Skittles, much like Bruna, is best played as a control deck that finishes with Skittles. Aggro skittles is super un-fun, but MBC is a pretty fun deck all in all. Though people are not usually big fans of death cloud it's no worse than armageddon in reality.
The one that burns me the most is Archetype of Lamedurance. In every frigging green deck.
..and constantly tutored for if you happen to be running a hexproof dude.
Also, might just be my meta but people run a lot of stuff that deals with hexproof dudes in my group - sweepers of various sorts, etc.
I'm not sayin' Geist can't be OK, I just think he's going to naturally drift toward being a control finisher (and worse than many other control finisher options in Blue - Ojutai and Bruna in particular).
After having thought it over a lot (following some discussion in an Ojutai thread) I really don't think Geist is strong enough to be considered for voltron anymore. His 3 mana bear statline with no evasion and his completely irrelevant ability are hard to justify in an age of hexproof hate.
I can't see building a deck around him that doesn't have to be mostly Azorius control, at which point a stronger finisher like Bruna seems a little better to me.
I could be totally wrong of course, but I had the itch to play Geist for quite some time (love the art and flavor of the card) but just can't make it work in my head.
They're usually banking on dropping a land wipe in a dominant position, and I guess they're just going to keep plugging at that plan.
I've played a lot of voltron decks myself and they're invariably not super resilient, just the way it goes. The strongest way to actually win with it is to pick a general who's a strong control finisher and control the board. The second strongest is to be super, super fast - Uril is through virtue of his ability to get crazy huge potentialy pretty fast, but I think he's significantly worse than Shu Yun at that overall.
I don't think of what are basically combo enablers like Zur or Narset as voltron decks personally.
Ramp is important when your general costs 6.fixing is important when your general had 3 pips.
Your control and draw elements largely depend on having bruna on the field already or are very expensive.
Where are your instant speed answers to combos? Where is your mana base? You're too land light to reliably hit your first six land drops.
Your deck requires you hitting your first six drops on time with almost no help. You need to be running 40 lands to do that most of the time.
**
Assuming you start the game with 3 lands in hand and 6 draw steps until turn 6, you need to draw a land 50% of the time to hit your 6th land drop on time. The odds of that are not great with only 30/92 cards left in your deck as lands. If you one ramp spell capable of actually accelerating you before the 5th land drop (Sol ring) and figure out the distant chance of you grabbing gilded lotus AND hitting your first 5 land drops...eh.
Your chances of making your land drops are very bad. I'd guess if you started with 3 lands you'd hit your drops about 2/3rds of the time, approximately. With 4 lands, in your opener you'd get it most of the time but the odds are highly against you getting 4 lands in your opening hand.
Because your control elements are miserably bad and your curve is likewise miserable, you're probably dead before you've set up lightning greaves and cast bruna on turn 7 or whatever your missed land drops allow.
The manabase and ramp package should explain why that deck is bad on their own without any explanation from me. No control elements, no way to draw cards. It's basically all-in on putting a bunch of pants on things and crossing your fingers.
I get that it's budget but it could still include more than a 10% chance of Bruna dropping before turn 6, and maybe some likelihood of hitting your land drops and colors. Practically no fixing at all.
I play Skullbriar using creatures, recurrable enchantments and global enchantments to provide protection/evasion. The tools are there Green can even tutor up Nylea directly into play for trample and pumps which is pretty sick. GSZ for 5 is a pretty common play for me. I've turn 3 killed with Unspeakable Symbol before.
Having haste and 2CMC and keeping your counters is functionally similar to evasion; the biggest threat to SkullB is theft, and thankfully a natural subtheme for the deck is sacrificing stuff. Fun example is saccing him and recurring him with Sheoldred every turn People love that. Yeah, I'll draw 9 cards, discard 3, and then bring him back next upkeep.
Anyway I concur that Skullbriar is not one of the strongest voltron generals, but he's got many tools. I see most people play Enchantment voltron in a really peculiar say that is built around hexproof generals, and it's totally doable without it if you're creative in your selection (use auras that protect themselves like Rancor or Fallen Ideal.
Note: Vigor provides both pump and pseudo-evasion, since no one wants to start blocking Skullbriar and doubling his counters or any such nonsense. Only token decks really have an out to that. Birthing Pod slime - vigor is a pretty common play for me.
I don't know if I qualify Zur the Enchanter as a voltron deck btw. He's backbreaking, one of the best generals in the game, as a stax/lockdown control guy -- while you can win through general damage, it's probably more going to be everyone scooping due to you drawing 20 cards off necropotence, stasising the board, and threatening to make them suffer through 21 combat steps each
I guess technically he's focusing on swinging with his general, but eh..
That was the whole point of avoiding the most common voltron generals
In my opinion the overall strongest voltron general (by a ridiculously huge margin) is probably Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon; he's only got to count to 10 and brings his own haste, evasion and protection, which are much stronger abilities than Hexproof in the grand scheme of things.
That's interesting.. he looks really, really good. What would you put in your deck though, considering he's mono black? Not many enchantments in that color that aren't meant to debuff enemy creatures, at least that I know of.
For finishing, all you really need to do is get him to 5, and you kill someone every other turn. I'd probably use Swords, Lashwrithe, Jitte, Hatred, and maybe Gauntlet of Power / Caged Sun to get to 5 and mana double. There are tons of strong pump options, but Umezawa's Jitte is probably the best overall (providing board control and such as well as ridiculous pumps). There're a lot of ways to approach the Skithy deck though. You can jam Urborg/tutors and give him swampwalk even. Hilarious options.
The two basic ways to kill with Skith that I have seen are all-in get him out and start killing folks one at a time, and two is basically mono-black control with him as the finisher. Death cloud, cast Skithiryx is pretty good for example. You can also load up on other infect creatures and proliferate stuff if you want to be a super douche
If it were my deck I'd play mono-black control with a reanimation subtheme, and do stuff like sac and recur him. I'd probably aim to use Lashwrithe as a finisher. Lots of black goodstuff like Crypt Ghast, Cabal Coffers, etc.
Bruna has a lot of weak points that make her a mid-level voltron general at best - high CMC, no built-in protection, mediocre evasion, no haste, etc. Once she's been removed once or twice she's prohibitively expensive to win with. You largely have to get lucky or have a control lock on the board to win with her in my experience.
Sounds like your friends need to work on:
1) Threat assessment
2) Playing more answers
My experience lately has been that all of the voltron generals are pretty vulnerable to removal, even with hexproof, due to the various anti-hexproof tech and sweepers. My vast preference has been toward generals who are either very cheap, have haste, or both. I've been a lot more successful with Skullbriar and Jenara than I ever did with Sigarda, who needed firm control of the board to win due to her CMC.
In my opinion the overall strongest voltron general (by a ridiculously huge margin) is probably Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon; he's only got to count to 10 and brings his own haste, evasion and protection, which are much stronger abilities than Hexproof in the grand scheme of things.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
..and constantly tutored for if you happen to be running a hexproof dude.
Also, might just be my meta but people run a lot of stuff that deals with hexproof dudes in my group - sweepers of various sorts, etc.
I'm not sayin' Geist can't be OK, I just think he's going to naturally drift toward being a control finisher (and worse than many other control finisher options in Blue - Ojutai and Bruna in particular).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I can't see building a deck around him that doesn't have to be mostly Azorius control, at which point a stronger finisher like Bruna seems a little better to me.
I could be totally wrong of course, but I had the itch to play Geist for quite some time (love the art and flavor of the card) but just can't make it work in my head.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I've played a lot of voltron decks myself and they're invariably not super resilient, just the way it goes. The strongest way to actually win with it is to pick a general who's a strong control finisher and control the board. The second strongest is to be super, super fast - Uril is through virtue of his ability to get crazy huge potentialy pretty fast, but I think he's significantly worse than Shu Yun at that overall.
I don't think of what are basically combo enablers like Zur or Narset as voltron decks personally.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Your control and draw elements largely depend on having bruna on the field already or are very expensive.
Where are your instant speed answers to combos? Where is your mana base? You're too land light to reliably hit your first six land drops.
Your deck requires you hitting your first six drops on time with almost no help. You need to be running 40 lands to do that most of the time.
**
Assuming you start the game with 3 lands in hand and 6 draw steps until turn 6, you need to draw a land 50% of the time to hit your 6th land drop on time. The odds of that are not great with only 30/92 cards left in your deck as lands. If you one ramp spell capable of actually accelerating you before the 5th land drop (Sol ring) and figure out the distant chance of you grabbing gilded lotus AND hitting your first 5 land drops...eh.
Your chances of making your land drops are very bad. I'd guess if you started with 3 lands you'd hit your drops about 2/3rds of the time, approximately. With 4 lands, in your opener you'd get it most of the time but the odds are highly against you getting 4 lands in your opening hand.
Because your control elements are miserably bad and your curve is likewise miserable, you're probably dead before you've set up lightning greaves and cast bruna on turn 7 or whatever your missed land drops allow.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I get that it's budget but it could still include more than a 10% chance of Bruna dropping before turn 6, and maybe some likelihood of hitting your land drops and colors. Practically no fixing at all.
Meh.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Having haste and 2CMC and keeping your counters is functionally similar to evasion; the biggest threat to SkullB is theft, and thankfully a natural subtheme for the deck is sacrificing stuff. Fun example is saccing him and recurring him with Sheoldred every turn
Anyway I concur that Skullbriar is not one of the strongest voltron generals, but he's got many tools. I see most people play Enchantment voltron in a really peculiar say that is built around hexproof generals, and it's totally doable without it if you're creative in your selection (use auras that protect themselves like Rancor or Fallen Ideal.
Some examples of stuff I use:
Note: Vigor provides both pump and pseudo-evasion, since no one wants to start blocking Skullbriar and doubling his counters or any such nonsense. Only token decks really have an out to that. Birthing Pod slime - vigor is a pretty common play for me.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I guess technically he's focusing on swinging with his general, but eh..
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Skithiryx has tutors (Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor), amazing removal and control (No Mercy, Black Sun's Zenith) and card draw (Necropotence, Phyrexian Arena). I'd do some of all of that.
For finishing, all you really need to do is get him to 5, and you kill someone every other turn. I'd probably use Swords, Lashwrithe, Jitte, Hatred, and maybe Gauntlet of Power / Caged Sun to get to 5 and mana double. There are tons of strong pump options, but Umezawa's Jitte is probably the best overall (providing board control and such as well as ridiculous pumps). There're a lot of ways to approach the Skithy deck though. You can jam Urborg/tutors and give him swampwalk even. Hilarious options.
The two basic ways to kill with Skith that I have seen are all-in get him out and start killing folks one at a time, and two is basically mono-black control with him as the finisher. Death cloud, cast Skithiryx is pretty good for example. You can also load up on other infect creatures and proliferate stuff if you want to be a super douche
If it were my deck I'd play mono-black control with a reanimation subtheme, and do stuff like sac and recur him. I'd probably aim to use Lashwrithe as a finisher. Lots of black goodstuff like Crypt Ghast, Cabal Coffers, etc.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Sounds like your friends need to work on:
1) Threat assessment
2) Playing more answers
My experience lately has been that all of the voltron generals are pretty vulnerable to removal, even with hexproof, due to the various anti-hexproof tech and sweepers. My vast preference has been toward generals who are either very cheap, have haste, or both. I've been a lot more successful with Skullbriar and Jenara than I ever did with Sigarda, who needed firm control of the board to win due to her CMC.
In my opinion the overall strongest voltron general (by a ridiculously huge margin) is probably Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon; he's only got to count to 10 and brings his own haste, evasion and protection, which are much stronger abilities than Hexproof in the grand scheme of things.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall