It depends on how much you plan to put into it up front. If we're talking stock, meaning you buy a deck and don't modify it, then the B is the most powerful choice. However the R deck has more interesting design space, and will be more powerful quadratically across the board with additional cards. But that costs money. Meanwhile the B deck can be improved from it's starting point, but it isn't going to get much more interesting than what it is doing right now (note that here powerful =/= interesting as the two terms are wildly different in this context).
*Snip*
The Red deck is primed well to be a great red artifact deck with easy adds to that end, but it doesn't splash into other strategies/colors as easily. Possibly into UR artifice.
I stand corrected, the red and white decks can be merged into a Jor.
I think I tend to see Jor as more equipment based, so I view the white deck as being the better merge, but I really need to stop making that mistake. The Red path is equally good with artifact creature swarm.
I was going to start a new thread to ask that question, if you could only buy 2 of the C14 decks and wanted to merge them to create a dual color deck which two decks synergize well together???? I came to the same conclusion R & W could make for a decent deck.
I've always been a fluff fan. So teferi's my choice.
But the blue deck's terrible...? From a fluff perspective I'm a huge Freyalise fan, but her deck's miserable outside of gutting it for hyper-aggressive elfball and putting Ezuri at the helm.
It depends on how much you plan to put into it up front. If we're talking stock, meaning you buy a deck and don't modify it, then the B is the most powerful choice. However the R deck has more interesting design space, and will be more powerful quadratically across the board with additional cards. But that costs money. Meanwhile the B deck can be improved from it's starting point, but it isn't going to get much more interesting than what it is doing right now (note that here powerful =/= interesting as the two terms are wildly different in this context).
I feel that red's still too powerful out-of-the-box to really be usurped. Daretti comes down a turn earlier than all the other PWCs, and sets up Myr Battlespheres and Steel Hellkites on the same turn that you're looking at making a french vanilla 5/5 with Ob Nix. The new red cards are also extremely strong in multiplayer.
I feel that a lot of people are saying "the red one is overrated, but THIS one will be the true standout." From some preliminary, the red deck is just absolutely insane. Out-of-box it can do well in all but the most competitive of multiplayer pods. The quality of its generals alone are overwhelming compared to some of the others.
In terms of deck synergy: red, followed by white/green, black, then blue.
In terms of modification potential: White (buff up the equipment package for a solid equipment deck, or splash into any other color), Green (Solid splash base), followed by the rest. The Red deck is primed well to be a great red artifact deck with easy adds to that end, but it doesn't splash into other strategies/colors as easily. Possibly into UR artifice.
I disagree with you on modification potential. I feel it's red and black followed by white, green, and blue. The red and black have the most variation in how to take them (an artifact base can play itself into any number of colors, and the black one's just good). The white one has some cute equipment (but then you're looking at mostly Voltron builds), the only thing the green base is good for is Ezuriaggroelfball99.dec, and we all know how miserable the blue deck is.
It depends on how much you plan to put into it up front. If we're talking stock, meaning you buy a deck and don't modify it, then the B is the most powerful choice. However the R deck has more interesting design space, and will be more powerful quadratically across the board with additional cards. But that costs money. Meanwhile the B deck can be improved from it's starting point, but it isn't going to get much more interesting than what it is doing right now (note that here powerful =/= interesting as the two terms are wildly different in this context).
I feel that red's still too powerful out-of-the-box to really be usurped. Daretti comes down a turn earlier than all the other PWCs, and sets up Myr Battlespheres and Steel Hellkites on the same turn that you're looking at making a french vanilla 5/5 with Ob Nix. The new red cards are also extremely strong in multiplayer.
I feel that a lot of people are saying "the red one is overrated, but THIS one will be the true standout." From some preliminary, the red deck is just absolutely insane. Out-of-box it can do well in all but the most competitive of multiplayer pods. The quality of its generals alone are overwhelming compared to some of the others.
You misunderstand me, I feel. I'm not saying the R deck is too over-rated. Not at all, I freely say this deck is strong. I'm looking at it only from keeping things 100% stock. (For the record I actually like the R more too). The B has the removal to keep everyone else shut down, despite it's lacklustre generals (srsly, I'd play Drana out of that box).
With a bit of attention I think the Blue deck can be a lot of fun.
Take out the morph cards and Teferi is going to play nicely with Tezzeret the Seeker, Rings of Brighthearth and The Chain Veil.
Add in a few wizards for flavor, Temporal Adept and Azami, Lady of Scrolls come to mind.
Beef up the permission and perhaps even Diviner's Wand for a fun win con.
I am going to build this without relying purely on infinite combo or lock and still have a deck that can win and be fun to play even when losing.
Cant wait until tomorrow so I can start testing on MTGO!
don't even get me started on all the trash filler. Fathom Seer? Shaper Parasite? Deep-Sea Kraken? This is EDH, not a limited format. The entire morph lineup with the exception of Willbender and the Sirens is horrible, too
The commanders are pretty bad. Teferi is the worst of the Planeswalker cycle, for the deck it comes in anyway, Geralf is kind of neat as a build-around but has absolutely no synergy with the rest of this deck (not even any untap effects!), and Lorthos is hot garbage. I'd rather have Blind Seer than goddamn Lorthos.
On the other hand, I started designing a sea monster UB deck when we still only had 2 cards spoiled, and the blue deck contains several cards in my list that I don't own. Like Deep-Sea Kraken and Lorthos.
Just like before Khans was spoiled I designed a morph deck, and then they gave me new morph toys to play with. It's like Wizards is reading my mind!
Okay guys, what theme do you want in the next block? I'll go build a deck and Wizards will, apparently, print it!
don't even get me started on all the trash filler. Fathom Seer? Shaper Parasite? Deep-Sea Kraken? This is EDH, not a limited format. The entire morph lineup with the exception of Willbender and the Sirens is horrible, too
The commanders are pretty bad. Teferi is the worst of the Planeswalker cycle, for the deck it comes in anyway, Geralf is kind of neat as a build-around but has absolutely no synergy with the rest of this deck (not even any untap effects!), and Lorthos is hot garbage. I'd rather have Blind Seer than goddamn Lorthos.
On the other hand, I started designing a sea monster UB deck when we still only had 2 cards spoiled, and the blue deck contains several cards in my list that I don't own. Like Deep-Sea Kraken and Lorthos.
Just like before Khans was spoiled I designed a morph deck, and then they gave me new morph toys to play with. It's like Wizards is reading my mind!
Okay guys, what theme do you want in the next block? I'll go build a deck and Wizards will, apparently, print it!
That's a really neat deck idea and all, but you could literally pick up every card from this set that fits your theme for under five bucks in total, and it doesn't look like any of them are even getting alt art unfortunately. It's such a niche appeal that it's a real shame that's what they ended up going with for the precon instead of something that a lot more people would enjoy.
While the red deck has the most money cards, it also feels like the decks were designed to play together/at the same level. I mean, most of us could put together a stronger blue/black/green deck, so it seems like those decks are weaker. However, red and white got a boost and the other three are average, so it should be fun with all five at a table!
My group bought a set. I'm taking the blue deck. We'll play with them as is, then we'll modify them. Looking forward to seeing if my theory above holds true.
To be honest 4 of 5 of these look really good, but the best is clearly the red one.
The reason being is not only does it have the most value both with good reprints and powerful new cards, it has a concrete central artifact theme that the deck fully supports making its walker feel like a natual fit for the deck while also having enough good ETB effects that Feldin doesn't feel left out at all. The deck short of a few poor effects like magmaquake, actually feels like something you can buy and not feel left in the dust powerwise in just about any non-cutthroat meta. Kudos to the designer as its a powerful, has a central theme, and yet supports several potential other paths to take the deck down.
The next best one is pretty close, thematically I actually think both white and black decks are pretty spot on. Both support a minor token theme with white having a strong equipment theme that again makes the commander feel like a natural fit. The black deck has a pretty central sacrifice and kill theme which is fitting but the commander himself kinda doesn't really do anything special for the deck.
The Green deck is cool and has an elf theme and a good old fashion hate theme which makes it a solid deck. I think the big thing that hurts it is that the commander isn't really anything special and there isn't quite enough elves to support the elf theme properly.
The blue deck kinda shows wotc still can't design a blue product. Fatties is not a theme, every other color had strong themes along with a fair share of fat but the blue deck seems to think it can simply have big creatures and call it a theme. Teferi himself is cool though, and there are indeed several cool leviathans that got printed, its just disappointing that was at the cost of it getting its own identity like the other colors.
don't even get me started on all the trash filler. Fathom Seer? Shaper Parasite? Deep-Sea Kraken? This is EDH, not a limited format. The entire morph lineup with the exception of Willbender and the Sirens is horrible, too
The commanders are pretty bad. Teferi is the worst of the Planeswalker cycle, for the deck it comes in anyway, Geralf is kind of neat as a build-around but has absolutely no synergy with the rest of this deck (not even any untap effects!), and Lorthos is hot garbage. I'd rather have Blind Seer than goddamn Lorthos.
On the other hand, I started designing a sea monster UB deck when we still only had 2 cards spoiled, and the blue deck contains several cards in my list that I don't own. Like Deep-Sea Kraken and Lorthos.
Just like before Khans was spoiled I designed a morph deck, and then they gave me new morph toys to play with. It's like Wizards is reading my mind!
Okay guys, what theme do you want in the next block? I'll go build a deck and Wizards will, apparently, print it!
That's a really neat deck idea and all, but you could literally pick up every card from this set that fits your theme for under five bucks in total, and it doesn't look like any of them are even getting alt art unfortunately. It's such a niche appeal that it's a real shame that's what they ended up going with for the precon instead of something that a lot more people would enjoy.
Fair point on the price, but I was going to pick up the full set anyway, since my LGS had a nice discount for preordering all 5.
Blue is just trash. There are a few nice cards (Like teferi) But overall the deck is trash, Luckily my sea monster deck will take some cards.
Red on the other hand is amazing, as it has good cards and they synergize so well with the planeswalker. However, since i don't need the cards in red, I'm shelfing it until its price covers both its own ass and the blue deck i bought, and then some more.
Based on my experiences with the out-of-the-box decks last night, I am revising my vote. Haven't seen Daretti in action yet, but the much-maligned Teferi deck is actually very good, and the Nahiri deck didn't perform near as well as I expected.
Blue deck is fine and can win, but if anything, this product set has shown how weird blue is. How do you make a mono blue theme without controlling and going infinite in multiplayer? Rite of replication kicked can't be the only option.
My opinion for out of the box, competing against each other:
Red is definitely the most cohesive but I'm not sure if it's the most powerful. It very much felt like a recursion deck that would crumble to grave hate which is fine against the other precons.
Green was scary strong but needs to be piloted like an aggro deck. Overextend and eat a wipe, and game over.
White was a good average. Nothing to scary since serra avatar can be chump blocked. A mix between red recursion and another color maybe.
Blue was kind of confusing thematic wise, but did a fine job of controlling and putting out fatties. Hard to get damage through though.
Didn't play black but was most impressed by it and red when looking at the decks. Balanced with lots of goodstuff.
Kaalia's Army of AnnhilationRWB
Obzedat, Ghost Council - Life Gain MattersWB
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord - Fatty Reanimator ToolboxBG
Nekusar, the Mindrazer - Draw to DieRBU
Marath, Will of the Wild - Token Pump and TapGWR
Roon of the Hidden Realm - Blink to BleedWBG
The red deck just destroyed the black deck's I played. Magmaquake is a card I don't usually care for, however puled it's weight. Won about turn 12 with 9 lands, everflowing chalice for 4 and a sol ring by blitzing after stealing the opponents only blocker
Red's gotten a lot better in recent years. But the artifact subtheme also helps the deck out a lot, as does the couple recursion cards.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
At this point, I would rank them from strongest to weakest as (when played against each other):
1. Black
2. Green
3. Red
4. Blue (a couple more counters/or a Capsize, and this could have been higher!)
5. White
However, these rankings are extremely flexible. Just about every deck felt like it had a chance to win, and in our games, every deck did win with the sole exception of white.
I can see where the white one wouldn't do well in multiplayer. It's too good early on which makes it too much of a target.
Considering them in general terms of strength I see them as:
Out of the box
1. White
2. Black
3. Red
4. Blue
5. Green
This also makes sense with your findings. The strongest will almost never win in multi-player. They're the target. The next strongest gets to win the most.
It's just like playing munchkin, you don't want to be the first challenger for Lvl 10, you want to be right behind them after they've been hosed.
Potential to go nuts after mods
1. Blue
2. White
3. Black
4. Red
5. Green
Black and red are really close after mod. The tutor effect of Deretti is huge, but with black you could be a total (expletive omitted) and just run the general and a few fatties with all the removal/control in the world. Ob's ult is meaningless, he makes a demon every other turn, which means you can sweep and kill things to your heart's content. That's amazing 1-v-1, but not necessarily as amazing multiplayer.
I've been tinkering with Teferi & friends though and I'm not even sure I want to play it. I'm thinking that T4 infinite Karn is probably not something that will make many friends for me.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
I was going to start a new thread to ask that question, if you could only buy 2 of the C14 decks and wanted to merge them to create a dual color deck which two decks synergize well together???? I came to the same conclusion R & W could make for a decent deck.
GBW Ghave - BWR Kaalia - UBG Mineoplasm - URG Riku - GRW Uril - GBR Prossh, I need food - BWU Oloro Lock - UGW Derevi Blink - RBU Nekusar, the Wheeler - UBRWG Progenitus - BR Lyzolda - UB Gisa & Geralf Zombies - UG Edric, Spymaster of Trest +1 Counters matter - W Lin Sivvi - BWU Sydri Artifact Control - RWU Narset, the Attacker - GRW Mayael, the Cheater - RWUG Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis Landfall - GBW Doran, I like Big Butts - UR Mizzix Buyback BWR Edgar and his Vamps
But the blue deck's terrible...? From a fluff perspective I'm a huge Freyalise fan, but her deck's miserable outside of gutting it for hyper-aggressive elfball and putting Ezuri at the helm.
I feel that red's still too powerful out-of-the-box to really be usurped. Daretti comes down a turn earlier than all the other PWCs, and sets up Myr Battlespheres and Steel Hellkites on the same turn that you're looking at making a french vanilla 5/5 with Ob Nix. The new red cards are also extremely strong in multiplayer.
I feel that a lot of people are saying "the red one is overrated, but THIS one will be the true standout." From some preliminary, the red deck is just absolutely insane. Out-of-box it can do well in all but the most competitive of multiplayer pods. The quality of its generals alone are overwhelming compared to some of the others.
I disagree with you on modification potential. I feel it's red and black followed by white, green, and blue. The red and black have the most variation in how to take them (an artifact base can play itself into any number of colors, and the black one's just good). The white one has some cute equipment (but then you're looking at mostly Voltron builds), the only thing the green base is good for is Ezuriaggroelfball99.dec, and we all know how miserable the blue deck is.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
You misunderstand me, I feel. I'm not saying the R deck is too over-rated. Not at all, I freely say this deck is strong. I'm looking at it only from keeping things 100% stock. (For the record I actually like the R more too). The B has the removal to keep everyone else shut down, despite it's lacklustre generals (srsly, I'd play Drana out of that box).
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Will get Red later on.
Take out the morph cards and Teferi is going to play nicely with Tezzeret the Seeker, Rings of Brighthearth and The Chain Veil.
Add in a few wizards for flavor, Temporal Adept and Azami, Lady of Scrolls come to mind.
Beef up the permission and perhaps even Diviner's Wand for a fun win con.
I am going to build this without relying purely on infinite combo or lock and still have a deck that can win and be fun to play even when losing.
Cant wait until tomorrow so I can start testing on MTGO!
Just like before Khans was spoiled I designed a morph deck, and then they gave me new morph toys to play with. It's like Wizards is reading my mind!
Okay guys, what theme do you want in the next block? I'll go build a deck and Wizards will, apparently, print it!
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
That's a really neat deck idea and all, but you could literally pick up every card from this set that fits your theme for under five bucks in total, and it doesn't look like any of them are even getting alt art unfortunately. It's such a niche appeal that it's a real shame that's what they ended up going with for the precon instead of something that a lot more people would enjoy.
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG
My group bought a set. I'm taking the blue deck. We'll play with them as is, then we'll modify them. Looking forward to seeing if my theory above holds true.
My Tumblr
UTeferi's Steel CurtainUMuzzio's Mean MachinesU
The reason being is not only does it have the most value both with good reprints and powerful new cards, it has a concrete central artifact theme that the deck fully supports making its walker feel like a natual fit for the deck while also having enough good ETB effects that Feldin doesn't feel left out at all. The deck short of a few poor effects like magmaquake, actually feels like something you can buy and not feel left in the dust powerwise in just about any non-cutthroat meta. Kudos to the designer as its a powerful, has a central theme, and yet supports several potential other paths to take the deck down.
The next best one is pretty close, thematically I actually think both white and black decks are pretty spot on. Both support a minor token theme with white having a strong equipment theme that again makes the commander feel like a natural fit. The black deck has a pretty central sacrifice and kill theme which is fitting but the commander himself kinda doesn't really do anything special for the deck.
The Green deck is cool and has an elf theme and a good old fashion hate theme which makes it a solid deck. I think the big thing that hurts it is that the commander isn't really anything special and there isn't quite enough elves to support the elf theme properly.
The blue deck kinda shows wotc still can't design a blue product. Fatties is not a theme, every other color had strong themes along with a fair share of fat but the blue deck seems to think it can simply have big creatures and call it a theme. Teferi himself is cool though, and there are indeed several cool leviathans that got printed, its just disappointing that was at the cost of it getting its own identity like the other colors.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Red on the other hand is amazing, as it has good cards and they synergize so well with the planeswalker. However, since i don't need the cards in red, I'm shelfing it until its price covers both its own ass and the blue deck i bought, and then some more.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
Roon of the Pod People (Roon of the Hidden Realm)
Sydri, Super Genius (Sydri, Galvanic Genius)
Marchesa, the Black Rose
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
Retired:
Grimgrin's Corpse-Beats (Grimgrin, Corpse-Born) | Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge | Varolz, the Scar-Striped (1v1) | Glissa, the Traitor
My opinion for out of the box, competing against each other:
Red is definitely the most cohesive but I'm not sure if it's the most powerful. It very much felt like a recursion deck that would crumble to grave hate which is fine against the other precons.
Green was scary strong but needs to be piloted like an aggro deck. Overextend and eat a wipe, and game over.
White was a good average. Nothing to scary since serra avatar can be chump blocked. A mix between red recursion and another color maybe.
Blue was kind of confusing thematic wise, but did a fine job of controlling and putting out fatties. Hard to get damage through though.
Didn't play black but was most impressed by it and red when looking at the decks. Balanced with lots of goodstuff.
Kaalia's Army of Annhilation RWB
Obzedat, Ghost Council - Life Gain Matters WB
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord - Fatty Reanimator Toolbox BG
Nekusar, the Mindrazer - Draw to Die RBU
Marath, Will of the Wild - Token Pump and Tap GWR
Roon of the Hidden Realm - Blink to Bleed WBG
o rly?
Red's gotten a lot better in recent years. But the artifact subtheme also helps the deck out a lot, as does the couple recursion cards.
On phasing:
Golgari Scavenge
At this point, I would rank them from strongest to weakest as (when played against each other):
1. Black
2. Green
3. Red
4. Blue (a couple more counters/or a Capsize, and this could have been higher!)
5. White
However, these rankings are extremely flexible. Just about every deck felt like it had a chance to win, and in our games, every deck did win with the sole exception of white.
Great fun!
My Tumblr
UTeferi's Steel CurtainUMuzzio's Mean MachinesU
Considering them in general terms of strength I see them as:
Out of the box
1. White
2. Black
3. Red
4. Blue
5. Green
This also makes sense with your findings. The strongest will almost never win in multi-player. They're the target. The next strongest gets to win the most.
It's just like playing munchkin, you don't want to be the first challenger for Lvl 10, you want to be right behind them after they've been hosed.
Potential to go nuts after mods
1. Blue
2. White
3. Black
4. Red
5. Green
Black and red are really close after mod. The tutor effect of Deretti is huge, but with black you could be a total (expletive omitted) and just run the general and a few fatties with all the removal/control in the world. Ob's ult is meaningless, he makes a demon every other turn, which means you can sweep and kill things to your heart's content. That's amazing 1-v-1, but not necessarily as amazing multiplayer.
I've been tinkering with Teferi & friends though and I'm not even sure I want to play it. I'm thinking that T4 infinite Karn is probably not something that will make many friends for me.
If you hate the deck, I'm probably playing it!