Hello everyone, its way past time I put a decklist on here. So, submitted below for your approval is my Urabrask, The Hidden deck. Being a red fan from the olden days....I Love playing a big red deck. So, for a commander I've chosen Urabrask.
Reasons to Play Urabrask
You may enjoy Urabrask for theese reasons.
+ Haste, Haste, Haste
+ Slows your opponents down
+ The challenge of playing a mono-red deck
+ Haste, Haste, Haste
You may not like Urabrask for theese reasons.
- Mono-red
- Little reccursion or card draw
- Lack of enchantment removal
- Over reliance on artifacts
It's my belief he's one of the most powerful red generals out there, due to the fact all of the Praetors have a two fold advantage/disadvantage set of abilities. He haste's all your fatties, and on top of that, having all of your opponents' creatures come into play tapped is amazing. In fact, that amazingness is two-fold. First, you get a chance to react to your opponents creatures, so no hasty rafiq here thank you. Second, your opponents get more of a chance to react to your opponents creatures. I have had many games where Urabrask is out and that Eldrazi hits with a greaves on the board.....Normally bad news for the table, but the brask laughs at the slowness of your opponents critters. Plus hasted eldrazi titans are generally game over for your opponents.
While I play both paper and online magic, having kids, work, and life getting in the way of getting paper games in, I tend to mostly play online theese days. So, being that I have way more games in with my online decklist, so here it is.
Urabrask is a the essence of what you want in a mid to late game general. His ability to grant haste to all your creatures is amazing on a creature, but his ability to curb desperation blockers gets you there. This build absolutely punishes token decks, and decks that rely on a lot of small creatures like Edric. I have played Urabrask as my mono-red general since he was released, and I have literally played HUNDREDS of games online with him. Like every Commander deck, he has grown and changed with the new sets, and my aquisition of new cards. There is no way to give an accurate representation of the hours I have logged tooling this deck to its current incarnation, but I always seem to have magic on the brain, so I hope you all enjoy my wicked brainchild.
About the deck and some of my card choices........
Playing online, I like to be compedetive without being a jerk. To this end, I choose not to play with obliterate type effects and mass land removal. If I were building a cutthroat version, I would definately have them in there, but I don't like to lose my ability to play or react, so I take the high road and choose to lead by example.I dont tend to like a lot of mass LD, however, Ruination is generally as far as I'll go. blood moon is a great card for mono red, but it hurts the crucible recursion package, so I chose not to include it or it's corrosponding magus.
Building a mono-red edh deck is no picnic. Red being severely disadvantaged in several areas the other colors are not, most notably ramp, tutor, recursion, and draw. No small hurdle to jump. The solution for this is having creatures that deal damage more than once or to the whole field, use what recursion IS available, and artifacts that suppliment your weaknesses.
In this respect cards like Explorer's scope are all stars. Red creatures tend to be agressive and this equip takes advantage of red's agressive nature, and puts lands onto the field. The phoenix that are in the deck are extremely versatile and reccur themselves, and two have sweep effects. basilisk collar shines on any damage dealer and theese sweepers are fantastic combos. shard phoenix especially, as it contains it's own sac outlet. charmbreaker devils is fantastic for recurring forks,sweepers, removal(I'm looking at you chaos warp) and the all important wheels.
Hammer of Bogardan gets me the most grief/questions when it gets played. Recurrable damage spells are a must, so the buybacks and hammer are essential to the decks late game. hammer is versatile enough to take out a lot of problem generals before they can get out of hand. zur, clique, riku, azami, arbiter....the list is long and varied, and they all die to hammer. Its these generals that laugh when I play it and then remove my graveyard instead of the one with the vengevine, avenger of zendikar and their ilk in it.
Walkers are pretty good in Commander. I run all the red ones but 6 mana Chandra Ablaze. Surprisingly enough, Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded is a Powerhouse! As long as I play the important recursion cards like Crucible of Worlds, the random discard doesnt really hurt. Especially with both Eldrazi and two wheel effects. EVERY game I have had him out looting for me I have won. While this will surely change, its a pretty neat stat for 7+ games with him out.
My enchantments were carefully selected for their versatility and effect on my opponents board position. stranglehold is a no-brainer. stopping extra turns can leave it on the board even though your opponents want to tutor up lands and cards. Aether flash was chosen over pyrohemia simply because it has no further mana requirement or creature clause. although I would still love to have it in the list. smoke is a house with urabrask. especially against those who drop several creatures at once, token spells like white zenith, or armies in a box. I have tried both Mudslideand An-Zerrin Ruins as additional smoke effects. Ruins is dependant on your opponents running tribal, and mudslide be a drain on your mana when you really need it for something else, so I have pulled them both.
I toyed with Juntu stakes and Mudslide for a while, but both were a little lackluster. Although, in token heavy metas, the stakes were a godsend. I always keep theese handy for inclusion if I need them, so they tend to float in and out of the list. (Still waiting for that dragon with a smoke on it.....seems like a no brainer to make a giant firebreathing lizzard flood the battlefield with smoke, but whatever). static orb is another option, but I dont run it as I dont run in the uber compeditive circles, and it hits my land as well.....
My list runs every fork available except the new one from dark ascention (and I just pulled richochet). Forking my own spells isnt generally worth it as I tend to save my forks for 30 point genesis wave's, ramp, demonic tutor's, and counterspelling counterspells.:D
On another note, I love Haunted Fengraf. It goes so well with crucible and it gives the deck a bit more endgame with that combo.... recurring stuff like force, and balefire seems good.
Most of theese changes came about as a result of more extensive playtesting. I found the deck was short on creatures, and needed more removal. so I pulled the library manipulation and added portal and eye. I also apparently missed I didnt have clamp in the list. also, red's glaring lack of enchantment removal demanded attention as the deck tended to fold to any decent enchantment like gravepact and such. thus I replaced the matrix with the lux dropped in o-stone and that seems to have shored up some of the holes. Life tends to be an issue as apparently because I am running a mono red deck everybody thinks their time is short due to a forthcoming obliterate or the like. so warhammer is in as an alternative to collar for life. boots and greaves never do that much for me as my creatures all have haste from my commander and shroud never helps against wraths and such anyway. most of the swords and such tend to get directed toward the combo creatures anyway. so far after the changes the deck has improved dramaticaly. the extra draw always helps, and the extra creatures are working well. The gems so far have been the slith and the ignus. ignus punishes primeval like nobody's business. and the slith is money with an equip early like scope.
Major AVR update 6/1/12-added a lot of new things to this deck as I dropped some cash on some cards I have been wanting for a while, and added the great new stuff from AVR. Red seems to have gotten the best end of the new set when it comes to commander. I will post the Exact changes I made by this weekend. I left the last update alone in its spoiler so you can see the metamorphasis the deck has gone through with the new release and my dropping 80 tix online.......since the update I have played around 17 to 20 games with it. What has blindsided me is that I won all of them save 3, and some of them have been REALLY close.
I'm always looking for suggestions and opinions, constructive conversation is what the forum is for, right?
Yeah, I hit enter on the wrong thing and posted well before I was done. I'll be editing the O.P. as I get time. I hope to have this thread end up as a quality primer. Also, if someone could tell me how to make a link in my sig....I would very much appreciate it.
Updated the O.P. again. I've been a little dissapointed with the lack of response to the thread. Does anyone else play this general?
On a side note can anyone tell me how to attach the link to the name of the card for my sig. It looks so ugly the way it is. Ive seen it done, just havent figured out how to do it myself.
Also, who can make me a banner? not sure who to ask....
No, actually. I dont know that I run enough artifacts to make welder worthwhile. Believe it or not, I have a pretty good pace with this deck. I don't tend to have too many issues with keeping a hand, excepting targeted discard. I've been wanting to make room for my planar portal again, though I'm not sure what to cut as my list is pretty tight. My brother keeps telling me to drop in urza's blueprints as well.... though he never helps me choose what to cut.....
i like this deck! I am mentally building a big red deck as well so this one has my gears turning.
your recursion is quite excellent:
buyback
phoenixes
crucible
charmbreaker devils!
buried ruin
haunted fengraf
some slots that could be improved upon IMO:
power matrix
adamaro
how do these work for you? power matrix seems fun, but maybe another piece of equipment would work better or maybe something powerful like past in flames.
can adamaro be tauren mauler instead? both play well in multiplayer and but while adamaro will almost always be a 6/6 or bigger, the mauler can get absolutely monsterous in size. BUT...sometimes orcish artillery can get the job done too...how bout bottle gnomes? maybe you can recur them with some of the lands you've got.
either way... i really like this deck! well done sir!
a trick i did when i built my mono-black deck, was to switch to snow-covered lands so i could run scrying sheets. it's nice to scry with your crystal ball, and then draw a land EZ with scrying sheets so you really just never miss land drops.
On a side note can anyone tell me how to attach the link to the name of the card for my sig. It looks so ugly the way it is. Ive seen it done, just havent figured out how to do it myself.
1) Put [url*= before the link (without the *)
and
2) ]insert name you want to appear here[/url*] after the link (without the *)
Snow lands have been done to death and I'm kind of sick of them to be honest. Plus all my mountains are foil. So, I'm not gonna go down that road....
mauler is a good card, but Adamaro costs the same, and comes in as a 7/7 most times on turn 3 for a big turn 4 smackdown. later in the game he can be a lot bigger for the same 3 mana investment.
matrix on the other hand is a POWERFUL artifact. It pumps, and grants 3 abilies. All of which are important to both defense, getting through, and creature survivability. PLUS, it allows you to get in on other player's attacks to have your will done. That giant general getting chump blocked...... now it has trample. That flier that is going to kill the guy who's help you need to kill the player who's out of hand? It can now be blocked. child of alara blocking dude's primeval titan? give child first strike! save your gauntlet! Matrix is a seriously over-looked card. I've never regretted drawing it.
edit: thanks for the tip. I'm gonna try and fix my link now....
edit: if you are thinking of big red, the best two options are urabrask, and Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs. I have run him in the past, and he's better than you think, by far the most defensive red general.
Most of theese changes came about as a result of more extensive playtesting. I found the deck was short on creatures, and needed more removal. so I pulled the library manipulation and added portal and eye. I also apparently missed I didnt have clamp in the list. also, red's glaring lack of enchantment removal demanded attention as the deck tended to fold to any decent enchantment like gravepact and such. thus I replaced the matrix with the lux dropped in o-stone and that seems to have shored up some of the holes. Life tends to be an issue as apparently because I am running a mono red deck everybody thinks their time is short due to a forthcoming obliterate or the like. so warhammer is in as an alternative to collar for life. boots and greaves never do that much for me as my creatures all have haste from my commander and shroud never helps against wraths and such anyway. most of the swords and such tend to get directed toward the combo creatures anyway. so far after the changes the deck has improved dramaticaly. the extra draw always helps, and the extra creatures are working well. The gems so far have been the slith and the ignus. ignus punishes primeval like nobody's business. and the slith is money with an equip early like scope.
I would love to hear whether or not other red players have latched on to the lux cannon. while its a bit slow and can be a target, I feel its a great card that fills the void of enchantment removal for red. I would like to hear other's opinions on it as i don't hear about it in the format at all.....
Just Updated my list. Pretty major update. Mods, Please help. I don't know what I am doing wrong, but everytime I edit my OP and save the changes, something wonky happens and I end up with all sorts of spaces that arent supposed to be there and the editor adds tags where they aren't supposed to be. I'm trying to get this to primer quality (for submission as such) and it looks like crap. please help.
Edit: I think I have everything squared away now with my OP. It looks a lot better now. I will be posting a new update with the changes and why sometime during the weekend.
Hello everyone, its way past time I put a decklist on here. So, submitted below for your approval is my Urabrask, The Hidden deck. Being a red fan from the olden days....I Love playing a big red deck. So, for a commander I've chosen Urabrask.
Reasons to Play Urabrask
+ Haste, Haste, Haste
+ Slows your opponents down
+ The challenge of playing a mono-red deck
+ Haste, Haste, Haste
You may not like Urabrask for theese reasons.
- Mono-red
- Little reccursion or card draw
- Lack of enchantment removal
- Over reliance on artifacts
It's my belief he's one of the most powerful red generals out there, due to the fact all of the Praetors have a two fold advantage/disadvantage set of abilities. He haste's all your fatties, and on top of that, having all of your opponents' creatures come into play tapped is amazing. In fact, that amazingness is two-fold. First, you get a chance to react to your opponents creatures, so no hasty rafiq here thank you. Second, your opponents get more of a chance to react to your opponents creatures. I have had many games where Urabrask is out and that Eldrazi hits with a greaves on the board.....Normally bad news for the table, but the brask laughs at the slowness of your opponents critters. Plus hasted eldrazi titans are generally game over for your opponents.
While I play both paper and online magic, having kids, work, and life getting in the way of getting paper games in, I tend to mostly play online theese days. So, being that I have way more games in with my online decklist, so here it is.
1 Urabrask, The Hidden
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Duplicant
1 Chandra's Phoenix
1 Hero of Oxid Ridge
1 Obsidian Fireheart
1 Shard Phoenix
1 Magma Phoenix
1 Kuldotha Phoenix
1 Charmbreaker Devils
1 Hoarding Dragon
1 Flameblast Dragon
1 Hoard-Smelter Dragon
1 Inferno Titan
1 Malignus
1 Hateflayer
1 Tyrant of Discord
1 Balefire Dragon
1 Scourge of Kher Ridges
1 Magmatic Force
1 Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
1 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
1 Kozelik, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Journeyer's Kite
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Extraplanar Lens
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Gauntlet of Might
1 Mind's Eye
1 Gauntlet of Power
1 Caged Sun
Equipment-4
1 Explorer's Scope
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Skullclamp
1 Darksteel Plate
Planeswalkers-4
1 Chandra, the Firebrand
1 Chandra Nalaar
1 Koth of the Hammer
1 Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
Instants-6
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Fork
1 Reverberate
1 Reiterate
1 Into the Core
1 Chaos Warp
1 Smoke
1 Stranglehold
1 Aether Flash
1 War's Toll
Sorceries-7
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Hammer of Bogardan
1 Chain Reaction
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Red Sun's Zenith
1 Fanning the Flames
Land-38
30 Mountain
1 Kher Keep
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Buried Ruin
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Maze of Ith
1 Haunted Fengraf
1 Strip Mine
That is the deck as is i have it online.
Urabrask is a the essence of what you want in a mid to late game general. His ability to grant haste to all your creatures is amazing on a creature, but his ability to curb desperation blockers gets you there. This build absolutely punishes token decks, and decks that rely on a lot of small creatures like Edric. I have played Urabrask as my mono-red general since he was released, and I have literally played HUNDREDS of games online with him. Like every Commander deck, he has grown and changed with the new sets, and my aquisition of new cards. There is no way to give an accurate representation of the hours I have logged tooling this deck to its current incarnation, but I always seem to have magic on the brain, so I hope you all enjoy my wicked brainchild.
About the deck and some of my card choices........
Playing online, I like to be compedetive without being a jerk. To this end, I choose not to play with obliterate type effects and mass land removal. If I were building a cutthroat version, I would definately have them in there, but I don't like to lose my ability to play or react, so I take the high road and choose to lead by example.I dont tend to like a lot of mass LD, however, Ruination is generally as far as I'll go. blood moon is a great card for mono red, but it hurts the crucible recursion package, so I chose not to include it or it's corrosponding magus.
Building a mono-red edh deck is no picnic. Red being severely disadvantaged in several areas the other colors are not, most notably ramp, tutor, recursion, and draw. No small hurdle to jump. The solution for this is having creatures that deal damage more than once or to the whole field, use what recursion IS available, and artifacts that suppliment your weaknesses.
In this respect cards like Explorer's scope are all stars. Red creatures tend to be agressive and this equip takes advantage of red's agressive nature, and puts lands onto the field. The phoenix that are in the deck are extremely versatile and reccur themselves, and two have sweep effects. basilisk collar shines on any damage dealer and theese sweepers are fantastic combos. shard phoenix especially, as it contains it's own sac outlet. charmbreaker devils is fantastic for recurring forks,sweepers, removal(I'm looking at you chaos warp) and the all important wheels.
Hammer of Bogardan gets me the most grief/questions when it gets played. Recurrable damage spells are a must, so the buybacks and hammer are essential to the decks late game. hammer is versatile enough to take out a lot of problem generals before they can get out of hand. zur, clique, riku, azami, arbiter....the list is long and varied, and they all die to hammer. Its these generals that laugh when I play it and then remove my graveyard instead of the one with the vengevine, avenger of zendikar and their ilk in it.
Walkers are pretty good in Commander. I run all the red ones but 6 mana Chandra Ablaze. Surprisingly enough, Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded is a Powerhouse! As long as I play the important recursion cards like Crucible of Worlds, the random discard doesnt really hurt. Especially with both Eldrazi and two wheel effects. EVERY game I have had him out looting for me I have won. While this will surely change, its a pretty neat stat for 7+ games with him out.
My enchantments were carefully selected for their versatility and effect on my opponents board position. stranglehold is a no-brainer. stopping extra turns can leave it on the board even though your opponents want to tutor up lands and cards. Aether flash was chosen over pyrohemia simply because it has no further mana requirement or creature clause. although I would still love to have it in the list. smoke is a house with urabrask. especially against those who drop several creatures at once, token spells like white zenith, or armies in a box. I have tried both Mudslideand An-Zerrin Ruins as additional smoke effects. Ruins is dependant on your opponents running tribal, and mudslide be a drain on your mana when you really need it for something else, so I have pulled them both.
I toyed with Juntu stakes and Mudslide for a while, but both were a little lackluster. Although, in token heavy metas, the stakes were a godsend. I always keep theese handy for inclusion if I need them, so they tend to float in and out of the list. (Still waiting for that dragon with a smoke on it.....seems like a no brainer to make a giant firebreathing lizzard flood the battlefield with smoke, but whatever). static orb is another option, but I dont run it as I dont run in the uber compeditive circles, and it hits my land as well.....
My list runs every fork available except the new one from dark ascention (and I just pulled richochet). Forking my own spells isnt generally worth it as I tend to save my forks for 30 point genesis wave's, ramp, demonic tutor's, and counterspelling counterspells.:D
On another note, I love Haunted Fengraf. It goes so well with crucible and it gives the deck a bit more endgame with that combo.... recurring stuff like force, and balefire seems good.
edit: major update 3/2/12
Most of theese changes came about as a result of more extensive playtesting. I found the deck was short on creatures, and needed more removal. so I pulled the library manipulation and added portal and eye. I also apparently missed I didnt have clamp in the list. also, red's glaring lack of enchantment removal demanded attention as the deck tended to fold to any decent enchantment like gravepact and such. thus I replaced the matrix with the lux dropped in o-stone and that seems to have shored up some of the holes. Life tends to be an issue as apparently because I am running a mono red deck everybody thinks their time is short due to a forthcoming obliterate or the like. so warhammer is in as an alternative to collar for life. boots and greaves never do that much for me as my creatures all have haste from my commander and shroud never helps against wraths and such anyway. most of the swords and such tend to get directed toward the combo creatures anyway. so far after the changes the deck has improved dramaticaly. the extra draw always helps, and the extra creatures are working well. The gems so far have been the slith and the ignus. ignus punishes primeval like nobody's business. and the slith is money with an equip early like scope.
Major AVR update 6/1/12-added a lot of new things to this deck as I dropped some cash on some cards I have been wanting for a while, and added the great new stuff from AVR. Red seems to have gotten the best end of the new set when it comes to commander. I will post the Exact changes I made by this weekend. I left the last update alone in its spoiler so you can see the metamorphasis the deck has gone through with the new release and my dropping 80 tix online.......since the update I have played around 17 to 20 games with it. What has blindsided me is that I won all of them save 3, and some of them have been REALLY close.
I'm always looking for suggestions and opinions, constructive conversation is what the forum is for, right?
In any case, I would think all the mana-doublers and Gamble are welcome additions to any monored deck.
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
More updates forthcoming....
On a side note can anyone tell me how to attach the link to the name of the card for my sig. It looks so ugly the way it is. Ive seen it done, just havent figured out how to do it myself.
Also, who can make me a banner? not sure who to ask....
Mayael beats
your recursion is quite excellent:
buyback
phoenixes
crucible
charmbreaker devils!
buried ruin
haunted fengraf
some slots that could be improved upon IMO:
power matrix
adamaro
how do these work for you? power matrix seems fun, but maybe another piece of equipment would work better or maybe something powerful like past in flames.
can adamaro be tauren mauler instead? both play well in multiplayer and but while adamaro will almost always be a 6/6 or bigger, the mauler can get absolutely monsterous in size. BUT...sometimes orcish artillery can get the job done too...how bout bottle gnomes? maybe you can recur them with some of the lands you've got.
either way... i really like this deck! well done sir!
a trick i did when i built my mono-black deck, was to switch to snow-covered lands so i could run scrying sheets. it's nice to scry with your crystal ball, and then draw a land EZ with scrying sheets so you really just never miss land drops.
1) Put [url*= before the link (without the *)
and
2) ]insert name you want to appear here[/url*] after the link (without the *)
You'll end up with
3) Urabrask, the Hidden, or whatever name you insert.
Hope that helps.
R.I.P. Sundering Titan (6/20/12) and Braids, Cabal Minion (9/12/14)
mauler is a good card, but Adamaro costs the same, and comes in as a 7/7 most times on turn 3 for a big turn 4 smackdown. later in the game he can be a lot bigger for the same 3 mana investment.
matrix on the other hand is a POWERFUL artifact. It pumps, and grants 3 abilies. All of which are important to both defense, getting through, and creature survivability. PLUS, it allows you to get in on other player's attacks to have your will done. That giant general getting chump blocked...... now it has trample. That flier that is going to kill the guy who's help you need to kill the player who's out of hand? It can now be blocked. child of alara blocking dude's primeval titan? give child first strike! save your gauntlet! Matrix is a seriously over-looked card. I've never regretted drawing it.
edit: thanks for the tip. I'm gonna try and fix my link now....
edit: if you are thinking of big red, the best two options are urabrask, and Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs. I have run him in the past, and he's better than you think, by far the most defensive red general.
Most of theese changes came about as a result of more extensive playtesting. I found the deck was short on creatures, and needed more removal. so I pulled the library manipulation and added portal and eye. I also apparently missed I didnt have clamp in the list. also, red's glaring lack of enchantment removal demanded attention as the deck tended to fold to any decent enchantment like gravepact and such. thus I replaced the matrix with the lux dropped in o-stone and that seems to have shored up some of the holes. Life tends to be an issue as apparently because I am running a mono red deck everybody thinks their time is short due to a forthcoming obliterate or the like. so warhammer is in as an alternative to collar for life. boots and greaves never do that much for me as my creatures all have haste from my commander and shroud never helps against wraths and such anyway. most of the swords and such tend to get directed toward the combo creatures anyway. so far after the changes the deck has improved dramaticaly. the extra draw always helps, and the extra creatures are working well. The gems so far have been the slith and the ignus. ignus punishes primeval like nobody's business. and the slith is money with an equip early like scope.
I would love to hear whether or not other red players have latched on to the lux cannon. while its a bit slow and can be a target, I feel its a great card that fills the void of enchantment removal for red. I would like to hear other's opinions on it as i don't hear about it in the format at all.....
Edit: I think I have everything squared away now with my OP. It looks a lot better now. I will be posting a new update with the changes and why sometime during the weekend.