I've spent the majority of my EDH days playing Norin, and decided I wanted to try something new. I've been leaning towards a disruption based deck, most likely based on discard instead of land destruction, since I find in online games that LD is only good for getting players to ragequit; hard to finish games.
One general that's struck my fancy is Gwendlyn di Corci. She's got a relatively low mana cost, a good toughness for the price (and is black), so she's at least a little difficult to get rid of... and her discard ability is both random, and not tied to actually connecting in combat.
I'm debating between a couple potential strategies here... one is to focus on some early discard spells to try to ensure Gwen gets on the field and can start tapping the next turn to quickly reduce a hand to 0 cards. So I'm thinking things like:
...but, obviously the power level does start getting kind of low as I add more cards in this vein.
The other way I've thought about going is trying to get Anger into the graveyard as soon as possible, and then following up with some "specters". Biggest problem here is that most of these specters cost 4 mana, which of course I have my general available automatically at that point. In any case I'd be looking into cards like these, to grab Anger and get him in the 'yard:
Finkel is obviously not disruption, but a great 3 drop nonetheless (especially with haste).
In any case... anyone have suggestions as to which of these would work better? I'm leaning towards the first strategy, but the advantage of the second is that I at least have a bit of a clock with my 3cc specters (and the 4cc ones, of which there are many, that I can drop later). The biggest weakness of black hand disruption is losing to a topdecked bomb, so any way I can speed things up would be great. But, it seems like even with all of the tutors in RUB, it's tough to get Anger in the graveyard quickly, and be left with some semblance of hand.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions... and certainly open to other disruption-based strategies if anyone has ideas... Nath of the Gilt-Leaf seems interesting, but much prefer the colors of Gwen for overall card power.
Play the good hand disruption. Hymn, Thoughtseize, Duress, Inquisition, Distress, Mind Twist, Mesmeric Fiend. I dont think you want the mind rot type affects.
Play good counterspells for more disruption. Play an ass ton of spot removal.
Play Anger + Entomb since he synergizes well with your general. Entomb can also get other graveyard cards like Cabal Therapy, Faithless Looting, Forbidden Alchemy, Think Twice, Flash of Insight, etc.
Play the good specters Hippie, Sedraxis....maybe needle??
Basically, play the good cards would be my suggestion and dont play the bad cards just to overload on one strategy.
You really dont want to play too many discard cards. They will end up dead fast.
I wouldn't go all in on anger either. It seems very difficult to get him discarded in your graveyard consistantly. There is only 1 entomb after all. The other tutors wont put him in the graveyard immediatley.
Your deck by virtue of your generals ability will want to grind people out. Make a deck thats good at grinding people out...AKA control (drawing cards, removal, disruption).
One general that's struck my fancy is Gwendlyn di Corci. She's got a relatively low mana cost, a good toughness for the price (and is black), so she's at least a little difficult to get rid of... and her discard ability is both random, and not tied to actually connecting in combat.
I'm debating between a couple potential strategies here... one is to focus on some early discard spells to try to ensure Gwen gets on the field and can start tapping the next turn to quickly reduce a hand to 0 cards. So I'm thinking things like:
...but, obviously the power level does start getting kind of low as I add more cards in this vein.
The other way I've thought about going is trying to get Anger into the graveyard as soon as possible, and then following up with some "specters". Biggest problem here is that most of these specters cost 4 mana, which of course I have my general available automatically at that point. In any case I'd be looking into cards like these, to grab Anger and get him in the 'yard:
If I can do so by turn 2, I'd be able to take advantage of the following 3cc specters:
Finkel is obviously not disruption, but a great 3 drop nonetheless (especially with haste).
In any case... anyone have suggestions as to which of these would work better? I'm leaning towards the first strategy, but the advantage of the second is that I at least have a bit of a clock with my 3cc specters (and the 4cc ones, of which there are many, that I can drop later). The biggest weakness of black hand disruption is losing to a topdecked bomb, so any way I can speed things up would be great. But, it seems like even with all of the tutors in RUB, it's tough to get Anger in the graveyard quickly, and be left with some semblance of hand.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions... and certainly open to other disruption-based strategies if anyone has ideas... Nath of the Gilt-Leaf seems interesting, but much prefer the colors of Gwen for overall card power.
Play good counterspells for more disruption. Play an ass ton of spot removal.
Play Anger + Entomb since he synergizes well with your general. Entomb can also get other graveyard cards like Cabal Therapy, Faithless Looting, Forbidden Alchemy, Think Twice, Flash of Insight, etc.
Play the good specters Hippie, Sedraxis....maybe needle??
Basically, play the good cards would be my suggestion and dont play the bad cards just to overload on one strategy.
You really dont want to play too many discard cards. They will end up dead fast.
I wouldn't go all in on anger either. It seems very difficult to get him discarded in your graveyard consistantly. There is only 1 entomb after all. The other tutors wont put him in the graveyard immediatley.
Your deck by virtue of your generals ability will want to grind people out. Make a deck thats good at grinding people out...AKA control (drawing cards, removal, disruption).