Hey guy's I am new and am glad I found an awesome place where I can talk with people about MTG especially EDH since it is my preference. I was wondering if anyone could give me some feed back on my Riku deck. I have put a lot of work into it and want to make is better. I want to make it fast as well. Any feedback would be appreciated. https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/9773-riku-of-two-reflections
Need a little bit more context to provide specific feedback, as your deck seems to be built mostly casual, but you sound like you want it to be fast and competitive.
Is your meta casual, semi-casual, competitive?
What mulligan rules does your playgroup use?
What is the strategy for this deck? You seem to have tokens, +1/+1 counters, flicker, legendary, counter spells, spell doubling, and turn manipulation. More strategies in a deck dilutes their individual effectiveness, you would benefit from focusing on fewer themes.
For a casual/semi-casual deck, your land count is a little low, even with the number of rocks you have. I assume this may be compensated for with a lax mulligan rule in your playgroup, as you can't reliably cast mana rocks if your hand has too few lands.
For a competitive deck, your average CMC is very high. Decks with higher CMC cards tend to cheat mana costs (e.g. Narset), otherwise another check over your curve is probably a good idea. Would you really hold up that much mana for those high CMC counter spells? Do you consistently have enough mana to pay the CMC and Riku's ability on those high CMC creatures?
It is focused around token generation, and is designed to function independent of Riku. My average CMC is higher than yours, but I have 36 lands and 10 other mana sources.
I use a template that ensures I have sufficient mana, targeted removal, mass removal, card draw, and card advantage.
In the future, if you use Deck Tags, people can more easily see your list while replying (hidden here in a spoiler tag to not detract from the rest of my comments):
Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer seems like an all star. Get cheap tokens early and then turn them into something big later on.
Parallel Lives seems decent as another Doubling Season effect.
Desolation Twin seems ok but not great. 12 mana total (including that for Riku's ability) to get 3 10/10 creatures is efficient use of mana when it comes to what you are getting (30 power for 12 mana) but it can be chumped pretty easily. I think you are better off with something better.
I really like Sneak Attack as it gets creatures in for cheap and the tokens Riku creates stick around. So, for 3 mana, you get a permanent Balefire Dragon as well as one that can attack right away.
It seems to me that the goal of the deck is to out-value everyone else on the table. If that's the case, then it seems alright. I'd suggest spending some time to get your manabase to be a bit more resilient. Or at least that's what i'd say if you played in my group, since we're pretty high on the targeted and niche-land destruction.
also, 31 lands? and you're expected to cast riku with cmc5, plus all your other value-creatures' cmc (+2)? i'd be surprised if the deck would ever get there (barring an extremely slow meta/other players who don't interact with you at all for the first 7+ turns of the game). even mana reflection needs 6 mana to get that into play (ignoring the possibility that some other players have incidental kaboom-effects for it)
if i were you, i'd cut down the number of big bombs, and focus on a few that'd really get you from behind to in front (terrastodon comes to mind), since you're more likely to be on the back footing with such a high curve.
Generally speaking, you want to minimize the number of artifacts, enchantments, and legends in Riku decks because those aren't available for Riku to copy. The idea being to maximize Riku's impact.
What's left is Instants and Sorceries (Spellslinger) or Beatdown (Creatures).
Start by making a determination on deck indentity that will then inform card choices, how to play it...etc.
Good luck.
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https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/9773-riku-of-two-reflections
1 Riku of Two Reflections
Creature
1 Progenitor Mimic
1 Fog Bank
1 Hydroid Krasis
1 Incubation Druid
1 Spark Double
1 Elvish Piper
1 Biovisionary
1 Peregrine Drake
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Seedborn Muse
1 Beast Whisperer
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Frilled Mystic
1 Regisaur Alpha
1 Temur Sabertooth
1 Murkfiend Liege
1 Skarrgan Hellkite
1 Ravager Wurm
1 Deadeye Navigator
1 Balefire Dragon
Enchantment
1 Mana Reflection
1 Exploration
1 Swarm Intelligence
1 Freed from the Real
1 Doubling Season
Land
1 Riptide Laboratory
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Alchemist's Refuge
1 Temple of Mystery
5 Forest
5 Island
5 Mountain
1 Temple of Epiphany
1 Cinder Glade
1 Game Trail
1 Spirebluff Canal
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Sheltered Thicket
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Spire Garden
1 Detection Tower
1 Steam Vents
1 Izzet Guildgate
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Gruul Guildgate
1 Simic Guildgate
1 Amulet of Vigor
1 Izzet Signet
1 Simic Signet
1 Conjurer's Closet
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Sol Ring
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Firemind Vessel
Instant
1 Spelljack
1 Time Stop
1 Gather Specimens
1 Dissipate
1 Void Shatter
1 Second Harvest
1 Summary Dismissal
1 Remand
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Chemister's Insight
1 Growth Spiral
Sorcery
1 Fabricate
1 Unexpected Results
1 Rite of Replication
1 Tempt with Discovery
1 Karn's Temporal Sundering
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Banefire
1 Circuitous Route
1 Temporal Manipulation
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Ral Zarek
1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 Samut, the Tested
1 Rowan Kenrith
1 Will Kenrith
1 Tezzeret, Artifice Master
1 Samut, Tyrant Smasher
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh
Former Rules Advisor
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Is your meta casual, semi-casual, competitive?
What mulligan rules does your playgroup use?
What is the strategy for this deck? You seem to have tokens, +1/+1 counters, flicker, legendary, counter spells, spell doubling, and turn manipulation. More strategies in a deck dilutes their individual effectiveness, you would benefit from focusing on fewer themes.
For a casual/semi-casual deck, your land count is a little low, even with the number of rocks you have. I assume this may be compensated for with a lax mulligan rule in your playgroup, as you can't reliably cast mana rocks if your hand has too few lands.
You have very few targeted removal spells, and no mass removal that I can see. Curse of the Swine and Descent of the Dragons contribute towards a token-focused strategy if that's what you're going for, while Decimate, Song of the Dryads and Cyclonic Rift are just always good in these colour combinations. I quite like the new Cindervines too.
For a competitive deck, your average CMC is very high. Decks with higher CMC cards tend to cheat mana costs (e.g. Narset), otherwise another check over your curve is probably a good idea. Would you really hold up that much mana for those high CMC counter spells? Do you consistently have enough mana to pay the CMC and Riku's ability on those high CMC creatures?
If you're interested, this is my Riku build:
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/riku-mirror-master-2/
It is focused around token generation, and is designed to function independent of Riku. My average CMC is higher than yours, but I have 36 lands and 10 other mana sources.
I use a template that ensures I have sufficient mana, targeted removal, mass removal, card draw, and card advantage.
For comparison, a competitive deck would have a land count, mana source count, and CMC curve more like this:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/yisan-bard-of-the-eighth-verse/
1 Riku of Two Reflections
Creature
1 Progenitor Mimic
1 Fog Bank
1 Hydroid Krasis
1 Incubation Druid
1 Spark Double
1 Elvish Piper
1 Biovisionary
1 Peregrine Drake
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Seedborn Muse
1 Beast Whisperer
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Frilled Mystic
1 Regisaur Alpha
1 Temur Sabertooth
1 Murkfiend Liege
1 Skarrgan Hellkite
1 Ravager Wurm
1 Deadeye Navigator
1 Balefire Dragon
Enchantment
1 Mana Reflection
1 Exploration
1 Swarm Intelligence
1 Freed from the Real
1 Doubling Season
Land
1 Riptide Laboratory
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Alchemist's Refuge
1 Temple of Mystery
5 Forest
5 Island
5 Mountain
1 Temple of Epiphany
1 Cinder Glade
1 Game Trail
1 Spirebluff Canal
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Sheltered Thicket
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Spire Garden
1 Detection Tower
1 Steam Vents
1 Izzet Guildgate
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Gruul Guildgate
1 Simic Guildgate
1 Amulet of Vigor
1 Izzet Signet
1 Simic Signet
1 Conjurer's Closet
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Sol Ring
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Firemind Vessel
Instant
1 Spelljack
1 Time Stop
1 Gather Specimens
1 Dissipate
1 Void Shatter
1 Second Harvest
1 Summary Dismissal
1 Remand
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Chemister's Insight
1 Growth Spiral
Sorcery
1 Fabricate
1 Unexpected Results
1 Rite of Replication
1 Tempt with Discovery
1 Karn's Temporal Sundering
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Banefire
1 Circuitous Route
1 Temporal Manipulation
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Ral Zarek
1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 Samut, the Tested
1 Rowan Kenrith
1 Will Kenrith
1 Tezzeret, Artifice Master
1 Samut, Tyrant Smasher
As for your list:
Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer seems like an all star. Get cheap tokens early and then turn them into something big later on.
Parallel Lives seems decent as another Doubling Season effect.
Desolation Twin seems ok but not great. 12 mana total (including that for Riku's ability) to get 3 10/10 creatures is efficient use of mana when it comes to what you are getting (30 power for 12 mana) but it can be chumped pretty easily. I think you are better off with something better.
I really like Sneak Attack as it gets creatures in for cheap and the tokens Riku creates stick around. So, for 3 mana, you get a permanent Balefire Dragon as well as one that can attack right away.
also, 31 lands? and you're expected to cast riku with cmc5, plus all your other value-creatures' cmc (+2)? i'd be surprised if the deck would ever get there (barring an extremely slow meta/other players who don't interact with you at all for the first 7+ turns of the game). even mana reflection needs 6 mana to get that into play (ignoring the possibility that some other players have incidental kaboom-effects for it)
if i were you, i'd cut down the number of big bombs, and focus on a few that'd really get you from behind to in front (terrastodon comes to mind), since you're more likely to be on the back footing with such a high curve.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
What's left is Instants and Sorceries (Spellslinger) or Beatdown (Creatures).
Start by making a determination on deck indentity that will then inform card choices, how to play it...etc.
Good luck.