My issue that I have, is that since I've also cut Krosan Grip recently, my "destroy artifact" that isn't on a creature has now become quite limited, which is problematic against Torpor Orb and its ilk.
Do you ever have issues with Torpor? I've been wanting to get rid of Oblation forever (and would rather run Bant Charm over it), but it's one of my only outs against a God card and I guess it gets rid of Torpor Orb as well. Does Return to Dust merit a discussion here, especially when used as a sorcery?
Try Qasali Pridemage in place of Harmonic Sliver / Reclamation Sage (assuming you run either) if you are seeing it regularly. You can run both too I suppose. It opens your creature tutors into an out for answering it which is going to give you far more impact than a single spell will.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I have likewise had very good results with Tragic Arrogance, Austere Command is still better but I have generally slotted it in as sort of a number two Austere of late. The one downside is that if your opponents can sacrifice things it gets a lot less good but even then, that usually just covers creatures so you still get to control them fairly well.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
But yes, like ISB and Riven said, dropping an early Jenny and bashing in their face is a solid plan, but I tend to be careful with it. Too much good cheap removal in the format. All it takes is a single mana spent on a Swords to Plowshares while they're ramping to have effectively made you waste a turn or two.
I agree, Its also why I tend to not try to invest too much in that plan but generally speaking if she isnt attacking you, people wont answer Jenara. Its not something that you always want to do because sometimes they will spot remove you. Its part of why I tend to contain how much I focus her early on.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Against excessive ramp decks, I always liked the plan of turn 3 Jenara, turn 4, swing with a 5/5 flyer at them and see how much ramping they can do under that pressure. I usually don't bring Jenara past a 5/5 in the early game unless you have literally nothing else to do but even then, thats a very fast threat to just ignore.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I still run Harmonic because of the hedge case where it can be cloned, but it just doesn't come up for me very often so that's why I felt that the 2 power may be relevant (costing one less green and having a lower likelihood to backfire can matter too). It could also be less common for me because I don't play Jenara nearly as often any more since she is my oldest and most stable deck in terms of what cards are in my list and how often I need to change anything. I've had to spend a lot more time polishing my other lists, meaning they need to be played more to test the changes.
I have recently put Mirror Entity back into my Jenara list, cut the land count from 37 to 35, added a Dryad Arbor for GSZ at 0, added a mana dork and a couple sources of creature ramp, and tossed in the Enlightened Tutor I had been meaning to add for quite a while. My hope is that I'll be able to execute the Survival Combo more consistently if I so choose (I sort of did a jerry-rigged version of the combo where I was flashing in a Reveillark in response to board wipes and coming out way ahead with 4-5 creatures on board (Karmic Guide, Sun Titan, Eternal Witness, etc.).
The problem I came across is that, while Mirror Entity is the best way to do the combo reliably, it can never leave you with much of a board since you can only get back the Body Double and Karmic Guide + Acidic Slime/Venser. Granted, you should probably just win when you bounce/destroy the entire board and get to keep your own, but I didn't like that Mirror Entity destroyed your entire board and limited what you could get back because of how you had to layer everything between the triggers.
So, the question I have is what is the value of another sac outlet that isn't Entity? Altar of Dementia, Phyrexian Altar, and Ashnod's Altar all seem like they could be invaluable. Dementia makes an infinite mill combo with any infinite pair from your list (Karmic + Reveillark, etc.), and Phyrexian gives you infinite colored mana, which you can use with SotF to bin all of your creatures and put them into play with the Lark combo, and Ashnod's just seems like it is okay, though it does generate infinite colorless mana.
The benefit of using any of these sac outlets as opposed to Mirror Entity is that you can increase your board size while performing the combo so not only do you bounce/destroy everything your opponents have, but you dump your library's worth of creatures onto the board. Is this win-more? Or does this just secure your win more efficiently than Mirror Entity? Do your opponents usually scoop once you've resolved the combo, regardless of how many creatures you have on board?
The interesting thing is that you can end the combo by returning Body Double as Lark + Mirror Entity so literally anytime you want you can repeat the infinite loop. There is literally now way back into the game shy of finding a 1 cost removal spell + the land to cast it. There is no reason to continue beyond that but if they really want to die to like 5 damage at a time then they are more than welcome to. They will never have another permenant stay on the field for a full turn so.... meh...
Also.... you keep all of your lands.... thats why they should scoop. Move to Jenara if you want or just start beating them with mirror entity buff dudes.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
@ISB Lmao, I have also had my sliver get Rite of Replicationed. It hurt.
Ever have a mono blue player kick a rite of replication on a Gary? That happened to me at a pickup game at a GP once lol. I think my devotion was like 4 when I cast it...
As a side note, because we are more land ramp based excessive copying of any of these effects usually just means like.... swords get blown up. I haven't ever had it feel that bad in part because I only ran like 10 or so targets for these effects in my whole list. It was generally in my interest for someone to clone my own harmonic because I rarely had more than one target worth hitting.
Yes, it's "all slivers have..." so when you copy it, the original gives it that ability and the copy has its own ability so it gets two triggers. That said, I have never once copied it, so the Sage is probably better.
Interesting, I have cloned it probably 10 times at least for the 2x copies. Its been a while since I played my version but I noticed the clone option seemed to matter a lot more than one power.
I occasionally do like Jitte in commander but it tends to be a deck where you are commander centric and you want some combination of small spot removal as well as potential for pump. It "could" work here but for the most part we are not playing central to Jenara and she self buffs well enough that you are much better off just running another extra turn.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
It depends a little on how happy you are drawing a card at most a turn. I found it a little lackluster as I found I was not playing a creature every turn so in comparison I found in my jenara deck I was probably drawing 0.60 - 0.80 cards a turn rotation with Ephara. It depends a little on what your objective is. I felt it was.... ok but I think I did end up cutting it from my own after a while.
If you were to try to make it stronger, something like Ant Queen / Sacred Mesa could give a little stronger draw for her but I dont know how much you want to build those cards in. I think overall Ephara is fine, I just wasn't blown away by her performance.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Well, for me I just moved to preferring Gilded Drake or Ixidron as my general responses. I found less situations as time went on that I felt that Duplicant was the appropriate answer to. Every meta and deck is a little different though so if you like him thats cool. I essentially exclusively played my list back when commander tuck was a thing so things have changed since I last played mine.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
No problem. I just thought I would voice my opinions of the cards. You could perhaps cut Duplicant? I ended up tutoring for and using it a lot less as time went on in my own list but I think I had a little different removal in my creatures. Its repeatable in a few ways but its always a little more expensive for its effect than I liked.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
For what its worth, when I drop a Scavenging Ooze its generally speaking because I plan to use it. Even if someone has an answer I am going to start immediately eating their graveyard so something like a Living Death should definitely be blunted already even the turn you drop the Ooze. I have often had people not spot remove it because the turn I drop it I can remove most of the threats already that turn. Usually speaking the ability to remove 2-3 things is all you really need. It gives a little bit of lifegain plus it grows into a decent beater as well.
For me, Scavenging Ooze is a matter of being able to reach into multiple graveyards in response to an opponent's action or at the end of my opponents turns I go ahead and clean things up a bit. It really gets there either way if you ask me and it will deprive them the ability to use graveyards in the long run but it also sort of has immediate effect as well. Its both an immediate effect as well as a value over time effect.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I found Scavenging Ooze and Tormod's Crypt to both fit my needs when it comes to graveyard hate. As much as I have always wanted to like Angel of Finality, you have to pre-emptively target a player's graveyard and the body it comes with isn't that good or cheap really. I always found it more productive to be able to respond to problems when they arise and push them off with the threat of being able to respond with grave hate than trying to pick someone ahead of time but still at the appropriate time to grave hate with a one shot sorcery speed effect like this.
I did notice that you run Stonecloaker which I am not a huge fan of to be honest. It does have the surprise flash element to it but its a very expensive trick. I still very much stand behind Scavenging Ooze as one of the format's best graveyard hate effects.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
To be fair, if nobody has a hand, I have always found jamming Jenara to be effective. If nobody has a hand you have a great mana sink of a commander who can attack for you or defend fairly well.
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It depends on how you want to use them as well. I stopped playing Tooth and Nail a long time ago because I refused to press the combo button and its a lot worse when you T&N kicked for somewhat fair things. Still, I am always in favor of taking large clunky effects out for synergistic and cheap effects. If you are playing to the point where you have little to no hand + no board its probably a situation that you need to address your draw rather than ask about Tooth and Nail vs Eldritch Evolution.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Try Qasali Pridemage in place of Harmonic Sliver / Reclamation Sage (assuming you run either) if you are seeing it regularly. You can run both too I suppose. It opens your creature tutors into an out for answering it which is going to give you far more impact than a single spell will.
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I agree, Its also why I tend to not try to invest too much in that plan but generally speaking if she isnt attacking you, people wont answer Jenara. Its not something that you always want to do because sometimes they will spot remove you. Its part of why I tend to contain how much I focus her early on.
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The interesting thing is that you can end the combo by returning Body Double as Lark + Mirror Entity so literally anytime you want you can repeat the infinite loop. There is literally now way back into the game shy of finding a 1 cost removal spell + the land to cast it. There is no reason to continue beyond that but if they really want to die to like 5 damage at a time then they are more than welcome to. They will never have another permenant stay on the field for a full turn so.... meh...
Also.... you keep all of your lands.... thats why they should scoop. Move to Jenara if you want or just start beating them with mirror entity buff dudes.
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Ever have a mono blue player kick a rite of replication on a Gary? That happened to me at a pickup game at a GP once lol. I think my devotion was like 4 when I cast it...
As a side note, because we are more land ramp based excessive copying of any of these effects usually just means like.... swords get blown up. I haven't ever had it feel that bad in part because I only ran like 10 or so targets for these effects in my whole list. It was generally in my interest for someone to clone my own harmonic because I rarely had more than one target worth hitting.
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Interesting, I have cloned it probably 10 times at least for the 2x copies. Its been a while since I played my version but I noticed the clone option seemed to matter a lot more than one power.
I occasionally do like Jitte in commander but it tends to be a deck where you are commander centric and you want some combination of small spot removal as well as potential for pump. It "could" work here but for the most part we are not playing central to Jenara and she self buffs well enough that you are much better off just running another extra turn.
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If you were to try to make it stronger, something like Ant Queen / Sacred Mesa could give a little stronger draw for her but I dont know how much you want to build those cards in. I think overall Ephara is fine, I just wasn't blown away by her performance.
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For me, Scavenging Ooze is a matter of being able to reach into multiple graveyards in response to an opponent's action or at the end of my opponents turns I go ahead and clean things up a bit. It really gets there either way if you ask me and it will deprive them the ability to use graveyards in the long run but it also sort of has immediate effect as well. Its both an immediate effect as well as a value over time effect.
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I did notice that you run Stonecloaker which I am not a huge fan of to be honest. It does have the surprise flash element to it but its a very expensive trick. I still very much stand behind Scavenging Ooze as one of the format's best graveyard hate effects.
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