I had Magus and Staff of Domination in for quite awhile. The Magus was just too fragile and the Staff was a little too mana intensive so I eventually cut them. I don't mind running combos when both pieces are good by themselves (Sorin Markov + Wound Reflection) but I don't like them when the individual pieces aren't very good on their own.
I think the Mantle is a nice piece on its own. Dont know why but i like equiping helldozer, Dana, Maga, Dark assassin with it as well ..
Guess my playgroup doesn't consider it as a major treath until Magus pops out.
Even if Magus comes out, i run so many recursion effect that my playgroup doesn't even botter blowing my mobs away, they mostly just try to slow me down by disrupting my mana acceleration.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I remembered dying. Your own murder is not something that slips your mind
I think the Mantle is a nice piece on its own. Dont know why but i like equiping helldozer, Dana, Maga, Dark assassin with it as well ..
Guess my playgroup doesn't consider it as a major treath until Magus pops out.
Even if Magus comes out, i run so many recursion effect that my playgroup doesn't even botter blowing my mobs away, they mostly just try to slow me down by disrupting my mana acceleration.
I think your list is able to abuse it better, I don't run Helldozer, Drana or any assassins and I also don't have very much recursion for the Magus so when he died he usually stayed dead.
Too bad they go good together but Mirari is pretty slow and requires me to get about 3 activations in to get my mana's worth out of it. Tendrils of Corruption & Suffer the Past were the only other possible cuts but I want to keep both for the time being. Prototype Portal was the only other card I considered to add but I don't feel that I have enough artifacts to abuse it (though imprinting Mindslaver seems fun).
My average group is 3-5 players so it will be drawing me 2-4 cards and get worse in the late game when there are less players. It's probably as good as Ancient Craving though with an upside instead of a drawback, I could make that swap I think.
Ancient Craving is such a pain to track down, too. It's not worth much, but it's obscure, and a lot of jobs don't buy them.
As far as getting worse as players get out, I generally fly under the radar the best I can until I'm setup to eliminate everyone at once. Otherwise, the person I target first gets upset.
Ancient Craving is such a pain to track down, too. It's not worth much, but it's obscure, and a lot of jobs don't buy them.
As far as getting worse as players get out, I generally fly under the radar the best I can until I'm setup to eliminate everyone at once. Otherwise, the person I target first gets upset.
Well apparently I now have a BB Ancient Craving with no home at the moment.:rolleyes:
Regarding people getting upset, in my group when someone starts complaining everyone usually gangs up on them or the person that caused them to complain continues pounding. The reason being that if they are complaining they probably do not have an answer so are helpless and vulnerable but could become dangerous again if they are allowed to keep playing. This reduces complaining a great deal.
Do you realize that the errata on Candelabra of Tawnos causes it to tap, therefore no infinite mana? If so, aren't there better options to fill that role? (I genuinely ask as I haven't looked yet)
Do you realize that the errata on Candelabra of Tawnos causes it to tap, therefore no infinite mana? If so, aren't there better options to fill that role? (I genuinely ask as I haven't looked yet)
It never received errata that I know of, back then Mono artifacts required you to tap them as part of the cost to activate their ability just like the oracle text says. Even without infinite mana Candelabra can still generate a ton of mana with all the mana flares and being able to untap Cabal Coffers.
I added in Imp's Mischief to try out. It's been getting mixed reviews, mostly negative, from others that have tried it but Wake of Destruction is being run in my group and that card crushes this deck so this will give me another out to it. Also found room for Go for the Throat, it has an awful name but the card itself seems too good to pass up.
I want to add Wayfarer's Bauble in here since it has tested so well in some other decks. Any suggestions on what to cut? I might go with a Swamp but 38 lands seems a little greedy.
I want to add Wayfarer's Bauble in here since it has tested so well in some other decks. Any suggestions on what to cut? I might go with a Swamp but 38 lands seems a little greedy.
For me the "card for card" options are:
Sign in Blood
Night's Whisper
A. Speher
Twisted Abobination
Or yuo can cut a card with a random effect in your deck like Wound Reflection
Sign in Blood
Night's Whisper
A. Speher
Twisted Abobination
Or yuo can cut a card with a random effect in your deck like Wound Reflection
I like the cheap card advantage cards to give me something to do in the early game but Twisted Abomination seems like a good cut. I can't remember the last time I actually cast him and he doesn't provide card advantage.
Although the deck doesn't run many creatures, both abilities on Sheoldred are really strong. I'll test it and post results.
I'll also add Karn when I get my hands on him. He seems really good for the elusive mono black enchantment removal.
I've also considered Praetor's Grasp. Being able to grab your opponents utility lands(another coffers ! wraaa) or other staple artifacts seems promising.
Although the deck doesn't run many creatures, both abilities on Sheoldred are really strong. I'll test it and post results.
I'll also add Karn when I get my hands on him. He seems really good for the elusive mono black enchantment removal.
I've also considered Praetor's Grasp. Being able to grab your opponents utility lands(another coffers ! wraaa) or other staple artifacts seems promising.
I ended up going with what I posted above and added Karn Liberated, Praetor's Grasp & Caged Sun and cut Nevinyrral's Disk, Grim Monolith & Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. Praetor's Grasp should be really good but I won't have my copy to try out for another couple weeks it looks like. There are 2 other monoblack decks that people run and stealing their Coffers seems really good.:D I want to see how Sheoldred plays out for other people before I try him out, the card is obviously very powerful if it sticks. Not sure if I'll have too many mana doublers with Caged Sun but I'd cut something else instead of the Gauntlet. I don't mind that much helping other people out with the mana since I'll get the most use out of it and it makes people with Swamps slightly less likely to want to kill me off because they'll lose the Gauntlet too. Another card I've been wanting to add for a long time is Spreading Plague. It's been played to great effect in some other decks around here so if the new adds fail to impress or I have too many mana doublers I'll probably give it a shot. Let me know how Sheoldred plays out!
EDIT: Also updated the first post to reflect these changes.
I found the decklist rather interesting, but my metagame runs a lot of counter magic and wacky redirect spells. One player in particular will sit there with a hand of it all game. In what way would you be able to counter that with your deck? It seems that you have several cards that would make a target opponent discard some or all of their hand, but it looked like maybe five or six cards in 100 card singleton deck.
I found the decklist rather interesting, but my metagame runs a lot of counter magic and wacky redirect spells. One player in particular will sit there with a hand of it all game. In what way would you be able to counter that with your deck? It seems that you have several cards that would make a target opponent discard some or all of their hand, but it looked like maybe five or six cards in 100 card singleton deck.
Mine is also fairly counter heavy which is a big weakness for this deck. In the past I've run Boseiju, Who Shelters All to force through discard effects but the card was really bad when I didn't need it. Other things I've tried are Mishra's Helix & Imp's Mischief (since it can counter counterspells) but again these cards were bad outside of combating blue decks and not even that effective against blue decks. I think the best route is to alter my normal strategy and aggressively try to disrupt and kill the blue control decks then fall back into a control strategy once those decks are eliminated. It's an uphill battle but certainly not unwinnable. Also keep in mind the deck plays a lot of tutors and some recursion in the form of Ill-Gotten Gains & Yawgmoth's Will so you can get what you need consistently.
Mine is also fairly counter heavy which is a big weakness for this deck. In the past I've run Boseiju, Who Shelters All to force through discard effects but the card was really bad when I didn't need it. Other things I've tried are Mishra's Helix & Imp's Mischief (since it can counter counterspells) but again these cards were bad outside of combating blue decks and not even that effective against blue decks. I think the best route is to alter my normal strategy and aggressively try to disrupt and kill the blue control decks then fall back into a control strategy once those decks are eliminated. It's an uphill battle but certainly not unwinnable. Also keep in mind the deck plays a lot of tutors and some recursion in the form of Ill-Gotten Gains & Yawgmoth's Will so you can get what you need consistently.
Has Ill-Gotten Gains been good for you? I was looking at that card when updating my list, but never got around to trying it out. I'm certainly skeptical of giving all my opponents triple-Regrowth, though it does cost them their hand.
Has Ill-Gotten Gains been good for you? I was looking at that card when updating my list, but never got around to trying it out. I'm certainly skeptical of giving all my opponents triple-Regrowth, though it does cost them their hand.
I posted about this card in Blackjack's thread so I'll just quote that.
It's not an easy sell but I'll give it a try. The power of the card is all in the timing, similar in a way to how Balance is absurdly powerful (and much more powerful than Ill-Gotten Gains, this is just an example) but might appear fair to someone who hasn't played with it. Now Balance is unfair because it's much easier to break but it's also unfair because the Balance caster gets to choose when it happens. If they have a favorable board position they simply choose not to cast it. This is the same with Ill-Gotten Gains, in most situations you do not want to cast it. You have cards in hand, dangerous stuff in opponents graveyard, etc. This card becomes very powerful though when you do want to cast it. It will often be the last card in your hand (or you're holding stuff you don't care about) and it's a tripleRegrowth. Now while it may seem that this benefits your opponents equally since they all get 3 Regrowths too it often will not. Let's assume your opponents are good players with good decks. Good decks will usually have more than 3 cards in their hand and will have a deck full of good cards so the cards in their hand will be good. So if for example they are holding 6 good cards, this causes them to pitch those cards for 3 good cards. Now their card quality may have increased (and this is a maybe) but they are now down 3 good cards.
As far as breaking the synergy of the card the best way to do this is through discard. Ideally you get back Myojin of Night's Reach and make them dump their hand while still getting to keep 2 cards but often even a simple Mindtwist on the person who got the best cards back will suffice. Additionally you can use graveyard hate to limit people's options.
The last thing I'd like to add is that after casting Ill-Gotten Gains everyone will know what everyone else is holding. This should make everyone's threat assessment excellent so the most threatening player should be the one that gets targeted. You don't want this to be you so if you are casting it "fairly" (not breaking the symmetry or immediately winning) you want to get back cards that aren't immediately threatening to opponents. Cards like Phyrexian Arena are great because they aren't an immediate threat so people will generally let you have Arena because there are more serious things for them to worry about. Choosing the correct cards can be incredibly skill testing for everyone which is one of the reasons I like the card so much.
I've done the best I can to sell it but you won't hurt my feelings in the slightest if you decide to pass. It's not one of the best cards in my deck and certainly has drawbacks in that it's quite situational and really bad in your opening hand. I view at as a solid role player that is not among the worst or best cards I run.
My recommendation would be to give it a try.
EDIT: On an unrelated note I've been considering switching out Maga as my Commander for this deck. He's been at the helm for over 3 years and done some great work but I rarely cast him anymore, he's expensive and I already run a lot of expensive things. I would like to just swap him out without making any additional changes since the deck itself functions very well. I've narrowed down my options to Anowon, the Ruin Sage, Kagemaro, First to Suffer & Kiku, Night's Flower. While Anowan and Kagemaro and much stronger cards than Kiku I'm really leaning towards her because she's so cheap and I don't always have much to do in the early turns. She doesn't kill some of the generals in my group but she can repeatedly kill some problematic generals like Gaddock Teeg repeatedly which is nice. Anyone have any thoughts or recommendations for this?
I playtested with Kiku, Night's Flower as general over the weekend and was pretty impressed. Since the printing of Exsanguinate Maga had been getting cast less and less since it was so much more efficient to just Exsanguinate the table. Since I no longer needed a finisher for a general I looked into other options and found Kiku.
She does a few things that are really useful for the deck, guarantees I have something to do with my mana early in the game, provides repeated spot removal for some problem generals like Gaddock Teeg and gives me a general that will see play in nearly 100% of my games. She also doesn't require any building around so I can keep the decklist intact. Maga is also getting played quite a bit more as a general since I posted my list a couple years ago so the switch to Kiku brings me back to more of a rogue general which I really like.
So probably the biggest change I've ever made with the list:
I think the Mantle is a nice piece on its own. Dont know why but i like equiping helldozer, Dana, Maga, Dark assassin with it as well ..
Guess my playgroup doesn't consider it as a major treath until Magus pops out.
Even if Magus comes out, i run so many recursion effect that my playgroup doesn't even botter blowing my mobs away, they mostly just try to slow me down by disrupting my mana acceleration.
[EDH]
BU Wydwen, the Biting Gale BU
I think your list is able to abuse it better, I don't run Helldozer, Drana or any assassins and I also don't have very much recursion for the Magus so when he died he usually stayed dead.
EDIT: Scars update!
+Exsanguinate
-Mirari
Too bad they go good together but Mirari is pretty slow and requires me to get about 3 activations in to get my mana's worth out of it. Tendrils of Corruption & Suffer the Past were the only other possible cuts but I want to keep both for the time being. Prototype Portal was the only other card I considered to add but I don't feel that I have enough artifacts to abuse it (though imprinting Mindslaver seems fun).
In multiplayer, of course.
UGExperiment KrajUG
-Ancient Craving
+Syphon Mind
As far as getting worse as players get out, I generally fly under the radar the best I can until I'm setup to eliminate everyone at once. Otherwise, the person I target first gets upset.
UGExperiment KrajUG
Well apparently I now have a BB Ancient Craving with no home at the moment.:rolleyes:
Regarding people getting upset, in my group when someone starts complaining everyone usually gangs up on them or the person that caused them to complain continues pounding. The reason being that if they are complaining they probably do not have an answer so are helpless and vulnerable but could become dangerous again if they are allowed to keep playing. This reduces complaining a great deal.
It never received errata that I know of, back then Mono artifacts required you to tap them as part of the cost to activate their ability just like the oracle text says. Even without infinite mana Candelabra can still generate a ton of mana with all the mana flares and being able to untap Cabal Coffers.
That seems reasonable. I'm not really sure what to cut for the Rings though and I'll need to add in the 4 fetchlands.
+Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
No more EOT Emrakul off Vedalken Orrery but also no more getting hit with a Sneak Attacked Emrakul. Seems like a fair trade.
Thats sounds like some heavy plays. A moment of silence please
Emrakul
((R.I.P))
For me the "card for card" options are:
Sign in Blood
Night's Whisper
A. Speher
Twisted Abobination
Or yuo can cut a card with a random effect in your deck like Wound Reflection
I like the cheap card advantage cards to give me something to do in the early game but Twisted Abomination seems like a good cut. I can't remember the last time I actually cast him and he doesn't provide card advantage.
-Twisted Abomination
+Wayfarer's Bauble
Considering we run very, very similar lists, do you have any updates on your deck ?
For me:
- Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet <-- pet card/ emerkul answer
- Gauntlet of Power
+ Caged Sun
+ Sheoldred, Whispering One <-- Testing
Although the deck doesn't run many creatures, both abilities on Sheoldred are really strong. I'll test it and post results.
I'll also add Karn when I get my hands on him. He seems really good for the elusive mono black enchantment removal.
I've also considered Praetor's Grasp. Being able to grab your opponents utility lands(another coffers ! wraaa) or other staple artifacts seems promising.
I ended up going with what I posted above and added Karn Liberated, Praetor's Grasp & Caged Sun and cut Nevinyrral's Disk, Grim Monolith & Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. Praetor's Grasp should be really good but I won't have my copy to try out for another couple weeks it looks like. There are 2 other monoblack decks that people run and stealing their Coffers seems really good.:D I want to see how Sheoldred plays out for other people before I try him out, the card is obviously very powerful if it sticks. Not sure if I'll have too many mana doublers with Caged Sun but I'd cut something else instead of the Gauntlet. I don't mind that much helping other people out with the mana since I'll get the most use out of it and it makes people with Swamps slightly less likely to want to kill me off because they'll lose the Gauntlet too. Another card I've been wanting to add for a long time is Spreading Plague. It's been played to great effect in some other decks around here so if the new adds fail to impress or I have too many mana doublers I'll probably give it a shot. Let me know how Sheoldred plays out!
EDIT: Also updated the first post to reflect these changes.
Mine is also fairly counter heavy which is a big weakness for this deck. In the past I've run Boseiju, Who Shelters All to force through discard effects but the card was really bad when I didn't need it. Other things I've tried are Mishra's Helix & Imp's Mischief (since it can counter counterspells) but again these cards were bad outside of combating blue decks and not even that effective against blue decks. I think the best route is to alter my normal strategy and aggressively try to disrupt and kill the blue control decks then fall back into a control strategy once those decks are eliminated. It's an uphill battle but certainly not unwinnable. Also keep in mind the deck plays a lot of tutors and some recursion in the form of Ill-Gotten Gains & Yawgmoth's Will so you can get what you need consistently.
Has Ill-Gotten Gains been good for you? I was looking at that card when updating my list, but never got around to trying it out. I'm certainly skeptical of giving all my opponents triple-Regrowth, though it does cost them their hand.
(list not current)
My Cube Google Docs Spreadsheet: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AibgWfz0ukmOdDNhOHlucjcxUi1wVy00NDhLbDUtUlE&hl=en_US#gid=8
(list is always current)
I posted about this card in Blackjack's thread so I'll just quote that.
My recommendation would be to give it a try.
EDIT: On an unrelated note I've been considering switching out Maga as my Commander for this deck. He's been at the helm for over 3 years and done some great work but I rarely cast him anymore, he's expensive and I already run a lot of expensive things. I would like to just swap him out without making any additional changes since the deck itself functions very well. I've narrowed down my options to Anowon, the Ruin Sage, Kagemaro, First to Suffer & Kiku, Night's Flower. While Anowan and Kagemaro and much stronger cards than Kiku I'm really leaning towards her because she's so cheap and I don't always have much to do in the early turns. She doesn't kill some of the generals in my group but she can repeatedly kill some problematic generals like Gaddock Teeg repeatedly which is nice. Anyone have any thoughts or recommendations for this?
She does a few things that are really useful for the deck, guarantees I have something to do with my mana early in the game, provides repeated spot removal for some problem generals like Gaddock Teeg and gives me a general that will see play in nearly 100% of my games. She also doesn't require any building around so I can keep the decklist intact. Maga is also getting played quite a bit more as a general since I posted my list a couple years ago so the switch to Kiku brings me back to more of a rogue general which I really like.
So probably the biggest change I've ever made with the list:
-Maga, Traitor to Mortals
+Kiku, Night's Flower