Have you guys had any games where you played the C18 decks against each other out of the box, without any modifications? Thank you to my friend Ulthwithian (Scott) who was so kind to have gifted me and my friends/locals a set of these decks to celebrate the release of Arixmethes! I just had to play these out of the box with them, and honestly, I had such an amazing experience. The game went for 2.5 hours, and at the last minute, I decided to be the Saheeli player instead of my original goal of playing Bant Enchantments. I wanted to try something very different, and it was my first time ever playing a deck with Red in Commander.
Honestly, I had a very good impression from the decks. We had a really amazing game, with a lot of back and forth, a lot of unique interactions, and although the Lord Windgrace deck absolutely dominated, it was actually very reasonably scaled against the others, to the point that my friend won with it at exactly 1 life. I was thoroughly impressed with the Saheeli deck, and although I can see areas where I would modify it to my liking, I found it had a lot to work with, actually.
The decks are super fun and I even found myself playing with the Saheeli deck out of the box the remainder of the night.
Best plays:
Bant: Massive draw, Bruna at 17/17 with totem armor
Jund: Failing to find basics with Khalni Heart Expedition after getting Baloth Woodcrasher to 28/28, then Rubblehulk
Aminatou: Miracle shenanigans, Aminatou's Augury into value
Saheeli: Discount next spell by 11, Improvise, Saheeli's Directive for 23
My favorite play though was discounting Ancient Stone Idol by 10, attaching Swiftfoot Boots for haste and cracking back for a surprise 12.
Killed the Bant player as soon as they cast Arixmethes. He doesn't oppose his master. Just no.
I really had a blast with these decks, I think anyone with a soured opinion of them should really play them out of the box. Has anyone else tried it? I am so grateful to my friend Scott for giving us a reason to try that, sealed Commander is so much fun. Haven't had a long game like that in a long while!
I did one with my friends, Saheeli and Estrid decks performed the best due to consistency. I don’t particularly like either, though.
Aminatou and Lord Windgrace have greater potential than the aforementioned two, but that’s partly because their decks are also less tuned.
There was a group of four others last night playing the pre cons against each other as well, and their group knocked out Estrid first as well. That deck has insane draw, but I suppose that drew more attention to it as well.
We have a "league" of sorts where we can update the decks on a weekly basis, but the first night we played them all unaltered.
I was playing Lord Windgrace and the Aminatou deck very nearly took the first game due to a relatively early Army of the Damned. They almost took out the Saheeli player but I saved them to give us a bit more time to deal with it. I eventually drew Chain Reaction to kill off everything and I had Bogged them to ensure they couldn't flash it back. It didn't seem like there was a lot of board wipe options while playing, but after discussing, I think each deck had at least 2. This still isn't a lot so I would recommend that being the first major change.
The second game was gotten by either me or the Estrid player and then the third game was the same (I won two but can't remember which two I won). Overall, the decks all seemed to play decently except Saheeli who got mana screwed pretty hard at least 2 of the 3 games. Aminatou seems poor and that player has switched it to Yennet which seems much better. Estrid can kind of come out of nowhere sometimes and getting all the totem armor loaded up on a creature makes it pretty resilient to removal. And, Lord Windgrace just does what Jund does. I don't think any of the decks are bad, though I have found that for Lord Windgrace, I have removed nearly every C18 specific card from the deck. They could have made things so much better but the cards designed for the deck are pretty awful in my opinion. It has good reprints, but the new cards are lacking. Nesting Dragon is basically the only good one. I think the other 3 decks did better with the new cards.
We have a "league" of sorts where we can update the decks on a weekly basis, but the first night we played them all unaltered.
I was playing Lord Windgrace and the Aminatou deck very nearly took the first game due to a relatively early Army of the Damned. They almost took out the Saheeli player but I saved them to give us a bit more time to deal with it. I eventually drew Chain Reaction to kill off everything and I had Bogged them to ensure they couldn't flash it back. It didn't seem like there was a lot of board wipe options while playing, but after discussing, I think each deck had at least 2. This still isn't a lot so I would recommend that being the first major change.
The second game was gotten by either me or the Estrid player and then the third game was the same (I won two but can't remember which two I won). Overall, the decks all seemed to play decently except Saheeli who got mana screwed pretty hard at least 2 of the 3 games. Aminatou seems poor and that player has switched it to Yennet which seems much better. Estrid can kind of come out of nowhere sometimes and getting all the totem armor loaded up on a creature makes it pretty resilient to removal. And, Lord Windgrace just does what Jund does. I don't think any of the decks are bad, though I have found that for Lord Windgrace, I have removed nearly every C18 specific card from the deck. They could have made things so much better but the cards designed for the deck are pretty awful in my opinion. It has good reprints, but the new cards are lacking. Nesting Dragon is basically the only good one. I think the other 3 decks did better with the new cards.
Yeah, that's a fair assessment. I like your idea of a league with Commander and gradually updating the decks. So far me and the Animatou player have not changed our decks, keeping them the same as the pre-con, and we even played them again tonight which was fun.
I have found that for Lord Windgrace, I have removed nearly every C18 specific card from the deck. They could have made things so much better but the cards designed for the deck are pretty awful in my opinion. It has good reprints, but the new cards are lacking. Nesting Dragon is basically the only good one. I think the other 3 decks did better with the new cards.
I have gotten good mileage out of both Nesting Dragon, who is excellent at protecting Windgrace, and Turntimber Sower, but those, Crash of Rhino Beetles and Lord Windgrace himself are the only new cards from the Jund deck that I have kept in my version, and Beetles is only a placeholder until I get another copy of Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar. Some of the others are okay cards, but don't really fit into what I want to be doing with Windgrace. Even among the reprints, I only kept about 20 cards, and most of that is ramp, the big landfall creatures, Grisly Salvage and staples like Sol Ring, Bojuka Bog and Command Tower.
I have found that for Lord Windgrace, I have removed nearly every C18 specific card from the deck. They could have made things so much better but the cards designed for the deck are pretty awful in my opinion. It has good reprints, but the new cards are lacking. Nesting Dragon is basically the only good one. I think the other 3 decks did better with the new cards.
That is exactly what I am going to swap the Beetles for as well and it is on my list The Beetles are just so underwhelming without truly doing anything and Multani is so much better.
As to Turntimber Ranger, I didn't really like the card to start with as I felt that for 1 mana and 3 creatures it should at least put the card on the field. However, I played a game last night with the deck and the Sower did win me the game. I discarded 4 lands to Borborygmos to deal 12 damage to my opponent. I got 4 plants and sacrificed 3 to get another land back to deal the last bit of damage to my opponent. I think with Borborygmos or something else that lets you discard lands, it works decently enough that it is no longer on my list to cut. And yeah, The Gitrog Monster and Ramunap Excavator (or, at least one) should have made it into the deck.
On a side note, I don't like Grisly Salvage either, but I might end up keeping it for now. Grapple with the Past is a lot better since it can get any land or creature from your graveyard while Salvage can only get something in those 5 cards. It works with with Gitrog and the Sower if you hit a land you don't want to take, but it is limited. I am on the fence about cutting it.
I played a few 4-player FFA games with my playgroup - each of us had one of the different C18 decks, so it worked out really well - and left them stock. I had the Subjective Reality Aminatou, the Fateshifter deck. They all did fairly well out of the box and I was really impressed with the Jund lands matter deck with Lord Windgrace despite the criticism of how the decklist looked like on paper (lack of certain synergy cards and obvious reprints, etc.). Nesting Dragon really was the All-Star in that deck for the few games. The Bant enchantments deck with Estrid, the Masked seemed to do really fun things if bodies with auras could be protected. The one that seemed to perform lackluster right out of the box was the artifacts with Saheeli, the Gifted.
I really enjoyed the precon with Aminatou, the Fateshifter that I kept it together for the next week and a half until the rest of my cards for Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign arrived in the mail just the other day, and I liked the procon so much that now I'm thinking about putting it back together (picking up extra copies of the few singles I used for Yennett) to still play around with and maybe just make some very modest or moderate upgrades to it for a more streamlined theme of my choice. I played several games with it stock after release day against all kinds of decks (from upgraded C18 precons to dedicated combo, and a few tuned decks in between those levels) and it can really go the mile. It didn't win a ton, obviously, but it was never the deck most behind or lacking, surprisingly. Aminatou, the Fateshifter does a decent job of setting up big plays that make the power-level seem competitive against much better decklists, like placing a Silent-Blade Oni or Serra Avatar on top of your library and then manifesting it with Cloudform or Lightform. I used Night Incarnate and Aminatou's {-1} to keep a growing swarm of Thopter tokens at bay from an upgraded Saheeli, the Gifted deck and setting up a well-timed Terminus seemed to really mess up my opponents. Skull Storm has been a work horse and the reason I had won any of the games I actually did. Turns out a Terminus or other board wipe into Skull Storm for 2-3 copies does work - bringing opponents from nearly 40 to 10 or less life! Without really needing to say, the worst thing I felt about the deck was the mana base with so many ETB tapped lands, but it is a precon, so I wasn't holding that against my experience with it that much.
Honestly, I had a very good impression from the decks. We had a really amazing game, with a lot of back and forth, a lot of unique interactions, and although the Lord Windgrace deck absolutely dominated, it was actually very reasonably scaled against the others, to the point that my friend won with it at exactly 1 life. I was thoroughly impressed with the Saheeli deck, and although I can see areas where I would modify it to my liking, I found it had a lot to work with, actually.
The decks are super fun and I even found myself playing with the Saheeli deck out of the box the remainder of the night.
Best plays:
Bant: Massive draw, Bruna at 17/17 with totem armor
Jund: Failing to find basics with Khalni Heart Expedition after getting Baloth Woodcrasher to 28/28, then Rubblehulk
Aminatou: Miracle shenanigans, Aminatou's Augury into value
Saheeli: Discount next spell by 11, Improvise, Saheeli's Directive for 23
My favorite play though was discounting Ancient Stone Idol by 10, attaching Swiftfoot Boots for haste and cracking back for a surprise 12.
Killed the Bant player as soon as they cast Arixmethes. He doesn't oppose his master. Just no.
I really had a blast with these decks, I think anyone with a soured opinion of them should really play them out of the box. Has anyone else tried it? I am so grateful to my friend Scott for giving us a reason to try that, sealed Commander is so much fun. Haven't had a long game like that in a long while!
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Aminatou and Lord Windgrace have greater potential than the aforementioned two, but that’s partly because their decks are also less tuned.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
I was playing Lord Windgrace and the Aminatou deck very nearly took the first game due to a relatively early Army of the Damned. They almost took out the Saheeli player but I saved them to give us a bit more time to deal with it. I eventually drew Chain Reaction to kill off everything and I had Bogged them to ensure they couldn't flash it back. It didn't seem like there was a lot of board wipe options while playing, but after discussing, I think each deck had at least 2. This still isn't a lot so I would recommend that being the first major change.
The second game was gotten by either me or the Estrid player and then the third game was the same (I won two but can't remember which two I won). Overall, the decks all seemed to play decently except Saheeli who got mana screwed pretty hard at least 2 of the 3 games. Aminatou seems poor and that player has switched it to Yennet which seems much better. Estrid can kind of come out of nowhere sometimes and getting all the totem armor loaded up on a creature makes it pretty resilient to removal. And, Lord Windgrace just does what Jund does. I don't think any of the decks are bad, though I have found that for Lord Windgrace, I have removed nearly every C18 specific card from the deck. They could have made things so much better but the cards designed for the deck are pretty awful in my opinion. It has good reprints, but the new cards are lacking. Nesting Dragon is basically the only good one. I think the other 3 decks did better with the new cards.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Windgrace was against Gishath dinos, Titiana lands, and Estrid unmodded.
Windgrace dominated that game. The draw and ramp package was insane.
Highlights of that game were ultiing Windgrace and wiping someones board, then recasting him to draw some cards. Twice.
I had severly underestimated Worm Harvest as a card.
Playing Saheeli, I felt the deck fell flat. My draws were just bad. Nothing I got did much to affect the board.
I have gotten good mileage out of both Nesting Dragon, who is excellent at protecting Windgrace, and Turntimber Sower, but those, Crash of Rhino Beetles and Lord Windgrace himself are the only new cards from the Jund deck that I have kept in my version, and Beetles is only a placeholder until I get another copy of Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar. Some of the others are okay cards, but don't really fit into what I want to be doing with Windgrace. Even among the reprints, I only kept about 20 cards, and most of that is ramp, the big landfall creatures, Grisly Salvage and staples like Sol Ring, Bojuka Bog and Command Tower.
The deck would have been so much better out of the box had it included a few cheap utility lands and a couple things like Titania, The Gitrog Monster or Ramunap Excavator. It't not like reprinting Glacial Chasm, Crystal Vein and Ghost Quarter would drive secondary retailers out of business.
As to Turntimber Ranger, I didn't really like the card to start with as I felt that for 1 mana and 3 creatures it should at least put the card on the field. However, I played a game last night with the deck and the Sower did win me the game. I discarded 4 lands to Borborygmos to deal 12 damage to my opponent. I got 4 plants and sacrificed 3 to get another land back to deal the last bit of damage to my opponent. I think with Borborygmos or something else that lets you discard lands, it works decently enough that it is no longer on my list to cut. And yeah, The Gitrog Monster and Ramunap Excavator (or, at least one) should have made it into the deck.
On a side note, I don't like Grisly Salvage either, but I might end up keeping it for now. Grapple with the Past is a lot better since it can get any land or creature from your graveyard while Salvage can only get something in those 5 cards. It works with with Gitrog and the Sower if you hit a land you don't want to take, but it is limited. I am on the fence about cutting it.
I really enjoyed the precon with Aminatou, the Fateshifter that I kept it together for the next week and a half until the rest of my cards for Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign arrived in the mail just the other day, and I liked the procon so much that now I'm thinking about putting it back together (picking up extra copies of the few singles I used for Yennett) to still play around with and maybe just make some very modest or moderate upgrades to it for a more streamlined theme of my choice. I played several games with it stock after release day against all kinds of decks (from upgraded C18 precons to dedicated combo, and a few tuned decks in between those levels) and it can really go the mile. It didn't win a ton, obviously, but it was never the deck most behind or lacking, surprisingly. Aminatou, the Fateshifter does a decent job of setting up big plays that make the power-level seem competitive against much better decklists, like placing a Silent-Blade Oni or Serra Avatar on top of your library and then manifesting it with Cloudform or Lightform. I used Night Incarnate and Aminatou's {-1} to keep a growing swarm of Thopter tokens at bay from an upgraded Saheeli, the Gifted deck and setting up a well-timed Terminus seemed to really mess up my opponents. Skull Storm has been a work horse and the reason I had won any of the games I actually did. Turns out a Terminus or other board wipe into Skull Storm for 2-3 copies does work - bringing opponents from nearly 40 to 10 or less life! Without really needing to say, the worst thing I felt about the deck was the mana base with so many ETB tapped lands, but it is a precon, so I wasn't holding that against my experience with it that much.
Current EDH
UThassa, God of the Sea devotion control
WRGTana, the Bloodsower & Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa partners weenie tokens
UUnesh, Criosphinx Sovereign Sphinx tribal
WUTaigam, Ojutai Master tokens on the rebound spellslinger
GRhonas the Indomitable green creature beats
UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ETB tribal
Retired EDH
WURGKynaios and Tiro of Meletis group hug
URThe Locust God draw swarm
UTalrand, Sky Summoner funsies blue spells
WBObzedat, Ghost Council life gain/drain