Talrand, the Merfolk Wizard Who Summons Drakes( For Some Reason?)
"Don't ask me how I got them, but these guys are the wind beneath my wings." "started from the bottom, now we're here. started from the bottom, now my whole team here.
Primer on Talrand, Sky Summoner. Beat faces with drakes and out-generate the R/G decks.
Talrand is exciting to play because it presents the player with an interesting, fresh strategy: Mono-Blue aggro. The last time I remember any mono-blue aggro deck was when I wanted to build a Sun Quan, Lord of Wu deck, which I never really got around to. This deck is relatively tame to play while being rather strong if left unchecked, and arguably is fun to play against due to its multiple, cheap and interesting spells as well as its more forgiving nature. It hits the right spots for aggro, control and tempo. Talrand makes a great choice for anyone in a casual to semi-competitive meta, especially those low on token strategies. It is a resilient deck, as long as you can cast Talrand.
Pros:
Style Points. Seriously, Talrand is great in the sense that he’s not a common monoU general and he certainly isn’t weak while not being over the top. Having a blue army is always, always cool. People will frown on you if you play a competitive Azami deck. People will be interested if you run a Talrand deck. Also, the number of Drake references you can get away with in-game makes playing the deck a great experience.
Nature of Token Army: they are all flying. This doesn’t seem like much but it already makes them superior to say, a 2/2 wolf army. This makes our creatures very evasive, and just to state the obvious, it usually means that our damage will go through unhindered.
Control elements: Board advantage and card advantage can both be achieved through effective use of counters and cantrips. Moreover opponents are less likely to save/focus counters on you since most of your spells, if cast would be cantrips and bounce. The good thing is that the deck isn't extremely control-oriented due to our win-con being so extremely, extremely Melvin. The perceived threat level is also a bit lower.
Fun to Play : seriously, it is fun to play. It is control without being draw-go, draw-go without being over-powered, aggro without being annoying, and annoying without being dominating. It strikes a delicate balance between attacking and controlling, between being aimed to win and aimed to be fun. It's not my strongest deck, but arguably it's the most fun.
Cons:
Pretty bad without Talrand: tuck effects and numerous targetted kill effects, or cards such as Nevermore will set the deck back considerably. I’ve once had to pass-go until I died in a multiplayer game solely because of Warp World. Feels bad. Moreover most of our deck strategies revolve around Talrand: even Proteus Staff assumes you have a creature to begin with. This is also why we don't run Lightning Greaves, but more on that later on.
Snowball nature: The deck wins easily if it snowballs. In the same vein, it loses easily it’s set back early. An early Acidic Slime , for instance, can really swing the game in the opponent’s favour as we are running low mana ramp with minimal lands.
What Goes Around, Comes Around In this deck we run anthems and cards that slow our opponents down. We are also vulnerable to those cards. For instance, what if an aggro deck targets us in multiplayer? Most of our tokens would likely go to defending without killing. We'd be very behind then.
Multiplayer: I created this thread in the multiplayer section because I intended it to be playable in both formats, single or multiplayer. However it makes politics very important in multiplayer because if you focus one man down you are likely to make enemies and if you split your army you may become a threat to everyone. I find that playing it safe is good but it makes the deck slower, and thus weaker.
Deck History
Initial Design Philosophy
Built this deck out of spare cards on a whim (at teatime, of course), but it turned out to be quite powerful, and pretty scary in 1v1. The deck's basic strategy thus far is simply to summon Talrand with protection (or without protection if you're not afraid of losing him to removal) and simply controlling the game and summoning drakes. Not to say that's bad of course, since they all have flying, keeping mana open to consistently remove any threats your opponents can throw at you is pretty good.
Normally cards like Divination are bad in EDH, but with Talrand out, the CA you gain is worth the card being cast. Being low mana helps fuel Talrand as well. Furthermore, the deck tends to snowball, growing stronger exponentially due to cards which check the number of something you have, e.g cards like Keep Watch and Distant Melody.
The difference between this and most Talrand decks is written in the title: this deck relies heavily on tempo. In 1v1 it aims to get out Talrand as early as possible and abuse cheap spells at EoT to quickly create a drake army. In multiplayer it lies resilient, keeping at bay with a decent army and swarming the field when the time is right. Tempo is a big thing for this deck: threats include things that hurt our manabases.
Over the course of several months I began to see the weaknesses in my Cantrip Tea build, that being having no major way of closing the game out. As such, I decided to take it in a slightly more control-oriented direction, with more counterspells and big, useful creatures.
Bio
Talrand is a Merfolk wizard who rules beneath the waves of the Kapsho Seas on Shandalar. He challenged the dominion of the dragon Kalyntriabove the sea. The mage seems equally comfortable on the ground as in the seas, wields a large assortment of blue spells and has the power tosummon drake servants. They serve him in exchange for his promise of an end to the tyranny of dragons. In a concerted effort Talrand and a large flock of Drakes killed Kalyntri.
Much like his lore, Talrand kills dominant decks with cheap spells. Fitting.
Strategy
Strategy
Talrand's strategy is simple and easy to explain. It is a matter of tempo and control. You want to be fast but you want to have a backup plan. You want to aggro but not over-extend. It's a delicate balance between yin and yang, between sky and sea. As such Talrand is an easy control deck to play, but it still has several nuances in playstyle.
Early Game
Your starting hand should ideally have 3 playable mana sources i.e. lands and cheap mana rocks. This is to ensure that not only can you draw enough lands for Talrand you also have enough to cast your basic spells. 2 land-hands are okay but not recommended unless you go second. As a mono-blue player, control elements are important so ideally your hand should look something like this:
Keeping in mind the deck's average mana cost, the two ?? should also ideally be around 2-3 mana max. Having cards like Proteus Staff or Coastal Piracy would be the exception because those cards generate a larger advantage in the mid game. Currently, the average mana cost for this deck is around 2.82. Meaning that in an ideal game, even if you are behind as long as your Talrand is out you should be able to cast over 95% of anything you draw.
Knowing that the average mana cost per card is 2.82 also gives you a rough idea of how many spells you should play per turn. For instance, assuming I want to dig through my deck with cantrips. How many cantrips should I use if I have to use them on my turn? (i.e. Ponder) Can I reliably chain my cantrips into more drake tokens without leaving my board open? You always want to keep mana open because of our high instant count. Safety takes priority over drakes.
As such, keep your spells until Talrand comes out. It's the simplest and usually the best method to play the deck. As such you are especially vulnerable early game without Talrand so play your cards at your own discretion. This is also the reason why we run low mana rocks. Mana rocks have a delicate position in this deck. While mana doublers are always good mana rocks are dangerous because they can break our tempo during crucial moments. They are mostly useful to accelerate a turn 3 Talrand and so on, but beyond turns 5-6 they tend to be rather lackluster.
Mid-Game
With Talrand in play, keep cantrips and counters in hand. Never play any during your turn, but of course, if you need it, go ahead. Keeping mana open can be great for Whispers of the Muse and other cantrips. This goes for almost every stage of the game. However it is especially important here because mid-game is when we hit the peak of our mana-efficiency curve. With sufficient mana and sufficient cards in hand it is possible to generate around 3 tokens before our turns begin. Here is where we not only build up our drake army but also stockpile our control elements. Therefore it is crucial that we make full use of this part of the game before the board becomes finalised/ too developed.
Fabricate is also situational. With low lands, getting Caged Sun / Gauntlet of Power is good if you have low mana. Proteus Staff is good for upping the pressure, and so is Gravitational Shift], which serves as both a Propaganda-type effect (minimise damage) and a good anthem for your board.
1v1 wise your mid-game has to be your mid-game phase. This is because as a tempo-based deck you can speed up the game in your favour to close it out before your opponent gets major threats out.
Late-Game
There isn't much to say about the late-game.
Now you should have a large hand-size and sufficient mana to control the game. From here on out it's mostly protecting your deck from sweeps and closing out the game with Coat of Arms, et cetera. As we run no combos and no extra turn spells, we have to ensure that we can win in one sweep or over the course of a few turns rather that protract the game into an extended arms race. Even though we have flying tokens we are nonetheless vulnerable to aggro decks, especially R/G should they run trample-type effects. As such, attacking in the late game is usually a matter of personal discretion. Can I afford to go all in with my tokens? Can I generate enough tokens during his/her turn to protect myself? How long will it take me to end the game?
Note that of course, most multiplayer games naturally enter this stage due to multiplayer dynamics. Unless you aim to take out all players from the get-go most EDH players in my experience will build up their forces and prevent themselves from being the target of the entire group. As such, few players lose the game before the late-game phase, and this is usually the most difficult part of Talrand to deal with, given that we excel at tempo-based control and aggro. Try not to stagnate in this stage too long. Ideally you should focus down major threats in the match and then pick the rest off.
In a similar vein simply by entering the late-game phase, we can still rapidly create an army at EoT, but its effectiveness may be therefore limited. Fabricate here would go for Coat of Arms, most of the time. Consider using Opposition for closing the game out.
Misc.
Talrand decks, as I've seen on the forums generally go down two major routes: what I like to call Cantrip Tea, and the basic mono-blue control route. Both are decent and efficient ways to run Talrand focusing on his two strengths. While I have modified my deck to go down both paths simulataneously, both decks are decent deck archetypes and I welcome you to try them if you want.
Cantrip Tea: These are the decks that run Reach Through Mists. While I removed that card solely for essentially being nothing but a 2/2 drake, the deck used to run this way by chaining multiple cantrips at EoT to get out a large drake army. This would work well in a sweep-heavy or creature-filled format. Moreover through multiple cantrips the deck can reach its control elements, which are usually low. However in my experience this method of playing is counter-productive since you usually reach a point where you run out of cantrips. Fun, a 'glass-cannon' build and really fast, but lacks a back-up plan. It gambles on the fact that you can draw into multiple cantrips. In my opinion, a better strategy would be to use cantrips that may cost a bit higher, but do something relevant, such as running Cerulean Wisps if we have creatures with activated abilities, or cutting it when we ourselves cannot use it, or removing pretty much useless cards such as Leap. These cards may help in multiplayer (I Leap your creature, go whack my enemy) but they are too situational for this strategy.
Mono-blue control: Simply counter the spells and get a token whenever. It isn't the most ideal mono-blue deck but it is certainly not a over-powering or extremely threatening one. You can then protect yourself with the tokens until you get out your wincons. The difference here of course is that now your drakes are not your wincon, compared to Cantrip Tea which focuses completely on getting an army. In my opinion, a number of decks outclass this role, such as Vendillion Clique or even Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur decks.
Multiplayer
One common problem with Talrand is that it suffers a lot in multiplayer. Plenty of your spells become ineffective in multiplayer: even in a mono-blue control shell you become essentially a control/combo deck. Not my favourite playstyle if your wincons are just combos. They render you vulnerable to being ganged up on or targeted i.e. Praetor's Grasp, etc. Like I said, the deck suffers if you get put behind early, so attracting too much hate is bad in multiplayer.
Your wincons for this deck are your drakes, but you can't keep too large an army out until you can ensure that you are in no danger i.e. blue player tapped out/about to die, no sweeps, etc. The drakes also work well with Windreader Sphinx and [CARD]Coastal Piracy
[/CARD]. What you could do in multiplayer is engage in politics. Attack some players with drakes at times, 1-2 at a time, focus the major threat, bounce your opponent's creatures to save them, etc. You can draw cards and keep safe this way. Then when major threats are out you can try and take over the game entirely. Remember, you are still a monoblue deck. Your aim is to ultimately control and win the game.
1) Have fun. If you do nothing but whine and complain then people might target you out of spite.
2) Establish trust. Try to seem fair when ‘helping’ others with their threat assessment. If you say things like “I hate to say this but if I were you, I would probably attack me with that creature since I have no blockers” it is usually worth it to take a minor hit if it convinces people that you are honest and fair. This will help you sway them with your biased suggestions later.
3) Sincerity – players like this so once you learn how to fake it, you got it made.
4) Try to avoid douchebag wincons. If you establish board-control and drag out the game into a long, boring, painful gaming experience then people will surely gang up on you that game and probably gang up on you in further games above and beyond what they normally would.
Deck Synergy
- Remember we want to refresh our hand with cantrip tea. This is also a major design element for the deck: if my memory serves me correctly, we are currently running 26 cards that create card advantage (e.g. draw at least one card)
- Remember that there is a reason why we do not need/want to run Lightning Greaves: not only is attacking with your non-flying creatures not as crucial ,you also want to keep your general and creatures exposed so you can bounce them back to hand. This is good against tuck effects and for your major 3 creatures, kill-spells. Windreader, Jin and Tyrant can win the game on their own if you can get them out and get them to stick. I understand that you could simply give them shroud to protect them, but I prefer not having them fall prey to sweeps and other similar effects. Due to the sheer power these cards bring, it's best to always have them safe and in your hand if they die. Blue has no reanimation.
- Remember: you can use Unsummon to get rid of two attackers. You can thus bounce an attacker and create a token to block. This may seem like it isn't much but it could help prevent general damage or reduce Trample damage. Likewise with Think Twice. Basically you can Unsummon at the beginning of the combat step and block with a token, getting rid of 2 potential attackers. I'm not sure whether you can do the same thing at the end of the declare attackers step but the idea is the same.
- Likewise, the fact that Talrand creates a token by casting any instant/sorcery regardless of resolution is important to note. This is basically why Talrand is good: you essentially will never lose board/card advantage if you count the tokens...
- Logic Knot: remove land cards and otherwise useless cards. This is important to note compared to simply removing everything because you are running Elixir of Immortality. Time Reversal could be used too.
- Proteus Staff Package: The Trio of Windreader Sphinx, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur and Tidespout Tyrant can win you the game if you can get all three out. It becomes very difficult to recover against all three at once. This is also why we run minimal creatures as well. By casting spells to create tokens, we basically Polymorph our tokens into terrifying monsters. Alternate decks may consider cards such as Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir or Stormtide Leviathan for additional power and control elements. We don't really prefer big creatures as opposed to creatures which grant an immediate benefit to our board advantage, so things like Inkwell Leviathan aren't good here.
Proteus Staff is underrated in the sense that it is also a powerful artifact outside of fetching aforementioned creatures. Not only is it a way to help find your general in case he gets tucked, it can also repeatedly tuck your opponent's generals, especially when playing against blue decks which run low creatures. In a sense, Proteus Staff counts as a wincon for this deck.
Card Choices
Creatures
Talrand, Sky Summoner: Our boss, our lord, our king, our love. He is the Drake to our Amanda Bynes.
Windreader Sphinx: I loved Coastal Piracy so much, I decided to run another version. This is better because our currentiteration of the deck lacks a tutor effect, and this can be fetched out with Proteus Staff. Moreover, this doesn't limit itself to just our creatures or dealing damage- as long as any creature with flying attacks, we draw a card. Sounds really good to me.
Tidespout Tyrant: Control element. With most of our instants, we can dominate the game with an early Tidespout Tyrant. Imagine getting him out on turn 5 and then bouncing 2-3 lands on turn 6. Madness.
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur: My friends told me not to run him because he's countered by Reliquary Tower. Well, guess what. Not everyone gets that land out easily. Moreover the first effect is much more interesting: drawing 7 cards a turn can't possibly be bad.
Sorceries
Portent , Serum Visions , Sleight of Hand , Ponder , Preordain: deck fixing on cheap cantrips. Mostly run for the cantrip effect, but the deck fixing makes them inherently superior to 'pure' cantrips like Reach Through Mists.
Gitaxian Probe: Cantrip, can be cast for 2 life to increase our spell count. May be replaced with Peek. It's also a good card to pay 2 life to use, to make sure our blue playing opponents have no answers to our shenanigans - check for counter spells, etc.
Talrand's Invocation : Tokens. This is really good, because it creates 3 at one shot. It feels underwhelming on paper but it immediately ups our threat level. I use it when I'm either ahead or behind, but never when I'm on par. Also our general is Talrand, it only feels fitting.
Wash Out: It's useful bounce, a smaller Inundate, certainly not as good, but it is what we need.
Tamiyo, The Moon Sage : The one and only planeswalker in this deck. Let's cover why we run her over the other mono-blue planeswalkers.
1. In keeping with our tempo-based strategy, her +1 ability is good for doing so. We can tap down important mana sources, terrifying activated abilities and whatnot. It is good. We could even soft lock a deck that is based on general damage and evasiveness to win, if possible.
2. Her -2 ability is really synergistic with our own strategy. We can swing with our drakes and then -2 during postcombat.
3. Her ultimate is a pseudo infinite-combo with Rewind and it gives us the power to almost win the game immediately thanks to abusing our cantrips.
Other planeswalkers: The Jaces are always welcome in any blue deck, but I chose not to run them, mostly because they are 4 mana and below when Tamiyo is mostly used once we get Talrand online. She seems pretty underwhelming and vulnerable otherwise; the Jaces would essentially be free targets until I can get my Drakes out. Jace Beleren has interesting multiplayer potential and we could benefit from Jace, Architect of Thought's ultimate, but it'll take too long to get. Likewise, Jace, the Mind Sculptor is too expensive for me. I'd totally run him if I could though. Thanks to his -1 and 0 ability I would not mind risking an instant kill for that long-term utility and OPness. We don't really benefit from Tezzeret, the Seeker because he becomes an expensive Fabricate or a second Coat of Arms. I suppose he could save us some mana but it seems pointless.
Artifacts
Elixir of Immortality " target="blank"> Elixir of Immortality : Our strategy can result in drawing out most of our deck. This card can save us from decking out, and enable us to send our key cards back into the deck, i.e. Counterspells and our creatures.
Sapphire Medallion " target="blank"> Sapphire Medallion : The BEST means of mana ramp for this deck. The mana savings are ridiculous. A lot of our spells become 1 mana or less. Sapphire Medallion is like a mana rock in this deck. Every blue spell we cast costs 1 generic less. If we play 2 blue spells, it's basically a Sol Ring. So on and so forth.
Sol Ring " target="blank"> Sol Ring : You may notice the stunning lack of mana acceleration. While earlier in the post I mentioned how we want to get Talrand out as quickly as we can, with calculated risk, of course, I find the mana rocks very underwhelming. There isn't enough reason for me to run mana ramp when we do not need as much mana anyway. Sol Ring is always good since it will always give +1 mana, so there's that, but currently the others are underwhelming.
Isochron Scepter : Isochron Scepter works well: our wet dream is to play scepter with Boomerang. Imagine that tempo swing. Isochron works great to bounce and counter repeatedly. Note that since it's counted as casting the card, we actually get to put a drake into play.
Proteus Staff " target="blank"> Proteus Staff : our tutor, our wand, our Drake's Pimp Stick. Find that golden trifecta. Run the game over. Or slap some generals into oblivion. The choice is yours. This is a key card of this deck. A useful thing you could do with this card is to finish our 'triforce' of creatures, then reorder your entire library to set up some completely broken draws.
Vedalken ShacklesA useful rattlesnake card. We're vulnerable to quick aggro or resource denial, but the Shackles help send people elsewhere. You attack me? I take your general.
Coat of Arms " target="blank">Coat of Arms This usually ends the game in one shot. Upon my first game after adding in the Proteus Package, I managed to create 390 damage on board in one shot.
Instants
This is the bulk of our deck. I will divide most of the cards by function as most of them do the same thing.
Our remaining 1-mana cantrips (excluding Disrupt.) Opt is to smooth out our draw, so is brainstorm. Whispers of the Muse is by far the best amongst the three if solely for repeated usage. Thought Scour is basically Mental Note for anyone, and can be used to mess up Vampiric Tutors. I put High Tide under this package, because this is what you use to get your instant-speed deck-fixing going: High Tide into various draw and bounce cards for an instant army.
I aimed to run counters with as low a CMC as possible. As such we didn't run powerhouses like Time Stop, choosing more situational cards such as Spell Syphon instead.
Spell Syphon, Logic Knot, Disrupt. These punish opponents for tapping out and are most efficient early game. We usually seek to use these first if we can. Logic Knot is good since we can sieve through our graveyard to make Elixir of Immortality more useful. Spell Syphon is great at two stages: early and late game. It works well as a Mana Leak early, and it works great when we have a large army of drakes.
The rest of the package is self-explanatory except for maybe rewind. Rewind is particularly
interesting as it allows us to untap up to four lands, which is ridiculous when we have Caged Sun or Gauntlet of Power. It gives us more mana to play with. I once survived a lethal swing with 2 mana left by casting Snap into Rewind, then overloading a Cyclonic Rift with Caged Sun out.
We have 13 ways to bounce cards in this deck, and 10 of them are instants. This is also what makes this Talrand deck unique. Most decks I've seen run high cantrips, but choose not to run that many bounce cards. While initially I added these cards because they were cheap and low mana, I realised that they were also a form of card advantage: they help your tempo by setting opponents back. Opponent tapped out for his/her general? Bounce that, counter it later.
Talrand is a tempo-based deck. 2/2s are really underwhelming late-game unless you have anthems out. Thus we want to be faster than our opponents. By having a bounce package we can slow our opponents down immensely through bouncing their key cards. I've used it in conjunction with Tidespout Tyrant to bounce 3 lands in one turn and winning the game soon after.
Cyclonic Rift and Echoing Truths serve as sweeps as well, with Echoing Truth sweeping most token-based decks, or getting rid of Cloned creatures with the new Legend rule. Likewise, Whiplash Trap can be amazing: bounce a creature an opponent just summoned, and if he/she casts it again, bounce 2 creatures. Poof, you're suddenly up 2 creatures - no wait, 3 creatures. Whirlpool Whelm is janky, but it is a cheap way of pseudoremoval.
Buried Ruin: In case our artifacts die, we can get them back. We need our artifacts too.
Reliquary Tower We'll be rolling in blue cards. We usually are able to continually cast our spells, most of which are self-replacing in terms of value. This is a card we will aim to drop as soon as possible.
Notable Omissions
Missing Cards/Strict Upgrades
Ancestral Vision:
Never a bad card to see. But it comes in 3 turns later..
Tezzeret, the Seeker:
artaud pointed this out to me. Tezzeret would be great for fetching up our Bident of Thassa (wow) as well as our Proteus Staff (WOW). I'm a bit conflicted due his CMC and his +1 ability doing very little for us, but for the chance to use Proteus Staff twice in one turn? Sign me up.
[CARD]Expedition Map/CARD]:
Find the tower, keep your hand.
Riptide Laboratory:
Earlier in the primer I talked about not running Lightning Greaves to be able to save our general from tuck effects with our bounce spells. This is the same thing, essentially, but even better since it's on a land and nigh-uncounterable. I will definitely secure a copy of this ASAP.
Synergistic/Powerful Cards
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant:
This card is easy to flip in this deck. We can potentially flip it in one turn without using mana. However, it works against the Proteus strategy. As I mentioned in the thread, Proteus Staff is generally meant to be played as the cherry on top of our Talrand Cake, it directly swings the game in our favour immediately should we be able to get it out. Erayo, on the other hand, is beneficial only if we can flip her, then have counterspells out or a sufficent source of card advantage, which those 3 cards provide. Getting an Erayo, even if it's a 25% chance, isn't the best option for us. Moreover, the fewer creatures we have, the faster we can Scry [Our Whole Deck], reordering everything. Since we have so much draw, this will almost definitely result in a win. Erayo is good, but not good enough, and situational, while the other cards tend to work well even when we're behind solely for the power they bring.
Moreover we're aiming to be both a 1v1 and multiplayer deck, hence the deck being less pure draw-go Mono-blue control and a nice, tasty blend of both powerful elements of Talrand. Erayo would need us to build towards being monoblue control, which wouldn't quite be as powerful - or fun- in multiplayer.
Lightning Greaves:
Oh, Greasy Boots. What will I ever do without you? You seem like a staple in every single one of my other commander decks.
That said, emphasis on every other one. Those decks are more creature-heavy and not as reliant on their respective commanders while splashing Black to help tutor up generals in case they get tucked. They are not quite as vulnerable to tucks and kill-spells. Giving our creatures shroud prevents us from keeping up our tempo for as long as possible as we cannot save our creature: this is especially so for Talrand. Even if he is simply killed, the extra mana cost needed to pay him is already devastating since we are low on mana ramp, it usually means we need 2 turns to cast him, without any reliable means of backup. A smart opponent could then keep two killspells in hand to kill him on turns 4 and 6, setting us back considerably.
While I am aware Swiftfoot Boots remains a viable option once again it isn't good for our tempo. It simply isn't, and the haste isn't particularly necessary. If I do need some form of protection, I will consider the Boots.
Time Warp, Time Stretchand their variants:
Extra turn spells are no doubt powerful. One could end the game with an extra turn, and one could search for answers, rebuild one's board position, or even in desperate times cast it on opponents as a political move. These cards are arguably a staple for every single deck that splashes blue, much more so for mono-blue. Yet, these do contradict slightly with our strategy and decklist. We want to keep mana open to cast at EoT: this is to keep our army as safe as possible and make it harder for opponents to prepare adequately. Moreover, this is a 5-mana sorcery, nearly double the mana cost of most spells in the deck, so casting it usually becomes yet another combat step. While extra combat steps are good, this would therefore necessitate that the card is best played when we are already dominating, and would not work as well if say, our general has died a few times. While I do not mean that such spells should not be played, I believe that in this deck, they may be less than optimal. Play at your own discretion.
Cast Through Time:
Yet another 'win-more' card. Once again, this card is great in the sense it essentially doubles our mana: everything happens twice. This makes the deck particularly scary because we can thereotically increase our production exponentially over the course of a few turns. Then again, as a 7-mana card in a deck with little mana acceleration, I fear that it remains a 7-mana Krosan Grip target. It doesn't fit in our tempo-based strategy, and is essentially a late-game card. Undeniably, it will always be good in the late game as long as we cast a single spell, but I wouldn't want to see this card appear in my first 15-20 cards.
However nothing is really permanent in Commander. Reanimation strategies aside, the way the card works, in my opinion really encourages the player to keep the card to late game, to remove key threats. I wouldn't use it early because I wouldn't set my opponent too far back. I wouldn't use it on their blocker, even if it was flying. If I had this card in hand, I would likely save it for key threats from their decks, such as Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger. As such it would not work as well in this tempo-based build compared to bounce spells. What do opponents want to do? They want to summon a creature. You bounce that creature. What would your opponent be likely to do? Summon it again!
Then again, if your meta is full of early ETB creatures I would suggest including these cards, since bounce becomes much less effective.
Bounce is also chosen over killspells to save our unprotected creatures. This is why we do not run any Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots. In case of wraths, or worse still, tuck spells, we want to bounce our key creatures to prevent them from going to the graveyard so we can rebuild our board later.
Bosium Strip:
I've seen this card in plenty of decklists, but as we are not running many bomb spells, and our average CMC is below 3, this card would usually be underwhelming. If this deck was more of a control deck, I would run it for the chance to recur cards like Time Warp.
Devastation Tide and its variants:
Once again, this is chiefly a tempo-based deck and is likely not to not resort to sweeps. We can rebuild our board fairly quickly as well. However these types of card are still great and I would recommend them to be played in creature-heavy formats, or especially against Voltron decks as a last-resort.
Mystic Speculation:
Recurrable (buyback) but sorcery-speed only makes this deck very, very underwhelming as part of our strategy. If it was an instant I'd run it for sure. Note that we have very few sorceries so we can play safe and avoid overextending, saving up mana for counters to protect our boardstate.
Day of the Dragons:
Do the Dragons have haste? In either case it simultaneously strengthens and weakens our board. It basically allows our entire tempo to die out with a single Naturalize, and because it exiles all creatures, including Talrand, we can't rely on creating more Drakes in the meantime. While they do come back, we lose all of our drakes. This is why we run Gravitational Shift, Gauntlet of Power, Caged Sun and Coat of Arms, which give a better pump in the long run. Moreover, it allows us to keep our key utility creatures on the board. If your deck runs a lot of EtB creatures AND you are more a control-oriented player, you could run this card in lieu of Gravitational Shift so that you can use EtB triggers.
Dissipation Field, Propaganda, etc.
Yet again, people attacking us should not be a concern. We need to outrace to outlive, not outlive to outrace. Moreover, it's already really difficult to swing into us thanks to our bounce spells and tokens.
Gush and other free spells
Free spells here would refer to stuff like Thwart. My opinion is that early on their tempo advantages are actually a non-bo since we end up losing our lands. It's true we can recast our stuff using Terrain Generator and the like, but I'd rather not run the risk of being blown out completely. Plus we're likely to end up discarding unless we have a Tower out.
Deckstats
Last Updated: 19 October 2013 http://deck.tk/0Lxf82AX
Average CMC: 2.77
62% Spells, 4% Creatures, 34% Lands
36% Instants, 10% Sorceries, 9% Artifacts
In order of Concentration:
17 CMC 1 Spells
16 CMC 2 Spells
13 CMC 3 Spells
8/9 CMC 4 Spells
5 CMC 5 Spells
1 spell for CMC 6, 7, 8 and 10.
Buy the deck now: $ 142.97 (estimated)
Maybeboard
Strict upgrades/better choices. Bolded cards indicate cards that I find to be of high priority for immediate playtesting.
Spellweaver lets us reuse the cards in our graveyard. However, it is conflicting with Elixir of Immortality and Logic Knot. Moreover it may not fetch relevant spells.
Unified Will does the same thing Logic Knot does for us in this deck, but it appears to only be good when we are ahead. We have to be ahead to use this: do we need it?
I can see shenanigans with Sakashima copying Talrand or Tidespout for doubling their effects, but it'd be pretty useless in a pinch. Stormtide Leviathan is great since most of our creatures have flying anyway, but I don't find it necessary due to the lack of dangerous, faster aggro/tempo decks in my playgroup. Token decks in my playgroup usually sacrifice the tokens anyway. Cast Through Time is fun, but I wouldn't play it unless I've got Mystical Tutor or Time Warp variants.
Mystical Tutor helps us a lot in the long run. Tutor for Cyclonic Rift, tutor for Fabricate, tutor for Blue Sun's Zenith. She doesn't mind. You can even tutor for Long Term Plans to have a mono-blue tutor.
We simply weren't running enough artifacts to use Override/ Thoughtcast properly. As cards with affinity or based on artifacts, they have the potential to be free, but this is unlikely. Claws of Gix was questionable : what do I do with this, anyway?
Mnemonic Wall wasn't worth the recursion, Call to Mind would be better. Downpour was included to help us connect in terms of damage, but honestly, there aren't a lot of flying-based token decks out there.
Big changes, big changes!
First, we removed our 'pointless' spells. These are the ones meant solely to increase our spell count, such as Obsessive Search, Artful Dodge.
Next, we removed our draw spells - the ones that were bad. Inspiration was ok, but it was removed along with Counsel of the Soratami and others. These help us draw, yes, but a lot of our cards already do that.
Lastly, we removed our Favourable Winds for we already had its bigger brother, Gravitational Shift, plus most of our creatures to run the Proteus Staff synergy and combo.
1. I had added ghost quarter by accident. It was never there, so now I should be back to the correct number of islands.
2. Peer Through Depths: More than once it has done something like shuffle key cards away, which really ticked me off. A good card but I don't like it too much.
3. Mental Note, Helm of Possession: Strict upgrades. Since Mental Note was gone Grasp of Phantoms as a card really fell a bit in value, so it's out too.
4. Mana Leak because Mana Leak. It was never really going to be good.
I never want to keep a hand with the Wand in it. I never cast it, I never draw it when I could use it, I never want to see it most of the time. It is synergstic but completely underwhelming. Memory Lapse was risky in that it did little against decks with card draw, and we kept drawing into islands we simply did not need. Wash Out is for a reliable way to clear our opponent's field, High Tide for mana shenanigans and Blue Sun's Zenith for awesome card draw.
THEROS UPDATE! Why did we remove our 'pinch' cards? Because they never seem to help us . In 1v1 they're deadweight and in multiplayer you often have the biggest hand, if not you'd often be facing a control player and helping others draw into things to beat you down. Politics is important, yes, but I never really saw myself wanting or having to cast this at all.
Theros brought a lot of goodies, but now I own a copy of Annul. Annul is good for dealing with gods and whatnot. If you find your local meta dominated by fiery gods of destruction (e.g. Purphoros, which I will upload once my exams are over) this might be good. Bident is a more resilient Coastal Piracy, and it even helps us make sure we connect. Furthermore it can be tutored and recurred. That's just awesome.
19/1/04
Updated decklist!
Removed Annul, and decklist was missing 1 card (apparently)
I am contemplating re-adding Memory Lapse after a few games where I was not able to draw into enough counterspells to protect myself. Annul was good for the surprise factor if we cast it T1-3 but it just makes enemies and is pretty dead later on. Steel Sabotage may be better.
BGJumpin' JaradsGB BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends RWG Marath Sunforger RWG WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
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BGJumpin' JaradsGB BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends RWG Marath Sunforger RWG WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
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I run mine with 35, it seems like a nice sweet spot. You've gotta run a few things like Armillary Sphere to keep up with the drops, though. Still, overall that's probably a solid number.
Also, there's almost no reason for Manalith; there are two mana versions that accomplish what it does, there are 3 mana versions that are strictly better in a few regards, and mana acceleration is less what you need; you need to hit those land drops. Or, if you need to accelerate, do so with all of your mana; Caged Sun, Gauntlet of Power, Extraplanar Lens all work fabulously.
I run mine with 35, it seems like a nice sweet spot. You've gotta run a few things like Armillary Sphere to keep up with the drops, though. Still, overall that's probably a solid number.
Also, there's almost no reason for Manalith; there are two mana versions that accomplish what it does, there are 3 mana versions that are strictly better in a few regards, and mana acceleration is less what you need; you need to hit those land drops. Or, if you need to accelerate, do so with all of your mana; Caged Sun, Gauntlet of Power, Extraplanar Lens all work fabulously.
I might just replace Manalith with an Island. 37 land drops is gravy.
Budget issues, I might not get the mana doublers...not now anyway.
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BGJumpin' JaradsGB BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends RWG Marath Sunforger RWG WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
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Not enough artifacts to really make use of Override and Thoughtcast.
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You have an awful lot of soft counters or X counters (which I don't rely on), is there any reason why?
Mostly because I don't have any spare Counterspells left. If I get them, I'll use them to replace the 3 mana spells. The XU spells are powerful early game or when we start rolling drakes and have enough mana, but once again, I'll try and get better counters, including Counterspell, Arcane Denial and Dismiss.
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This deck changed from my hahaha look it's a onedrop trash card deck into a really, really fun deck I like to play a lot so I'm slowly upgrading it so it has higher chances of winning. Please comment!
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You have Coat of Arms listed twice
Nice deck though! Might give it a try
whoops, it was a caged sun
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I've written an article on Talrand that might give you some suggestions. It's two budget versions along with a non-budget version listed at the bottom. Despite budget restrictions it's by far my most powerful deck, to the point that I'd be archenemy at the table right off the bat and yet still beat out all 3+ opponents teaming up against me for the win. I've since retired the deck due to the negative reactions from my playgroup.
What I would recommend in general is to trim out the "win-more" cards like Favorable Winds, Gravitational Shift, Coat of Arms, etc. If you've untapped with Talrand and have a couple drakes out, you've won, it doesn't matter if your drakes are 2/2 or 4/4. It's getting to that point that you need to work towards.
EDIT: Caged Sun is the exception because it's run primarily as excellent mana ramp with the added bonus of anthem.
I've always thought Talrand can only work in 1v1. How does it play out in multiplayer? I thought that it would be difficult to protect Talrand and prevent others from doing their thing long enough for you to crash in with drakes when there's three turns that you have to go through before you get yours back.
I've always thought Talrand can only work in 1v1. How does it play out in multiplayer? I thought that it would be difficult to protect Talrand and prevent others from doing their thing long enough for you to crash in with drakes when there's three turns that you have to go through before you get yours back.
it certainly isn't as effective in multiplayer, but it's doable, i suppose. keep threat levels down, get out crucial cards, be political about it (e.g. "hey you hit me with a creature so let me hit you with 1 drake so I can draw a card. we cool? we cool." )
In any case ideally you shouldn't have too many drakes out without a counter in multi due to the availability of sweeps? Like keep mana open for counters and keep some instants to save talrand/ rebuild army.
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Way more artifact ramp, with all the carddraw you're only limited to the amount of stuff you can do in a turn by the mana you have available. Grand architect becomes pretty cool when you got more artifact ramp as you can play it with your drakes and he makes your drakes bigger.
I would take out some of the simpler bounce and the counterspells like mana leak, those are pretty bad in edh in my opinion. You only want a few hard counters that'll always work. Deprive is pretty sweet!
the last three are priorities for me to acquire.
mana leak and disrupt are pretty troll, I suppose. I might get deprive or the counter that returns to top of library or remand. Mostly I'm playing it because my playgroup think it's funny and it's worked before, but I'm aware there are better options.
I may run Grand Architect, but currently I do not have enough artifacts.
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I've written an article on Talrand that might give you some suggestions. It's two budget versions along with a non-budget version listed at the bottom. Despite budget restrictions it's by far my most powerful deck, to the point that I'd be archenemy at the table right off the bat and yet still beat out all 3+ opponents teaming up against me for the win. I've since retired the deck due to the negative reactions from my playgroup.
What I would recommend in general is to trim out the "win-more" cards like Favorable Winds, Gravitational Shift, Coat of Arms, etc. If you've untapped with Talrand and have a couple drakes out, you've won, it doesn't matter if your drakes are 2/2 or 4/4. It's getting to that point that you need to work towards.
EDIT: Caged Sun is the exception because it's run primarily as excellent mana ramp with the added bonus of anthem.
I like the deck, but I may not build the exact same deck. I may incorporate certain elements of your deck, i.e. the artifact mana sources, the 1 mana kill spells, etc. There are a lot of blue counters I should be running in lieu of my current counters. DEFINITELY getting most of your ramp package and subbing out Star Compass.
I also want to keep this playstyle due to the same reasons you retired it: negative reactions. Our playgroup really dislikes the counter-all decks after suffering during a time when both Azami and Dralnu were played.
I'd remove the anthems in this order: FW > GS = CA, mostly for the GS protecting me from aggro.
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Yeah, it really depends on your playgroup's stance on countermagic. My playgroup isn't against SOME countermagic, in fact we all pray for someone to have it when something like Sylvan Primordial is cast. There's so much broken stuff out there that can only be fairly answered with countermagic. But my group would be pissed when I locked the entire table out of doing anything that would negatively effect my board position. They never banned it or anything, but you could see that nobody was having a good time. I still feel the aftereffects in my group. Most people run some sort of countermagic hate right now, from Mana Web, Price of Glory, Grand Abolisher, City of Solitude, Cavern of Souls, Boseiju, etc. Even Red Elemental Blast and one guy's deck has Omen of Fire.
On the other hand, I think I went 5-0 with my online version of the deck and no one ever complained, not once. Different mentality I think.
It sounds like your group is similar to mine. Some countermagic good, all countermagic bad. So it makes perfect sense to keep the counter count lower and add in more bounce / fun shenanigans. Blue certainly is more versatile than just that!
Yeah, it really depends on your playgroup's stance on countermagic. My playgroup isn't against SOME countermagic, in fact we all pray for someone to have it when something like Sylvan Primordial is cast. There's so much broken stuff out there that can only be fairly answered with countermagic. But my group would be pissed when I locked the entire table out of doing anything that would negatively effect my board position. They never banned it or anything, but you could see that nobody was having a good time. I still feel the aftereffects in my group. Most people run some sort of countermagic hate right now, from Mana Web, Price of Glory, Grand Abolisher, City of Solitude, Cavern of Souls, Boseiju, etc. Even Red Elemental Blast and one guy's deck has Omen of Fire.
On the other hand, I think I went 5-0 with my online version of the deck and no one ever complained, not once. Different mentality I think.
It sounds like your group is similar to mine. Some countermagic good, all countermagic bad. So it makes perfect sense to keep the counter count lower and add in more bounce / fun shenanigans. Blue certainly is more versatile than just that!
Same here. Our playgroup used to be pretty spikey but over time we just scaled everything down for fun but not weak decks. Talrand was a sideproject for me while I was building my Jarad and it used to be pretty much every jank blue instant I could find in my house but it's become something funny to see in multiplayer. Like I can just ask in the most obnoxious voice possible "HOW MUCH MANA DO YOU HAVE LEFT" and the table will laugh because they know I run Disrupt/Mana Leak. (I know they're not the best, but I will get around to replacing them eventually.)
There's only another monoblue deck left in my playgroup but it's Braids, so yes! We sort of became accustomed to a format with lower amount of counters. Made the game more interesting and prevented the blue player from snowballing or forcing collective action.
On that note, I'm wondering what other funny counters/instants there are? I mean cards that functionally serve a relevant purpose but aren't necessarily the most common ones.
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Played one multiplayer game with Talrand today and managed to kill all 3 players with Windreader Sphinx and an increasing army of drakes, drawing 10-18 cards per turn with sufficient mana to counter. The deck is certainly much more reliable now with the inclusion of Proteus Staff and Windreader, rather than being what was essentially Talrand glass cannon. No doubt the tempo has slowed down a bit, the deck is now more control-based and definitely, stronger.
Hope these cuts will bring the deck to new heights.
Any suggestions what else I could cut/add?
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I was triying to find a (MonoU) deck that seems competitive in 1v1 french list (other that Arcumns), in replace of my Vendilion Clique, wich is very affected in that format; and I was able to find it until I saw your list.
I like the idea of playing a control/tempo deck instead of one aggro/control. And it seems you find a way to play it very well.
I let you know that maybe im mimic your deck soon (with my own touches, of course).
I was triying to find a (MonoU) deck that seems competitive in 1v1 french list (other that Arcumns), in replace of my Vendilion Clique, wich is very affected in that format; and I was able to find it until I saw your list.
I like the idea of playing a control/tempo deck instead of one aggro/control. And it seems you find a way to play it very well.
I let you know that maybe im mimic your deck soon (with my own touches, of course).
Thanks!! I tried my best to strike a balance between control and tempo, and I'm glad you liked it!
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Cudios for making a Tarland EDH deck. I too built him with any blue cards i had and was really impressed how well he functions as a general.
Anyways how much artifact ramp do you run?
My list has 8-10 i think (cant remember of the top of my head) but basically I want to run him out asap, ideally turn 3 although have managed turn 2 once.
I also recomend cards like snap and rewind if you have them or can get them (shouldnt be too expensive).
Also runechanters pike is awesome for this deck, and I really like spellskite as a means for protecting your general.
What I love about Tarland is that even in multiplayer with many wraths, he can come out, and after a few spells you are back in the lead with your army and feel as if that day of judgement never happend.
I think somewhere between 8-10 counters is enough, with all the card drawing and bounce etc you wont need more than that.
Lastly if you dont have it Tarland's Invocation needs to be in the deck. Just fits the whole theme perfectly.
Hope that helps and enjoy those drakes
I have all of those except for Kira and Spellskite.
Runechanter's was a interesting choice but I decided not to use it because it was a 'win-more' effect. It also went against my plans of using Logic Knot, Elixir and potentially other graveyard shuffling cards i.e. Time Reversal, which I am still considering. Moreover tempo-wise it seems a bit out of place, I'd much rather run Coat of Arms directly.
Spellskite is a good idea, I suppose. The reason I don't run Kira though is because I like to keep my Talrand unprotected with a bounce-spell ready, in case of tucks which seem to happen often in my playgroup.
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Made the thread into a pseudo-primer! Won't apply for primer until I make a card choices section.
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BGJumpin' JaradsGB BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends RWG Marath Sunforger RWG WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
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BGJumpin' JaradsGB BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends RWG Marath Sunforger RWG WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
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"Don't ask me how I got them, but these guys are the wind beneath my wings."
"started from the bottom, now we're here. started from the bottom, now my whole team here.
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
//Mana (3)
1 Sol Ring
1 High Tide
2 Sapphire Medallion
//Deck-fixing (7)
1 Serum Visions
1 Ponder
1 Portent
1 Preordain
2 Impulse
2 Telling Time
3 Long-Term Plans
1 Brainstorm
1 Thought Scour
1 Opt
1 Sleight of Hand
2 Think Twice
3 Frantic Search
3 Keep Watch
3 Rhystic Study
3 Blue Sun's Zenith
4 Bident of Thassa
4 Coastal Piracy
//Counter (15)
1 Swan Song
1 Dispel
1 Disrupt
2 Arcane Denial
2 Counterspell
2 Logic Knot
2 Muddle the Mixture
2 Memory Lapse
2 Negate
2 Spell Syphon
3 Dissipate
3 Hinder
3 Stoic Rebuttal
3 Spell Crumple
4 Rewind
1 Vapor Snag
2 Boomerang
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Into The Roil
2 Echoing Truth
2 Snap
3 Repulse
4 Wash Out
4 Opposition
5 Tamiyo, The Moon Sage
5 Whiplash Trap
5 Sunder
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Gitaxian Probe
2 Vedalken Shackles
2 Isochron Scepter
3 Fabricate
3 Back to Basics
3 Bosium Strip
4 Leyline of Anticipation
4 Talrand's Invocation
//Proteus Package (4)
3 Proteus Staff
7 Windreader Sphinx
8 Tidespout Tyrant
10 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
5 Coat of Arms
5 Gauntlet of Power
5 Gravitational Shift
6 Caged Sun
//Lands (34)
32 Island
1 Buried Ruin
1 Reliquary Tower
4 Talrand, Sky Summoner
//Instants
1 Swan Song
1 Brainstorm
1 Dispel
1 Disrupt
1 High Tide
1 Thought Scour
1 Opt
1 Unsummon
1 Vapor Snag
2 Arcane Denial
2 Boomerang
2 Counterspell
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Into the Roil
2 Echoing Truths
2 Impulse
2x Logic Knot
2 Muddle the Mixture
2 Peer Through Depths
2 Snap
2 Spell Syphon
2 Telling Time
2 Think Twice
2 Negate
3 Dissipate
3 Hinder
3 Frantic Search
3 Keep Watch
3 Repulse
3 Spell Crumple
3 Stoic Rebuttal
4 Rewind
5 Whiplash Trap
5 Sunder
//Sorceries
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ponder
1 Portent
1 Preordain
1 Serum Visions
1 Sleight of Hand
3 Fabricate
4 Talrand's Invocation
4 Wash Out
//Artifacts
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Sol Ring
2 Isochron Scepter
2 Sapphire Medallion
3 Proteus Staff
3 Bosium Strip
3 Vedalken Shackles
4 Bident of Thassa
5 Coat of Arms
5 Gauntlet of Power
6 Caged Sun
3 Rhystic Study
3 Back to Basics
4 Coastal Piracy
4 Opposition
4 Leyline of Anticipation
5 Gravitational Shift
//Planeswalkers
5 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
//Creatures
7 Windreader Sphinx
8 Tidespout Tyrant
10 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
//Lands (34)
32 Island
1 Buried Ruin
1 Reliquary Tower
Why Play Talrand?
Should you become the next leader of drakes?
Talrand is exciting to play because it presents the player with an interesting, fresh strategy: Mono-Blue aggro. The last time I remember any mono-blue aggro deck was when I wanted to build a Sun Quan, Lord of Wu deck, which I never really got around to. This deck is relatively tame to play while being rather strong if left unchecked, and arguably is fun to play against due to its multiple, cheap and interesting spells as well as its more forgiving nature. It hits the right spots for aggro, control and tempo. Talrand makes a great choice for anyone in a casual to semi-competitive meta, especially those low on token strategies. It is a resilient deck, as long as you can cast Talrand.
Pros:Cons:
Deck History
Initial Design Philosophy
Bio
Strategy
Strategy
Talrand's strategy is simple and easy to explain. It is a matter of tempo and control. You want to be fast but you want to have a backup plan. You want to aggro but not over-extend. It's a delicate balance between yin and yang, between sky and sea. As such Talrand is an easy control deck to play, but it still has several nuances in playstyle.
Early Game
Mid-Game
Late-Game
Misc.
Multiplayer
Deck Synergy
Creatures
Sorceries
Enchantments
PlaneswalkersArtifacts
Instants
Lands
Notable Omissions
Missing Cards/Strict Upgrades
Ancestral Vision:
Never a bad card to see. But it comes in 3 turns later..
Tezzeret, the Seeker:
artaud pointed this out to me. Tezzeret would be great for fetching up our Bident of Thassa (wow) as well as our Proteus Staff (WOW). I'm a bit conflicted due his CMC and his +1 ability doing very little for us, but for the chance to use Proteus Staff twice in one turn? Sign me up.
[CARD]Expedition Map/CARD]:
Find the tower, keep your hand.
Riptide Laboratory:
Earlier in the primer I talked about not running Lightning Greaves to be able to save our general from tuck effects with our bounce spells. This is the same thing, essentially, but even better since it's on a land and nigh-uncounterable. I will definitely secure a copy of this ASAP.
Synergistic/Powerful Cards
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant:
This card is easy to flip in this deck. We can potentially flip it in one turn without using mana. However, it works against the Proteus strategy. As I mentioned in the thread, Proteus Staff is generally meant to be played as the cherry on top of our Talrand Cake, it directly swings the game in our favour immediately should we be able to get it out. Erayo, on the other hand, is beneficial only if we can flip her, then have counterspells out or a sufficent source of card advantage, which those 3 cards provide. Getting an Erayo, even if it's a 25% chance, isn't the best option for us. Moreover, the fewer creatures we have, the faster we can Scry [Our Whole Deck], reordering everything. Since we have so much draw, this will almost definitely result in a win. Erayo is good, but not good enough, and situational, while the other cards tend to work well even when we're behind solely for the power they bring.
Moreover we're aiming to be both a 1v1 and multiplayer deck, hence the deck being less pure draw-go Mono-blue control and a nice, tasty blend of both powerful elements of Talrand. Erayo would need us to build towards being monoblue control, which wouldn't quite be as powerful - or fun- in multiplayer.
Lightning Greaves:
Oh, Greasy Boots. What will I ever do without you? You seem like a staple in every single one of my other commander decks.
That said, emphasis on every other one. Those decks are more creature-heavy and not as reliant on their respective commanders while splashing Black to help tutor up generals in case they get tucked. They are not quite as vulnerable to tucks and kill-spells. Giving our creatures shroud prevents us from keeping up our tempo for as long as possible as we cannot save our creature: this is especially so for Talrand. Even if he is simply killed, the extra mana cost needed to pay him is already devastating since we are low on mana ramp, it usually means we need 2 turns to cast him, without any reliable means of backup. A smart opponent could then keep two killspells in hand to kill him on turns 4 and 6, setting us back considerably.
While I am aware Swiftfoot Boots remains a viable option once again it isn't good for our tempo. It simply isn't, and the haste isn't particularly necessary. If I do need some form of protection, I will consider the Boots.
Time Warp, Time Stretch and their variants:
Extra turn spells are no doubt powerful. One could end the game with an extra turn, and one could search for answers, rebuild one's board position, or even in desperate times cast it on opponents as a political move. These cards are arguably a staple for every single deck that splashes blue, much more so for mono-blue. Yet, these do contradict slightly with our strategy and decklist. We want to keep mana open to cast at EoT: this is to keep our army as safe as possible and make it harder for opponents to prepare adequately. Moreover, this is a 5-mana sorcery, nearly double the mana cost of most spells in the deck, so casting it usually becomes yet another combat step. While extra combat steps are good, this would therefore necessitate that the card is best played when we are already dominating, and would not work as well if say, our general has died a few times. While I do not mean that such spells should not be played, I believe that in this deck, they may be less than optimal. Play at your own discretion.
Cast Through Time:
Yet another 'win-more' card. Once again, this card is great in the sense it essentially doubles our mana: everything happens twice. This makes the deck particularly scary because we can thereotically increase our production exponentially over the course of a few turns. Then again, as a 7-mana card in a deck with little mana acceleration, I fear that it remains a 7-mana Krosan Grip target. It doesn't fit in our tempo-based strategy, and is essentially a late-game card. Undeniably, it will always be good in the late game as long as we cast a single spell, but I wouldn't want to see this card appear in my first 15-20 cards.
Blue Kill-spells
I refer to cards such as Pongify and Instant Hybridisation. These are great because they can permanently remove a threat from the board compared to Unsummon or Vapor Swag. (Intentional typo.)
However nothing is really permanent in Commander. Reanimation strategies aside, the way the card works, in my opinion really encourages the player to keep the card to late game, to remove key threats. I wouldn't use it early because I wouldn't set my opponent too far back. I wouldn't use it on their blocker, even if it was flying. If I had this card in hand, I would likely save it for key threats from their decks, such as Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger. As such it would not work as well in this tempo-based build compared to bounce spells. What do opponents want to do? They want to summon a creature. You bounce that creature. What would your opponent be likely to do? Summon it again!
Then again, if your meta is full of early ETB creatures I would suggest including these cards, since bounce becomes much less effective.
Bounce is also chosen over killspells to save our unprotected creatures. This is why we do not run any Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots. In case of wraths, or worse still, tuck spells, we want to bounce our key creatures to prevent them from going to the graveyard so we can rebuild our board later.
Bosium Strip:
I've seen this card in plenty of decklists, but as we are not running many bomb spells, and our average CMC is below 3, this card would usually be underwhelming. If this deck was more of a control deck, I would run it for the chance to recur cards like Time Warp.
Devastation Tide and its variants:
Once again, this is chiefly a tempo-based deck and is likely not to not resort to sweeps. We can rebuild our board fairly quickly as well. However these types of card are still great and I would recommend them to be played in creature-heavy formats, or especially against Voltron decks as a last-resort.
Mystic Speculation:
Recurrable (buyback) but sorcery-speed only makes this deck very, very underwhelming as part of our strategy. If it was an instant I'd run it for sure. Note that we have very few sorceries so we can play safe and avoid overextending, saving up mana for counters to protect our boardstate.
Day of the Dragons:
Do the Dragons have haste? In either case it simultaneously strengthens and weakens our board. It basically allows our entire tempo to die out with a single Naturalize, and because it exiles all creatures, including Talrand, we can't rely on creating more Drakes in the meantime. While they do come back, we lose all of our drakes. This is why we run Gravitational Shift, Gauntlet of Power, Caged Sun and Coat of Arms, which give a better pump in the long run. Moreover, it allows us to keep our key utility creatures on the board. If your deck runs a lot of EtB creatures AND you are more a control-oriented player, you could run this card in lieu of Gravitational Shift so that you can use EtB triggers.
Dissipation Field, Propaganda, etc.
Yet again, people attacking us should not be a concern. We need to outrace to outlive, not outlive to outrace. Moreover, it's already really difficult to swing into us thanks to our bounce spells and tokens.
Gush and other free spells
Free spells here would refer to stuff like Thwart. My opinion is that early on their tempo advantages are actually a non-bo since we end up losing our lands. It's true we can recast our stuff using Terrain Generator and the like, but I'd rather not run the risk of being blown out completely. Plus we're likely to end up discarding unless we have a Tower out.
Deckstats
http://deck.tk/0Lxf82AX
Average CMC: 2.77
62% Spells, 4% Creatures, 34% Lands
36% Instants, 10% Sorceries, 9% Artifacts
In order of Concentration:
17 CMC 1 Spells
16 CMC 2 Spells
13 CMC 3 Spells
8/9 CMC 4 Spells
5 CMC 5 Spells
1 spell for CMC 6, 7, 8 and 10.
Buy the deck now: $ 142.97 (estimated)
Maybeboard
Strict upgrades/better choices. Bolded cards indicate cards that I find to be of high priority for immediate playtesting.
Recursion Spellweaver lets us reuse the cards in our graveyard. However, it is conflicting with Elixir of Immortality and Logic Knot. Moreover it may not fetch relevant spells.
CounterUnified Will does the same thing Logic Knot does for us in this deck, but it appears to only be good when we are ahead. We have to be ahead to use this: do we need it?
BounceMisc I can see shenanigans with Sakashima copying Talrand or Tidespout for doubling their effects, but it'd be pretty useless in a pinch. Stormtide Leviathan is great since most of our creatures have flying anyway, but I don't find it necessary due to the lack of dangerous, faster aggro/tempo decks in my playgroup. Token decks in my playgroup usually sacrifice the tokens anyway. Cast Through Time is fun, but I wouldn't play it unless I've got Mystical Tutor or Time Warp variants.
Tutor Mystical Tutor helps us a lot in the long run. Tutor for Cyclonic Rift, tutor for Fabricate, tutor for Blue Sun's Zenith. She doesn't mind. You can even tutor for Long Term Plans to have a mono-blue tutor.
Tribal More anthem effects? Do we really need more?
Plans for Future Development
Bold indicate cards to be looked into ASAP.
More bounce elements/mass bounces/sweep
[c]
Aetherize[/c]
Include an "Optimizing for Competitive" and/or "Optimizing for 1v1" section
Changelog
1/12/12
Manalith wasn't cutting it. We didn't really need the ramp, besides, we could have at least used the Darksteel Ingot.
2/12/12
3/3/13
Mnemonic Wall wasn't worth the recursion, Call to Mind would be better. Downpour was included to help us connect in terms of damage, but honestly, there aren't a lot of flying-based token decks out there.
25/7/13
Cards cut:
Big changes, big changes!
First, we removed our 'pointless' spells. These are the ones meant solely to increase our spell count, such as Obsessive Search, Artful Dodge.
Next, we removed our draw spells - the ones that were bad. Inspiration was ok, but it was removed along with Counsel of the Soratami and others. These help us draw, yes, but a lot of our cards already do that.
Lastly, we removed our Favourable Winds for we already had its bigger brother, Gravitational Shift, plus most of our creatures to run the Proteus Staff synergy and combo.
Cards included:
Buried Ruin for recursion, Logic Knot for what essentially becomes a Counterspell late game. Reliable counters in the form of Hinder, Spell Crumple and others. Card advantage in Rhystic Study, Ramp in Gauntlet of Power, our big bomb baddies in the form of Tidespout Tyrant.
27/7/13 Strict upgrade. It appears I removed the wrong card some time before.
30/7/13
As they come into play tapped, these are an absolute roadblock in our race to domination. Early they are underwhelming, late they are liabilities.
7/8/13
1. I had added ghost quarter by accident. It was never there, so now I should be back to the correct number of islands.
2. Peer Through Depths: More than once it has done something like shuffle key cards away, which really ticked me off. A good card but I don't like it too much.
3. Mental Note, Helm of Possession: Strict upgrades. Since Mental Note was gone Grasp of Phantoms as a card really fell a bit in value, so it's out too.
4. Mana Leak because Mana Leak. It was never really going to be good.
Added:
Isochron for Isochron, as explained earlier.
Memory Lapse: tempo based counter. More on this later...
Preordain: fixing, cheap, etc. Now we have all the one-mana deck-fixing sorceries.
Vedalken Shackles: strict upgrade.
Thought Scour: Strict upgrade.
Muddle the Mixture: Counter and a tutor for Cyclonic Rift, Sapphire Medallion, etc!
25/8/13
I never want to keep a hand with the Wand in it. I never cast it, I never draw it when I could use it, I never want to see it most of the time. It is synergstic but completely underwhelming. Memory Lapse was risky in that it did little against decks with card draw, and we kept drawing into islands we simply did not need. Wash Out is for a reliable way to clear our opponent's field, High Tide for mana shenanigans and Blue Sun's Zenith for awesome card draw.
19/10/13
THEROS UPDATE! Why did we remove our 'pinch' cards? Because they never seem to help us . In 1v1 they're deadweight and in multiplayer you often have the biggest hand, if not you'd often be facing a control player and helping others draw into things to beat you down. Politics is important, yes, but I never really saw myself wanting or having to cast this at all.
Theros brought a lot of goodies, but now I own a copy of Annul. Annul is good for dealing with gods and whatnot. If you find your local meta dominated by fiery gods of destruction (e.g. Purphoros, which I will upload once my exams are over) this might be good. Bident is a more resilient Coastal Piracy, and it even helps us make sure we connect. Furthermore it can be tutored and recurred. That's just awesome.
19/1/04
Updated decklist!
Removed Annul, and decklist was missing 1 card (apparently)
Added Bosium Strip and Swan Song
I am contemplating re-adding Memory Lapse after a few games where I was not able to draw into enough counterspells to protect myself. Annul was good for the surprise factor if we cast it T1-3 but it just makes enemies and is pretty dead later on. Steel Sabotage may be better.
testing Bosium Strip.
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
Also, there's almost no reason for Manalith; there are two mana versions that accomplish what it does, there are 3 mana versions that are strictly better in a few regards, and mana acceleration is less what you need; you need to hit those land drops. Or, if you need to accelerate, do so with all of your mana; Caged Sun, Gauntlet of Power, Extraplanar Lens all work fabulously.
I might just replace Manalith with an Island. 37 land drops is gravy.
Budget issues, I might not get the mana doublers...not now anyway.
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
-Override
-Thoughtcast
-Claws of Gix
+ Downpour
+ Talrand's Invocation
+ Mnemonic Wall
Not enough artifacts to really make use of Override and Thoughtcast.
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
You have an awful lot of soft counters or X counters (which I don't rely on), is there any reason why?
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Mostly because I don't have any spare Counterspells left. If I get them, I'll use them to replace the 3 mana spells. The XU spells are powerful early game or when we start rolling drakes and have enough mana, but once again, I'll try and get better counters, including Counterspell, Arcane Denial and Dismiss.
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
This deck changed from my hahaha look it's a onedrop trash card deck into a really, really fun deck I like to play a lot so I'm slowly upgrading it so it has higher chances of winning. Please comment!
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
Nice deck though! Might give it a try
whoops, it was a caged sun
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
What I would recommend in general is to trim out the "win-more" cards like Favorable Winds, Gravitational Shift, Coat of Arms, etc. If you've untapped with Talrand and have a couple drakes out, you've won, it doesn't matter if your drakes are 2/2 or 4/4. It's getting to that point that you need to work towards.
EDIT: Caged Sun is the exception because it's run primarily as excellent mana ramp with the added bonus of anthem.
UBRThraximundar, Tribal ZombiesUBR
WURZedruu's Great TradesWUR
it certainly isn't as effective in multiplayer, but it's doable, i suppose. keep threat levels down, get out crucial cards, be political about it (e.g. "hey you hit me with a creature so let me hit you with 1 drake so I can draw a card. we cool? we cool." )
In any case ideally you shouldn't have too many drakes out without a counter in multi due to the availability of sweeps? Like keep mana open for counters and keep some instants to save talrand/ rebuild army.
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
the last three are priorities for me to acquire.
mana leak and disrupt are pretty troll, I suppose. I might get deprive or the counter that returns to top of library or remand. Mostly I'm playing it because my playgroup think it's funny and it's worked before, but I'm aware there are better options.
I may run Grand Architect, but currently I do not have enough artifacts.
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
I like the deck, but I may not build the exact same deck. I may incorporate certain elements of your deck, i.e. the artifact mana sources, the 1 mana kill spells, etc. There are a lot of blue counters I should be running in lieu of my current counters. DEFINITELY getting most of your ramp package and subbing out Star Compass.
I also want to keep this playstyle due to the same reasons you retired it: negative reactions. Our playgroup really dislikes the counter-all decks after suffering during a time when both Azami and Dralnu were played.
I'd remove the anthems in this order: FW > GS = CA, mostly for the GS protecting me from aggro.
Key Cards I'd get asap/look into
Pithing Needle
Hinder
Spin to Myth
Spell Crumple
Terrain Generator
Darksteel HEart
Journeyer's Kite
Deprive
Spelltwine
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
On the other hand, I think I went 5-0 with my online version of the deck and no one ever complained, not once. Different mentality I think.
It sounds like your group is similar to mine. Some countermagic good, all countermagic bad. So it makes perfect sense to keep the counter count lower and add in more bounce / fun shenanigans. Blue certainly is more versatile than just that!
UBRThraximundar, Tribal ZombiesUBR
WURZedruu's Great TradesWUR
Same here. Our playgroup used to be pretty spikey but over time we just scaled everything down for fun but not weak decks. Talrand was a sideproject for me while I was building my Jarad and it used to be pretty much every jank blue instant I could find in my house but it's become something funny to see in multiplayer. Like I can just ask in the most obnoxious voice possible "HOW MUCH MANA DO YOU HAVE LEFT" and the table will laugh because they know I run Disrupt/Mana Leak. (I know they're not the best, but I will get around to replacing them eventually.)
There's only another monoblue deck left in my playgroup but it's Braids, so yes! We sort of became accustomed to a format with lower amount of counters. Made the game more interesting and prevented the blue player from snowballing or forcing collective action.
On that note, I'm wondering what other funny counters/instants there are? I mean cards that functionally serve a relevant purpose but aren't necessarily the most common ones.
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
-Added Proteus Package
-Cut out some jank cards
-Reduced cantrips/pure draw cards: draw+function> pure draw as design philosophy
-Reduced ineffective cards
Cards cut:
Cards added
Played one multiplayer game with Talrand today and managed to kill all 3 players with Windreader Sphinx and an increasing army of drakes, drawing 10-18 cards per turn with sufficient mana to counter. The deck is certainly much more reliable now with the inclusion of Proteus Staff and Windreader, rather than being what was essentially Talrand glass cannon. No doubt the tempo has slowed down a bit, the deck is now more control-based and definitely, stronger.
Hope these cuts will bring the deck to new heights.
Any suggestions what else I could cut/add?
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
I like the idea of playing a control/tempo deck instead of one aggro/control. And it seems you find a way to play it very well.
I let you know that maybe im mimic your deck soon (with my own touches, of course).
Also I leave my Vendilion Clique list here, so you can give me some commentaries, maybe: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10471592#post10471592
Thanks!! I tried my best to strike a balance between control and tempo, and I'm glad you liked it!
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
I have all of those except for Kira and Spellskite.
Runechanter's was a interesting choice but I decided not to use it because it was a 'win-more' effect. It also went against my plans of using Logic Knot, Elixir and potentially other graveyard shuffling cards i.e. Time Reversal, which I am still considering. Moreover tempo-wise it seems a bit out of place, I'd much rather run Coat of Arms directly.
Spellskite is a good idea, I suppose. The reason I don't run Kira though is because I like to keep my Talrand unprotected with a bounce-spell ready, in case of tucks which seem to happen often in my playgroup.
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
- disperse
strict upgrade.
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB
BG Jumpin' JaradsGB
BB Furry Rat Lady: The Deck BB
UU I Don't Ever Want To Explain How Knowledge Pool Works Ever Again UU
RR This Is My Suika Cosplay Lightning Bolt Deck RR
WW Mangara exiles both permanents and friends
RWG Marath Sunforger RWG
WUBRG Cromat and Friends WUBRG
--
BG Savra, Rocking Attrition (retired) GB
BB">Shauku, Envoy of the End (retired) BB
BU Wrexial, the Tentacled H beast(retired)UB
BB Endrek Sahr, Master Commander (retired )BB
UU [PRIMER] Talrand's Terrible Tempo Terror Teatime (retired) UU
UBW Senator Trio - Three Heads Are Better Than One (retired) UBW
BB MONSTRUAL BLEEDING EREBOS SADISM (retired) BB