I had a sky summoner deck a few months ago...but my playgroup kept spanking it...once they learned to keep the general off the board...the deck kinda fell apart for me....could only counter so many removal...or mass removal cards.
I see you don't use greaves or boots or anything to shroud your general.. do you wait till you get your mana doublers out or something each game before playing your general...then spam spells all in 1-2 turns?
I played with alot of cantrip cards....
just curious how you keep your general alive....since its the key to winning the game...unless you manage to get out your eldrazi
I run Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, and Darksteel Plate. They help when I draw them but all Talrand decks suffer from the weakness to sweepers and removal spells they can't counter.
One of the biggest struggles my Talrand deck suffered from was of course when Talrand was not on the field. I actually ran more than just those three options at protecting him; Greaves, Swiftoot Boots, Whispersilk, Darksteel Plate, and a number of others, as well as a handful of tutors to get them out quickly, but if I didn't have them it often forced me into waiting an additional turn or two before I cast Talrand, and could put me at a disadvantage in the early game.
Still, when things flowed right, the deck was a true joy to pilot and could decimate most anything it came against, especially with several buffs for the drakes in play.
I see a lot of Snow-Covered Islands (I am jealous) but I do not see Scrying Sheets to help you draw through them. Any reason why?
Reading this has been an inspiration to improve my Talrand deck. Though, it looks like you're playing with a far larger budget than I am.
You do not need a large budget to make an effective Talrand deck, and I think that is one of the biggest appeals for me with him; while of course a larger budget is going to make a more highly tuned deck, even a modest or mediocre budget can make a solid deck with him.
I've actually ran a few of the cards you've mentioned previously. I wish I had kept a deck changelog in the first few months, but alas I neglected to do so as changes happened commonly. I used to run both Coastal Piracy and Opposition. They were great if I was going for drakes all game long.
That being said, that's not quite how this Talrand deck wins. As I see it, there are two primary ways to run Talrand as a general. Cheap, cantrippy style, which runs 30+ 1-2 mana instants and sorceries that replace themselves, enchantments and artifacts that benefit the drake strategy (here's looking at you, Gravitational Shift), and TONS of protection for Talrand so he doesn't get removed every turn. This style in particular is highly aggressive and will either win the game quickly or not much at all. Late game is tough with this because board wipes are fairly common. "Getting in there" isn't too much of an issue, it's keeping enough drakes alive that can win the game, as they're only 2/2's to start. Also, from a metagame perspective, aggro is really bad in multiplayer EDH. If you aggro, you really need to end the game before turn 6/7 as other players are going to start finding those answers by then, and then they'll have the upper hand in terms of economy or tech that will stomp the great drake army. At least, this was my experience.
The other way to run Talrand is as follows. Talrand is a side venture, possibly keeping a blocker or two if you need one until late game. Early game is all buildup and police. Mid game is all build up and police. I tend to drop a couple of permanents so that the board knows I don't have a full hand of "I win". This is what makes Propaganda and Rhystic Study in particular amazing. This is also the point where I would drop some of the mana doublers, or try to tutor for the mana doublers. End game is when I have enough mana to just explode. It's the turn where I drop High Tide to make my mana tap for 3-4. It's where I drop Tidespout Tyrant, kicking Rite of Replication and just dump the rest of my hand on spell after spell. Possibly a Time Warp so that I can just end the game right then and there. I may even cast talrand at this point for the drakes as well. I mean, Mystic Speculation ends up being scry 3, make a 2/2 flyer, bounce 6 permanents for 2U. Then do it again. This is where my deck focuses. This is also why Cyclonic Rift is going to be amazing for the deck. So many good interaction points for it. *drool*
Any way, that's the difference between this Talrand deck and a lot of other decks; mine goes for the late game win with multiple points where I just stop opponents from winning.
Now, on to the card choice mentions. High Tide is good because of High Tide, to be honest. I mean, it's only gonna be used once, but in the late game, you only need 1-2 turns with this deck to win. Increasing my mana for that one turn is usually enough. Sometimes, I need to go of sooner, and High Tide is an enabler.
Reset is amazing as well. Especially with Leyline of Anticipation/Vedalken Orrery. The big reason they made Reset only able to be cast on an opponents turn is because if it was on our turn, it would be busted backwards and frontwards. This removes that restriction to a great degree. >:D
Mind Games is one of those strategies that works with Tidespout Tyrant and Talrand in the late game, and mid game is fairly useful. Tapping down enemy creatures before they attack will prevent me from dying quite as commonly. I really should be running Spin Into Myth, that much is sure. I'll try it out over the next week and see how it goes.
I don't run greaves or boots because I'm okay with my general being there or not. My deck doesn't focus on Talrand as much, he's just one of the potential Win Conditions of the deck. If he works out, awesome! If not, that's fine too. I usually don't even cast Talrand until I'm ready to go off, unless someone is just running with the table and I need a few blockers.
Removal is a pain. That's one of the faults of the cantrippy version; always holding that counterspell isn't going to get you anywhere, eventually they'll get you. Then your entire strategy will have been for only a bit of damage. Remember, you have to deal 120 if you're going with aggro. With the slower version I run, it ends up being 40-80. Quite a difference!
Another problem with cantrips is that it's like playing with bad cards to make a great card better. I personally suggest skipping the cantrips and go for the big spells that will make a difference. Time Stop makes a difference. Whispers of the Muse not so much.
Oh, and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre is there primarily for anti-mill. Just one hoses the mill guy. Plus, the destroy target permanent is super nice in a mono blue deck. Lastly, if I get to have a turn where he can attack... Well, you get the idea. I once got him out on turn 3 (tons of mana enablers, and proteus staff), and it was fairly amazing. Lol'd.
Relying on your general always being there is difficult to do. If you play with any Blue, White, Black or Red players, odds are it can be removed. Hell, even Green has some good spot removal. And board removal is fairly prevalent as well. If your strategy relies on your general, throw in a backup plan. That's why Kaalia and Bruna strategies are easy to beat; Spell Crumple or Hinder removes their entire strategy away. Now having to hard cast things, they are at a serious disadvantage. The same is true for Talrand. Sure, you can cantrip all day without talrand. It won't get very far though. I'd like to say the strategy I employ is safer to go with for this, and other, reasons.
Scrying Sheets is a good card! I'm mostly picky is the reason why. Extraplanar Lens goes off with more Snow-Covered Islands, and I like to keep as many of them as possible. I'm actually looking to add another one in the deck since I've been mana screwed a few games in a row now. Oh well, I needed to get Doubling Cube, Wayfairer's Bauble and Gilded Lotus in there anyway. I may try Scrying Sheets in the deck again, however. I used to run it, and it ended up being worse than Mikokoro, Center of the Sea. I'll give it another shot though.
And Scott's definitely right about being highly tuned. It takes a lot of work and effort to make a deck fantastic. A lot of research, nonetheless. More money definitely helps (Mana Drain*shudder*), though it's not always required. I could run Mana Leak in it's place and though the power would go down significantly, It'd still be pretty great.
Thanks for the input everyone! Keep it coming, for sure!
I wish I had a Mana Drain lol. I was looking at them on ebay lastnight...
I run the aggro version BECAUSE its bad. The tension that you feel worrying about a wipe or removal you can't counter is fun to me. It isn't going to win a lot of games but I enjoy the drama.
Despite my intentionally bad deck, it does win sometimes and your list has helped mine a bunch. I might cut my Spelltwine for Time Stop. Spelltwine is splashier and can be another time walk but doesn't answer and problems for me.
Not yet. Been super swamped with work and IRL stuff. I've got some stuff saved on my local machine I'll be putting up though. I'll try and get some stuff updated over this weekend.
Updated a lot of things on the original post, more formatting, fancy picture, distinguished differences between Aggro and Control variations, played around a bit... Enjoy!
Hey, thanks!
What would you like to see put in next?
I know I need to finish the Instants and Sorceries explanation list as well as the I'm Not Running X list. I could also work on a barebones list for the Aggro style deck, things I would auto-include.
To be honest I think Azsua is the strongest deck in the format. So having problems beating it doesn't mean your deck is bad. From my experience, it takes 3 regular decks working together to kill it in multiplayer.
All of those huge spells will be less annoying if they're cast much later in the game. Counter that general. Hinder and Spell Crumple will be your best friends against her.
Green's advantage is a booming economy and a strong army. If you're playing against someone with these traits, you'll have to protect yourself as much as possible. .
Remember, this is a late game deck. You'll usually want to wait until most other people take the aggro before taking the aggro yourself. Now, a few things will certainly hurt you all game long, usually things that mess with your board state, especially your economy.
Talrand needs a strong economy. I've noticed it's not been the greatest in terms of producing mana, so I'm looking into boosting it's mana production. That being said, if someone is threatening your lands with Acidic Slime or Terastodon, it should definitely be stopped. Trickbind and Time Stop are certainly good for this, as well as the plethora of counterspells.
As a deterrent for getting screwed out of the game, maybe play less permanents to destroy early on. Playing blue correctly in a multiplayer game is not playing anything. You're still scary because you're blue, but you have options. If you have the ability to remove Azusa early on with counterspell control, then do so. Spell crumple and Hinder (as XeroxedFool mentioned) are perfect for this. At a certain point though, Azusa is an afterthough. If they're already up to 7+ Lands, I wouldn't even worry about Azusa, instead worry about opponent tech (Card advantage, tutors, artifacts and enchantments, mana doublers, etc) and their army. Usually their army will double as some form of tech or another, so there is that.
A point I'm trying to make is don't go for their economy (lands) unless you can get it early enough to keep them hurt badly. Sadly, mono decks won't hurt too much from Back to Basics, so there's really not much point to messing with their lands late on short of Sunder. If you hurt the things they care about, however, (Oracle of Mul Daya, Terastodon, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger), you'll land some significant damage.
The main thing with Talrand is just managing the board until you can go off. Usually, this is waiting for other players to tap out, laying out Extraplanar Lens, Time Warp, Archaeomancer, and something else scary in one turn. Then next turn blowing up the table with things like Cyclonic Rift or Bribery (twice with Twincast if you can) and screwing the table as much as possible, and keeping mana open or taking an extra turn if you can.
This is usually how I take advantage of the table as a blue player. Since my Army isn't that deadly (low damage), I boost it with getting in there with more drakes, opponent creatures, my beaters, or multiple turns. Letting enemies slowly die from each other beating face is also relevant, as that removes the buffer that we're working with.
TL;DR Keep your mana up, play less permanents, hurt enemy Tech/Army as need be, and let opponents deal with opponents.
Added an extra, "Advanced Topics" section. This will be intended to keep track of the more subtle topics of this deck, like tuning the deck, Win/Loss ratio, and possibly some math once I get some people to crunch super-cool numbers for me. I highly suggest checking it out as there is some interesting stuff a lot of players may not have really thought about before, and it's useful for all sorts of EDH decks.
As an aside, I've been putting off finishing the card choice list. I'll try and procrastinate less as it's absolutely something important for this deck. My ultimate goal for the card choices is to end up going over the spells currently ran in my version as well as an in depth analysis as to why these choices, as well as an alternate list of cards, their strengths and weaknesses and why they are not being ran in my deck list. *edit* Also, some of my card choices are different than what's listed. I'll definitely update that to match my current deck build later today when I'm not drunk/tired.
As always any feedback is very critical to me. I'd love to know what I'm doing well with this guide as well as what I can improve on. Feedback will tell me where to strengthen. Thanks for taking the time to read this!
What about Sphinx-bone Wand ?
When you run your cantrips you ping them every time for one more.
I know its expensive, but might be good as a second victory condition, or for the last few life points.
What about Sphinx-bone Wand ?
When you run your cantrips you ping them every time for one more.
I know its expensive, but might be good as a second victory condition, or for the last few life points.
Definitely, for the cantrip style this card can get really nuts. I mean, turning Gitaxian Probe into a makeshift lightning bolt is solid. If I were cantripping this card would make for a fantastic late game push and could possibly kill some players by itself. Much like Talrand in this build, it'd be something you want to hold protection up for if possible.
That being said, I ran it in my version towards the beginning and it was a dead card until way late game. It's a mildly threatening card when you get right down to it and that somewhat hurts the slow, controlling version of Talrand. It might make it's way back in at some point simple because 30 mana with Mystic Speculation would deal... 55 points of damage by itself as long as no other spells were cast.
Overall, great card and fantastic synergy with Talrand decks.
I see you don't use greaves or boots or anything to shroud your general.. do you wait till you get your mana doublers out or something each game before playing your general...then spam spells all in 1-2 turns?
I played with alot of cantrip cards....
just curious how you keep your general alive....since its the key to winning the game...unless you manage to get out your eldrazi
Your deck inspires me to try and rebuild the deck
GWUBAtraxa, Praetor's Voice PrimerGWUB
GWURoon Bant Blink WhateverGWU
BRGLord Windgrace LandsBRG
Still, when things flowed right, the deck was a true joy to pilot and could decimate most anything it came against, especially with several buffs for the drakes in play.
Reading this has been an inspiration to improve my Talrand deck. Though, it looks like you're playing with a far larger budget than I am.
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You do not need a large budget to make an effective Talrand deck, and I think that is one of the biggest appeals for me with him; while of course a larger budget is going to make a more highly tuned deck, even a modest or mediocre budget can make a solid deck with him.
I've actually ran a few of the cards you've mentioned previously. I wish I had kept a deck changelog in the first few months, but alas I neglected to do so as changes happened commonly. I used to run both Coastal Piracy and Opposition. They were great if I was going for drakes all game long.
That being said, that's not quite how this Talrand deck wins. As I see it, there are two primary ways to run Talrand as a general. Cheap, cantrippy style, which runs 30+ 1-2 mana instants and sorceries that replace themselves, enchantments and artifacts that benefit the drake strategy (here's looking at you, Gravitational Shift), and TONS of protection for Talrand so he doesn't get removed every turn. This style in particular is highly aggressive and will either win the game quickly or not much at all. Late game is tough with this because board wipes are fairly common. "Getting in there" isn't too much of an issue, it's keeping enough drakes alive that can win the game, as they're only 2/2's to start. Also, from a metagame perspective, aggro is really bad in multiplayer EDH. If you aggro, you really need to end the game before turn 6/7 as other players are going to start finding those answers by then, and then they'll have the upper hand in terms of economy or tech that will stomp the great drake army. At least, this was my experience.
The other way to run Talrand is as follows. Talrand is a side venture, possibly keeping a blocker or two if you need one until late game. Early game is all buildup and police. Mid game is all build up and police. I tend to drop a couple of permanents so that the board knows I don't have a full hand of "I win". This is what makes Propaganda and Rhystic Study in particular amazing. This is also the point where I would drop some of the mana doublers, or try to tutor for the mana doublers. End game is when I have enough mana to just explode. It's the turn where I drop High Tide to make my mana tap for 3-4. It's where I drop Tidespout Tyrant, kicking Rite of Replication and just dump the rest of my hand on spell after spell. Possibly a Time Warp so that I can just end the game right then and there. I may even cast talrand at this point for the drakes as well. I mean, Mystic Speculation ends up being scry 3, make a 2/2 flyer, bounce 6 permanents for 2U. Then do it again. This is where my deck focuses. This is also why Cyclonic Rift is going to be amazing for the deck. So many good interaction points for it. *drool*
Any way, that's the difference between this Talrand deck and a lot of other decks; mine goes for the late game win with multiple points where I just stop opponents from winning.
Now, on to the card choice mentions. High Tide is good because of High Tide, to be honest. I mean, it's only gonna be used once, but in the late game, you only need 1-2 turns with this deck to win. Increasing my mana for that one turn is usually enough. Sometimes, I need to go of sooner, and High Tide is an enabler.
Reset is amazing as well. Especially with Leyline of Anticipation/Vedalken Orrery. The big reason they made Reset only able to be cast on an opponents turn is because if it was on our turn, it would be busted backwards and frontwards. This removes that restriction to a great degree. >:D
Mind Games is one of those strategies that works with Tidespout Tyrant and Talrand in the late game, and mid game is fairly useful. Tapping down enemy creatures before they attack will prevent me from dying quite as commonly. I really should be running Spin Into Myth, that much is sure. I'll try it out over the next week and see how it goes.
I don't run greaves or boots because I'm okay with my general being there or not. My deck doesn't focus on Talrand as much, he's just one of the potential Win Conditions of the deck. If he works out, awesome! If not, that's fine too. I usually don't even cast Talrand until I'm ready to go off, unless someone is just running with the table and I need a few blockers.
Removal is a pain. That's one of the faults of the cantrippy version; always holding that counterspell isn't going to get you anywhere, eventually they'll get you. Then your entire strategy will have been for only a bit of damage. Remember, you have to deal 120 if you're going with aggro. With the slower version I run, it ends up being 40-80. Quite a difference!
Another problem with cantrips is that it's like playing with bad cards to make a great card better. I personally suggest skipping the cantrips and go for the big spells that will make a difference. Time Stop makes a difference. Whispers of the Muse not so much.
Oh, and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre is there primarily for anti-mill. Just one hoses the mill guy. Plus, the destroy target permanent is super nice in a mono blue deck. Lastly, if I get to have a turn where he can attack... Well, you get the idea. I once got him out on turn 3 (tons of mana enablers, and proteus staff), and it was fairly amazing. Lol'd.
Relying on your general always being there is difficult to do. If you play with any Blue, White, Black or Red players, odds are it can be removed. Hell, even Green has some good spot removal. And board removal is fairly prevalent as well. If your strategy relies on your general, throw in a backup plan. That's why Kaalia and Bruna strategies are easy to beat; Spell Crumple or Hinder removes their entire strategy away. Now having to hard cast things, they are at a serious disadvantage. The same is true for Talrand. Sure, you can cantrip all day without talrand. It won't get very far though. I'd like to say the strategy I employ is safer to go with for this, and other, reasons.
Scrying Sheets is a good card! I'm mostly picky is the reason why. Extraplanar Lens goes off with more Snow-Covered Islands, and I like to keep as many of them as possible. I'm actually looking to add another one in the deck since I've been mana screwed a few games in a row now. Oh well, I needed to get Doubling Cube, Wayfairer's Bauble and Gilded Lotus in there anyway. I may try Scrying Sheets in the deck again, however. I used to run it, and it ended up being worse than Mikokoro, Center of the Sea. I'll give it another shot though.
And Scott's definitely right about being highly tuned. It takes a lot of work and effort to make a deck fantastic. A lot of research, nonetheless. More money definitely helps (Mana Drain*shudder*), though it's not always required. I could run Mana Leak in it's place and though the power would go down significantly, It'd still be pretty great.
Thanks for the input everyone! Keep it coming, for sure!
I run the aggro version BECAUSE its bad. The tension that you feel worrying about a wipe or removal you can't counter is fun to me. It isn't going to win a lot of games but I enjoy the drama.
Despite my intentionally bad deck, it does win sometimes and your list has helped mine a bunch. I might cut my Spelltwine for Time Stop. Spelltwine is splashier and can be another time walk but doesn't answer and problems for me.
GWUBAtraxa, Praetor's Voice PrimerGWUB
GWURoon Bant Blink WhateverGWU
BRGLord Windgrace LandsBRG
Say no to Gravecrawlers! D:
EDIT: Nevermind, the more I think about it, the more I realize what a terrible card this can be.
Ill test out Time Stop. I don't face any combo decks but it is probably better. Have you had any time to work on the first post?
GWUBAtraxa, Praetor's Voice PrimerGWUB
GWURoon Bant Blink WhateverGWU
BRGLord Windgrace LandsBRG
GWUBAtraxa, Praetor's Voice PrimerGWUB
GWURoon Bant Blink WhateverGWU
BRGLord Windgrace LandsBRG
What would you like to see put in next?
I know I need to finish the Instants and Sorceries explanation list as well as the I'm Not Running X list. I could also work on a barebones list for the Aggro style deck, things I would auto-include.
What else would you like to see though?
GWUBAtraxa, Praetor's Voice PrimerGWUB
GWURoon Bant Blink WhateverGWU
BRGLord Windgrace LandsBRG
All of those huge spells will be less annoying if they're cast much later in the game. Counter that general. Hinder and Spell Crumple will be your best friends against her.
GWUBAtraxa, Praetor's Voice PrimerGWUB
GWURoon Bant Blink WhateverGWU
BRGLord Windgrace LandsBRG
Onto Green now, *shudder*
Green's advantage is a booming economy and a strong army. If you're playing against someone with these traits, you'll have to protect yourself as much as possible. .
Remember, this is a late game deck. You'll usually want to wait until most other people take the aggro before taking the aggro yourself. Now, a few things will certainly hurt you all game long, usually things that mess with your board state, especially your economy.
Talrand needs a strong economy. I've noticed it's not been the greatest in terms of producing mana, so I'm looking into boosting it's mana production. That being said, if someone is threatening your lands with Acidic Slime or Terastodon, it should definitely be stopped. Trickbind and Time Stop are certainly good for this, as well as the plethora of counterspells.
As a deterrent for getting screwed out of the game, maybe play less permanents to destroy early on. Playing blue correctly in a multiplayer game is not playing anything. You're still scary because you're blue, but you have options. If you have the ability to remove Azusa early on with counterspell control, then do so. Spell crumple and Hinder (as XeroxedFool mentioned) are perfect for this. At a certain point though, Azusa is an afterthough. If they're already up to 7+ Lands, I wouldn't even worry about Azusa, instead worry about opponent tech (Card advantage, tutors, artifacts and enchantments, mana doublers, etc) and their army. Usually their army will double as some form of tech or another, so there is that.
A point I'm trying to make is don't go for their economy (lands) unless you can get it early enough to keep them hurt badly. Sadly, mono decks won't hurt too much from Back to Basics, so there's really not much point to messing with their lands late on short of Sunder. If you hurt the things they care about, however, (Oracle of Mul Daya, Terastodon, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger), you'll land some significant damage.
The main thing with Talrand is just managing the board until you can go off. Usually, this is waiting for other players to tap out, laying out Extraplanar Lens, Time Warp, Archaeomancer, and something else scary in one turn. Then next turn blowing up the table with things like Cyclonic Rift or Bribery (twice with Twincast if you can) and screwing the table as much as possible, and keeping mana open or taking an extra turn if you can.
This is usually how I take advantage of the table as a blue player. Since my Army isn't that deadly (low damage), I boost it with getting in there with more drakes, opponent creatures, my beaters, or multiple turns. Letting enemies slowly die from each other beating face is also relevant, as that removes the buffer that we're working with.
TL;DR Keep your mana up, play less permanents, hurt enemy Tech/Army as need be, and let opponents deal with opponents.
Added an extra, "Advanced Topics" section. This will be intended to keep track of the more subtle topics of this deck, like tuning the deck, Win/Loss ratio, and possibly some math once I get some people to crunch super-cool numbers for me. I highly suggest checking it out as there is some interesting stuff a lot of players may not have really thought about before, and it's useful for all sorts of EDH decks.
As an aside, I've been putting off finishing the card choice list. I'll try and procrastinate less as it's absolutely something important for this deck. My ultimate goal for the card choices is to end up going over the spells currently ran in my version as well as an in depth analysis as to why these choices, as well as an alternate list of cards, their strengths and weaknesses and why they are not being ran in my deck list. *edit* Also, some of my card choices are different than what's listed. I'll definitely update that to match my current deck build later today when I'm not drunk/tired.
As always any feedback is very critical to me. I'd love to know what I'm doing well with this guide as well as what I can improve on. Feedback will tell me where to strengthen. Thanks for taking the time to read this!
When you run your cantrips you ping them every time for one more.
I know its expensive, but might be good as a second victory condition, or for the last few life points.
Definitely, for the cantrip style this card can get really nuts. I mean, turning Gitaxian Probe into a makeshift lightning bolt is solid. If I were cantripping this card would make for a fantastic late game push and could possibly kill some players by itself. Much like Talrand in this build, it'd be something you want to hold protection up for if possible.
That being said, I ran it in my version towards the beginning and it was a dead card until way late game. It's a mildly threatening card when you get right down to it and that somewhat hurts the slow, controlling version of Talrand. It might make it's way back in at some point simple because 30 mana with Mystic Speculation would deal... 55 points of damage by itself as long as no other spells were cast.
Overall, great card and fantastic synergy with Talrand decks.
GWUBAtraxa, Praetor's Voice PrimerGWUB
GWURoon Bant Blink WhateverGWU
BRGLord Windgrace LandsBRG