staff of Nin, Out: Diabolic Tutor - 9/10/13. Same reason as above for removing the tutor. When deciding on whether to use the Staff or picking from Black's myriad of card draw options such as Graveborn Muse, Bloodgift Demon, Phyrexian Arena, Underworld Connections, and others, I eventually decided that I don't have enough life gain to offset the potential loss of life and would rather just pay a little extra for the Staff. Plus, it comes with weenie disruption.
In: Gift of Estates, Out: Sunforger - 9/10/13. Same reasoning as the two above. Sunforger can tutor for the kill spells which is effective at winning, but not at surprising anyone. When people expect surprises, they're no longer surprises after all. I feel Gift of Estates is an extremely overlooked card outside of mono White. Simply put, it's a 3 for 1 for two mana. which ensures healthy land drops until turn five at least.
In: Burnished Hart, Out: Martyr's Bond - 10/13/13. After testing out the Hart, I have to say that he's never been a burden. Martyr's Bond has been waiting to get dropped for a long time now. It's usually a dead draw.
In: Mirari, Out: Plains - 1/25/2014. I'm not really sure why I didn't have this in a lot earlier since it basically doubles the effectiveness of most turnaround cards.
In: Survival Cache, Out: Inheritance - 1/25/2014. Cache is definitely not a flashy card by any means, but I think it gets the job done. I've never been disappointed to draw it, and Inheritance is a bit too mana intensive. Plus, a little extra life is always good.
In: Overmaster, Out: Survival Cache - 4/13/2014. Overmaster was dropping in price recently and is a bit more useful than Survival Cache. It still draws you a card if you need one, and if you're playing against Blue, it can help ensure you get a spell through.
In: Mouth of Ronom, Out: Auntie's Hovel - 4/13/2014. Mouth allows us to hit Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir when we need to get rid of him quickly. It doesn't happen often, but Teferi messes us up pretty badly. Also, it can act as a potential deterrent.
In: Scrying Sheets, Out: Plains - 4/13/2014. A little bit more acceleration. For just sitting there, it can possibly help prevent dead draws late game which is pretty nice.
Well, there weren't too many cards that look like they'd be great for this deck in Theros. Here are the ones that are the most noteworthy or I feel should be at least mentioned.
Heliod, God of the Sun: Most likely, he'd never make it to creature form in 99% of the games which basically just makes him a glorified Sacred Mesa without the flying, and Tariel already has vigilance. I don't think an extra blocker with no evasion for four mana works for this deck.
Spear of Heliod: The first ability is pretty useless in this deck since we don't run creatures really. The second ability is just a worse No Mercy or Dread, so this one's out.
Erebos, God of the Dead: Here we go. Super Greed. I'm still a bit hesitant of running the black life for draw type cards though. Like Heliod, he'll probably never make it to creature form either. The part about not letting opponents gain life seems like it would make them not like me, so I'm not too thrilled about him overall.
Stormbreath Dragon: In order to "surprise" an opponent, I'd need 12 mana to activate the whole thing. I'd take it in a heartbeat with no body as an instant at 5 mana, but it seems way too costly here. REALLY wishing it was an instant for something like 3RR. :/
Burnished Hart: Six mana over two turns is a bit costly as Armillary Sphere can be popped a turn earlier. It also can take up that valuable third or fourth turn drop that would normally be filled by a defensive card. It does stand in as a blocker though. I'll reserve judgment on this one until I see it in action more. Leaning towards no though.
Temple of Silence and Temple of Triumph: Why not? If they end up being cheap enough, I'll pick them up as replacements in the main deck for two of the Guildgates. I'll update the optimized list to reflect that in the meantime.
Commander 2013:
I was really excited for this set. I really was. All it ended up giving was a bunch of things that are good against this deck though (I'm looking at you Bane of Progress and Oloro, Ageless Ascetic). :/ Oh well. The general that I thought was the most interesting was Shattergang Brothers although I wish the art were different. Anyway, here are my thoughts on some of the cards that I think are worth commenting on.
Mystic Barrier: We want cards that allow everyone to attack each other. Limiting who everyone can attack isn't our style here and is a bit too controlling.
Serene Master: This is a really funny card, and if EDH decks had 1,000 cards in them, I might put this one in. I just don't think it's versatile enough to deserve a slot without flying or something else.
Baleful Force: We still don't run enough life gain to really take advantage of Black's life for cards stuff. Even if we did, running big creatures that can smash face (besides Dread I guess) isn't what we want to do.
Price of Knowledge: Close, but we don't want to be advertising our kill cards and waving them in front of our opponents until we actually kill them.
Terra Ravager: Again, the effect is nice, but it moves at the pace of a snail. Far too slow to be used in this deck. This card and Price of Knowledge are probably the two that most closely fit the deck, but the execution of them are both no good.
Not too much here although I was looking forward to seeing what Mogis, God of Slaughter would be like. As a whole, I like the set though. I think that Raised by Wolves flavor is really nice.
Acolyte's Reward: If only we had significant devotion to White, this might be nice.
Dawn to Dusk: I'll reserve judgment on this card for now. It's definitely a possibility since we do like our own enchantments, but I'll wait a bit and see how it plays since I don't know what I'd take out.
Silent Sentinal: Attacking to activate the ability isn't preferred.
Temple of Malice: Like the other Temples, this will go in the optimized deck list.
...and that's it. Nothing much even to consider for this deck here I think.
Journey Into Nyx:
So, is it me or did this seem like it was a creature set disguised as an enchantment set? There wasn't really a whole lot to discuss in this set. Anyway, onto the cards...
Aegis of the Gods: While nice, I think it's not really that essential to the deck. It's also a creature which makes it more vulnerable.
Nyx-Fleece Ram: Cute. Really cute. Doesn't do enough though.
Dictate of the Twin Gods: There we go! This card will go on my watch list. I think it could be used as a sub if you're using the more than 100 card version of the deck in real life. The "flash" part is what sets it apart from similar cards.
Conspiracy:
This looks like a really fun set. I can't wait to play with a lot of the cards in it. But for Tariel...
Ignition Team: This was one of those cards where I was very hopeful about halfway through reading the card. Not quite what I was hoping.
Treasonous Ogre: This won't go in the deck, but it does look interesting and scary. Just thought I'd bring it up.
Coercive Portal: This is the only serious contender for the deck. I don't think it will really be offensive by itself since it needs the majority to go off, and it nets you some cards in the meantime. We don't usually develop a heavy board presence so it could be asymmetric. The downside is that we actually do want ridiculous board states sometimes and this might prevent us from getting there. It's worth thinking about anyway.
Magic 2015:
Finally, a core set! I didn't find any auto-includes but there are some interesting choices to think about.
Ajani Steadfast: We don't run any Planeswalkers and this guy doesn't look like he'll be the first. His ultimate is obviously what's attractive here but he's got no way to protect himself in our deck.
Avacyn, Guardian Angel: That's certainly some nice protection, but it's a bit expensive and seems like it would be overkill a lot of the time. Also, it's fairly color and mana intensive to use.
Hushwing Gryff: This is a card that paints a target on your face and we don't want that. However it doesn't hurt our deck that much so we'll be happy when other people play it and draw attention to themselves.
Resolute Archangel: We really don't have any blink in this deck so abusing it is not an option. Our opponents have lots of ways to reanimate it and make clones of it though so this isn't that attractive.
In Garruk's Wake: We don't really wrath. Depending on the meta, getting rid of some 'walkers could be nice. Otherwise not so much.
Ob Nixilis, Unshackled: Oh boy. This guy also paints a target on your face. He's pretty funny though.
Perilous Vault: I usually don't play with a reset button, but this would be a good choice if you choose to do so.
Soul of New Phyrexia: It's a bit mana intensive but it's something that can actually protect our enchantments and artifacts. It would be a bummer if it got cloned, stolen, or reanimated. We only don't care if an opponent's creature is indestructible if it's really big. If they can make some annoying utility creature indestructible then we might have a problem. Use with caution.
Hi there! I'm Rach. I wrote this thing. I've been playing Magic more often than not since Mirrodin in 2003. I was originally very reluctant to start playing, but once I did, I was hooked. At first I liked building decks that people didn't like a lot. Erayo, Soratami Ascendant with Rule of Law, Oath of Druids with Serra Avatar and Dragon Fangs and co., and a red chaos deck were some of the ones I used to play in high school. My first deck was a Lone Wolf deck that won with Seal of Strength and Muscle Burst. Good times.
In college, I didn't play quite as much. I did try going to FNM and drafting. It was fun, but my group of friends from high school found it more fun to just buy some packs and have our own drafts at home. Sometime during this period I started playing MTGO. I eventually developed a Savra, Queen of the Golgari deck which never became an EDH deck though. After college, I started playing MTGO (and EDH) exclusively because of how my friends' schedules are now that we're all working.
My favorite aspect of Magic has always been the creative and flavorful sides of it. The color pie is a really awesome concept, and if my avatar didn't make it obvious, I have a strong like of the Golgari. Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord was one of my favorite characters in the Ravnica novels (which is also my favorite block). Anyway, I have a strong distaste for building decks like the ones I started with. I thought I was being clever back when I was messing around with combos, but I was just a big frog in a small pond. Once I realized that everyone and their dog played those decks, my hipster instincts kicked in (I hate hipsters by the way) and started looking for other ideas. While probably not unique, I think this deck is the most fun for me to play that I've ever built and is relatively unusual at least. I would never build a deck just to be "that wacky guy OMG SQUIRRELS LOL" though. I'd like any deck I build to not be just a "novelty" deck which is only designed with a certain theme in mind, but one with effective form AND function. I understand that people play Magic for many different reasons though, whether it be to win, as a creative outlet, or just an activity you can do while having a few drinks with some friends, so to each their own. My favorite games are long ones that don't end in comboing out or rage-quitting, have lots of twists and turns where everyone is the major threat at the table at least once in the game, and where everyone jokes around a lot.
Always open to suggestions (including formatting suggestions for the thread) and might try them out if they're cheap enough (average card price should be $0.50 on MTGO unless it's really stellar).
Thoughts on Culling Dais instead of Carnage Altar? I don't like the need to pay 3 and I don't expect the need to sac more than one critter to come up often with Tariel.
Thoughts on Culling Dais instead of Carnage Altar? I don't like the need to pay 3 and I don't expect the need to sac more than one critter to come up often with Tariel.
Updated the maybe-list with Culling Dais. There was actually a time I was only able to win by attacking with Tariel, tapping her to get a creature, saccing the creature, and then saccing Tariel to draw into a Batwing Brume with the exact amount of damage on the next turn to win. Regardless, the real reasoning is in the post.
Also, did a general beautification (hopefully) job on the thread by adding some pictures and putting text in boxes.
Updated the maybe-list with Culling Dais. There was actually a time I was only able to win by attacking with Tariel, tapping her to get a creature, saccing the creature, and then saccing Tariel to draw into a Batwing Brume with the exact amount of damage on the next turn to win. Regardless, the real reasoning is in the post.
Also, did a general beautification (hopefully) job on the thread by adding some pictures and putting text in boxes.
Of course my comments are coming from someone who has never played the deck, so please feel free to say, "that's just not a good idea".
As for the beautification. I like the additions, but a little formatting is off. The text of several boxes spills over the card image to the right.
One other thought as I glanced at the deck: Wayfarer's Bauble is a nice cheap common that perfectly curves for a turn 2 ramp to 3 lands. Perhaps something to consider? Or do you think this is too aggressive of a move? (Which I can see now that I wrote it out).
I also just noticed that Toil // Trouble is interesting in this deck. Works similarly to Sudden Impact, but can draw you some cards if you need them. Sorcery speed is a drawback though.
Karmic Justice seems like a good way to protect yourself and your defenses.
Of course my comments are coming from someone who has never played the deck, so please feel free to say, "that's just not a good idea".
As for the beautification. I like the additions, but a little formatting is off. The text of several boxes spills over the card image to the right.
One other thought as I glanced at the deck: Wayfarer's Bauble is a nice cheap common that perfectly curves for a turn 2 ramp to 3 lands. Perhaps something to consider? Or do you think this is too aggressive of a move? (Which I can see now that I wrote it out).
Which text boxes spill over? I read in the formatting guide that this will happen because of different sized monitors. On mine, they're all fine I think. I'm using a 17" laptop with 1440x900 resolution.
For Wayfarer's Bauble, it's fine, but I guess the question is what would I take out? I'm also more concerned about getting lands in general (whether in my hand or on the field doesn't matter as much) since I can usually land some type of defense early enough. I've thought of Thawing Glaciers before which is slightly pricey compared to the rest of the deck at just under $2, so that's a possibility too.
Wild Ricochet and the like are things I've definitely considered before, but forgot to add it to the list so I just did. Ghostly Prison is also in the list. I'm not a huge fan of the prison and effects like it just because mana is pretty easy to come by as the game goes on while Crawlspace and Thunderstaff serve the same purpose but will usually be somewhat more relevant still late game.
As trancekat pointed out, Blazing Archon is a bit too restrictive I think. My reasoning behind using things like Reverence and Crawlspace and not Blazing Archon is that the other two are situational. Most people have creatures with power 3 or greater in their deck and even most token decks have ways to pump their tokens. Most decks also have at least two creature cards that if unchecked should be able to kill someone on their own (two 5/5 creatures even would be deadly after a few turns). The reaction I'm going for in my opponents when they see those two cards are "Oh, well that's just a minor obstacle. I have plenty of answers for those in my deck, so I'll kill the other guys in the meantime". So, I'm counting on that they have decks that can deal with a variety of situations so that they don't throw everything against me when they see those cards.
I also just noticed that Toil // Trouble is interesting in this deck. Works similarly to Sudden Impact, but can draw you some cards if you need them. Sorcery speed is a drawback though.
Karmic Justice seems like a good way to protect yourself and your defenses.
Yeah, both of those are pretty good cards. I've written a little about them in the "considered cards" section.
The ability to draw two cards is definitely good for this deck, but I really like being able to let off a Sudden Impact at any time. I do play two versions of it already, so I would take out Gaze of Adamaro if I did. Blue is usually the one that it's going to hit hardest, but sometimes Green or Black will have a big hand. Fighting Blue on its own turn is already hard enough, let alone fighting it only on your own turn. That's probably the main reason. It's meant to be a kill card so it should kill when I need it to. Something like Stronghold Discipline is a little different because usually people can't get rid of their creatures as fast as they can get rid of the cards in their hand I think.
Karmic Justice is good, but Martyr's Bond has two things over it in my opinion. The first is that Martyr's Bond hits everyone else. The second is that it can hit creatures too which can sometimes be good depending on how many creatures they have out. It's again a question of what would I take out I think.
I think I'll try out Wild Ricochet, but not sure what to take out. I'm thinking maybe Traitor's Roar if it ends up working well.
Also added a Budget tag since it really is a cheap deck to make. I'll remove it if it ever gets more expensive.
Edit: Okay, I like Norn's Annex quite a bit now. Removed Dawnglare Invoker for it. Still trying out Wild Ricochet.
Which text boxes spill over? I read in the formatting guide that this will happen because of different sized monitors. On mine, they're all fine I think. I'm using a 17" laptop with 1440x900 resolution.
I was on a smaller resolution, that's probably why.. no big.
I'm a bit hesitant with the bauble only because the deck doesn't really need to ramp up quickly, and that's the only advantage that it provides over the twig. Since the twig can be popped slightly earlier and for less mana, I don't mind that it's not coming directly into play. If I had a choice between a card that said
Get Me Lands 4
Sorcery
Search your library for up to two basic land cards and put them onto that battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library.
and
Get Me Lands 2 4
Sorcery
Search your library for up to three basic land cards and put them into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
I'd take the second one because I'm not that concerned about ramping up quickly with this deck, and I'd rather be that much more likely to not draw into a land when I don't need it.
Also, renamed the section "Winning" to "How This Deck Wins" and added a new section below it called "Why This Deck Wins".
I'll post my small changes later this weekend, but last night as i was ordering cards for this deck, i chose to keep the twig and add the bauble. i dont recall what i cut, but ill recall when i repost.
These weren't so much as added to ramp up rather than to prevent dead draws that I sometimes would get and hopefully thin the deck late game. I also looked at Gift of Estates and Weathered Wayfarer but decided against them because gift can't get other types of lands and is a one time use, and Wayfarer is too fragile.
I'd say if someone doesn't combo out or concede in turns 3-8, I win about 30% of the time, get 2nd about 50% of the time, 3rd 15% of the time, and 4th 5% of the time. It really does depend on the other decks you play against (not necessarily what they're playing but rather how evenly matched they are). Any of those numbers could really be +/- 10% though. It's kind of difficult to judge exactly how "close" a game is with this deck if you don't win because of usually only needing one specific card to instantly knock someone out of the game. So, I'm focusing on improving consistency as you can tell by the recent mana fixing/acceleration additions. The next step might be adding another tutor of some type depending upon further play. There are odd periods where I win 8 games in a row and then lose 5 games in a row though or something like that. I still really enjoy playing the deck though.
I'm considering building a variation of this deck, but in Boros and the commander is Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. The downside is losing access to black spells and that she can be threatening on her own. She does encourages others to smack each other up and makes my direct damage spells twice as punishing though. Also seems like it would be fun to draw Overblaze or Battle Mastery late in the game with her out.
I've thought about adding a "Similar Commanders" section for a bit now, and Gisela, Blade of Goldnight or Razia, Boros Archangel seem like they'd be the main candidates. However, losing Black would definitely change the way the deck plays (not for better or worse, it would just be different). You'd lose access to deterrent powerhouse No Mercy and quite a few kill spells including Batwing Brume. Rakdos Charm, Repay in Kind, and Backlash among others. I could see a case made for Oros, the Avenger, but would still have a personal preference for Tariel.
Black cards in deck: 16
White cards in deck: 21
Red cards in deck: 12 (including Boros Fury-Shield)
I may have miscounted, but if that's correct, you'd only be replacing 16% of the deck. It should be noted that even though there are only 12 red cards, they make up almost half of the turnaround cards. So, I could see a Gisela build working, but there would definitely be some other type of sub-theme present, and it would lose access to beating players based on the number of creatures they have, the number of cards in their graveyard, and would have to rely on Soul Conduit alone to deal with life gain decks. If you do build it, please let me know how it works and what cards you change/add!
Also, if anyone has any suggestions for deterrent cards (especially creatures) that don't scream PILLOW FORT, I'd like to hear them. I'm already aware of High Priest of Penance, but I like Archon of Justice's ability to exile stuff over it. While the deck often ends up in a (very prickly looking) pillow fort, I'd like to be more subtle about getting there by playing some more creatures possibly. The main reason is that the deck is unfun for one type of opponent which is the type that likes to see you play/do stuff. However, the only times I've honestly heard this complaint were when a player was getting creamed by another opponent and I wasn't doing anything about it.
(Retired but Updated through Magic 2015)
Origination Part I, Prelude to Politics
Politics
Origination Part II, Snakes on a Pillow
Origination Part III, Kresh the Savior
Why Tariel?
Other Commanders
Reasons You Would Enjoy Playing This Deck
Reasons You Would Not Enjoy Playing This Deck
Optimized Deck
Deck Stats
Do Not Attack
Do Not Destroy
Do Not Restrict
Do Not Threaten
Four Types of Cards
Four Types of Players
Making Them Stroke Your Ego
How This Deck Wins
Why This Deck Wins
Weakness of the Deck
Your Role in This Deck
The Deck in a Nutshell
Card Explanations
Cards That I've Considered
Video Replays
Change Log
Set Updates
Personal Bio
The entire point of this deck is to get everyone else to kill each other and then have the last person compliment you for beating them. Interested? Then please, keep reading. However, I would like to put a little disclaimer here. This deck was designed to be multiplayer only (4+ players or more) and played against strangers on MTGO who have never seen your deck. I have not tested it against a “playgroup” of people in real life, nor has it been played extensively against the same people. If you do choose to play with a consistent group, there is a good chance that the part about your opponents complimenting you won't happen as often or at all. I guess I’m taking the risk that anyone who reads this thread might also not compliment a victory as well. I partly made the deck to feed my ego, so while kind of a catch-22, this has its own purpose. Feel free to replace any cards with “strictly better” cards such as original dual lands. This is the actual deck as I have it built, and I don’t feel like splurging $6 per card. However, this means that the entire deck is buildable for less than $20 on MTGO which is great if you just want to try it out or if you’re a new player and don’t want to make a large commitment. I would also like to hope that by the end of this thread, you might see that there is a deeper and fun style of gameplay intrinsic to the deck beyond just getting your opponents to compliment you that is rewarding in its own way. Really though, this deck is meant to be fun for you and your opponents hopefully.
Like most worthwhile pursuits in life, this baby got started from playing with a Phelddagrif deck. The original point of that deck was to get everyone else to kill each other while you finished off the last one. After I posted it, it went through quite a few changes, so both the strategy you see there and some of the cards may be old. It was moderately successful, but nothing spectacular. It was my first EDH deck, but like most first loves, it was both fleeting and memorable. I thought that if I was going to be playing multiplayer games against strangers, they could easily be just as good of a player, have just as good of a deck, or both. Or they could be even better and have better decks. So, I figured I had no chance from the get go if I wanted to win more than 25% of the time, all things being equal. Multiplayer has the added benefit of “politics” though which is what I thought I should use to my advantage. I’d like to talk about politics for a minute before I get back to the deck’s origin since I feel that if you don’t agree with or want to incorporate any of the following into your gameplay, then you might not like the deck.
Surprisingly, I’ve found that a lot of people define politics differently here. The common wisdom is that “politics=power”, but I’m going to have to explain more than that. To me, “good” politics is not tricking your opponent, tactically staying out of a feud between two players, or making alliances and breaking them. Good politics is not Zedruu the Greathearted (Take that, she-goat!). There’s a philosophy in chess that you should never try to trick your opponent because it won’t work if they’re as good as you or better. Instead, you should force them to make moves which are rationally the move that they should make. This is exactly how I view playing good politics in Magic. You should try to create board situations where a truly good player would rationally decide to not attack you and to spend their resources on other players. You shouldn’t be too heavy handed about it though. I don’t like the Vows such as Vow of Duty or Vow of Malice because they don’t fulfill the above condition. Do you see why? It’s the part about a truly good player rationally deciding to attack you or someone else. I’ll mention this again later in the strategy section since it bears repeating. Regardless, this view of politics will shape the strategy and recommended play style of the deck. As a side note, when interacting verbally with other players, feel free to be yourself and have fun for the best results of course.
So, I decided that I’d use politics to turn the tides in my favor (while realizing that others would do the same anyway). I quickly found that the Rattlesnake and Pillow Fort archetypes fit this goal relatively well. For those who don’t know, Rattlesnake decks are supposed to function like the animal they’re named after. In real life, a rattlesnake will shake its tail like a rattle when confronted with a potential predator. This sound and movement is used as a warning to say, “OI! I’M GONNA BITE’CHA IF YOU GET CLOSE!” As such, these decks play “rattles” such as Soul Snare or No Mercy. Both of those cards both say, “Attack me, and you’ll pay for it. You’re much better off attacking someone else.” Isperia, Supreme Judge is a good example of a Rattlesnake general.
Similarly, Pillow Fort decks attempt to do everything they can to not get hurt in any way, often making themselves or their permanents untargetable with cards like Privileged Position and Witchbane Orb. Additionally, they might play cards like Ghostly Prison or even be as forceful as Lightmine Field so that they aren’t attacked. Some Pillow Fort decks may try to be as non-interactive as possible while building up to a combo, others might try to mill you behind their fluffy fortress. Angus Mackenzie is a good example of a Pillow Fort general. While slightly different (Rattlesnake is a threat of vengeance while Pillow Fort is pure defense), both types of cards say, “You should really attack someone else. Don’t waste your time here”. So at first, the Phelddagrif deck had strong Rattlesnake and Pillow Fort subthemes. Then one day, something amazing happened.
Alright. It’s down to me and a 32/32 Kresh the Bloodbraided with trample. He’d taken out all of the other opponents (hooray!), but now I had to deal with him (:/). All of my enchantments and artifacts that had been protecting me had been destroyed. Like usual, I’ve got no creatures on the field besides Phel, and he’s looking mighty lonely. I top-deck Mirror Strike. Heh. I pass the turn. Kresh attacks right into it. I slam down Mirror Strike dramatically on the field (in my mind anyway, we’re still on MTGO). There’s a pause. “Well played, sir” is the response. And then the game ends. I thought it was a pretty fun game, and I think my opponent did too. I wondered if I could get that to happen again. It turns out, yes, I could. You can engineer situations which result in your opponents complimenting you. To (greatly) misquote Mr. Momir Vig, Simic Visionary on his greatest achievement (Experiment Kraj): “Of course you’ll unexpectedly have the exact right card to amaze your opponent. It was designed to do so!” So, I ended up stripping away the blue and green in favor of black and red, kicking Phel to the curb, and plopping Tariel in the cockpit.
When people pick up a deck to start playing, it's helpful for them to know "This deck is reanimation" or "This deck is tokens". Most people have a fairly good idea of what to expect from a deck once they hear the type, and they'll play it accordingly. Many decks fall into more than one category though, including this one. Based on the deck list, there are a few different ways that you could think of playing this deck, but there's one way in particular that I think of it.
Is this a Pillow Fort deck? It has Reverence, Crawlspace, and Norn's Annex:
I think of the Pillow Fort that the deck contains as more of a means to an end. If you aren't alive, then you can't pull off an awesome win. While you will be playing defensively, stuffing yourself inside comfy, protective walls is not your ultimate goal. In fact, the best Pillow Fort cards aren't even in this deck because the goal of the Pillow Fort is not to lock everyone out of attacking. You want everyone to attack, just not attack you. That's one reason we're not playing Humility, Lightmine Field, or Dovescape (even if we could).
Is this a Rattlesnake deck? It has Dread, Hissing Miasma, and No Mercy:
Once again, the Rattlesnake shell is just a cog in the machine. If someone can't attack you, they will probably attack someone else. You will not use deterrents to build overwhelming card advantage like Isperia, Supreme Judge is capable of, but you will be able to draw cards and keep your hand full for the most part hopefully. Rattlesnake cards serve the dual purpose of protecting you as well as generally being cards that an opponent knows they can "deal with" later. And for the most part, they're right, but that's fine because you want that later to happen. Because when they bring out the big guns later, that's when you do too.
Is this a damage reflection deck? It has Reflect Damage, Batwing Brume, and Mirror Strike:
As a means to accomplishing our goal, it is, but no more than it is a Pillow Fort or Rattlesnake deck. You will hold cards like Boros Fury-Shield in your hand until you either need to play it or preferably end the game. However, you'll also notice that there are some cards that don't fit that theme such as Acidic Soil or Blood Oath. The reason for this is that turning your opponent's cards against you (without stealing them) is one of the ways this deck can be effective, but it's actually part of a bigger theme.
Is this a "politics" deck? It has Soul Conduit, Thunderstaff, and Spurnmage Advocate:
Politicking your way to victory is certainly an option, but don't count on it. The reason you shouldn't count on it is because if you find yourself against only one opponent left, there's not much you can do to convince them to attack anyone else...because there isn't anyone else. I use the term as I've described it above, meaning that you should be making plays which force a rational player to not spend resources or turns on you, but I guess that the traditional definition of "convincing another player to attack someone else through guile or trickery" applies here as well. I don't like tricking people or lying to them because it generally comes back to bite you, especially if you end up playing them again.
Is this a gimmick deck? You said that the point of this deck is to get your opponent to compliment you when you beat them: Yes, that is the point of the deck, but it's not what the spirit of the deck is. Okay, that probably makes little to no sense, so I guess I should just say what kind of deck I think this is.
First off, I've omitted one thing from the Deck History section because I feel that it belongs more in this section. And that is that I didn't just decide randomly on White, Black, and Red when I scrapped Phelddagrif. There was another deck I was working on at the time that never even made it to the playtesting stage. It was a Kaervek the Merciless deck, and the tentative name for it was "Meta Punisher". The goal of this deck was to specifically punish players for playing the cards that I saw EVERYONE playing. Boundless Realms, combos that allowed someone to draw their whole deck, combos that made infinite tokens, and combos that made 100/100 creatures were all on the world's worst offenders list. So, I kept the white from Phelddagrif, stripped him of Blue and Green, and strapped Kaervek's colors onto the deck. This just happens to have overlap with another theme though because of the nature of the EDH format. That theme as well as the idea I have in my head when I pick up this Tariel deck to play is that:
This is a deck that punishes excess. This is one of the only formats where this kind of deck can work probably due to EDH being singleton, multiplayer (mandatory for this deck), and many players having preconceived notions of what cards are acceptable (and good) in the format. When playing this deck, you should be asking yourself as you eye your opponents,
"Which way are they likely to go infinite? Well, that Thromok the Insatiable is either gonna go for tokens in which case I need a Rakdos Charm or Batwing Brume. Otherwise, he's probably running Soul's Fire for Thromok himself, so I need to keep Reflect Damage on hand or a well timed Backlash if he's the only other player left. The Azusa, Lost but Seeking player is definitely going to be playing a lot of lands, so I better save Acidic Soil for after he plays Boundless Realms. And the Ghost Council of Orzhova player is going to be extorting everyone's life total, so it might be good to keep Repay in Kind or Soul Conduit on hand at a time I can burn him and the remaining players."
Hopefully it makes sense now that while you will be playing elements of Pillow Fort, Rattlesnake, reflect damage, politics, and the goal of the deck is to get them to compliment you at the end, the "mindset" of the deck (is this tokens, aggro, combo, sac and recur, etc.?) is to punish excess and overabundance. You'll be flipping the amazing and the outlandish on their heads, creating a situation that is even more amazing and outlandish.
She’s not Kaalia of the Vast or Oros, the Avenger. Honestly, Tariel, Reckoner of Souls just happened to fit the colors of the cards I thought could be best used to implement the strategy. In many circles, Kaalia is marked “kill on sight” and lends herself to a very linear play style which involves attacking others. Attracting attention and attacking others should be about the last thing on your to-do list when playing this deck. Oros is neat, but he’s somewhat threatening to aggro decks, and we REALLY don’t want to make an enemy out of them early on. In all honesty, if a new WBR general comes along that’s better suited for the deck, I might swap her for it. But let’s not be too hard on old Tari and take a closer look at her.
One of the nice things about Tariel is that unlike many generals, she doesn’t necessarily lend herself to any one play style. I’ve seen Angel themed Tariel decks, board wipe themed Tariel decks (these tend to be the most common I think given that the color combination has access to pretty much all of them), and “Punisher” themed Tariel decks which add a dab of white to an otherwise Kaervek the Merciless deck. This means your opponent doesn’t necessarily have any preconceived notions of what’s going to be in your deck and is likely to treat is as nonthreatening (assuming your opponents aren’t Barktooth Warbeard and Skeleton Ship) until you show yourself to be otherwise, all things being equal.
Tariel can also take care of herself pretty well as a plan B. The deck doesn’t rely on Tariel by any means, but it certainly helps a lot. In fact, Tariel is often the final push the deck needs to win if the game doesn’t shape up the way you want it to. Since she’s better towards the end of the game than towards the beginning, she lends herself well to a strategy that enjoys the game going on into the wee hours of the night which is what we’ll be playing. With only 4 power, you’ll need to get in 6 hits with her to finish someone off with commander damage, but her 7 toughness has been useful on more than one occasion. The ability to fly and not tap when attacking is just icing on the cake as far as saying to your opponents, “I’m prepared to snatch something from your ‘yard as soon as you look at me funny”. In that respect, we’ve still got a rattle.
I've thought about this a lot. I really have. But there are only three other Commanders I'd even consider (at the moment) to run this deck. And they're not a crazy woman with a bunch of demon, angel, and dragon groupies or a borderline racist draco-tyrant. This means that we're going to have to either add or remove colors. So we'll do both. I wouldn't want to remove or replace White as it's the only color that stayed when I switched the deck over from Phelddagrif. I think of White as the core of the deck that holds it together. Without White, Black and Red would suffer greatly from the loss of defensive cards such as Norn's Annex, Reverence, and especially the Runes such as Rune of Protection: Green which have driven the game in the right direction more times than I can count. So getting rid of White is pretty much out of the question. I would also not get rid of Red. Despite having less cards in the deck than the other two colors, Red makes itself more than worth it. While Black has about the same amount of game ending cards (if not one or two more), Red provides two important victory conditions than Black doesn't. The loss of Acidic Soil and Sudden Impact would be painful as they are deathblows to Green and Blue respectively. So, if I had to get rid of a color, I'd get rid of Black. While it provides both offense (Netherborn Phalanx) and defense (No Mercy), I feel that Red and White naturally fulfill those roles more effectively. Getting rid of Black does mean losing access to punishing token decks with Rakdos Charm as well as punishing life gain decks with Repay in Kind. It also eliminates Backlash and Batwing Brume, so Black does work fairly well with the other colors in this deck which is why I'm using it and not the other Commanders I'm about to suggest. However, if you want a different flavor than Tariel (who would though, despotic angels are delicious!) then you've come to the right place.
Zedruu the Greathearted Sleeve:
Ugh, that nasty goat woman. My distaste for Zedruu stems from the fact that when I see her across the table, I know that she's either playing a monstrously controlling deck, something similar to what I'm playing, or both. So I guess it's fitting that if Tariel wasn't sitting on the throne that Ms. Bleats-for-Brains be in charge. I appreciate her card advantage and life gain which is something that this deck could certainly benefit from. Ruhan of the Fomori might be interesting, but I'd rather be refilling my hand than watching him run face first into a 0/10 Doran, the Siege Tower. Numot, the Devastator just screams, "I'M GONNA NUKE YOUR LANDS" to everyone, and we don't want that. What Zedruu really brings to the table here is the ability to take the deck in a more "ethereal" direction. Blue/Red gives us access to Swerve, Essence Backlash, and Cerebral Vortex. As long as we're there, we might try running Parallectric Feedback, Reiterate, and Fork. This way, you can punish a Consuming Aberration before it hits play or a Genesis Wave for 22 quite handily. What Blue/Red lacks in hitting hordes of creatures, it makes up for in messing with spells. The addition of White/Blue will give us access to some defensive staples. Teferi's Moat might be a good replacement for No Mercy but it slightly goes against the theme of the deck of giving your opponents the idea that they have some choice of whether to attack you. I know that Reverence is slightly similar in concept, but it's a lot less restrictive. Cloud Cover is another solid card that would dissuade opponents from touching your stuff hopefully. Hanna, Ship's Navigator can bring back key defensive pieces that have been blown up by a painful Austere Command. Isperia, Supreme Judge is a wonderful replacement for Dread. Wild Research can help get you the right defense or offense when you need it. In addition to the above, the "traditional Zedruu suite" can still be run to take more advantage of Zedruu's ability. Let me reiterate though: Zedruu can suck a hoof.
Gahiji, Honored One Sleeve:
With the printing of Commander 2013, Gahiji makes a suitable general in Green as lukemercer points out. The age old question of "Will my opponents be less incentivized to attack me if I prevent 1 damage from each creature or help them deal an additional 2 damage to each other per creature?" need not be answered since you can now run both effects quite handily! The most obvious contribution Green brings is the excellent mana fixing and acceleration. I'm thinking that Mana Reflection, Mirari's Wake, and other mana doublers would be preferable to Boundless Realms since it will make us less susceptible to Acidic Soil. However, if you want to thin out your deck and have a way to prevent the damage to yourself, Boundless Realms may still be acceptable. Traditional Green acceleration cards like Kodama's Reacharound and Cultivate will help ensure that you don't get stuck at four mana and that you always have the right colors. Green also brings a nice amount of defense as well in the form of cards such as Dawnstrider, Constant Mists, Spike Weaver, Radiant Kavu (meta game call?), and Briar Patch. Also, Arboria would be amazing if it didn't possibly prevent people from attacking each other. Privileged Position can also ensure that our defenses don't suffer spot removal as easily. "Staple" Gahiji cards like Akroan Horse can be fit in as well. Unfortunately, Green doesn't have Black's desire to punish people for having a lot of creatures (go figure). Green is big and stupid. So, it makes sense to play big and stupid stuff and put that extra mana to use. For instance, for the low, low price of GGGRRRR8, you can use Chord of Calling to flash in Stormbreath Dragon and make it monstrous dealing (hopefully) massive damage to your opponents and a possible additional 7 damage if you played it on your turn. Also, the incredibly disturbing sound you just heard was Nekusar, the Mindrazer's jaw detaching and hitting the floor while spontaneously sprouting eyeballs and a throat so that he can properly cry and scream respectively. Of course, the old standby Storm Seeker is available as well should you want a fourth Sudden Impact variant. Certain enormous card advantage bombs such as Praetor's Counsel are also available to you now. You may also sub in some of the spell punishing or manipulating cards such as Parallectric Feedback in Red from the recommendations for the Zedruu sleeve while leaving Green to do the housekeeping since it doesn't provide many turnaround cards itself.
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight Sleeve:
The only reason I don't run her already is that I've just never needed to. She's now on my list of cards to try out after cbrook824 brought her up. Since we're not running Black or Blue with her, we'd have to take advantage of some more direct damage probably. The "redirection" cards like Reiterate, Wild Ricochet, and Fork can still be run, but we'll have to fill the card advantage void some other ways. I would actually probably run Gisela as my general over Tariel if she was White/Black/Red since she fits the theme of the deck much more. Not only does she make it not as attractive to hit you, she makes it more attractive for your opponents to hit each other. Cards like Acidic Soil are now absolutely lethal if they weren't before. Don't forget that your Rune of Protection: Red can save you from that one, although Gisela will attempt to help prevent your own damage as well. She's both defensive and a kill spell enabler, and she can deliver the final blow herself if needed fairly easily. This would lead me down the path of possibly using some more life gain oriented cards coupled with cards that deal damage to everyone. Chain Reaction certainly becomes more powerful as well as making Price of Progress uber playable. Silly cards like Flame Rift become effective although I'm not sure I'd run it. Something like Molten Disaster becomes very appealing. Unfortunately, those kind of cards don't have much synergy with cards like Spitemare or Mogg Maniac when Gisela is out because even though you're dealing double damage, the damage is being dampened to your creatures by Gisela. I'm sure there are plenty of other ways you could go about making a Gisela build of this deck, but that's probably how I'd do it. The only thing I'm not sure of is the opponents' reactions to being killed by a spell aided with Gisela versus one that wasn't aided by her. The reason is that you're no longer beating an opponent purely by punishing them for overextending which is somewhat of a pertinent point that will be made more clear in the "Making Them Stroke Your Ego" section. However, I think the "hit everyone, only get hurt half amount" bit is pretty powerful and the general strategy remains intact.
Sheldon's Ruhan of the Fomori Deck:
Sheldon has a Ruhan of the Fomori deck which you can find here. While not exactly alike in nature, it's certainly comparable given the overlap in cards. No inspiration was taken from the deck as I didn't know about it until 7/5/13, but it looks like it would be fun to play. We even both saw Kresh the Bloodbraided and Mirror Strike! While his deck was designed to create epic, memorable moments, this one was designed to get my opponents to compliment me. I guess that's what using Black instead of Blue should do though!
1. You like the challenge of navigating your way out of seemingly impossible situations consistently.
2. You like being inconspicuous and not throwing down 10/10 creatures like it’s nobody’s business.
3. You like longer (but fun) games.
4. You like feeding your ego.
5. You like other players not hating you.
6. You don’t mind letting the strategies of other players determine the flow of the game and don’t mind not knowing how you’ll win the game when you draw your hand.
7. You like taking a passive role in the game.
8. You like piloting a deck that takes a lot of skill.
1. You like dominating the game early on and being an imposing presence throughout the game.
2. You like to end games quickly so that you can move onto the next one.
3. You enjoy playing for the sole sake of winning in the most effective and efficient way possible.
4. You hate having to deal with any social or political aspect of multiplayer and would rather just attack someone.
5. You like to play out a specific strategy uninterrupted by other players where you know what your win conditions will be each game.
6. You really like winning with combo, aggro, or control.
7. You like attacking people.
8. You want your cards to win on their own just by playing them as opposed to having to decide how to play them.
1 Tariel, Reckoner of Souls
Creatures
1 Burnished Hart
1 Dong Zhou, the Tyrant
1 Dread
1 Netherborn Phalanx
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Spurnmage Advocate
1 Weathered Wayfarer
Enchantments
1 Blood Reckoning
1 Hissing Miasma
1 No Mercy
1 Norn's Annex
1 Phyrexian Unlife
1 Righteous Cause
1 Reverence
1 Rune of Protection: Artifacts
1 Rune of Protection: Black
1 Rune of Protection: Blue
1 Rune of Protection: Green
1 Rune of Protection: Red
1 Rune of Protection: White
Instants
1 Allay
1 Backlash
1 Batwing Brume
1 Blood Oath
1 Boros Fury-Shield
1 Captain's Maneuver
1 Divine Deflection
1 Increasing Vengeance
1 Mirror Strike
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Reflect Damage
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Sudden Impact
1 Sudden Spoiling
1 Wild Ricochet
1 Acidic Soil
1 Gift of Estates
1 Hallowed Burial
1 Overmaster
1 Phthisis
1 Repay in Kind
1 Stronghold Discipline
Artifacts
1 Armillary Sphere
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Crawlspace
1 Forcefield
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Journeyer's Kite
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Mind's Eye
1 Mirari
1 Seer's Sundial
1 Soul Conduit
1 Staff of Nin
1 Sun Droplet
1 Thunderstaff
Lands
1 Akoum Refuge
1 Ancient Amphitheater
1 Boros Guildgate
1 Buried Ruin
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Orzhov Guildgate
1 Rakdos Guildgate
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Scrying Sheets
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Tresserhorn Sinks
1 Urborg Volcano
8 Snow-Covered Mountain
9 Snow-Covered Plains
9 Snow-Covered Swamp
Deck by Function
1 Tariel, Reckoner of Souls
Turnaround Cards
1 Acidic Soil
1 Backlash
1 Batwing Brume
1 Blood Oath
1 Boros Fury-Shield
1 Captain's Maneuver
1 Divine Deflection
1 Dong Zhou, the Tyrant
1 Increasing Vengeance
1 Mirari
1 Mirror Strike
1 Netherborn Phalanx
1 Phthisis
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Reflect Damage
1 Repay in Kind
1 Soul Conduit
1 Stronghold Discipline
1 Sudden Impact
1 Wild Ricochet
Defensive Cards
1 Blood Reckoning
1 Crawlspace
1 Dread
1 Forcefield
1 Hissing Miasma
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Mystifying Maze
1 No Mercy
1 Norn's Annex
1 Phyrexian Unlife
1 Righteous Cause
1 Reverence
1 Rune of Protection: Artifacts
1 Rune of Protection: Black
1 Rune of Protection: Blue
1 Rune of Protection: Green
1 Rune of Protection: Red
1 Rune of Protection: White
1 Spurnmage Advocate
1 Sudden Spoiling
1 Sun Droplet
1 Thunderstaff
1 Armillary Sphere
1 Burnished Hart
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Gift of Estates
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Journeyer's Kite
1 Mind's Eye
1 Overmaster
1 Scrying Sheets
1 Seer's Sundial
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Staff of Nin
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Weathered Wayfarer
"Competitive" Cards
1 Allay
1 Buried Ruin
1 Hallowed Burial
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Tectonic Edge
Non-Utility Lands
1 Akoum Refuge
1 Ancient Amphitheater
1 Boros Guildgate
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Orzhov Guildgate
1 Rakdos Guildgate
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Tresserhorn Sinks
1 Urborg Volcano
8 Snow-Covered Mountain
9 Snow-Covered Plains
9 Snow-Covered Swamp
For those who already have the cards or don't mind spending a bit more, the following is an optimized version of the deck. Most cards that fit this deck's style aren't that expensive in the first place, so a lot of the replacements have to do with the mana base or are "strictly better" cards. All discussion in this post assumes I'm using the current version of the deck, so this is more just for show. If you don't see something, it's because I either don't know what to take out or I don't want to add the card because it's more likely to draw hate/attention than a card already in the deck.
Cards Added:
Cards Removed:
1 Tariel, Reckoner of Souls
Creatures
1 Academy Rector
1 Burnished Hart
1 Dong Zhou, the Tyrant
1 Dread
1 Netherborn Phalanx
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Weathered Wayfarer
Enchantments
1 Blood Reckoning
1 Hissing Miasma
1 Land Tax
1 No Mercy
1 Norn's Annex
1 Phyrexian Unlife
1 Reverence
1 Righteous Cause
1 Rune of Protection: Artifacts
1 Rune of Protection: Black
1 Rune of Protection: Blue
1 Rune of Protection: Green
1 Rune of Protection: Red
1 Rune of Protection: White
Instants
1 Allay
1 Backlash
1 Batwing Brume
1 Blood Oath
1 Boros Fury-Shield
1 Captain's Maneuver
1 Divine Deflection
1 Increasing Vengeance
1 Mirror Strike
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Reflect Damage
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Sudden Impact
1 Sudden Spoiling
1 Wild Ricochet
1 Acidic Soil
1 Hallowed Burial
1 Overmaster
1 Phthisis
1 Repay in Kind
1 Stronghold Discipline
Artifacts
1 Armillary Sphere
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Crawlspace
1 Forcefield
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Journeyer's Kite
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Mind's Eye
1 Mirari
1 Seer's Sundial
1 Soul Conduit
1 Staff of Nin
1 Sun Droplet
1 Thunderstaff
Lands
1 Akoum Refuge
1 Ancient Amphitheater
1 Badlands
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Buried Ruin
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Plateau
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Scrubland
1 Scrying Sheets
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple of Malice
1 Temple of Silence
1 Temple of Triumph
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Tresserhorn Sinks
1 Urborg Volcano
6 Snow-Covered Mountain
7 Snow-Covered Plains
8 Snow-Covered Swamp
Before reading the individual card explanations, it’s probably a good idea to get a feel how the overall deck functions. Thus far, I’ve explained the goals of the deck and its history, but getting there is another story. While you don’t have to adhere to this section, I would think that the deck won’t work nearly as well or at all if you don’t follow most or all of the following guidelines. However, they are just guidelines, so feel free to put your own spin on playing the deck.
Yes, that’s right, do not attack. Well, mostly. There are really only four situations in which you will ever attack. The first is if there’s only one opponent left. In that case, by all means, let the cannons loose. The second situation is if there are two players who are clearly locked in a feud with each other and will stop at nothing to kill each other. In that case, it’s fine to kill the third player, but only if you think you can do it quickly. Most of the time, this will not be the case, so you will not attack at all. The third situation is if there are three players left and you NEED to kill the stronger one or you risk losing the game. If you do not think you are in danger of losing, do not attack. The final situation is if there are all four players still left and the board state is such that attacking a player will not garner their hate towards you. This will happen very rarely, so don’t count on it.
So, why are we not attacking even when we possibly should? Well first, you only have less than 10 creatures including Tariel of which almost half aren’t even meant to be attackers. Therefore, there’s a good possibility you might not be able to at any given time. But that’s okay. We didn’t want to attack anyway. The real reason though is because whoever you attack will hate you. Probably. When sitting down with strangers, you just don’t know if they’re one of “those” people who will mercilessly do everything in their power to make sure you don’t win even if it costs them the game because you tapped them with a 1/1 mana dork on turn 2. Even if they aren’t the vengeful type, if they are a rational player and everyone appears to be about the same threat level, they have every reason to attack you. Or they might also be (rightly) thinking that there’s a good chance that you’ll continue to attack them or hurt them if they don’t kill you first. Either way, attacking never made a friend of anyone. Don’t do it until the time is right. Of all the guidelines to break though, this would be the one. Dealing four damage to an opponent at the right moment can be the deciding factor at the end of the game, especially because of how the deck usually wins (more on that in the Winning section).
What to people hate more than getting dealt damage? When you blow up their stuff. It’s just not nice. You wouldn’t want it done to you, now would you? There’s actually more to this than just not getting on the bad (badder?) side of your opponents though. White and Red aren’t exactly known for their card advantage, and I’ve chosen not to run any reanimation besides Tariel herself or Black card draw. Instead, all of the card draw will come from your artifacts or enchantments. This means that having your opponents waste their spot removal or even mass removal on your other opponents is that much more important. Just think of every Path to Exile they play on an opponent’s creature as a card you just drew. Well, not really, but it’s a “phantom” form of card advantage nonetheless, especially if they’re not able to draw enough cards to keep up with the amount they're casting. I do run Hallowed Burial, but like most cards in the deck, it should be saved for exactly the right time. Oh, and don’t play pretty much all of your instants and sorceries either if you don’t have to. You’ll need them all for the last guy unless you can spend one of them to instantly kill someone. Even then, make sure it’s at the “right” time. Really, the only things you should be playing are lands, artifacts (except for one or two), and enchantments.
What do people hate more than getting their stuff blown up? When they don’t even get to play it or use it. It’s an awful feeling, right? Let’s give people a break please. They play against Azami, Lady of Scrolls control and Zur the Enchanter stax all day, and this is what they come home to? I don’t think so. For the most part though, people hate not having choices. This is why the Vows mentioned earlier (Vow of Malice, etc.) are not used. Most artifacts and enchantments in the deck do not outright prevent all damage that would be dealt to you or make it impossible to hit you. They just make it very not preferable for you to be the target of your opponent’s attacks. And that’s all you really need honestly until you’re down to just one opponent. Thunderstaff may not be the best card ever, but all things being equal, a rational player will choose to attack someone else because they feel they’re getting more value out of their creatures by hitting for more damage.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, you should be less offensive than a bunny crossed with a kitten made out of sprinkles and stardust. However, you want everyone else to be threatening, and in order to do that, they can’t be scared to attack. This is why I don’t play Royal Assassin. You might notice that I do run Spurnmage Advocate. Spurnmage is less offensive because the opponent knows you’ve got to give something back to someone. In fact, the only card in the deck that really draws any hate is Soul Conduit. You should only play it when the time is right though. I keep saying “when the time is right”, and you’ll know when it is. And if you’re wrong, you’ll definitely lose and have learned that it wasn’t actually the right time. Out of all the reasons someone is ever attacked, "they were threatening" has to be among the top. I've heard of people that say you don't want to be the strongest player at the table or the weakest. Usually they say it's good to be the second strongest. When playing this deck, you will usually be the weakest in terms of board presence, but that's okay. If you set up some deterrents, other players won't want to attack the "weakest" player anymore when they have threats to deal with usually.
Pretty much every card in the deck except for non-utility lands can be divided into one of four types. The first type is your “turnaround” card which will both often be your win condition and the cards that make your opponents compliment you. I’ll talk about them more in a bit, but examples would be Batwing Brume and Sudden Impact. The second type of card is meant to play defense. Examples of these would be Thunderstaff and No Mercy. The third type of card is for deck acceleration. These are cards like Armillary Sphere or Seer's Sundial. The final type of card is meant to give the deck the competitive edge it needs when it needs it. These are cards like Allay and Hallowed Burial. You’ll become accustomed to holding the turnaround cards in your hand until the end of the game, playing every single defense and acceleration card you can, and using the competitive cards only when absolutely needed.
What I’m really referring to here is four different ways that people perceive threats and then how they decide to attack (if they choose to attack at all). Many people often switch between these four ways of thinking during the game, so watch out for who is doing what at the moment. The most common type is the rational player who will attack the person who they believe is the biggest threat based on board presence, commander, revealed cards in the deck, and hand size. These people are your best friend because most likely, that person is not you. Also, being not in Blue and Green just by itself is somewhat nonthreatening. The second type of player is the vengeful type that I’ve mentioned earlier. They’ll pick a person at the beginning of the game to focus on and attack no one else until they’re dead. Or if they’re attacked before they can attack, they’ll go after their attacker until they’re dead. These people are also usually your friend because they will waste their resources on your opponents so you don’t have to. Sit back and watch them hurl all the fireballs they can as you develop card advantage. The third type of player is the one who attacks everyone equally until a better opportunity presents itself. These people are your friends too because they’re likely to piss off the second type of player and then get their hands full. The fourth type of player is the one who is like you and won’t attack anyone. These people are not your friends, and you should be worried about them. The word “attack” that has been used throughout this paragraph can be substituted with “did something to the other person they didn’t like” since some decks like Zedruu the Greathearted will not win through attacking, but they will still make enemies of people.
You might have skipped to this paragraph immediately after reading the first one. If so, you’ll be happy to know that this is just a decoy paragraph and the real way to make them compliment you is buried in some other paragraph. Just kidding. Here’s how you do it. It all has to do with how the person loses.
If there’s one thing people hate more than losing, it’s losing for five minutes. This means that the first condition is that it has to be quick, sudden, and decisive. How quick? If they have time to realize what happened, it’s too slow. Soul Conduit in your hand with 12 mana open while you’re at 0 life because of Phyrexian Unlife is…too slow. Why? First you have to play Soul Conduit AND BAM that’s it, it should have been over right there. The fact that you have to tap it and pay six more mana is enough time for the opponent to become depressed at their loss. At least it works that way online. You might be able to slickly put it onto the table already tapped in real life and it might work. Sometimes Soul Conduit IS fast enough, but it’s just an example of exactly how quick your victory needs to be. You shouldn’t even have time to play an activated ability.
A second condition is that the card is situational and unusual. It makes the victory that much more amazing that you had just the right card for that one situation where it could be used effectively. “How did you possibly do that!” they exclaim. Easy. You have just the right card for EVERY unusual situation. 500/500 creature? Mirror Strike and Reflect Damage. 80 cards in hand? Sudden Impact and Blood Oath. Every single land in their deck on the battlefield (Boundless Realms anyone?)? Acidic Soil. Seven thousand Goblin tokens? Rakdos Charm and Batwing Brume. This is the real secret of the deck. It expects that these unusual situations will occur. And in EDH, they more often than not do, especially depending upon your meta.
A third condition is that the victory has to have been preventable had the opponent not overextended themselves. Sure, I’ve won plenty of games swinging with Tariel, but that’s never gotten me any thanks. The opponent’s resources must be used against them without actually stealing them. I’m looking at you Insurrection (on a related note, this card is WAY too slow and gives your opponent plenty of time to watch themselves get killed by their own creatures). Anyone can beat face with a 10/10 creature with Infect and win, but it takes just the right timing, skill, and luck to Backlash it right in their face after they’ve killed your other opponents.
So in summary, your victory must be quick, sudden, decisive, unusual, situational, and not attainable by using your cards alone (your cards must interact with their cards to cause the victory).
There are also some things you should absolutely avoid doing. The first thing is the reason we don't play Druidic Satchel which is that revealing the cards in your hand or deck is not preferable. It's not very amazing when someone sees a Batwing Brume in your hand before you play it. The second thing we want to avoid is tutoring for our kill spells. I know, I know, the deck would be much more consistent. However, I've found that opponents are not impressed by your ability to have the right card in your hand because you plucked it from your deck. The third thing you want to avoid is using any of your kill spells when it won't end the entire game that turn. If they've seen you be quiet the entire game and then throw down a Rakdos Charm to opportunistically finish someone off, they're not going to be impressed when you later beat them with a Netherborn Phalanx or even a Backlash.
Also, you may notice that we really don't run much removal. If you've been wondering why I haven't mentioned the R word until now, it's because it doesn't have much of a place in this deck. Why would you Path to Exile their 32/32 when you can Backlash it? Creature removal is somewhat counterproductive to the deck. We do run Hallowed Burial as an out though in case things get way too out of control.
So how do you win with this deck? The first, most obvious, and most preferable way is with your turnaround cards. You have to save them for the end of the game though so that you can fire them off all at once. Unfortunately, when the game begins you might not know which one it will be, so you’ll have to hold them all. The good news is that there’s quite a variety of ways in which the turnaround cards can be played. I’ve had both Blood Reckoning and Hissing Miasma out and used Captain's Maneuver for two on an opponent who was swinging with their untargetable Bruna, Light of Alabaster when they were at six life. Bruna was also attacking with a random 4/4 and Bruna had Celestial Mantle on her. I knew that he had a Counterspell (he told me for some reason earlier), and he cast it on the Captain’s Maneuver. In response, I cast Boros Fury-Shield on the 4/4, earning a Dave Chapelle-esque “Coooooold Bloooooded” from a spectator.
The second way is to just beat face with Tariel and take their creatures. That’s kind of boring though. You do have a few quick ways to win that aren’t necessarily too “combo-ish”. The first is Soul Conduit or Repay in Kind with Phyrexian Unlife. Oh, and we do NOT run things like Wall of Blood with it because it ruins condition three of winning coolly which is the part about your victory being interactive with your opponent’s cards. Repay in Kind and most any burn spell will also win you the game if you’ve got a large amount of mana open or something that can hit everyone at once.
In either case, you MUST make it to the end game. That's why it's so important not to make enemies of people and play the Pillow Fort and Rattlesnake cards. There are two major victory conditions that the end game brings. The first is that players have probably already beaten each other down a lot. When I see a player at around 10 life or less, they have entered the DANGER ZONE. Once there, as long as they don't have a way to get around my turnaround card, they're dead at least 90% of the time. Once all players are in the DANGER ZONE, a quick Rakdos Charm will knock most out of the game. The second is that outrageous board states are more common in the end game. This is the time when those 200/200 creatures and hordes of 2,000 goblins are likely to come out of the woodwork. Or at least, it's as good a time as any. Both of those things mean that the longer the game goes on, the better. When I say "end game", I mean a board state where people are playing their best stuff. The game can obviously end prematurely due to a combo or never get there due to a lock out.
So, that's how the deck wins. Here's why the deck wins. There are two primary reasons, one related to offense and one related to defense. The reason the deck is offensively well positioned is because EDH is a format with big card advantage, big creatures, big hand sizes, big boards, and big egos. It's just big. In a format where Boundless Realms and Praetor's Counsel are good cards, it might be tempting to play spells the take advantage of the large amount of mana or cards you have access to that you couldn't normally play otherwise. That's why I run Acidic Soil and Sudden Impact. More often than not, games will get explosive in EDH in some way or another. Have you ever designed an EDH deck with the thought in mind "Okay, how can I make this deck as mediocre as possible?". Of course not, everyone wants their EDH deck to do big, explosive things. When resources of all kinds are abundant, you should take advantage of that one way or another. That's why you have to have big, explosive explosions for those big, explosive things.
The reason this deck is defensively well positioned is because in multiplayer, I believe that cards that are either a threat or cause the opponent to not have fun are the leading cause of being attacked. If I view someone as a threat, I am likely to attack them so that they don't kill me. If I'm not having fun because of someone's card (I'm looking at you Possibility Storm and Knowledge Pool), then I am very likely to try to kill them. That's why pretty much every card in the deck has to either not be unfun or not be threatening. I don't believe that the corollary of the "unfun" rule is true though. If you're attempting to cause an opponent to have fun, this does not necessarily mean that they won't try to attack you. The primary reason is that if you've spent more than a day playing Magic, you'll see that different players have different ideas of what they consider fun. This is why it's just easier to avoid playing anything that might be unfun for someone. This is why group hug and chaos decks sometimes get hated off the table. Unfun things are generally things that attack people, destroy, restrict, or threaten. Sound familiar? In fact, you don't have to "give" your opponents fun things. They already have them. That's why they built their deck. Their deck is their fun thing, so just don't mess with it and let them play it out. All of this means that the permanents we play can't be unfun, so we have to save all of the firepower in our hand. That's a trick (and potential weakness) of the deck. All of the firepower is in your hand, so you don't look as threatening on the surface.
I’ll say straight up that this deck is not equipped to deal with infinite combos that go off turn three. It only does well if the game is allowed to go on for a respectable length. Another weakness is if someone is consistently blowing up your defenses. Usually this won’t happen because someone would rather Krosan Grip a Mimic Vat than your Thunderstaff, but hey, it can happen. Perhaps the deck’s biggest weakness is mediocrity. If an opponent has not been dealt significant damage and is laying down three or four 8/8 creatures with flying, then that is a problem. There are not enough to punish them for playing too many creatures, and they’re not quite big enough to punish them for playing gigantic creatures. It’s just in that special space you need to be careful. If the game has been progressing in a way that everyone has been taking damage about equally and they’re low on life though, you can use one of the 8/8 creatures to kill them with a turnaround card.
On a related note, if one opponent is not losing life while the other two are, this is also a problem. You have to do your best to guide the game in a way so that there’s a back and forth between all players, even if it hurts your own life total. The deck can also suffer if for whatever reason you can’t target something with your turnaround card. There are answers to artifacts and enchantments in the deck though, so it is possible to get around this. If your opponent can sacrifice the creature you’d target at instant speed though then that’s a real problem. Additionally, the game really gets messed up if a player drops or concedes from the game early on. Since there are now only you or one other guy for each opponent to target, your chances of surviving into the late game just got cut. I cannot stress this enough. Anything that prevents playing spells during combat or on an opponent's turn such as Grand Abolisher or Basandra, Battle Seraph can also hinder your ability to use cards like Mirror Strike. Finally, be extremely wary of URG Goodstuff decks.
I think this deck plays an interesting and unique role in the Commander-verse. The role you play is well represented by the colors.
WWW You're a Spectator WWW: You'll always be removing yourself from the various to and fros that will go on between the rest of the board if possible. When you get hit by someone, you'll turn the other cheek and not retaliate. You'll pay more attention to how the other players are viewing you and each other than you will to your own board or advancing your own schemes. This is fairly easy to do because for the most part, you won't have much of a board to speak of. Instead, you'll watch each opponent for current levels of hostility or how they perceive everyone else as threats. Think of yourself almost as a watcher instead of a player. In that case, you get to "play" the other decks in your head with the unfortunate disadvantage of not knowing their hand.
BBB You're a Punisher BBB: As mentioned in the "What Kind of Deck is This?" section, the mindset of the deck is to punish excess in any form that it takes. You're going to usually only have one shot though. Instead of sitting through all of the smaller fireworks, you'll save them all for the big finale at the end where they can all go off at once in a gigantic explosion. With just 12 mana open, you could potentially deal easily upward of 100 damage to the board between an Increasing Vengeance targeting Acidic Soil followed by a flashbacked Increasing Vengeance targeting a Rakdos Charm. Often the answer to combating GreenOnSteroids.dec is some type of stax, MLD, or combo. You'll be able to serve the same purpose but with none of the ill will from your opponents that sometimes is created from these strategies. In fact...
RRR You're an Entertainer RRR: They'll love you for it! Hopefully anyway. Never forget that you're here to provide a good time. As also stated above, I've found that "fun" in Commander is inherently a selfish concept. People generally don't have fun playing against other decks, they have fun playing THEIR deck against other decks. For the most part, you'll allow this to happen. Not getting in their way is sometimes the most fun you can give an opponent IF their deck performs in a way that they enjoy. Your coupe de grace will also provide what many commander players are prone to loving: awesome, unlikely, and memorable plays that seem surreal in the moment and epic upon reflection. Just don't tell them that it was all an engineered game of odds that you expect to happen from time to time because a magician never reveals how he does his tricks...well, except in this thread.
1. Play defense.
2. People lose.
3. You do something awesome and beat the last one.
[Primer] WBR Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This WBR [Primer]
GGG Dosan of the Green Rainbow GGG
RWU Zedruu: I Ain't Even Mad RWU
When discussing the match-ups, I'll be referring to the styles of play from Blackjack68's wonderful guide to building a Commander deck, specifically the second section "Choosing a play style". If you're unfamiliar with any of the strategies discussed below, you can read up on them there. In fact, I'd recommend reading the entire thread as long as you're in town. Take most of the below with a grain of salt as well since the deck is meant for at least a four player free for all. Oftentimes (for any deck), it's not the match-up of you and the other final player that determines these games but rather the play styles of all four players interacting with each other. On top of that, another factor you have to take into account when analyzing "match-ups" is that the easiest way for this deck to win is by the opponent overextending their final threat. Aggro decks will almost always do this, but control and combo decks will only sometimes do this, and when they do, they have an extremely large list of finishers to pick from. All of that means that the type of deck may make the majority of the game harder or easier for you, but sometimes it's how the opponent is actually trying to win that can determine whether you have an easy victory or not. Additionally, all card recommendations which are not in the deck list are meant to be offered as possible solutions for specific match-ups, but I would not recommend any of them under normal circumstances as many of them go against the principles of the deck.
Aggro is by far your best match out of the three main play styles. In fact, if you're able to influence the game's direction, you would probably prefer to be left alone with an aggro player in the end game. They'll be happy to oblige you as they love rushing the control and combo players before they can set up their engines and assemble their combo pieces. As Blackjack's guide says, they usually have more threats than answers which is good for two reasons. The first is that your opponent's threats are your bread and butter for winning because what's a turn-around card without anything to turn? The second is that if they aren't running as many answers, you're more likely to keep up what defenses you have or use your turn-around cards uninterrupted. The aggro decks will act as your muscle to take out your opponents, so be nice to them. Out of all the games I've played, I've also had the most victories over aggro decks as opposed to the other two types.
Control decks are generally trickier, and out of the three types are the least desirable to be left alone with after the dust has settled because odds are that you won't be able to outrace a polished BUG deck once it's online and alone with you. Control decks sometimes use some kind of beefy finisher such as Consuming Aberration which can be turned against them IF you can get around their counter-magic. Sudden Impact is especially useful against control since they often have large hands if you can catch them with their pants down and tapped out. On the other hand, they're good because they offer slower games which gives you more time to set up defenses and assemble kill cards. Overmaster will help if you're having real problems with them or are functioning in a control-heavy meta.
I'll be honest, our deck kind of rolls over and dies to a finely tuned combo deck. We don't have the ability to rush them like aggro decks and we don't have the ability to counter their spells like control decks. I think combo has an interesting advantage in EDH because of being a singleton and 100 card format. Unlike Standard where you can meta-game against the most popular combo decks, you don't have that luxury in EDH where your opponents can pull anything on you. Even if you are running cards like Nevermore, a good combo deck might not even be obvious that it is a combo deck until it's too late since you might not know what combo pieces they're playing unless you search their library. Even if you did know, you'd have to be able to fetch your answers which I think is a lot harder to pull off than a combo deck fetching their pieces usually. If you do know what decks you'll be playing against ahead of time though, Black, White, and Red each offer their own strategies for fighting combo. Black has Sudden Spoiling which is already in the deck as well as many cards like Praetor's Grasp which will let you surgically remove cards from their library. White has the aforementioned Nevermore as well as Rule of Law to slow them down. Red has hand disruption such as Reforge the Soul and Molten Psyche to trash their combo pieces while they're still in their hand. However, many of those tactics go against the spirit of the deck, so use them with caution if you feel you need to. Combo decks are also extremely situational as far as being able to beat them. If their combo gives them infinite creatures or attempts to deal a large amount of damage from a single source, you might be okay with Rakdos Charm or Reflect Damage. But if their combo functions in a way that gives them infinite turns, you're out of luck. MAYBE a well timed Wild Ricochet could prolong your life there, but there are some combos that you just can't interact with. I personally don't enjoy playing against combo in the first place because I don't find them fun, so I try to avoid playing with and against (only in EDH, I'm totally down with combo in a normal 60 card game) them in the first place.
Tokens are a fairly good match-up for this deck. As a variant of aggro, you'll want to take a similar stance of hoping they make it to the end game with you. There are plenty of tools in the deck to deal with them in the early game such as Crawlspace and Thunderstaff. A good token deck will be packing some artifact removal though, but probably won't use it on you until they can clear away the rest of the threats. You've got Rakdos Charm, Netherborn Phalanx, Batwing Brume, and Stronghold Discipline as kill cards here, so you should be able to eliminate a token player without much trouble. If they're able to sacrifice their tokens at instant speed though then you'll be in for a much tougher game. If their sac engine is an artifact or enchantment, then you can use Shattering Pulse or Allay to get rid of them, but if it's a creature then you're in a much more disadvantageous position. At this point, Tariel's reanimation ability can sometimes help while you're holding off the token horde. Additionally, forcing them to sac their tokens by playing your kill cards allows you some time to swing with Tariel because they generally don't have tokens with flying unless they're Angel or Pegasus tokens.
Reanimator decks are usually alright match-ups because they generally make for some nice threats to the other players. Unless they can reanimate something like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur immediately, they'll need some time to fill up their own and possibly others' graveyards. And time is good. Some of the time, they'll be reanimating beefy creatures which can be hit with a Backlash. Fortunately, if they're reanimating other players' creatures, they won't be able to steal too much from you. Unfortunately, if they play Living Death you're going to be the odd man out. This is where a Hallowed Burial might be a necessary evil. If all else fails, you can also benefit from them wanting to fill up their graveyards with Tariel's ability and play their own game a little. Since reanimator decks generally come in many flavors (Karador, Ghost Chieftain, The Mimeoplasm, and maybe something mono-Black like Chainer, Dementia Master), the game can go many directions against these decks.
I have a soft spot in my heart for Sac and Recur decks because of my like of the Golgari. However, when they're played against us, they can be trouble. There will be a similar game plan as against the Reanimator decks except that Tariel becomes arguably more important because of the possible inability to stop the "sac" part. If your meta has a strong Sac and Recur deck in it, you may consider running reanimation of your own such as Necromancy or Animate Dead. However, I dislike meta gaming for one particular deck type, so I'd recommend looking to shut down their sacrifice engines with artifact and enchantment removal because if they can sacrifice their creatures at instant speed for free, most or all of your turnaround cards will be ineffective. The good thing about these decks is that they generally take a lot longer to set up than a pure play reanimation deck which will give you time to make any preparations you might need for the end game. They're also generally not in Blue so you probably won't have to worry about counter-magic since some combination of White, Black, and Green is what you'll probably be facing.
Blink is a difficult match-up for this deck because of it's ability to disrupt your turnaround cards. Thankfully, it tends to draw a lot of hate when I see it played which should help you a little. Against a Blink deck, something like Grand Abolisher would be very helpful in dealing the final blow. Ironically, Grand Abolisher also is a great card to use against this deck as it shuts down Reflect Damage, Batwing Brume, and a few other turnaround cards. Grand Abolisher and effects like it such as Abeyance or Aurelia's Fury might be too "restrictive" though and go against the spirit of the deck. It's a very fine line where you can either make the deck more competitive and be disliked a little or run the risk of being unable to use your kill cards against this type of deck at all. Just be aware that by using effects like that, you're straying from the "spirit" of the deck, but you do increase your chances of winning in this situation. This is another scenario where Tariel being able to slowly reanimate an army becomes a good looking backup plan if you just need to win because some decks like this won't be able to be taken out under amazing circumstances because of their ability to disrupt kill spells.
Dredge is a very uncommon deck in Commander given the inconsistency of it in this format. It will play a little like Reanimator or Sac and Recur most likely, and may even be some kind of hybrid deck that uses features of both of them. Either way, Dredge is another long game deck which gives us lots of time to set up both our defenses and assemble our turnaround cards. Since Dredge decks can bring their creatures back more easily than about any other deck, it might not be uncommon for them to take advantage of this and run lots of mass creature removal which is great, because we don't run a lot of creatures. A cycle of death and rebirth that keeps wiping the field is exactly the kind of situation you want to find yourself in. Your opponents' resources are being either stalled or depleted while you can build yours up.
Thievery is not a terrible match-up. You don't have a lot of creatures to steal whether they be on the battlefield or in the graveyard. It also makes enemies out of other players since they usually don't like having their stuff taken which should draw some heat off of you. If your opponent is Thada Adel, Acquisitor, Reverence and Rune of Protection: Blue will be very useful since you do have some artifacts that they could steal. As far as stealing spells, a lot of them are situational, and they won't be able to be cast at the correct time. Some of them like Acidic Soil and Backlash can be used by them, but usually to your advantage as well. As these decks are mainly Blue and Black, enchantments are generally untouched unless it's something that gains control of a permanent. Thievery decks tend to draw a LOT of attention to themselves though, so expect some turmoil focused around them one way or another.
Toolbox strategies can be fairly tricky to play against as a good one will have some nice artifact and enchantment destruction with your name on it somewhere in the deck. While they're very good at breaking down your defenses, their answers are generally more permanent based, so they might have some trouble with your spells. Scion of the Ur-Dragon is an example of a very good toolbox commander as it has access to all five colors and can search for an answer or threat at instant speed. These decks tend to be much weaker without their toolbox enablers though, so don't feel too bad if you let off a Hallowed Burial while one of them is on the field. Alternatively, if there's a Blue player in the game, you can bet they'll be saving their Spin into Myth for something just like that as opposed to using it on Tariel. Out of all the styles of play, this one is by its nature the most versatile, so expect surprises when playing them.
Voltron can be a very good or bad match-up depending upon the commander you're up against as it can be considered a form of aggro. Uril the Mistwalker and other ones that come with built in protection can be a pain since your Backlash or Mirror Strike won't work on them. You can consider running something like Glaring Spotlight, but it will probably be a dead card most of the time. If you know you're up against him though then you may want to do it. Most Voltron decks will try to protect their general in some way, but most players will also be trying to de-boot or de-greave them as well. If they're unprotected, a 50/50 Omnath, Locus of Mana can be your best friend. Voltron decks are also usually weak to having their general tucked or pacified in some way, so they'll be watching out for that. More than anything, Voltron decks will usually make a splash early in the game somehow which can often set the tone for how players feel about each other for a good portion of the game in terms of who is a threat and who isn't.
The major weakness of any Lifegain deck is Commander damage, so Tariel might be getting a workout here. However, most Lifegain decks expect this and will also probably be playing some defenses as well. Since Lifegain decks are generally more passive, they sometimes don't get as much hate because they don't appear to be a threat which is a very bad thing for us. Some players know that Felidar Sovereign is lurking around the corner in some Lifegain decks though, so it depends on the meta. Our deck does have some built in answers to Lifegain such as Repay in Kind followed by a burn spell or Soul Conduit which can give them fits. If it's a Lifegain deck of the Extort or White/Black variety, it will usually draw a lot more hate to itself though and be a bit more vulnerable politically. I've entertained the idea of running False Cure before, but it's just so situational. However, if there is a Lifegain deck in your meta, False Cure is PERFECTLY on theme for this deck and should be an auto-include as using it after a player tries to do a Beacon of Immortality is priceless.
Stax decks are good match-ups if the stax deck doesn't end up winning the whole thing. They're also good if they're more focused on keeping creatures off the field than anything else. If a Stax deck is able to set itself up successfully and lock down the game, there's not much you can do as your lands, artifacts, and enchantments slowly get put into the graveyard. If the Stax deck makes an attempt to lock the board but gets triple teamed (which will often be the case), all they've ended up doing is slowing down the game a bit which is good for this deck. At the very least, you will not want to be aligned with them in any way socially during the game as they will be enemy of the state almost no matter what. Thankfully, since resources are so abundant in EDH and many decks are very explosive with their ramping, Stax decks can sometimes have a harder time making a quick lock. Your best opportunity here is if they try to pull a finisher like Avenger of Zendikar.
Ramp is a great match-up depending upon what they are ramping into. Great big beasties or hordes of tokens are obviously wonderful for this deck, and the plethora of lands they'll be putting out are perfect for Acidic Soil. If the player ramps too quickly, it might make them look a lot more dangerous than you, so that's good. If there's a control player at the table with some mass removal, that's even better. The cycle of ramp-wrath-ramp-wrath is exactly what this deck can need to get set up while not drawing hate. The only thing to be careful of is if they're ramping with Blue in their general because once those get going, they can be pretty hard to stop. This is why the deck works best when the power levels of the decks are about equal and a back and forth goes on between most of the players.
As a similar deck to ramp, our attitude is mostly the same towards Big Mana decks. The main difference is that a card like Parallectric Feedback might be more valuable in this situation. It's a card that I've thought about including in the main deck for quite a bit now but I just never seen Genesis Wave or Exsanguinate as much as I used to see them. Big Mana usually makes big creatures like hydras which are great for Boros Fury-Shielding or Mirror Strike. They also tend to make big token armies which Rakdos Charm and Batwing Brume do wonderfully against. A weakness against Big Mana can be if they're not using it for those purposes but rather to set up a control engine which will be harder to deal with, but most people prefer to make big, explosive plays that can only be made with large amounts of mana. Often the players with the most cards in hand, threatening board state, and available mana are the threats at the table, so Big Mana will usually draw hate off of you as well since it will likely have all three.
Possibly the most universally hated strategy in Commander (if not the game). There's good news and bad news with this deck. The good news is that you probably won't have to ever worry about being attack (except by the Land Destruction player) for as long as the Land Destruction player is in the game. The bad news is that Land Destruction is usually really effective against most decks as they are not prepared to deal with it. If you have to meta game against Land Destruction, nothing is much better than Sacred Ground as most Land Destruction decks are in Black and Red. Sometimes they'll be in Green which does have enchantment removal, but if it's not, a card like that will usually shut down their whole deck until they can whip out their Steel Hellkite or Spine of Ish Sah. By then, it should be too late for the Land Destruction player though as no one usually wants them at the table for long as they realize the extreme threat they pose.
I don't see this strategy too often, but when I do, it's a fairly interesting match. More often than not, people underestimate how good these decks can be until it's way too late because they appear to be so unusual. Since artifacts are capable of going in most directions, the deck might be unpredictable. It could have Lifegain elements with Venser's Journal, theft elements with Memnarch, or just go full blown combo with Sharuum the Hegemon or Arcum Dagsson. Shattering Pulse is probably the most destructive thing in the deck that we have against artifacts, but Vandalblast is a fair alternative. However, good artifact decks will likely be running things that can make their artifacts indestructible such as Darksteel Forge or using equipment such as Darksteel Plate, so you might look at Return to Dust for meta gaming against these decks as well. Unfortunately, since we run a lot of artifacts ourselves, Ancient Runes is not in the deck list, however you can run it with something like Personal Sanctuary if you really want to. Also, Personal Sanctuary is a great card against this deck for that matter. The ever underplayed Rune of Protection: Artifacts (usually nice against a Wurmcoil Engine in a normal game) will also do you good here.
Mill is a troublesome deck to play against because it doesn't do any of the things that are usually good for using our turnaround cards on. Sometimes Mill decks will mill themselves in the process in order to abuse some of their own reanimation abilities in which case Guiltfeeder (a card that was formerly in the deck) is a card that punishes large graveyards. Additionally, Tariel herself benefits from a mill deck sometimes as you can be assured that there will almost always be reanimation targets. This is another strategy that is very slow usually and even slower in multiplayer which will give you time to set up defenses. Running some type of recursion against these decks might be okay, and any of the Eldrazi that shuffle your graveyard into your library when they hit it will stunt most mill decks unless they're playing something like Praetor's Grasp which can surgically remove cards. Elixir of Immortality is also usually good against mill decks. As an alternate finisher, some mill decks run Consuming Aberration which is perfect for Dong Zhou, the Tyrant to do his thing. What you have to watch out for with these decks is that since we don't run a lot of recursion, they can permanently get rid of some of your answers if they run too wild. Thankfully, most people don't like being milled and this strategy is somewhat hated for that reason sometimes.
Have you ever seen a Blightsteel Colossus eat a Mirror Strike or a pumped Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon get Backlashed? If you play against an Infect deck, you just might. To be fair, pure Infect/Poison decks are fairly rare because they don't like to be too obvious about showing their fangs too quickly. More often than not, you might see an infected creature as quick win attempt in something like a The Mimeoplasm Reanimator build. When you do see a pure Infect deck though, watch out because they won't want to give you time to set up any defenses. On the other hand, they rarely make it to the late game because it's still hard to beat three opponents with infected dudes if everyone is trying to make sure that they don't win. Watch out for Infect decks with Red in them that might be able to make their infected creatures deal direct damage somehow as they may attempt to go for win that takes out all three opponents at once. You're more likely to see Infect or Poison decks in a 1 vs. 1 game though as they know as well the difficulties of facing down three opponents at once.
Like the Artifacts strategy, Enchantress decks are another type of play style that seem to have the effect of drawing the attention of opponents away from the massive card advantage it's generating and towards the novelty and superior mechanical theme of the deck. Allay is your best friend here if they're not running Blue for counterspells. They'll likely try to draw out the game so they can set up all of their defenses, but they can probably do it a little more quickly than us with their access to Green. Since we run so many enchantments ourselves, something like Austere Command is a little difficult to run for the deck, so something like Devout Witness or Return to Dust might be effective here in the late game. If you have an aggro player at the table, they won't wait for the enchantments to all get put into place, so you may see some help from them. They'll likely be running Aura Shards so you should probably tutor for that Allay as soon as possible as it will wreck our defenses more than anything else. Like always, try not to make an enemy out of them though if possible.
This one's a piece of cake. Not only are Punisher decks generally not that great in a multiplayer environment because they draw so much hate, but you'll look like a saint standing next to them. Most of the time you don't have to do anything to the Punisher player because your other two opponents will focus all of their attention on them. This almost guarantees that you'll survive relatively unhindered for a bit, so make use of those turns to start getting some card advantage through Mind's Eye or Seer's Sundial and set up those defenses. Watch out though for the "Wheel of Pain" variation that UBR sometimes plays as that one is a little less suspicious as it revolves around things like Underworld Dreams followed by things like Wheel of Fortune. The Seizan, Perverter of Truth versions will help your card advantage, but at the same time, we'd rather the other opponents not get that boost in card advantage too depending upon if they're playing aggro or control. Old fashioned Kaervek the Merciless decks can be powerhouses, but are usually the most obvious about the whole hating everyone thing.
Be very, very afraid. This is bad, real bad. If you see Phelddagrif or possibly Zedruu the Greathearted across from you at the table, start worrying a bit. The first thing we don't like about these decks is that they give your other opponents way too much card advantage which can set up a game state that enables them to ramp much faster than you can set up your defenses and end the game prematurely. The second reason we don't like these decks is that they often have a combo win condition (if any) that might not be stoppable by a turnaround card. The third reason we don't like these decks is that if they're successful in lulling your opponents into a false sense of security and your other opponents don't know to immediately take out the group hug player, that means that as far as "threat assessment" goes, you're really looking at a three player game if they don't want to hurt the group hug player which is NOT good. It effectively makes the game go "faster" as it will take on the pace of a three player game threat-wise except it will be turbo-boosted by the hug player. You can almost think of it as if one player has conceded immediately and you're playing in magical turbo-threat land. Thankfully, many players know now that group hug usually does have a win condition, to take the cards that they get from the player, and then kill them with them. When you do see a group hug deck, do not attack it if the other players aren't. If they are attacking it, this is one of the rare occasions where you can do what you can to finish them off quickly if it doesn't waste your own resources. Even if the Zedruu player isn't a group hug deck, the same almost applies to them as well.
It's somewhat fitting that the two worst decks for this deck to probably play against be Group Hug and Pillow Fort. Like above, if you see Angus Mackenzie staring you down, you know you're in for a rough game. Pillow Fort decks usually have that same footprint of not a lot you can use your turnaround cards on, attempting to be even less of a threat than you and making you look worse by comparison, and sometimes winning with an unstoppable combo. It doesn't help that if it is Angus that he'll have access to counterspells as well. The same thing applies to "Rattlesnake" decks that say, "If you attack me, you're in for a world of hurt". Most of the time, a Pillow Fort player will be allowed to ramp up and start spitting out defenses as everyone else is usually ramping up and spitting out threats at the time. We know that the immovable object is often much stronger than the unstoppable force though if played right because the threat playing players may not have the ability to penetrate all of the defenses that the Pillow Fort player can set up. And unlike our defenses which are meant to dissuade more than anything, their defenses are meant to be absolute. Tariel's reanimation may come in handy here, but otherwise, you're in for a tough game unless the other two opponents decide that they really don't like Pillow Forts...in which case you may be in for a Pyrrhic victory.
Acidic Soil: Boundless Realms, eat your heart out. Great against Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Maelstrom Wanderer. Rune of Protection: Red can save you from it (make sure to hold down the control key to retain priority!).
Backlash: What a nice card. I’ve won countless games because of this one. People love to play big creatures and Backlash loves when they do too.
Batwing Brume: There’s been more than one horde of goblins that have walked right into this one. 30 point life swings are not uncommon here.
Blood Oath: This card provides more flexibility than it first appears. It can finish someone off after a mass bounce, punish artifact/enchantment/land/creature-centric decks, and even check to see if an opponent has a counterspell in their hand.
Boros Fury-Shield: I’ve always had a soft spot for this one. Something about the idea of a shield being used for offense is just so…Boros. At three mana, it’s hard to pass up.
Captain's Maneuver: The ability to not have to target a creature makes this very valuable. However, you’ve got to be playing it late game. It seems like one of those cards that shouldn’t be “that good”, but from experience, it’s saved my butt many times.
Divine Deflection: Captain’s Maneuver’s sexier sister who you’re never going to make it with. Not like you really have any creatures to protect, but it gets the job done for one less mana and one less color.
Dong Zhou, the Tyrant: What a funny looking fellow. I guarantee that most of your opponents have never been Donged out of a game before. He’s nice in that he can both eliminate a player and then attempt to finish off another.
Increasing Vengeance: If the first kill spell doesn't do it, this one will.
Mirari: Instead of having to hold one of your copy spells, you can have one on the field ready to go. It'll be harmless for most of the game.
Mirror Strike: The card that started this whole deck really. Simple and effective. You have to pick a target though so watch out for things wearing boots.
Netherborn Phalanx: This is for all of those Saproling/Goblin/Soldier decks. If need be, it also can fetch Soul Conduit on the fly.
Phthisis: I don’t know how to spell this card, let alone say it. But it sure is useful against Eldrazi. Always hard-cast it for maximum damage.
Rakdos Charm: This one is usually a game winner or severely cripples opponents. For only two mana, it’s a steal. It can also get rid of a pesky artifact in the event that your opponents decks aren’t creature-heavy.
Reflect Damage: Slightly more expensive than Mirror Strike, but it gets around targeting and bypasses an opponent’s shroud or hexproof. It can also hit burn spells. Someone once tried to pull a Runeflare Trap on me one time and got this instead.
Repay in Kind: What a dirty, dirty card. This goes well with any direct damage and can be used differently in a variety of situations (burn someone, cast it, then burn the rest of them).
Soul Conduit: Punishes an opponent for attacking you too much or gaining too much life. Perfect late game against an Extort deck.
Stronghold Discipline: This won’t hurt you too much because you shouldn’t be running that many creatures.
Sudden Impact: This with an Increasing Vengeance can finish off an opponent quickly. I used to run Storm Seeker in the Phelddagrif version of the deck, so Impact feels right at home. Punish those Reliquary Tower players who draw half their deck or even those who use Praetor's Counsel. Use Overmaster if you’d like to see that it goes through.
Wild Ricochet: Because taking four turns off the UG deck's Time Stretch is too good.
Blood Reckoning: Even though there aren’t any Planeswalkers in the deck, it makes opponents likely to attack others before you.
Crawlspace: Fairly useless at the beginning, but towards the end, it can help you fend off an army while you use Turnaround cards on their biggest and dumbest brutes.
Dread: Doubles as both an evasive beater and a No Mercy with legs.
Forcefield: While a major deterrent by itself, it can also create a one way soft combat lock with Thunderstaff or any other card that negates one damage being dealt. It won't get around a pair of boots or greaves, but otherwise it's pretty solid.
Hissing Miasma: It costs one less than Blood Reckoning and when paired with it can overwhelm opponents quickly.
Mouth of Ronom: This card was really put in here to get rid of Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir should he show up, but it can also act as a deterrent against other smaller creatures.
Mystifying Maze: I won’t spend the money on a Maze of Ith. It can also take back a stolen Tariel potentially.
No Mercy: This will almost always ensure you’re the last to be attacked. It sets people back way too much to kill you first.
Norn's Annex: If a deck isn't playing white, this plus can greatly deter a damaged opponent from attacking.
Phyrexian Unlife: At worst, you’re gaining 10 life for 3 mana. At best, it combos well with Soul Conduit and Repay in Kind. Watch out for a Disenchant while you’re in the red zone for an instant loss.
Reverence: It stops the smaller tokens right in their tracks. Most token decks have a way to pump themselves though, so this is mainly used to stay alive in the beginning until you can pull a Rakdos Charm.
Righteous Cause: I've found that the amount of hate this card draws if fairly negligible. Giving the deck access to life gain puts it in a much more powerful position. Additionally, it works well with Forcefield by making a soft combat lock as long as you have mana and Sun Droplet by raising the maximum life you can gain with it.
Rune of Protection: Artifacts (and the other five Runes): These are probably the cards I get questioned about the most. First, I like them over the Circles of Protection because they can be cycled if you’re not playing against the right colors and are never a dead draw. Second, they’re kinda cute. Third, I like them over Story Circle because if I don’t need defense and need that Turnaround card, I can cycle it. And no, I won’t play Rune of Protection: Lands. Most of the time, they’re not dead draws and basically say, “You’re not killing me through general damage”. I’ve also never found myself wishing that I had more white mana (a disadvantage they have compared to the Circles of Protection and Story Circle which only need colorless to activate) because the threat of being able to prevent an opponent’s damage is enough.
Spurnmage Advocate: A cheap rattlesnake that can also return a card to an opponent’s hand that you really want them to have for whatever reason.
Sudden Spoiling: This card can be used offensively as well, but it can stop Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and others for a turn while the rest of the board punishes them for trying to combo off.
Sun Droplet: This is an all-star right here. Who wants to attack someone when they’ll just gain it right back?
Thunderstaff: Not bad at all against weenies. It’ll also cause opponents to attack others since they aren’t getting as much bang for their buck against you.
Armillary Sphere: It turns a two land hand into a four land hand with colors of your choice.
Burnished Hart: This noble beast sacrifices itself for two lands into play. He's a solid color-fixer that can double as a blocker too. In our colors, we'll take what we can get.
Chromatic Lantern: Some much needed mana acceleration and fixing. For non-Green decks, it doesn't get much better than this.
Gift of Estates: I think this is an often overlooked card outside of mono White. Simply put, it's a 3 for 1 deal that costs two mana and will ensure consistent land drops until your sixth land.
Gilded Lotus: Three mana of any color is very helpful to a three color deck. It'll also send you straight from five mana to potentially nine on the next turn if you hit a land drop.
Journeyer's Kite: An obligatory non-Green land search card. Helps thin the deck.
Mind's Eye: An enormous card advantage engine. Without Blue or Green in the deck, that draw power has to come from somewhere.
Overmaster: This will allow you to hopefully play around those pesky Blue mages. If not playing against Blue, it replaces itself.
Scrying Sheets: A little extra possible draw at the end of turn doesn't hurt. It's most likely to draw you a few cards a game at the least which isn't bad for a land.
Seer's Sundial: It helps ensure that lands are usually not dead draws.
Solemn Simulacrum: He'll ramp you up some land (something not in our colors) and draw you a card when he dies (also not usually in our colors).
Staff of Nin: The way to ensure amazing plays is to ensure you have the best chance of drawing the cards that you need. This does that.
Thawing Glaciers: Probably one of the more effective non-Green options for land search.
Weathered Wayfarer: He can fetch you any land in your deck and comes out turn 1. What's not to love? Being not in green, other players will frequently have more land than you probably, so he can usually be activated.
Allay: For the most part, you’ll be counting on your opponents to do the enchantment destruction. But once you have Allay, it can mean the end of an Enchantress deck.
Buried Ruin: Since most of our strong card draw is artifact based, this will allow you to recover from something like a Staff of Nin or Mind's Eye getting destroyed.
Hallowed Burial: Tucks the opposing generals and can swing the tide in your favor once there’s only one opponent left.
Lightning Greaves: Okay, I’m guilty of playing this card too. It’ll pretty much almost always go on Tariel.
Reliquary Tower: If you find yourself not wanting to discard anything because you're drawing an unusual amount of kill spells (which we'll never really be playing until we can win most of the time), this card is your man-tower.
Shattering Pulse: Allay’s sister. Great for exploding those pieces of scrap.
Tectonic Edge: An opposing Maze of Ith can stunt your chances of victory if Tariel is your only hope. It should primarily be used on the lands that prevent damage.
I’m sure that I’ve missed plenty that fit the theme of the deck, but if you bring them up, I’ll either put them in the deck or add them to this list if I think they’re interesting.
Angelheart Vial: It seems a bit expensive, but I’d be willing to try it someday.
Culling Dais: Definitely an interesting alternative to Carnage Altar. While the ability to not have to pay anything to sacrifice your creature is nice, you can only do one at a time. The main reason I like the altar better is that you never have to sacrifice the altar whereas using the dais means getting rid of it. I would also rather get my cards immediately rather than wait until I've decided I'm done using my artifact.
Delirium: I’d rather take the disadvantage of having to target an untapped creature with Backlash than play it only on an opponent’s turn.
Eye for an Eye: This actually used to be in an earlier version of the deck. I took it out in favor of Reflect Damage or Divine Deflection because I painfully realized once that I'd rather have dealt the damage back to them AND prevented it.
False Cure: Perfect against Lifegain decks, but too situational to be used anywhere else. If there is a strong Lifegain presence within your meta, this is an auto-include for the deck.
Fork: While the deck doesn't currently use this card, it might someday. The ability to copy your own or other spells can be deadly.
Ghostly Prison: Mana is too prevalent in many of the games I play for this to be that useful for long.
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight: I'm not sure if this card is too "win-more" or not. I'll have to try it out eventually.
Gossamer Chains: Great for deterring potential attackers. People don't like having to over-commit their resources and this makes them send two creatures at you to just deal damage with one.
Grab the Reins: I don’t like the idea of stealing other people’s things except from the graveyard where they’ve already gotten to use them once probably.
Grand Abolisher: If you're playing against decks that can sacrifice, blink, or bounce their creatures at instant speed, this is definitely a card you might want to consider (as a necessary evil) as it might be the only way to use your turnaround spells on them. Use with caution as this is not what I'd consider on theme for the deck, however I'm presenting it because it is a solution to some problems which are very hard to deal with otherwise. In actual play, I would never run the card and would probably attempt to win without creature-based turnaround spells if I was in a situation where I was unable to use them as effectively.
Grisly Spectacle: Used to be in the deck. The variants that do damage equal to the creature's power are probably more likely to kill them than milling them.
Honorable Passage: Used to be in the deck. Was taken out because it wasn't used as often as other kill spells.
Karmic Justice: Maybe. I’ve been playing around with it for quite a bit. I like Martyr's Bond better because it can hit more than just one target (and doesn’t have to target).
Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker: Still strongly considering this card.
Necromancer's Covenant: If you're playing against creature-heavy decks but they've been wiped off the board already, this may be something that can turn the game around quickly.
Nova Pentacle: A tricky little card that can make for some fun times. It can put the blame on others, and it doesn't cost too much to activate.
Parallectric Feedback: I haven't seen enough X spells lately, but this could be a thing later.
Price of Progress: Very on theme, but I think Acidic Soil works better in practice.
Reiterate: This may be one of the more mana intensive cards of the spell copy spells. Worth a shot.
Runeflare Trap: I’d rather have the assured 4 CMC than a possible 6 CMC.
Searing Rays: I'd rather just run something less specific that doesn't care about the color like Rakdos Charm.
Shriveling Rot: A very interesting card. At some point I’ll try this probably if I see the situation come up enough.
Sphere of Safety: Maybe. I'll have to test it. Still kinda iffy on it for the same reason as Ghostly Prison, but it could be good. Depends on how many enchantments I can get out obviously.
Terminus: A fair replacement for Hallowed Burial. I'd rather pay one mana less than have the chance to play it for W or be forced to pay six. You could easily run both though.
Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts: It's Dread but with protection from creatures, vigilance, costs one more, and can potentially make you some tokens. I'll think about it.
Toil // Trouble: I'd rather have this type of spell be an instant if possible.
Urza's Armor: While great against Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, Thunderstaff comes out earlier, which is really what I want it for. I’d be willing to try it though at some point.
Turn the Tables: Combined with Ragged Veins, this could be pretty funny.
Vandalblast: An alternative to Shattering Pulse. I like the ability to reuse Pulse a bit better, but this will do nicely as well.
Vengeful Pharaoh: Even though he's harder to get rid of than No Mercy, I'd just as soon play the enchantment because of being forced to draw the Pharaoh repeatedly.
Viashino Heretic: He drew too much hate. He used to be in an early version of the deck.
Windborn Muse: No way I'm playing Ghostly Prison but making it even easier to kill.
Here's where you can find some of the better examples of the deck in action. Full screen and highest video quality are recommended. Hope you enjoy!
Game 2: Vs. Child of Alara, Animar, Soul of Elements, and Savra, Queen of the Golgari can be found here.
Game 3: Vs. Sliver Queen, Sliver Queen, and Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer can be found here.
Game 4: Vs. Daxos of Meletis, Rith, the Awakener, and Momir Vig, Simic Visionary can be found here.
Game 5: Vs. Xenagos, God of Revels, Nylea, God of the Hunt, and Numot, the Devastator can be found here (played by Darty17).
In: Norn's Annex, Out: Dawnglare Invoker - 6/20/13. Wanted to try the card out. It turns out that the 2 life adds up very quickly if they attack you. As a creature, Dawnglare Invoker is also more fragile.
In: Auntie's Hovel, Out: Swamp - 6/23/13. Needed more mana fixing.
In: Tresserhorn Sinks, Out: Mountain - 6/23/13. Needed more mana fixing.
In: Chromatic Lantern, Out: Wanderer's Twig - 6/23/13. Needed better mana fixing.
In: Journeyer's Kite, Out: Traitor's Roar - 6/25/13. Needed more late game acceleration. Traitor's Roar was cut over others because of sorcery speed.
In: Thawing Glaciers, Out: Honorable Passage - 6/25/13. It was a dead draw most of the time unlike pretty much every other turnaround card. Also, needed more mana fixing.
In: Wild Ricochet, Out: Grisly Spectacle - 7/5/13. Spectacle just wasn't killing anyone anyway. Ricochet should help with that.
In: Increasing Vengeance, Out: Mountain - 7/5/13. I can see situations where this will ensure the kill where I couldn't before.
In: Increasing Ambition, Out: Tower of Fortunes - 7/5/13. Tower didn't get used too much, and I'd rather have specific cards more often than not.
In: Sunforger, Out: Carnage Altar - 8/6/13. I figure I'm switching out one card that needs a creature to work for another, so there isn't really a net loss in usability. The Sunforger engine is just too good. A Batwing Brume pulled from it might look slightly less awesome than one from the hand maybe, but if the Sunforger sticks, it really does help win games. Also, it makes Tariel (who it will usually be equipped to) a 3 turn clock instead of 6.
In: Solemn Simulacrum, Out: Ragged Veins - 8/9/13. Yeah, I guess I'll use him too. He makes the deck look like it's participating slightly more, and he's much needed ramp, draw, and chump blocker. Ragged Veins was pretty funny at times but never won me any games.
In: Mind's Eye, Out: Jayemdae Tome - 8/9/13. I was already seeing the Tome get blown up some games so I figured I might as well try an upgrade. So far, the Mind's Eye hasn't gotten blown up that much at all and provides much better card advantage.
In: Blood Oath, Out: Gaze of Adamaro - 8/16/13. I still feel that card advantage is prevalent enough in the format to run a double of Sudden Impact, but Oath provides a lot more flexibility than Gaze even though it isn't as consistent sometimes. It can punish artifact/creature/enchantment/land heavy decks, finish someone off after a mass bounce, or check to see if someone is holding a counterspell before you go in for the kill.
In: Forcefield, Out: Predator, Flagship - 9/7/13. Forcefield is a soft one way combat lock with Thunderstaff as well as being fairly effective by itself. The flagship drew more hate than I wanted because it had the potential to blow up other people's stuff and didn't function that well as a deterrent.
In: Gilded Lotus, Out: Guiltfeeder - 9/7/13. Gilded Lotus will provide a little more acceleration to the deck. Not having enough mana to cast a combination of kill spells is a problem, and this fixes it. Although Guiltfeeder provided a way to hate on big graveyards, it was never fast enough to get that "wow" reaction. Maybe someday they'll print an instant or sorcery that says "Each player loses 1 life for each card in their graveyard" or something like that.
In: Buried Ruin, Out: Archon of Justice - 9/10/13. It officially got to the point where Archon was actually be Rite of Replicationed, copied some other way, or reanimated more than he was doing me good. Besides for that, swinging with him isn't how you're supposed to end games, so I figured I'd take away the temptation. Buried Ruin provides the dual purpose of a little more mana plus the ability to recur one of our artifacts after being destroyed. Since most of our powerful card draw comes from artifacts, it can potentially bring the deck back online after it's lost some juice.
In: Reliquary Tower, Out: Hoard-Smelter Dragon - 9/10/13. It was between the Tower and Terrain Generator although the generator still might find a place later. With all the additional card draw, I found myself needing to sometimes discard. If you're accumulating kill spells, you don't really want to get rid of them if possible, and the more you have access to, the better. The dragon was just kind of a placeholder anyway and had little to do with the deck besides for provide extra artifact destruction. In the future, I may need to readjust the deck to handle a more artifact and enchantment heavy meta, but I don't feel that I need him at the moment.
In: Righteous Cause, Out: Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs - 9/10/13. I've been playing with both Cause and Orim's Prayer for a bit now, and I think the amount of potential hate that Cause draws over the Prayer compared to the benefits it gives is marginal. Providing the deck with life gain is a huge plus, and it creates a soft combat lock against you when combined with Forcefield. Kazuul was okay, but he never felt like he made a huge impact in protecting me, especially once the late game got going and people could pay his toll or if they had fliers.
In: Weathered Wayfarer, Out: Increasing Ambition - 9/10/13. I've decided that tutors and this deck should just not go together. The "wow" factor completely disappears when you tutor for your amazing trick. Wayfarer helps our non-green, non-blue deck with acceleration and can fetch any land. It also comes out turn one. In EDH, someone will usually have more land than you to activate it.
In: Staff of Nin, Out: Diabolic Tutor - 9/10/13. Same reason as above for removing the tutor. When deciding on whether to use the Staff or picking from Black's myriad of card draw options such as Graveborn Muse, Bloodgift Demon, Phyrexian Arena, Underworld Connections, and others, I eventually decided that I don't have enough life gain to offset the potential loss of life and would rather just pay a little extra for the Staff. Plus, it comes with weenie disruption.
In: Gift of Estates, Out: Sunforger - 9/10/13. Same reasoning as the two above. Sunforger can tutor for the kill spells which is effective at winning, but not at surprising anyone. When people expect surprises, they're no longer surprises after all. I feel Gift of Estates is an extremely overlooked card outside of mono White. Simply put, it's a 3 for 1 for two mana. which ensures healthy land drops until turn five at least.
In: Burnished Hart, Out: Martyr's Bond - 10/13/13. After testing out the Hart, I have to say that he's never been a burden. Martyr's Bond has been waiting to get dropped for a long time now. It's usually a dead draw.
In: Mirari, Out: Plains - 1/25/2014. I'm not really sure why I didn't have this in a lot earlier since it basically doubles the effectiveness of most turnaround cards.
In: Survival Cache, Out: Inheritance - 1/25/2014. Cache is definitely not a flashy card by any means, but I think it gets the job done. I've never been disappointed to draw it, and Inheritance is a bit too mana intensive. Plus, a little extra life is always good.
In: Overmaster, Out: Survival Cache - 4/13/2014. Overmaster was dropping in price recently and is a bit more useful than Survival Cache. It still draws you a card if you need one, and if you're playing against Blue, it can help ensure you get a spell through.
In: Basic Snow Lands, Out: Basic Non-Snow Lands - 4/13/2014. See below.
In: Mouth of Ronom, Out: Auntie's Hovel - 4/13/2014. Mouth allows us to hit Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir when we need to get rid of him quickly. It doesn't happen often, but Teferi messes us up pretty badly. Also, it can act as a potential deterrent.
In: Scrying Sheets, Out: Plains - 4/13/2014. A little bit more acceleration. For just sitting there, it can possibly help prevent dead draws late game which is pretty nice.
Well, there weren't too many cards that look like they'd be great for this deck in Theros. Here are the ones that are the most noteworthy or I feel should be at least mentioned.
Heliod, God of the Sun: Most likely, he'd never make it to creature form in 99% of the games which basically just makes him a glorified Sacred Mesa without the flying, and Tariel already has vigilance. I don't think an extra blocker with no evasion for four mana works for this deck.
Spear of Heliod: The first ability is pretty useless in this deck since we don't run creatures really. The second ability is just a worse No Mercy or Dread, so this one's out.
Erebos, God of the Dead: Here we go. Super Greed. I'm still a bit hesitant of running the black life for draw type cards though. Like Heliod, he'll probably never make it to creature form either. The part about not letting opponents gain life seems like it would make them not like me, so I'm not too thrilled about him overall.
Stormbreath Dragon: In order to "surprise" an opponent, I'd need 12 mana to activate the whole thing. I'd take it in a heartbeat with no body as an instant at 5 mana, but it seems way too costly here. REALLY wishing it was an instant for something like 3RR. :/
Burnished Hart: Six mana over two turns is a bit costly as Armillary Sphere can be popped a turn earlier. It also can take up that valuable third or fourth turn drop that would normally be filled by a defensive card. It does stand in as a blocker though. I'll reserve judgment on this one until I see it in action more. Leaning towards no though.
Temple of Silence and Temple of Triumph: Why not? If they end up being cheap enough, I'll pick them up as replacements in the main deck for two of the Guildgates. I'll update the optimized list to reflect that in the meantime.
I was really excited for this set. I really was. All it ended up giving was a bunch of things that are good against this deck though (I'm looking at you Bane of Progress and Oloro, Ageless Ascetic). :/ Oh well. The general that I thought was the most interesting was Shattergang Brothers although I wish the art were different. Anyway, here are my thoughts on some of the cards that I think are worth commenting on.
Curse of the Forsaken, Curse of Shallow Graves, and Curse of Chaos: Anything that targets a single player (or anyone really) isn't what we want to be playing.
Mystic Barrier: We want cards that allow everyone to attack each other. Limiting who everyone can attack isn't our style here and is a bit too controlling.
Serene Master: This is a really funny card, and if EDH decks had 1,000 cards in them, I might put this one in. I just don't think it's versatile enough to deserve a slot without flying or something else.
Baleful Force: We still don't run enough life gain to really take advantage of Black's life for cards stuff. Even if we did, running big creatures that can smash face (besides Dread I guess) isn't what we want to do.
Price of Knowledge: Close, but we don't want to be advertising our kill cards and waving them in front of our opponents until we actually kill them.
Terra Ravager: Again, the effect is nice, but it moves at the pace of a snail. Far too slow to be used in this deck. This card and Price of Knowledge are probably the two that most closely fit the deck, but the execution of them are both no good.
Surveyor's Scope: I think there are better options in White (Land Tax and Weathered Wayfarer) for this effect.
Not too much here although I was looking forward to seeing what Mogis, God of Slaughter would be like. As a whole, I like the set though. I think that Raised by Wolves flavor is really nice.
Acolyte's Reward: If only we had significant devotion to White, this might be nice.
Dawn to Dusk: I'll reserve judgment on this card for now. It's definitely a possibility since we do like our own enchantments, but I'll wait a bit and see how it plays since I don't know what I'd take out.
Silent Sentinal: Attacking to activate the ability isn't preferred.
Temple of Malice: Like the other Temples, this will go in the optimized deck list.
...and that's it. Nothing much even to consider for this deck here I think.
So, is it me or did this seem like it was a creature set disguised as an enchantment set? There wasn't really a whole lot to discuss in this set. Anyway, onto the cards...
Aegis of the Gods: While nice, I think it's not really that essential to the deck. It's also a creature which makes it more vulnerable.
Nyx-Fleece Ram: Cute. Really cute. Doesn't do enough though.
Athreos, God of Passage: This would be great if we really played many creatures.
Dictate of the Twin Gods: There we go! This card will go on my watch list. I think it could be used as a sub if you're using the more than 100 card version of the deck in real life. The "flash" part is what sets it apart from similar cards.
This looks like a really fun set. I can't wait to play with a lot of the cards in it. But for Tariel...
Ignition Team: This was one of those cards where I was very hopeful about halfway through reading the card. Not quite what I was hoping.
Treasonous Ogre: This won't go in the deck, but it does look interesting and scary. Just thought I'd bring it up.
Coercive Portal: This is the only serious contender for the deck. I don't think it will really be offensive by itself since it needs the majority to go off, and it nets you some cards in the meantime. We don't usually develop a heavy board presence so it could be asymmetric. The downside is that we actually do want ridiculous board states sometimes and this might prevent us from getting there. It's worth thinking about anyway.
Finally, a core set! I didn't find any auto-includes but there are some interesting choices to think about.
Ajani Steadfast: We don't run any Planeswalkers and this guy doesn't look like he'll be the first. His ultimate is obviously what's attractive here but he's got no way to protect himself in our deck.
Avacyn, Guardian Angel: That's certainly some nice protection, but it's a bit expensive and seems like it would be overkill a lot of the time. Also, it's fairly color and mana intensive to use.
Hushwing Gryff: This is a card that paints a target on your face and we don't want that. However it doesn't hurt our deck that much so we'll be happy when other people play it and draw attention to themselves.
Resolute Archangel: We really don't have any blink in this deck so abusing it is not an option. Our opponents have lots of ways to reanimate it and make clones of it though so this isn't that attractive.
In Garruk's Wake: We don't really wrath. Depending on the meta, getting rid of some 'walkers could be nice. Otherwise not so much.
Ob Nixilis, Unshackled: Oh boy. This guy also paints a target on your face. He's pretty funny though.
Perilous Vault: I usually don't play with a reset button, but this would be a good choice if you choose to do so.
Soul of New Phyrexia: It's a bit mana intensive but it's something that can actually protect our enchantments and artifacts. It would be a bummer if it got cloned, stolen, or reanimated. We only don't care if an opponent's creature is indestructible if it's really big. If they can make some annoying utility creature indestructible then we might have a problem. Use with caution.
Hi there! I'm Rach. I wrote this thing. I've been playing Magic more often than not since Mirrodin in 2003. I was originally very reluctant to start playing, but once I did, I was hooked. At first I liked building decks that people didn't like a lot. Erayo, Soratami Ascendant with Rule of Law, Oath of Druids with Serra Avatar and Dragon Fangs and co., and a red chaos deck were some of the ones I used to play in high school. My first deck was a Lone Wolf deck that won with Seal of Strength and Muscle Burst. Good times.
In college, I didn't play quite as much. I did try going to FNM and drafting. It was fun, but my group of friends from high school found it more fun to just buy some packs and have our own drafts at home. Sometime during this period I started playing MTGO. I eventually developed a Savra, Queen of the Golgari deck which never became an EDH deck though. After college, I started playing MTGO (and EDH) exclusively because of how my friends' schedules are now that we're all working.
My favorite aspect of Magic has always been the creative and flavorful sides of it. The color pie is a really awesome concept, and if my avatar didn't make it obvious, I have a strong like of the Golgari. Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord was one of my favorite characters in the Ravnica novels (which is also my favorite block). Anyway, I have a strong distaste for building decks like the ones I started with. I thought I was being clever back when I was messing around with combos, but I was just a big frog in a small pond. Once I realized that everyone and their dog played those decks, my hipster instincts kicked in (I hate hipsters by the way) and started looking for other ideas. While probably not unique, I think this deck is the most fun for me to play that I've ever built and is relatively unusual at least. I would never build a deck just to be "that wacky guy OMG SQUIRRELS LOL" though. I'd like any deck I build to not be just a "novelty" deck which is only designed with a certain theme in mind, but one with effective form AND function. I understand that people play Magic for many different reasons though, whether it be to win, as a creative outlet, or just an activity you can do while having a few drinks with some friends, so to each their own. My favorite games are long ones that don't end in comboing out or rage-quitting, have lots of twists and turns where everyone is the major threat at the table at least once in the game, and where everyone jokes around a lot.
Always open to suggestions (including formatting suggestions for the thread) and might try them out if they're cheap enough (average card price should be $0.50 on MTGO unless it's really stellar).
HAPPY PLAYING!
[Primer] WBR Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This WBR [Primer]
GGG Dosan of the Green Rainbow GGG
RWU Zedruu: I Ain't Even Mad RWU
Thoughts on Culling Dais instead of Carnage Altar? I don't like the need to pay 3 and I don't expect the need to sac more than one critter to come up often with Tariel.
Updated the maybe-list with Culling Dais. There was actually a time I was only able to win by attacking with Tariel, tapping her to get a creature, saccing the creature, and then saccing Tariel to draw into a Batwing Brume with the exact amount of damage on the next turn to win. Regardless, the real reasoning is in the post.
Also, did a general beautification (hopefully) job on the thread by adding some pictures and putting text in boxes.
[Primer] WBR Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This WBR [Primer]
GGG Dosan of the Green Rainbow GGG
RWU Zedruu: I Ain't Even Mad RWU
Of course my comments are coming from someone who has never played the deck, so please feel free to say, "that's just not a good idea".
As for the beautification. I like the additions, but a little formatting is off. The text of several boxes spills over the card image to the right.
One other thought as I glanced at the deck: Wayfarer's Bauble is a nice cheap common that perfectly curves for a turn 2 ramp to 3 lands. Perhaps something to consider? Or do you think this is too aggressive of a move? (Which I can see now that I wrote it out).
Have you considered running Wild Ricochet, Ghostly Prison or Blazing Archon?
Gotcha - makes sense, although he does include Reverence.
Excellent point! I overlooked that.
Karmic Justice seems like a good way to protect yourself and your defenses.
Which text boxes spill over? I read in the formatting guide that this will happen because of different sized monitors. On mine, they're all fine I think. I'm using a 17" laptop with 1440x900 resolution.
For Wayfarer's Bauble, it's fine, but I guess the question is what would I take out? I'm also more concerned about getting lands in general (whether in my hand or on the field doesn't matter as much) since I can usually land some type of defense early enough. I've thought of Thawing Glaciers before which is slightly pricey compared to the rest of the deck at just under $2, so that's a possibility too.
Wild Ricochet and the like are things I've definitely considered before, but forgot to add it to the list so I just did. Ghostly Prison is also in the list. I'm not a huge fan of the prison and effects like it just because mana is pretty easy to come by as the game goes on while Crawlspace and Thunderstaff serve the same purpose but will usually be somewhat more relevant still late game.
As trancekat pointed out, Blazing Archon is a bit too restrictive I think. My reasoning behind using things like Reverence and Crawlspace and not Blazing Archon is that the other two are situational. Most people have creatures with power 3 or greater in their deck and even most token decks have ways to pump their tokens. Most decks also have at least two creature cards that if unchecked should be able to kill someone on their own (two 5/5 creatures even would be deadly after a few turns). The reaction I'm going for in my opponents when they see those two cards are "Oh, well that's just a minor obstacle. I have plenty of answers for those in my deck, so I'll kill the other guys in the meantime". So, I'm counting on that they have decks that can deal with a variety of situations so that they don't throw everything against me when they see those cards.
Yeah, both of those are pretty good cards. I've written a little about them in the "considered cards" section.
The ability to draw two cards is definitely good for this deck, but I really like being able to let off a Sudden Impact at any time. I do play two versions of it already, so I would take out Gaze of Adamaro if I did. Blue is usually the one that it's going to hit hardest, but sometimes Green or Black will have a big hand. Fighting Blue on its own turn is already hard enough, let alone fighting it only on your own turn. That's probably the main reason. It's meant to be a kill card so it should kill when I need it to. Something like Stronghold Discipline is a little different because usually people can't get rid of their creatures as fast as they can get rid of the cards in their hand I think.
Karmic Justice is good, but Martyr's Bond has two things over it in my opinion. The first is that Martyr's Bond hits everyone else. The second is that it can hit creatures too which can sometimes be good depending on how many creatures they have out. It's again a question of what would I take out I think.
I think I'll try out Wild Ricochet, but not sure what to take out. I'm thinking maybe Traitor's Roar if it ends up working well.
Also added a Budget tag since it really is a cheap deck to make. I'll remove it if it ever gets more expensive.
Edit: Okay, I like Norn's Annex quite a bit now. Removed Dawnglare Invoker for it. Still trying out Wild Ricochet.
[Primer] WBR Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This WBR [Primer]
GGG Dosan of the Green Rainbow GGG
RWU Zedruu: I Ain't Even Mad RWU
I was on a smaller resolution, that's probably why.. no big.
Wanderer's Twig" target="blank">Wanderer's Twig is probably easy to replace with Bauble.
Will work on this deck next week.
I'm a bit hesitant with the bauble only because the deck doesn't really need to ramp up quickly, and that's the only advantage that it provides over the twig. Since the twig can be popped slightly earlier and for less mana, I don't mind that it's not coming directly into play. If I had a choice between a card that said
Get Me Lands 4
Sorcery
Search your library for up to two basic land cards and put them onto that battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library.
and
Get Me Lands 2 4
Sorcery
Search your library for up to three basic land cards and put them into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
I'd take the second one because I'm not that concerned about ramping up quickly with this deck, and I'd rather be that much more likely to not draw into a land when I don't need it.
Also, renamed the section "Winning" to "How This Deck Wins" and added a new section below it called "Why This Deck Wins".
[Primer] WBR Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This WBR [Primer]
GGG Dosan of the Green Rainbow GGG
RWU Zedruu: I Ain't Even Mad RWU
[Primer] WBR Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This WBR [Primer]
GGG Dosan of the Green Rainbow GGG
RWU Zedruu: I Ain't Even Mad RWU
In: Auntie's Hovel, Out: Swamp
In: Tresserhorn Sinks, Out: Mountain
In: Chromatic Lantern, Out: Wanderer's Twig
[Primer] WBR Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This WBR [Primer]
GGG Dosan of the Green Rainbow GGG
RWU Zedruu: I Ain't Even Mad RWU
[Primer] WBR Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This WBR [Primer]
GGG Dosan of the Green Rainbow GGG
RWU Zedruu: I Ain't Even Mad RWU
GWUBAtraxa, Praetor's Voice PrimerGWUB
GWURoon Bant Blink WhateverGWU
BRGLord Windgrace LandsBRG
Edit: Removed all the pics except for Tariel at the top just to be safe.
[Primer] WBR Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This WBR [Primer]
GGG Dosan of the Green Rainbow GGG
RWU Zedruu: I Ain't Even Mad RWU
In: Thawing Glaciers, Out: Honorable Passage - 6/25/13
These weren't so much as added to ramp up rather than to prevent dead draws that I sometimes would get and hopefully thin the deck late game. I also looked at Gift of Estates and Weathered Wayfarer but decided against them because gift can't get other types of lands and is a one time use, and Wayfarer is too fragile.
[Primer] WBR Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This WBR [Primer]
GGG Dosan of the Green Rainbow GGG
RWU Zedruu: I Ain't Even Mad RWU
Edit: Had a nice game with Damia, Sage of Stone, Edric, Spymaster of Trest, and Dralnu, Lich Lord that went great and was pretty fun.
[Primer] WBR Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This WBR [Primer]
GGG Dosan of the Green Rainbow GGG
RWU Zedruu: I Ain't Even Mad RWU
Had another good game today that went well with Ruric Thar, The Unbowed, Crosis, the Purger, and Ghave, Guru of Spores. Captain's Maneuver for 7 against Ruric followed by an Acidic Soil was the winning combo this time.
[Primer] WBR Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This WBR [Primer]
GGG Dosan of the Green Rainbow GGG
RWU Zedruu: I Ain't Even Mad RWU
Black cards in deck: 16
White cards in deck: 21
Red cards in deck: 12 (including Boros Fury-Shield)
I may have miscounted, but if that's correct, you'd only be replacing 16% of the deck. It should be noted that even though there are only 12 red cards, they make up almost half of the turnaround cards. So, I could see a Gisela build working, but there would definitely be some other type of sub-theme present, and it would lose access to beating players based on the number of creatures they have, the number of cards in their graveyard, and would have to rely on Soul Conduit alone to deal with life gain decks. If you do build it, please let me know how it works and what cards you change/add!
Also, if anyone has any suggestions for deterrent cards (especially creatures) that don't scream PILLOW FORT, I'd like to hear them. I'm already aware of High Priest of Penance, but I like Archon of Justice's ability to exile stuff over it. While the deck often ends up in a (very prickly looking) pillow fort, I'd like to be more subtle about getting there by playing some more creatures possibly. The main reason is that the deck is unfun for one type of opponent which is the type that likes to see you play/do stuff. However, the only times I've honestly heard this complaint were when a player was getting creamed by another opponent and I wasn't doing anything about it.
[Primer] WBR Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This WBR [Primer]
GGG Dosan of the Green Rainbow GGG
RWU Zedruu: I Ain't Even Mad RWU