Yeah, after coming up with a new WIP build of Nekusar again, I don't like it anyway. Sure, it's offensively strong, filled with synergies, but not much else going for it. Would expectedly lose easily to a tiny bit of pressure. In order for it to have a chance at winning, it needs to have so many ways to damage people it can't be shut down, but then that leaves no room for control or ways to protect itself, and trying to do any sort of control when I'm giving everyone tempo through cards is kind of backwards. Bleh. I might just have to wait to see what Commander 2019 brings and hope something really catches my eye. I can't seem to find that political/offensive/defensive balance I want.
As for wheeling @Zordrath, the plan, ideally, would be to do some upkeep/end step damage with regular card draw, and save the wheels for the turn where I kill everyone at once, but not before.
Thank you for all the suggestions. At this time, I am thinking I might actually rebuild Nekusar. For one, because it would be really funny to play a game with two Nekusar decks, if my friend obliges to that silliness at least once, and because I can feasibly see building it significantly different (and better in a strategic sense) from what I did the first time, now having much more experience with the game than I did when I first built it. Not only that but it would create a nice environment for the newer players in my group because the card advantage could actually give them a better chance to beat the rest of us experienced players, so it's a socially positive deck to play. The risk is over-enabling the other experienced players, but I think I know what tools to pack to keep them under control.
I suppose I might also consider Esper colors, WUB. I'm not sure what I'm going to settle on. Kess, Dissident Mage and Muldrotha, the Gravetide are arguably pretty good, but I rather expect that the problem I'm going to have with them is they get wiped and then they're not worth it to recast, or otherwise cost way too much to recur whatever it is in my graveyard I want to recur, since I expect when I cast either, I'm going to want to cast something from my graveyard sometime before my next turn or else lose the general immediately as a casualty of boardwipes. What I really need to figure out is what to do to enable things in these colors if it means casting big expensive spells to manage. I'm probably going to need ways to stall until I have mana and do it in such a way as that my opponents' decks don't immediately recover the next turn, or make my spells free in various ways, or generate infinite mana. Otherwise I'm just going to die to the aggro decks before I've even begun to get set up.
Regarding boardwipes: I have and intend to use the good ones, which are usually 3-5 mana and not often 6, few others worth it higher than 7 with the exception of cards like Cyclonic Rift and Blasphemous Act.
Zedruu - not a chance in my meta, not efficient enough and will die before I ever get cards. Fun in theory, though.
Tsaigur - I'm not sure I understand why he's good. He exiles cards from your graveyard that you might actually want if you want to cast him for a low cost, and his activated ability gives opponents a choice, which obviously will never be the best one for me if they can pick the worst card to give me from my graveyard for the current situation.
Damia - Tried it once, built it really solid, always ate removal before I ever got card advantage off of it, no luck.
Inalla - Seems strong, but I don't really want to build wizard tribal. Too linear and limiting.
Mairsil - Maybe. I'm not sure what to make of this commander, in the slightest.
Jeleva - I could consider it. It scales up as I chuck it at the aggro decks and they kill it. Seems potentially mana hungry, and limits me to a heavily non-permanent deck. Tricky, not sure if this is viable, as opposed to Narset, but Narset is something another one of my friends already built and it's too linear and boring to me to want to build. The problem is, when it dies, everything I exiled goes away, and while my deck might have ideal cards to cast for free, my opponent's decks are no guarantee for anything helpful and it makes everyone want to target me even if I don't exile anything they care about that much.
Dralnu - I don't really understand how to build this commander ideally. The first ability always worried me, is there something advantageous about it? The second ability seems good, except the deck needs a haste enabler.
Mizzix - Considered building it once but I decided it was too fragile as a deck.
Others I've considered and my thoughts: Sharuum the Hegemon - Tried it once, but it was too boring. The Mimeoplasm - someone in my group already built it. Don't want to be a copycat. Also a bit too linear for me. The Locust God - Doesn't do anything special my Maelstrom Wanderer deck doesn't already do better because it has green. Nekusar, the Mindrazer - built it once, too boring, and someone in my group already has it built at the moment anyway Thraximundar - combat oriented and mana hungry, also kind of just demands zombie tribal to be at its best, so I decided against it Sedris, the Traitor King - maybe, but it is mana hungry and I'd be better off playing Muldrotha Dragonlord Silumgar - Been considering it, but I don't feel like it's that great to build under even if the rest of the deck has nothing to do with what the general does. Phenax, God of Deception - Interesting possibilities, but I just wish it could use green. Oona, Queen of the Fae - Really interesting general that I could build in numerous ways, but man is it mana hungry and does it draw attention due to exiling cards. Vela the Night-Clad - Built it once, meta changed, no longer remotely viable. Jhoira of the Ghitu - There is no way this would work in my meta because people do assess threats properly, never going to try it even though I like the possibilities.
I am just really indecisive, I guess. Can't seem to narrow down what it is I'm looking for, but I'd like to hope maybe I'm just overlooking the viability and possibilities with various commanders in these colors.
It's another one of those threads! But I do have something specific I'm looking for, so here are my criteria:
1. I'd like to build a new deck or two from among these few color combinations: URW, BGU, UBR, UB, or UR. I really like decks with definitely Blue, but I want a deck with black alongside the blue in it in particular since I have no decks with that color in it right now.
2. I'm wanting to build a deck that doesn't use combat to win. Infinite combos are fine, but I'd prefer if it doesn't *have* to use them, and that the cards involved in said combos can be used for other purposes in a game - versatility. If it works out, a deck that doesn't go infinite but just generates tons of value or advantage until it wins would be great too. I don't want to have to win with 'win more' type cards, though, as I consider them generally mana innefficient and too easily disrupted. The deck needs to be able to scale to handle multiplayer games of up to 6 people.
3. Things I like to and want to be doing: Stealing/copying opponent's cards, self-mill/graveyard strategy, life gain/life drain subtheme would be neat, playing spells for free and recurring things would be great too. I'm thinking cards like Torrential Gearhulk and Baral's Expertise, among others.
4. I don't want to absolutely rely on my commander. If it gets countered or dies, I'd like to be able to recur it from the graveyard instead of paying commander tax. It needs to be a helpful commander that doesn't force me to spend way too much mana to do something some other more efficient card could do on its own, or force me into a single straight-forward strategy. I want to be able to play the deck differently (asymetrically) depending on the state of the game and not have to go very heavy into any particular theme, so I don't get bored with it.
5. I like synergy a lot. I want to avoid antisynergy. Say my deck ends up highly reliant on artifacts or enchantments - I don't want to cast something like Bane of Progress and destroy my own growth, unless if somehow it's really to my advantage and I can get back my own permanents I just destroyed with ease. In general, strong and immediate 'put into play' recursion would be great.
6. Efficiency. I don't want to win fast, but I need to be able to get ahead - no slow or overcosted ramp, and I'd prefer ramp that survives or can come back easily after being removed and immediately help me cast other spells before my next turn after being recurred. I would like to draw out the game a bit. Of principle concern, I need to contend with a few pretty fast decks, and aggro is very popular in my playgroup right now. There's elf/druid tribal slamming down craterhoof behemoth and killing everyone on turn 4-5, an Elzrazi deck, a few other highly consistent and threatening aggro decks, and a couple chaotic crazy decks that warp the entire game. The board is likely to get wiped more than once by other players and graveyard hate is being used too. I need a control-based strategy that feels comfortable in that kind of environment.
All those criteria considered, does anyone have any suggestions?
As for wheeling @Zordrath, the plan, ideally, would be to do some upkeep/end step damage with regular card draw, and save the wheels for the turn where I kill everyone at once, but not before.
Regarding boardwipes: I have and intend to use the good ones, which are usually 3-5 mana and not often 6, few others worth it higher than 7 with the exception of cards like Cyclonic Rift and Blasphemous Act.
Zedruu - not a chance in my meta, not efficient enough and will die before I ever get cards. Fun in theory, though.
Tsaigur - I'm not sure I understand why he's good. He exiles cards from your graveyard that you might actually want if you want to cast him for a low cost, and his activated ability gives opponents a choice, which obviously will never be the best one for me if they can pick the worst card to give me from my graveyard for the current situation.
Damia - Tried it once, built it really solid, always ate removal before I ever got card advantage off of it, no luck.
Inalla - Seems strong, but I don't really want to build wizard tribal. Too linear and limiting.
Mairsil - Maybe. I'm not sure what to make of this commander, in the slightest.
Jeleva - I could consider it. It scales up as I chuck it at the aggro decks and they kill it. Seems potentially mana hungry, and limits me to a heavily non-permanent deck. Tricky, not sure if this is viable, as opposed to Narset, but Narset is something another one of my friends already built and it's too linear and boring to me to want to build. The problem is, when it dies, everything I exiled goes away, and while my deck might have ideal cards to cast for free, my opponent's decks are no guarantee for anything helpful and it makes everyone want to target me even if I don't exile anything they care about that much.
Dralnu - I don't really understand how to build this commander ideally. The first ability always worried me, is there something advantageous about it? The second ability seems good, except the deck needs a haste enabler.
Mizzix - Considered building it once but I decided it was too fragile as a deck.
Others I've considered and my thoughts:
Sharuum the Hegemon - Tried it once, but it was too boring.
The Mimeoplasm - someone in my group already built it. Don't want to be a copycat. Also a bit too linear for me.
The Locust God - Doesn't do anything special my Maelstrom Wanderer deck doesn't already do better because it has green.
Nekusar, the Mindrazer - built it once, too boring, and someone in my group already has it built at the moment anyway
Thraximundar - combat oriented and mana hungry, also kind of just demands zombie tribal to be at its best, so I decided against it
Sedris, the Traitor King - maybe, but it is mana hungry and I'd be better off playing Muldrotha
Dragonlord Silumgar - Been considering it, but I don't feel like it's that great to build under even if the rest of the deck has nothing to do with what the general does.
Phenax, God of Deception - Interesting possibilities, but I just wish it could use green.
Oona, Queen of the Fae - Really interesting general that I could build in numerous ways, but man is it mana hungry and does it draw attention due to exiling cards.
Vela the Night-Clad - Built it once, meta changed, no longer remotely viable.
Jhoira of the Ghitu - There is no way this would work in my meta because people do assess threats properly, never going to try it even though I like the possibilities.
I am just really indecisive, I guess. Can't seem to narrow down what it is I'm looking for, but I'd like to hope maybe I'm just overlooking the viability and possibilities with various commanders in these colors.
1. I'd like to build a new deck or two from among these few color combinations: URW, BGU, UBR, UB, or UR. I really like decks with definitely Blue, but I want a deck with black alongside the blue in it in particular since I have no decks with that color in it right now.
2. I'm wanting to build a deck that doesn't use combat to win. Infinite combos are fine, but I'd prefer if it doesn't *have* to use them, and that the cards involved in said combos can be used for other purposes in a game - versatility. If it works out, a deck that doesn't go infinite but just generates tons of value or advantage until it wins would be great too. I don't want to have to win with 'win more' type cards, though, as I consider them generally mana innefficient and too easily disrupted. The deck needs to be able to scale to handle multiplayer games of up to 6 people.
3. Things I like to and want to be doing: Stealing/copying opponent's cards, self-mill/graveyard strategy, life gain/life drain subtheme would be neat, playing spells for free and recurring things would be great too. I'm thinking cards like Torrential Gearhulk and Baral's Expertise, among others.
4. I don't want to absolutely rely on my commander. If it gets countered or dies, I'd like to be able to recur it from the graveyard instead of paying commander tax. It needs to be a helpful commander that doesn't force me to spend way too much mana to do something some other more efficient card could do on its own, or force me into a single straight-forward strategy. I want to be able to play the deck differently (asymetrically) depending on the state of the game and not have to go very heavy into any particular theme, so I don't get bored with it.
5. I like synergy a lot. I want to avoid antisynergy. Say my deck ends up highly reliant on artifacts or enchantments - I don't want to cast something like Bane of Progress and destroy my own growth, unless if somehow it's really to my advantage and I can get back my own permanents I just destroyed with ease. In general, strong and immediate 'put into play' recursion would be great.
6. Efficiency. I don't want to win fast, but I need to be able to get ahead - no slow or overcosted ramp, and I'd prefer ramp that survives or can come back easily after being removed and immediately help me cast other spells before my next turn after being recurred. I would like to draw out the game a bit. Of principle concern, I need to contend with a few pretty fast decks, and aggro is very popular in my playgroup right now. There's elf/druid tribal slamming down craterhoof behemoth and killing everyone on turn 4-5, an Elzrazi deck, a few other highly consistent and threatening aggro decks, and a couple chaotic crazy decks that warp the entire game. The board is likely to get wiped more than once by other players and graveyard hate is being used too. I need a control-based strategy that feels comfortable in that kind of environment.
All those criteria considered, does anyone have any suggestions?