So, I recently made an Alesha, Who Smiles at Death deck that was my first attempt at reanimator in commander. I threw it together on a whim after pulling her in a DTK prerelease. I also threw in the Hedonist's Trove that I pulled.
Initially, it was just there to fill a spot in the deck because 1) why not? and 2) I didn't actually anticipate keeping the deck together without porting it over to Tiny Leaders. However, I really loved the deck and decided to improve it. I ended up leaving this in for two reasons 1) I hadn't cast it yet so I wanted to give it a chance, and 2) I thought it had some potential.
I finally got to cast it fairly early game after a Sedris, the Traitor King deck cast a Spinx of the Uthuun and let some fun stuff go to the graveyard. I ended up using it to: 1) advance my mana with a fetchland, a swamp, and a [/c]Sol Ring[/c], 2) tutor up some spicy stuff with a Liliana Vess, and 3) sweep the board with a Damnation. All in all, I thought it was a pretty decent way to invest 9 mana, it almost gave me a new hand to play with.
Other than fairly optimal cases like that one, do you guys think it is worth playing? Keep in mind that it can be played targeting yourself if you anticipate getting your graveyard nuked. While that might slow your roll a little, that is probably better than you yard disappearing. (Edit: I had a brain fart and misread the card... Whoops) I know it might be a little bit of a meta call because you may never see an opponent in the proper colors and the color identity rules keep you from using their lands to cast off color spells.
TL;DR What do you think of this card? Is it worth a spot in a deck or do it's restrictions knock it out of commander playability?
It all depends on what aspect of it you plan on capitalizing on. if it's just to deny someone things in their yard, Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void would be better options. play a spell someone else spell(that are hopefully in your colors)? Praetor's Grasp is better. Or at least I feel like this card needs more work with massive milling if you want to really get a lot of value from it
I really like the card, but I'm afraid that it isn't very good. Hedonist's Trove simply has too many things working against it. Effectively, this is a seven mana spell that draws you cards. You may draw an obscene number of cards if you happen to exile a loaded graveyard with it, but you could also get stuck with this in hand when graveyards are sparse or lack anything of interest. Since you can also only cast one spell each turn with the Trove, fat graveyards will likely only provide additional card selection rather than further card advantage. I imagine that the ideal graveyard would be heavy on instants to circumvent the one spell per turn limitation. Regardless, because a deck cannot generate mana outside of its Commander's colors, you are still limited to targeting a player that shares at least one color with you in order to use it effectively. If that weren't enough, if the enchantment gets dusted, all of the exiled cards are lost forever. A fun card, but probably too unreliable and expensive.
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WUBRGMr. Bones' Wild RideGRBUW Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Well, the first problem is that it cannot, in fact, target yourself. If it could, I think that would definitely bump it into the playable realm, similar to Praetor's Counsel. The fact that it relies on your opponents' graveyards being full and in-color makes it decidedly unplayable for most decks. It might be used for budget this-is-all-I-own-in-a-deck decks (we've all been there) or possibly theft.deck Sen Triplets. However, I would almost certainly go with budget draw options like Read the Bones or Bitter Revelation first. Paying 7 mana for a maybe is not something I'm willing to do.
I just added it to my Phenax mill build, but haven't had a chance to actually play it yet. I added it because I think in that deck it will be both powerful and fun:
1. Someone is almost always going to be playing either blue or black, or at the very least have some strong artifacts.
2. Thanks to my milling effects this will likely be the equivalent of drawing 10+ cards for me, maybe far more.
3. It doubles as graveyard hate (albeit very slow GY hate), which is really crucial against some opponents when I am doing work for them to fill up their yards.
Is it really an "optimal" card in terms of maximizing my deck's power? Probably not. But I do think it is good enough to not be a liability AND likely to be a ton of fun (anything that lets you play lots of your opponents' stuff can lead to game states you wouldn't typically see, which is exactly the kind of thing I really enjoy in my EDH games), and those are really the kinds of cards I am most interested in. All of that said, I doubt it is something I would think to run in Alesha, where there is less synergy, but even there I can see it being fine as a form of late game bomb/recovery tool. I mean the scenario you laid out is far from outlandish, (land into Ring into something, then a couple more bigger somethings the next turn). Kinda like drawing five cards, but with more variance in terms of reliability and outcomes for the mana invested.
it kinda depends on how you like to play though.. sure for 7cmc, you'd expect something epic. if you're unlucky, its gy-hate; if you're lucky, its like a slow yawgmoth's will.
how aggressive is this deck of yours? how mana-intensive is it? how many other 6+cmc cards are there? how long do your games generally go on for? those are some things you'd probably wanna consider. also, in your typical game, how often do you look at the board state and think "man, i wish i had my hedonist's trove"?
The Trove gets slightly better if you have Mycosynth Lattice in play, meaning you either added the Lattice specifically for this card or you were already playing an artifact-based combo deck in the first place.
I finally got to play my own Trove in my Nicol Bolas deck tonight against a Dragonlord Ojutai deck. Unfortunately it grabbed a bunch of white spells, but I was able to grab a Hinder and Whispersilk Cloak (ended up being SUPER relevant as I then proceeded to Bolas him out after that). I was even able to utilize the Plains I stole with my Chromatic Lantern in play.
I'm waiting to see how it does in a bigger multiplayer setting.
It's just too slow, Deathbridge Chant is much better for example. One big issue I find is that someone can exile cards from their graveyard in response to you playing it, or reanimate something etc. If it exiled as part of the cost I would be more interested in it.
Seems better in a mill type deck, as is right now you are chancing the card that others will fill up there own GY along with having items you can play in your colors. Having a card that depends on your opponents dose not seem very good. Dont get me wrong I think its a fun and cool card but you could most likely slot in a better card in this type of deck.
I have a Xira Arien deck that runs a lot of land destruction and discard (Skull Rend, Painful Quandary, etc...). I've used this in combo with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Chromatic Lantern to utilize my opponent's lands to win the race post, say, cycling Decree of Annihilation, but with the new Oblivion Sower available, I can now destroy all lands, play this, then play the Sower and go immediately back to 6-10 lands. This requires 13 mana post land-destruction, so I typically float enough mana to pay for the Hedonists Trove before LD.
Of course, I play other graveyard exiling cards as well (Bojuka Bog, Tormod's Crypt, Nihil Spellbomb). Also, the deck is green and black so I don't usually have a difficult time getting Oblivion Sower into my hand.
Seems like it would go well with Starfield of Nyx: cheat it into play and it's 7/7. I might end up trying this in the Oloro, Ageless Ascetic deck I have planned, which will also have Replenish to cheat it on the battlefield.
Trove looks fun to me. But I wouldn't consider it for any deck without a pretty big mill component.
From a purely Spike-y perspective, this card has a couple of things working against it. First, it can help you make land drops, but it costs seven, so if you can cast this you aren't hurting for land drops. Second, you are limited to your Commander's color identity in terms of mana production, so you won't be able to take advantage of other players' spells in a number of situations. Third, it only targets one opponent.
Well, since I posted this thread, I took this card out of my deck. However, the starfield of nyx thing sounds fun. Yet another reason to build the junk enchantress deck I have been thinking of.
So, I recently made an Alesha, Who Smiles at Death deck that was my first attempt at reanimator in commander. I threw it together on a whim after pulling her in a DTK prerelease. I also threw in the Hedonist's Trove that I pulled.
Initially, it was just there to fill a spot in the deck because 1) why not? and 2) I didn't actually anticipate keeping the deck together without porting it over to Tiny Leaders. However, I really loved the deck and decided to improve it. I ended up leaving this in for two reasons 1) I hadn't cast it yet so I wanted to give it a chance, and 2) I thought it had some potential.
I finally got to cast it fairly early game after a Sedris, the Traitor King deck cast a Spinx of the Uthuun and let some fun stuff go to the graveyard. I ended up using it to: 1) advance my mana with a fetchland, a swamp, and a [/c]Sol Ring[/c], 2) tutor up some spicy stuff with a Liliana Vess, and 3) sweep the board with a Damnation. All in all, I thought it was a pretty decent way to invest 9 mana, it almost gave me a new hand to play with.
Other than fairly optimal cases like that one, do you guys think it is worth playing?
Keep in mind that it can be played targeting yourself if you anticipate getting your graveyard nuked. While that might slow your roll a little, that is probably better than you yard disappearing.(Edit: I had a brain fart and misread the card... Whoops) I know it might be a little bit of a meta call because you may never see an opponent in the proper colors and the color identity rules keep you from using their lands to cast off color spells.TL;DR What do you think of this card? Is it worth a spot in a deck or do it's restrictions knock it out of commander playability?
Modern
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/nekusar-wheeling-pain/?cat=type
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Hedonist's Trove states "target opponent".
1. Someone is almost always going to be playing either blue or black, or at the very least have some strong artifacts.
2. Thanks to my milling effects this will likely be the equivalent of drawing 10+ cards for me, maybe far more.
3. It doubles as graveyard hate (albeit very slow GY hate), which is really crucial against some opponents when I am doing work for them to fill up their yards.
Is it really an "optimal" card in terms of maximizing my deck's power? Probably not. But I do think it is good enough to not be a liability AND likely to be a ton of fun (anything that lets you play lots of your opponents' stuff can lead to game states you wouldn't typically see, which is exactly the kind of thing I really enjoy in my EDH games), and those are really the kinds of cards I am most interested in. All of that said, I doubt it is something I would think to run in Alesha, where there is less synergy, but even there I can see it being fine as a form of late game bomb/recovery tool. I mean the scenario you laid out is far from outlandish, (land into Ring into something, then a couple more bigger somethings the next turn). Kinda like drawing five cards, but with more variance in terms of reliability and outcomes for the mana invested.
The original post has been updated. Thanks guys.
Modern
how aggressive is this deck of yours? how mana-intensive is it? how many other 6+cmc cards are there? how long do your games generally go on for? those are some things you'd probably wanna consider. also, in your typical game, how often do you look at the board state and think "man, i wish i had my hedonist's trove"?
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
I finally got to play my own Trove in my Nicol Bolas deck tonight against a Dragonlord Ojutai deck. Unfortunately it grabbed a bunch of white spells, but I was able to grab a Hinder and Whispersilk Cloak (ended up being SUPER relevant as I then proceeded to Bolas him out after that). I was even able to utilize the Plains I stole with my Chromatic Lantern in play.
I'm waiting to see how it does in a bigger multiplayer setting.
BRWC Mardu Shops - Tymna and Akiri Artifacts BRWC
I have a Xira Arien deck that runs a lot of land destruction and discard (Skull Rend, Painful Quandary, etc...). I've used this in combo with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Chromatic Lantern to utilize my opponent's lands to win the race post, say, cycling Decree of Annihilation, but with the new Oblivion Sower available, I can now destroy all lands, play this, then play the Sower and go immediately back to 6-10 lands. This requires 13 mana post land-destruction, so I typically float enough mana to pay for the Hedonists Trove before LD.
From a purely Spike-y perspective, this card has a couple of things working against it. First, it can help you make land drops, but it costs seven, so if you can cast this you aren't hurting for land drops. Second, you are limited to your Commander's color identity in terms of mana production, so you won't be able to take advantage of other players' spells in a number of situations. Third, it only targets one opponent.
Modern