Beginnings:
I started playing EDH 3 years ago, and this deck is my third paper deck, and who knows how many-ith deck online. The beginnings of this deck occurred when we where all in that period of joy that accompanied the spoiling of the commander pre-cons, I saw several of the new generals that all seemed like they had a lot of potential, and I decided that I wanted to try and build an Animar deck. After a while of throwing around a few ideas, I gave up on him and I decided to try and play around with Ghave, a general that I had originally written off. The first idea that I had was to abuse persist creatures and etb effects by repeatedly giving other creatures persist with cauldron of souls and dross scorpion. After a few games, of either that combo being spectacular or doing nothing, I took it out. While I do believe that it might be a viable idea that I may revisit later, especially now that undying has since come into existence. After some changes, I centered more on making a Ghave centric deck with a goal of getting an infinite number of saprolings into play and throwing them at my opponent. After more games I realized that this wasn't quite good enough, because my army keep dying before I could swing, so I yet again shifted the deck's focus, and am now building the deck entirely focused on winning on the spot through a plentiful supply of combos.
Why Play Ghave?
Ghave is a powerful combo deck, it has many interactions and recursion, which makes it very hard not to do well with this deck as long as you play intelligently. Even though many of the combos in this deck rely on Ghave, not all of them do. This gives you the opportunity to go off after getting hindered or something similar.
You should consider playing Ghave as your commander if you like strong synergistic combos with lots of interactions to give the deck a kind of inevitability that few other decks have. The colors themselves give you may powerful options to build this deck, but this list will focus on the pure combo option.
From the colors we get:
White: Academy rector, removal, and some other tutors
Black: every tutor you ever wanted and more
Green: creature tutors, Earthcraft, ramp, recursion
Reasons You Should Play Ghave:
- You enjoy and endless supply of interactions that can leave your head hurting.
- Realizing that you have had a winning combo on the board for a few turns that you didn't even know existed.
- Getting to play cards that aren't used in any other deck.
- You get to play green without having to mindlessly turn dudes sideways, seriously, if you have to attack something has to have gone very very wrong.
Reasons You Should Not Play Ghave:
- You don't like combos.
- You like attacking.
- You don't like complex interactions.
About Ghave: Ghave, Guru of Spores is the main commander of the counter punch commander pre-con accompanied by Karador, Ghost Chieftain and Teneb, the Harvester. Ghave differs from the strategies of the other two greatly, they both strongly lend to a reanimator style deck, while Ghave performs well as either a token swarm type deck or a combo deck. When applied to the combo style deck, Ghave represents one of the most versatile combo pieces in the entire deck. He is perhaps the one universal combo piece for the deck, and while he may be able to be replaced in many of the combos he often makes the combos easier due to his availability. You may have to recur him or replay him, but that is one of the strengths of the deck is its redundancy and its ability to recover from the loss of a combo piece. Ghave's abilities make him nearly immune to theft if you play intelligently.
Building the Deck:
Many people have tried to build "nice" versions of Ghave, yet have ended up finding unintentional combos hiding in the deck, as with the combination of abilities on Ghave, it is almost hard to find things that don't accidentally become abusive with him. So with the full understanding that this deck will end up incredibly strong, begin building this deck by choosing which combos you want to run. Then add tutors to find combo pieces, followed by a hidden strength of the deck, recursion, your toys will die and being able to get them back reliably means that you will always have a chance of coming back and winning in the face of disruption. Fill the remaining slots with as much removal as warranted by your meta and the rest with ramp.
Basic Strategy:
Ghave is a combo deck, as such playing him means that you have to consider three things: speed, resiliency, and disruption.
Speed, this means how fast can you assemble the win. How does long it takes you to find the pieces of whatever combo you have chosen to win that game, cast them, and go through the iterations of the combo.
Resiliency, when something goes wrong how well can you recover from it and do you have a plan B?
Disruption, this is both how much will you receive on your way to combo-ing and how much can you dish out to keep you going without stalling yourself down to cast it.
In any given game, you have to consider all three of these things and achieve whichever balance with suit the current game. To begin with, Ghave can be an incredibly fast deck. I played at a tournament at my LGS, in games where I either expected or knew that I would not be facing disruption, I won on turn 5-6 every game. With this in mind, there are very few decks that can win faster than Ghave and they are mostly limited to things like Hermit Druid decks. Now in order to achieve that level of speed, you need both ramp and tutors. You should ramp as soon as possible, things like Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary can put you very far ahead if you can get him in play making your other ramp do double duty. After a couple turns doing that you should begin casting either tutors, or combo pieces that you have drawn naturally. For example, a fast turn sequence is:
Now while this turn sequence does use the most mana intensive tutor, it is otherwise fairly idealistic though it shows the power of Rofellos, expect hands that have him with a supply of forests to be at least a turn faster than a similar hand without him. However it does demonstrate a potential turn 4 win. While most other decks are still tapping out to play early utility cards, you just won the game. Without the level of ramp shown the win will likely be pushed out at least a turn, but you will still likely be able to catch many people off guard at that stage of the game. However, you will find yourself with no protection against any opposing disruption, and the odds of being disrupted will go up the longer the game goes on.
If you find yourself in a position where you don't think that you can reliably go for the win, it is better to take an extra turn or two while you begin to find either disruption such as cards like defense grid or hymn to tourach. What you find will depend on when you want to use it and what your using it against. Early, while people are still trying to build board presence, to protect against spell based disruption, defense grid or similar types of cards will be better because your opponents likely wont have the mana to pay the tax and play counterspells or removal for your combo. While later in the game, once hand sizes have gone down a little, a targeted discard spell could easily remove any resistance and leave you wide open to go off. If you see permanent based disruption, such as something like Rest in Peace, the deck runs a large number of general removal spells, so you should either draw into one or be able to use an extra tutor to find an answer to whatever is giving you problems.
Even using all of this deck's speed and disruption, something will inevitably go wrong. When it does, Ghave has a number of options as to what to do, Eternal Witness can get you anything back; Karmic Guide, Reviellark, and Volrath's Stronghold can get you back your creature combo pieces; and almost every combo piece has an alternate option in the deck that and with the decks vast tutor suit it shouldn't take you long at all to find a replacement. This ability to have a plan B or try plan A a couple of times gives Ghave an amazing amount of resilience.
When you shuffle up and choose your starting hand, remember even though all of the combos are 3 card combos, you only need 2 nonspecific cards from your deck in order to win. Because Ghave is involved in almost all of the combos in the deck having him always available in the command zone makes your combos start to look more like 2 card combos in normal magic. You should try and have at least one combo piece in your opener and ideally a tutor that can find the other half. The of your hand should be ramp and, if you need it, one card of disruption depending on how much you run in your deck, since I don't run much it often isn't worth it for me to mull into one unless I know that I will have to have it. After the game starts, play down you acceleration to get you going, then either tutor for a combo and play the pieces in the same turn or play whatever piece is least likely to be removed before you next turn where you can hopefully win. Finish by casting Ghave and using his abilities to fire off the game winning combo.
Notes: Greater Good was in fact not good. Relying more and more on Earthcraft, so I'm adding a tutor for it.
+Idyllic Tutor
-Greater Good
7/17/11
Notes: Adding more basics, a tutor and a win condition. Taking out colorless lands, Saffi because I never wanted to combo with anything Reveillark couldn't pick up itself, and Survival because I found that I never really had creatures that I'd want to discard to it.
+Summoner's Pact
+Forest
+Swamp
+Plains
+Triskelion
+Replenish
Notes: Had enough deck filtering and Mirri's Guile was the weakest, so its out. Adding Drover for some new combos.
+Twilight Drover
-Mirri's Guile
8/3/11
Notes: Removing Lightning Greaves because Protection is rarely a problem with the number of sac outlets present. Also removing Black Market because its too slow. Adding a new win condition and something of an alternative combo.
+Squirrel Nest
+Blasting Station
-Lightning Greaves
-Black Market
8/27/11
Notes: Squirrel Nest just was not good, and the number of enchantments has gone down so at this point a basic is better since I can abuse it more. Adding Birds to give me some early ramp.
+Birds of Paradise
+Plains
-Squirrel Nest
-Serra's Sanctem
Notes: Prime Time is banned. Seedborn muse isn't really that helpful to a deck that wants to win now as opposed to gain lots of advantage over a period of time, so its out. Trying Bad Mike and I'm left with one slot.
+Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Notes: The seal had been added at some point, but I never listed it here, so I'm noting that I took it out. The signet->talisman swap is an attempt to speed things up. And due to a change in the kind of hate I see, Dosan replaces seal
-Seal of Cleansing
-Orzhov Signet
-Darksteel Ingot
-Putrefy
-Summoner's Pact
I'm not going to list everything possible, but I'll try and list everything major that I run or could be run. (However, if you see something important that I left off, please let me know)
Artifacts Ashnod's Altar: A combo corner stone, Ashnod's Altar is a free sac outlet that makes mana, this combination of cost and ability allows many many bad things to go on. Reuse persist and undying creatures at will, save a creature from exile removal, or to prevent Puppeteer Clique'd creatures to be used again.
Phyrexian Altar: Ashnod's Altar's little brother. Only makes one mana, which makes abusing persist creatures harder, since they take 2 mana to reset, but makes colored mana.
Blasting Station: Combos well with Juniper Order Ranger and a persist creature for infinite damage. This card allows for combo wins without Ghave.
Blade of the Bloodchief: With everything that dies in this deck, this is often an infinite source of +1/+1 counters for this deck. I don't run this card out of personal choice, but a lot of people include it in their list, and if you are looking to run additional combo pieces, over what I run, I would recommend this one.
Skullclamp: Obviously, clamp is an amazing source of CA in this deck.
Crucible of Worlds: This deck runs a lot of important non-basic lands, so if your meta has LD this helps ensure that those lands stay around. Since I run fetch lands, I view this card more as a ramp spell than anything. As you run more off color fetches this will become more and more true.
Artifact Mana: Usually some form of signets, Darksteel Ingot, Coalition Relic and more. This deck takes a lot of mana to set up, so you will want at least a few cards from this catagory
Creatures Academy Rector: Enchantments are from the centers of many of the combos in this deck, and this tutors them straight into play when it dies, nothing broken there...
Birds of Paradise: Fast early ramp, never a bad thing to see early in a game.
Bloom Tender: Always adds at least one mana to one of each color, an amazing card in a deck with many permanents of different colors.
Butcher Ghoul: A cheap undying creature, most people run either this or Strangleroot Geist, which I prefer, but this can be easier to cast if your mana base has problems with Geist.
Dark Confidant: Drawing an extra card a turn is very good for a deck like this one, but it can and will hurt at times. Ghave can run some high CMC spells, but if you don't I would highly recommend considering this little guy.
Geralf's Messenger: This bundle of joy that Dark Ascension left on our doorstep is now my go to combo for this deck. With undying this guy is easily recurred an infinite number of times, and it metes out that oh so unpreventable 2 life loss. This guy is unfortunately not all upsides, his triple black makes casting him hard, and prevents thus Green Sun's Zenith or Natural Ordering for him, also since he comes into play tapped he prevents abuse with Earthcraft.
Grand Abolisher: I powerful effect that negates counter magic and activated abilities of hate permanents.
Juniper Order Ranger: This card is a combo enabler with any persist creature or a source of counters elsewhere. Over all, a little high on the mana curve, but easily tutored and abused.
Karmic Guide: Recursion and combo, with Reveillark and a sac outlet, this lets you recur any other 2 power or less creature infinitely. I don't know if I'd run this with out Lark.
Kitchen Finks: As a persist creature, infinity is not a problem. As a green creature, it is easy to tutor for and cast, but Finks is not currently run that often and is probably lower on the totem pole as far as combo creatures go.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed: A solid combo piece that can substitute for Ghave in some combos. He combos with Triskelion and any persist creature.
Puppeteer Clique: Persist, that's really all this creature needs. But wait, there's more! Steal creatures from your opponents graveyards repeatedly! I generally don't like things that rely on your opponents to be good, but, especially in the late game, there are always creatures in graveyards and remember your playing ETB: the gathering! so you should always find some value with this little sucker.
Reveillark: Combos with Karmic Guide and a sac outlet for infinite etb, ltb, permanents hitting the graveyard, and returning of 2 power or less creatures. Purely an optional combo, and I wouldn't run one half of this combo without the other, but I like it so I run it.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary: Your going to be running basics because of Earthcraft, and depending on budget, shocks and ABUR duals. This guy will make a lot of mana more often than not.
Sadistic Hypnotist: A free sac outlet that also acts as disruption, whats not to like. I advocated this card for a long time, and it seems like it finally caught on.
Scavenging Ooze: Grave hate with counters. I try not to run limited sources of +1/+1 counters, but this is only one of my 2 sources of grave hate, and since I cut Knight of the Reliquary, this is the only one that I can tutor for. Most people don't run this card.
Seedborn Muse: Haven't hit infinity? Have lots of mana. I feel like this card suffers from a bad case of the win-mores, and I don't really know why I haven't cut it yet but test it and see how you like it.
Sigil Captain: gives your saprolings 2 +1/+1 counters for free
Strangleroot Geist: a hasty undying creature that lets you make infinite armies of fungus or through a massive number of counters and swing with him early. This can potentially be hard to cast though.
Woodfall Primus: Trample, persist, and it nukes something when in comes into play. Can combo, but is on the high end of expensive, so it rarely sees use in my deck.
Triskelion: Combo with Reveillark or just dumb a crap ton of counters on here to machine gun anything and everything.
Yavimaya Elder: Card draw and land search, a solid early game play.
Young Wolf: The cheapest undying creature, can give you unlimited mana and saprolings. Also, funny to see people scratch there heads the first time you play this.
Enchantments Aura Shards: Artifact and enchantment hate that is reusable. At worst with Ghave, it reads 2: Destroy target artifact of enchantment.
Doubling Season: This wonderful enchantment enables a large swath of combos, but when this hits play, get ready to feel the hate. I dislike the fact that this thing cost 5 and that it single handedly draws more hate than any other combo piece in the deck. I recently cut this card and haven't really missed it, but removing it does cut down on the inherent redundancy of the deck. However, consider this card if you expect a lot of grave hate as most of it's combos avoid the grave.
Earthcraft: This card is half mana ramp, half combo piece, and all brokenness. Lets you get value out of creatures that you just cast, combo with creatures that enter and leave the battlefield often.
Fecundity: Things are going to die, might as well draw some cards. Sucks that it lets your opponents do it too, but you will draw a lot more than they do.
Grave Pact: There's nothing quite like a permanent board wipe for your opponents.
Mana Reflection and Mirari's Wake: these 2 mana doublers give your a massive boost of mana, that is often unessisary. In many people's lists, these proved to be win-more and have been dropped.
Phyrexian Arena: Extra draw is valuable in these colors, so this can give you a lot of value over a long time.
Sterling Grove: Protection and a tutor all rolled up into one.
Survival of the Fittest: One of the best creature tutors, especially in a deck that can use the grave. I don't run this card because there aren't that many creatures that I want to discard to it even with graveyard access.
Sylvan Library: Filtering or card draw depending on how much your willing to pay.
Instants Argivian Find: A lot of combo pieces in this deck are artifacts of enchantments, so this can be a powerful and cheap piece of recursion.
Beast Within: A good piece of removal and the downside is usually meaningless.
Chord of Calling: This is one of the strongest creature tutors with the ability to search for anything and put it straight into play.
Eladamri's Call: An instant speed creature tutor that puts things into your hand for cheep.
Enlightened Tutor: With the number of important artifacts and enchantments in this deck, this will always have a relevant target.
Summoner's Pact: An instant speed tutor for free that drops things into you hand, the green only limiter severely weakens this card, and has made me consider doping it.
Worldly Tutor: Creatures are parts of every combo, so being able to find them is key.
Sorceries Bitter Ordeal: A solid win condition that is nigh unstoppable, I've been trying to find a place for this and as of yet have not, but it is always on my list of things to consider.
Diabolic Tutor: An ok tutor, I only run it because of the rarity and cost prohibitive nature of some of the better tutors.
Farseek: A good card with lots of lands that have basic land types.
Green Sun's Zenith: A tutor that searches anything green into play and shuffles itself back. The green only limiter does greatly reduce its usefulness.
Grim Tutor: A good second tier tutor, a good include if you have one and not something that you need to get if you don't.
Maelstrom Pulse: good removal that can hit almost anything and clear out token swarms, similar to its cousin Vindicate.
Nature's Lore: Search for any forest and put it into play untapped, one of the best 2 mana ramp spells.
Replenish: Recur all of your enchantments. I don't actually have this in paper, and can't say that I've ever used it online. Use it if you want, don't if you don't. I am considering dropping this.
I prefer more basics in replacement of those signets especially if you play against anyone that runs white or runs Oblivion Stone. Where is Solemn Simulacrum. I would also run Fertilid. In my experience, Ghave is a very mana hungry general, so I wouldn't run anything less than 37 lands.
Where is Tooth and Nail and Doubling Season? They are really good for Ghave as it lets you assemble combo pieces and powers up Ghave a lot faster.
32 lands seems far too few (ok, 33 with Dryad, i guess, but still...). as was said above, Ghave is rather mana-hungry.
Earthcraft with only 3 basics? that's pretty questionable.
and KotR seems rather lackluster with so few Plains/Forests to sac to him. i realize you have crucible, but still, i would personally feel safer with a few more basics at least to cover Knight activations, Farseek, Nature's Lore, Yavimaya Elder, etc.
especially running things like Azusa, how often are you really going to have extra lands in hand to abuse her when you are running so few? i know Cradle can kind of make up for lack of drawing lands, but it feels like you might have to get lucky or mulligan aggressively to make sure you have a hand capable of fetching the lands you need to get on the right track.
idk, just theorizing. maybe you have amazing luck. i know personally, running 38 lands, i still occasionally have trouble getting a hand with sufficient mana sources. my w/g tokens deck runs 36 and approx 10-12 ways to accel, fetch (not including fetch land), or fix mana sources. i just wouldn't feel comfortable going any lower than that, but to each his own.
Edit: also, yes, Doubling Season is an auto-include for Ghave, imo. it's friggin' bonkers.
Alright, I made some preliminary changes, some of which may get put back later. First I added another of each basic. This brings the basic count to 6 for earthcraft, even though the times I drew it before I had basics out, I can see the need for more. This brings the land count to 35( I took out homeward path because it was never relevant) counting dryad. This also increases the forest/plains count to 14 of KotR.
Second, I took out genesis for Volrath's Stronghold I'm not sure how I feel about this and Genesis might find its way back in after more play testing.
On why Doubling Season isn't in here yet, I've heard that this card is actually over kill the vast majority of the time, so I haven't added it, but its near the top of my list to test.
Yeah, that's one thing that I don't really like right now, I felt like I had this great idea to do something original, but I think that it kind of got lost in the shuffle of building the deck. I cut Heartmender early on because I want to use the persist several times a turn, and the once a turn wasn't really effective. In that same vain, none of the others seemed that impressive either, about all I do is use Cauldron of Souls and Dross Scorpion to machine gun etb or death trigers. I'm almost to the point of giving up trying to call it a persist abuse deck.
Beyond these changes, I am amazed by this deck's ability to build insurmountable board presence, and its ability to come out of nowhere and win. However, I am still undecided about the inclusion of the Reveillark combo (Reveillark, Karmic Guide, and Saffi Eriksdotter). The guide is always good, but reveillark doesn't have many targets outside of the combo, and saffi is just a lightning rod I guess. These three slots might have better uses, but the win I just pulled off out of nowhere to end a 3.5 hour game makes me feel good about its existence. The only other issue I have with this deck is I feel that it isn't fast enough. I've seen viper's list and he said that he can set up a combo by about turn 6 regularly, whereas I have yet to achieve anything like that. I was wondering if anyone has any insights as to how to speed the deck up
if you want more ramping, id suggest you add more basics, then replace three visits, nature's lore, farseek with other sorcery ramps: cultivate, kodama's reach, far wanderings, explosive vegetation, primal growth, hunting wilds, skyshroud claim. although they cost 1-2 more mana than your previous choices, the good thing with this cards is that they net you more than one land from your deck. yes they come in a little later, but in the long run they provide a more stable mana base and more deck thinning.
I would drop the Reveillark combo stuff for some planeswalkers. Elspeth, Knight-Errant makes tokens and has an ultimate that really helps your small creature plan. Garruk Wildspeaker makes tokens and has an ultimate that can end the game with enough dudes in play. Ajani Goldmane gives your guys +1/+1 counters a few times and the vigilance for a turn can come in handy. Liliana Vess lets you tutor. Elspeth Tirel is good at making tokens and gaining you some life if that is needed. There are lots of options here. If you have a doubling season in play though, Elspeth, Knight-Errant is far and away the best. To give all of your stuff indestructible is ridiculous.
After spending last night and all of today testing, and having played a half dozen or so games, I have some new insights into playing this deck.
First, I have successfully combo-ed off with earthcraft twice in a row now. I think my problem before was just needing to play it a little more and figure out what my tutor targets need to be and what hands to keep.
Second my last round of playtesting, I think that the ramp is ok but I might try to find room for one more piece. Right now, I'm thinking that will either be Primal Growth or Skyshroud Claim, because I want the lands to either come into play untapped or be able to search for non-basics if one gets added.
Third, I might want to add some more protection to the deck, right now Elspeth looks to be on the top of that stack.
Finally, the last game I was playing, I successfully combo-ed off, but I had no way to end the game there and had my army killed off when i passed the turn and I couldn't keep it to attack. So I want to find some kill that doesn't involve the combat step.
Also during this testing I used the Reveillark combo once, drew Reveillark another time and couldn't use it, and never drew the other pieces. So I'm still unsure about leaving that combo in there, but I think at this point I'm going to leave Karmic Guide in there no matter what happens, recurable recursion seems too good to pass up (also the pro black has been relevant).
I would drop the Reveillark combo stuff for some planeswalkers. Elspeth, Knight-Errant makes tokens and has an ultimate that really helps your small creature plan. Garruk Wildspeaker makes tokens and has an ultimate that can end the game with enough dudes in play. Ajani Goldmane gives your guys +1/+1 counters a few times and the vigilance for a turn can come in handy. Liliana Vess lets you tutor. Elspeth Tirel is good at making tokens and gaining you some life if that is needed. There are lots of options here. If you have a doubling season in play though, Elspeth, Knight-Errant is far and away the best. To give all of your stuff indestructible is ridiculous.
I am hesitant to add planeswalkers due to their inherent weakness in a multilayer format. The only ones that I would consider adding would be Elspeth, Knight-Errant and maybe Liliana Vess.
Thank you for the input, and anymore you might have would be appreciated,
u5
After much changing and updating this deck looks very different form when I started with it. I run most of the possible combos at this point, that I know of. I lack only Blade of the Bloodchief and Nim Deathmantle as far as combo pieces go. Realistically I should find room for Blasting Station and Elspeth, Knight-Errant for easy wins and protection, but I don't know what needs to right now. I don't think this deck is going to undergo anymore radical changes until I have had the time to perform a lot of testing, and even then I only see a few cards changing, but I'm always open to suggestions.
City can get out of hand very quickly. Very similar to Gaeas Cradle but if they do wipe your board it sticks around.
Saporling Burst is crazy good with doubling season or proliferate shennanigans
Attrition was some good back in the day and in a token deck it still is. Its like 1/2 a pact and with a pact on the table, empties the board VERY quickly.
Contagion engine just screams for some love and this is the only deck i feel is perfect for it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
EDH Multiplayer:
Saffi
Eldric
Gogo Godo Voltron
Azusa 1v1 viable
Zedru the Greathearted
Reaper King
I have to admit I have never really seen City of Shadows before. I'm not sure how I feel about the city, it's certainly something to consider though, especially when you get disrupted or get bad draws and have to play slow. I used to run attrition but I felt the I'd just rather run the two pacts alone, especially since it costs to use, but I can understand how you like it and if you need more of that effect it is perfectly valid to run. I would just run it after Grave Pact and Martyr's Bond in this deck, and I feel that the two cards are enough. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about Saproling Burst, I can see that it combines well with doubling season but not much else, and at this point I want cards to be able to interact with as many others as possible. If your deck runs slower I can see Contagion engine having more impact, however where this deck wins by turn 10 at the latest, it just seems too plain slow.
I don't think there is anything you would want Homeward Path for in this deck, most combo pieces can be substituted, to date everybody ignores my Ghave deck for Bribery, not to mention, there are many sac outlets to kill anything if someone gets a really dumb idea. Ghave himself has theft protection built in you can sac him to himself for 1.
U-579 question: How are the signets working for you? What targets do you pick with Tooth and Nail? (I use neither signets or Tooth and Nail in my deck) Some would argue Tooth and Nail is a staple in any green deck, but honestly in Ghave, enchantment tutor is more important.
edit: One more question, why Karmic Guide and not Saffi Eriksdotter? Seems like Saffi is cheaper. I have been thinking of adding Reveillark and Saffi. (maybe I just answered question #2)
I don't think there is anything you would want Homeward Path for in this deck, most combo pieces can be substituted, to date everybody ignores my Ghave deck for Bribery, not to mention, there are many sac outlets to kill anything if someone gets a really dumb idea. Ghave himself has theft protection built in you can sac him to himself for 1.
trancer99 is right, you have so many sac outlets, you usually just sac whatever they are trying to steal to stop them. In regards to your other question, I want to keep the basic land count above 10 so that I can reliably get whatever color I want with earthcraft.
U-579 question: How are the signets working for you? What targets do you pick with Tooth and Nail? (I use neither signets or Tooth and Nail in my deck) Some would argue Tooth and Nail is a staple in any green deck, but honestly in Ghave, enchantment tutor is more important.
edit: One more question, why Karmic Guide and not Saffi Eriksdotter? Seems like Saffi is cheaper. I have been thinking of adding Reveillark and Saffi. (maybe I just answered question #2)
Um the signets......well they are the signets and I could probably put something better in, but to be honest, even though I have played this deck may times, I have only played one once that I can think of. Tooth and Nail, where to begin, I can search for Juniper Order Ranger + Woodfall Primus, the reveillark combo, or
any other two important creatures. As to why Saffi Eriksdotter isn't in here, she was only useful in this combo and not really anywhere else. So instead, especially if I have an active earthcraft I would rather just return Eternal Witness and return anything to my hand where I can recast it. That is also the reason I play Sadistic Hypnotist, a recurrable sac outlet for the combo, that and he protects you fairly nicely.
Edit: I still want to find a spot for Bitter Ordeal, what would you suggest taking out?
Yeah, I'll agree that the ooze doesn't do anything for the combo, but I have been jumping around a bunch of playgroups lately and one of them did have grave abuse. But tonight I am going to play at a new group that will probably become my main group, so we shall see what that is like.
Hmm, I really didn't know about that one. You have found a card that I missed somehow. It certainly will need to be tested, because you are right that it is an infinite combo. The only strike against it that I see is that it has to untap, so it has to pass around a turn, and being small it will probably die a lot.
That it does, it might perhaps be an oversight that its not in there, or somewhat tied to my current ownership of only a single copy. But I should try and get it in the for some counter protection.
It doesn't work right? While you can target Primus and Sac it to Ghave's ability the ability will be countered on resolution for having an illegal target because the Primus that has returned is not the same as the one that was originally targeted.
Despite the sequencing of wording. I believe you have to target before you pay the cost.
It doesn't work right? While you can target Primus and Sac it to Ghave's ability the ability will be countered on resolution for having an illegal target because the Primus that has returned is not the same as the one that was originally targeted.
Despite the sequencing of wording. I believe you have to target before you pay the cost.
Yes, you are right. That is something that hasn't been fixed since originally posted it at 2AM some night long ago. Instead, the combo should be more akin to 3: Destroy target non-creature permanent.
Edit: to anyone else who is reading this and finds something wrong, this thread is undergoing a slow rewrite, so just pm with what is wrong and it will get fixed when I update.
oran-rief, the vastwood, has pretty good synergy with ghave. you use some mana to make tokens with ghave, then tap oran rief to give all of your tokens counters. then you can either leave the counters on them or remove them with ghaves ability to make more creatures! Works even better with doubling season. also, maybe a parallel lives.
BGWGhave, Guru of SporesBGW
A Treatise on Combo
BGWWGB
Beginnings:
I started playing EDH 3 years ago, and this deck is my third paper deck, and who knows how many-ith deck online. The beginnings of this deck occurred when we where all in that period of joy that accompanied the spoiling of the commander pre-cons, I saw several of the new generals that all seemed like they had a lot of potential, and I decided that I wanted to try and build an Animar deck. After a while of throwing around a few ideas, I gave up on him and I decided to try and play around with Ghave, a general that I had originally written off. The first idea that I had was to abuse persist creatures and etb effects by repeatedly giving other creatures persist with cauldron of souls and dross scorpion. After a few games, of either that combo being spectacular or doing nothing, I took it out. While I do believe that it might be a viable idea that I may revisit later, especially now that undying has since come into existence. After some changes, I centered more on making a Ghave centric deck with a goal of getting an infinite number of saprolings into play and throwing them at my opponent. After more games I realized that this wasn't quite good enough, because my army keep dying before I could swing, so I yet again shifted the deck's focus, and am now building the deck entirely focused on winning on the spot through a plentiful supply of combos.
Why Play Ghave?
Ghave is a powerful combo deck, it has many interactions and recursion, which makes it very hard not to do well with this deck as long as you play intelligently. Even though many of the combos in this deck rely on Ghave, not all of them do. This gives you the opportunity to go off after getting hindered or something similar.
You should consider playing Ghave as your commander if you like strong synergistic combos with lots of interactions to give the deck a kind of inevitability that few other decks have. The colors themselves give you may powerful options to build this deck, but this list will focus on the pure combo option.
From the colors we get:
White: Academy rector, removal, and some other tutors
Black: every tutor you ever wanted and more
Green: creature tutors, Earthcraft, ramp, recursion
Reasons You Should Play Ghave:
- You enjoy and endless supply of interactions that can leave your head hurting.
- Realizing that you have had a winning combo on the board for a few turns that you didn't even know existed.
- Getting to play cards that aren't used in any other deck.
- You get to play green without having to mindlessly turn dudes sideways, seriously, if you have to attack something has to have gone very very wrong.
Reasons You Should Not Play Ghave:
- You don't like combos.
- You like attacking.
- You don't like complex interactions.
About Ghave:
Ghave, Guru of Spores is the main commander of the counter punch commander pre-con accompanied by Karador, Ghost Chieftain and Teneb, the Harvester. Ghave differs from the strategies of the other two greatly, they both strongly lend to a reanimator style deck, while Ghave performs well as either a token swarm type deck or a combo deck. When applied to the combo style deck, Ghave represents one of the most versatile combo pieces in the entire deck. He is perhaps the one universal combo piece for the deck, and while he may be able to be replaced in many of the combos he often makes the combos easier due to his availability. You may have to recur him or replay him, but that is one of the strengths of the deck is its redundancy and its ability to recover from the loss of a combo piece. Ghave's abilities make him nearly immune to theft if you play intelligently.
Building the Deck:
Many people have tried to build "nice" versions of Ghave, yet have ended up finding unintentional combos hiding in the deck, as with the combination of abilities on Ghave, it is almost hard to find things that don't accidentally become abusive with him. So with the full understanding that this deck will end up incredibly strong, begin building this deck by choosing which combos you want to run. Then add tutors to find combo pieces, followed by a hidden strength of the deck, recursion, your toys will die and being able to get them back reliably means that you will always have a chance of coming back and winning in the face of disruption. Fill the remaining slots with as much removal as warranted by your meta and the rest with ramp.
Basic Strategy:
Ghave is a combo deck, as such playing him means that you have to consider three things: speed, resiliency, and disruption.
If you find yourself in a position where you don't think that you can reliably go for the win, it is better to take an extra turn or two while you begin to find either disruption such as cards like defense grid or hymn to tourach. What you find will depend on when you want to use it and what your using it against. Early, while people are still trying to build board presence, to protect against spell based disruption, defense grid or similar types of cards will be better because your opponents likely wont have the mana to pay the tax and play counterspells or removal for your combo. While later in the game, once hand sizes have gone down a little, a targeted discard spell could easily remove any resistance and leave you wide open to go off. If you see permanent based disruption, such as something like Rest in Peace, the deck runs a large number of general removal spells, so you should either draw into one or be able to use an extra tutor to find an answer to whatever is giving you problems.
Even using all of this deck's speed and disruption, something will inevitably go wrong. When it does, Ghave has a number of options as to what to do, Eternal Witness can get you anything back; Karmic Guide, Reviellark, and Volrath's Stronghold can get you back your creature combo pieces; and almost every combo piece has an alternate option in the deck that and with the decks vast tutor suit it shouldn't take you long at all to find a replacement. This ability to have a plan B or try plan A a couple of times gives Ghave an amazing amount of resilience.
When you shuffle up and choose your starting hand, remember even though all of the combos are 3 card combos, you only need 2 nonspecific cards from your deck in order to win. Because Ghave is involved in almost all of the combos in the deck having him always available in the command zone makes your combos start to look more like 2 card combos in normal magic. You should try and have at least one combo piece in your opener and ideally a tutor that can find the other half. The of your hand should be ramp and, if you need it, one card of disruption depending on how much you run in your deck, since I don't run much it often isn't worth it for me to mull into one unless I know that I will have to have it. After the game starts, play down you acceleration to get you going, then either tutor for a combo and play the pieces in the same turn or play whatever piece is least likely to be removed before you next turn where you can hopefully win. Finish by casting Ghave and using his abilities to fire off the game winning combo.
1 Ghave, Guru of Spores
Artifacts (13):
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Blasting Station
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Coalition Relic
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Defense Grid
1 Golgari Signet
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Selesnya Signet
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Talisman of Unity
Creatures (21):
1 Academy Rector
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Blood Artist
1 Bloom Tender
1 Dosan the Falling Leaf
1 Eternal Witness
1 Grand Abolisher
1 Geralf's Messenger
1 Juniper Order Ranger
1 Karmic Guide
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Puppeteer Clique
1 Reveillark
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Strangleroot Geist
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Triskelion
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Young Wolf
1 Aura Shards
1 Cathars' Crusade
1 Earthcraft
1 Grave Pact
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Sterling Grove
1 Sylvan Library
Instants (10):
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Argivian Find
1 Chord of Calling
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Utter End
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Worldly Tutor
Lands (34):
1 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Command Tower
1 Fetid Heath
1 Forbidden Orchard
4 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Godless Shrine
1 High Market
1 Marsh Flats
1 Murmuring Bosk
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Plains
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Sandsteppe Citadel
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Strip Mine
3 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
1 Twilight Mire
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Windswept Heath
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Dimir Machinations
1 Farseek
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Nature's Lore
1 Reanimate
1 Search for Tomorrow
1 Three Visits
1 Tooth and Nail
1 Vindicate
+Diabolic Intent
+Forest
+Plains
+Swamp
+Volrath's Stronghold
-Cauldron Haze
-Elder Druid
-Genesis
-Attrition
-Homeward Path
7/5/11
+Sol ring
+Sensei's Divining Top
+Skullclamp
+Ashnod's Altar
+Beast Within
+Forest
+Doubling Season
+Sigil Captain
+Tooth and Nail
+Crime / Punishment
-Cauldron of Souls
-Fleshbag Marauder
-Asusa, Lost but Seeking
-Dross Scorpion
-Krosan Restorer
-Bloodghast
-Adarkar Valkyrie
-Dryad Arbor
-Dimir House Guard
-Concordant Crossroads
7/13/11
+Idyllic Tutor
-Greater Good
7/17/11
+Summoner's Pact
+Forest
+Swamp
+Plains
+Triskelion
+Replenish
-Crime/Punishment
-Wasteland
-Maze of Ith
-Vesuva
-Saffi Eriksdotter
-Survival of the Fittest
7/19/11
+Twilight Drover
-Mirri's Guile
8/3/11
+Squirrel Nest
+Blasting Station
-Lightning Greaves
-Black Market
8/27/11
+Birds of Paradise
+Plains
-Squirrel Nest
-Serra's Sanctem
8/27/11-7/8/12
+Phyrexian Altar
+Bloom Tender
+Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
+Geralf's Messenger
+Young Wolf
+Kitchen Finks
+Strangleroot Geist
+Argivian Find
+Cultivate
+Forbidden Orchard
-Plains
-Riftstone Portal
-Kight of the Reliquary
-Doubling Season
-Mirrari's Wake
-Privileged Position
-Martyr's Bond
-Mana Reflection
-Twilight Drover
9/19/12
+Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
-Seedborn Muse
- Primeval Titian
10/2/12
+ One Testing slot
2/14/13
-Beast Within
-Replenish
+Abrupt Decay
+Defense Grid
+Sylvan Scrying
8/15/13
-Seal of Cleansing
-Orzhov Signet
-Darksteel Ingot
-Putrefy
-Summoner's Pact
+Dosan the Falling Leaf
+Talisman of Unity
+Chromatic Lantern
+Grand Abolisher
+Dimir Machinations
11/28/13
-Vindicate
9/12/14
-City of Brass
-Krosan Grip
-Fecundity
-Sigil Captain
+Sandsteppe Citadel
+Utter End
+Blood Artist
+Cathars' Crusade
9/23/14
-Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
-Cabal Coffers
+Reanimate
+Plains
UWRasputin DreamweaverUW
UWBSen TripletsUWB
I'm not going to list everything possible, but I'll try and list everything major that I run or could be run.
(However, if you see something important that I left off, please let me know)
Artifacts
Ashnod's Altar: A combo corner stone, Ashnod's Altar is a free sac outlet that makes mana, this combination of cost and ability allows many many bad things to go on. Reuse persist and undying creatures at will, save a creature from exile removal, or to prevent Puppeteer Clique'd creatures to be used again.
Phyrexian Altar: Ashnod's Altar's little brother. Only makes one mana, which makes abusing persist creatures harder, since they take 2 mana to reset, but makes colored mana.
Blasting Station: Combos well with Juniper Order Ranger and a persist creature for infinite damage. This card allows for combo wins without Ghave.
Blade of the Bloodchief: With everything that dies in this deck, this is often an infinite source of +1/+1 counters for this deck. I don't run this card out of personal choice, but a lot of people include it in their list, and if you are looking to run additional combo pieces, over what I run, I would recommend this one.
Skullclamp: Obviously, clamp is an amazing source of CA in this deck.
Crucible of Worlds: This deck runs a lot of important non-basic lands, so if your meta has LD this helps ensure that those lands stay around. Since I run fetch lands, I view this card more as a ramp spell than anything. As you run more off color fetches this will become more and more true.
Sensei's Divining Top: Good o'l cheap filtering
Artifact Mana: Usually some form of signets, Darksteel Ingot, Coalition Relic and more. This deck takes a lot of mana to set up, so you will want at least a few cards from this catagory
Creatures
Academy Rector: Enchantments are from the centers of many of the combos in this deck, and this tutors them straight into play when it dies, nothing broken there...
Birds of Paradise: Fast early ramp, never a bad thing to see early in a game.
Bloom Tender: Always adds at least one mana to one of each color, an amazing card in a deck with many permanents of different colors.
Butcher Ghoul: A cheap undying creature, most people run either this or Strangleroot Geist, which I prefer, but this can be easier to cast if your mana base has problems with Geist.
Dark Confidant: Drawing an extra card a turn is very good for a deck like this one, but it can and will hurt at times. Ghave can run some high CMC spells, but if you don't I would highly recommend considering this little guy.
Eternal Witness: A green creature based regrowth effect. If you run the Reveillark combo, this little gal works wonders there
Geralf's Messenger: This bundle of joy that Dark Ascension left on our doorstep is now my go to combo for this deck. With undying this guy is easily recurred an infinite number of times, and it metes out that oh so unpreventable 2 life loss. This guy is unfortunately not all upsides, his triple black makes casting him hard, and prevents thus Green Sun's Zenith or Natural Ordering for him, also since he comes into play tapped he prevents abuse with Earthcraft.
Grand Abolisher: I powerful effect that negates counter magic and activated abilities of hate permanents.
Juniper Order Ranger: This card is a combo enabler with any persist creature or a source of counters elsewhere. Over all, a little high on the mana curve, but easily tutored and abused.
Karmic Guide: Recursion and combo, with Reveillark and a sac outlet, this lets you recur any other 2 power or less creature infinitely. I don't know if I'd run this with out Lark.
Kitchen Finks: As a persist creature, infinity is not a problem. As a green creature, it is easy to tutor for and cast, but Finks is not currently run that often and is probably lower on the totem pole as far as combo creatures go.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed: A solid combo piece that can substitute for Ghave in some combos. He combos with Triskelion and any persist creature.
Puppeteer Clique: Persist, that's really all this creature needs. But wait, there's more! Steal creatures from your opponents graveyards repeatedly! I generally don't like things that rely on your opponents to be good, but, especially in the late game, there are always creatures in graveyards and remember your playing ETB: the gathering! so you should always find some value with this little sucker.
Reveillark: Combos with Karmic Guide and a sac outlet for infinite etb, ltb, permanents hitting the graveyard, and returning of 2 power or less creatures. Purely an optional combo, and I wouldn't run one half of this combo without the other, but I like it so I run it.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary: Your going to be running basics because of Earthcraft, and depending on budget, shocks and ABUR duals. This guy will make a lot of mana more often than not.
Sadistic Hypnotist: A free sac outlet that also acts as disruption, whats not to like. I advocated this card for a long time, and it seems like it finally caught on.
Scavenging Ooze: Grave hate with counters. I try not to run limited sources of +1/+1 counters, but this is only one of my 2 sources of grave hate, and since I cut Knight of the Reliquary, this is the only one that I can tutor for. Most people don't run this card.
Seedborn Muse: Haven't hit infinity? Have lots of mana. I feel like this card suffers from a bad case of the win-mores, and I don't really know why I haven't cut it yet but test it and see how you like it.
Sigil Captain: gives your saprolings 2 +1/+1 counters for free
Strangleroot Geist: a hasty undying creature that lets you make infinite armies of fungus or through a massive number of counters and swing with him early. This can potentially be hard to cast though.
Woodfall Primus: Trample, persist, and it nukes something when in comes into play. Can combo, but is on the high end of expensive, so it rarely sees use in my deck.
Triskelion: Combo with Reveillark or just dumb a crap ton of counters on here to machine gun anything and everything.
Yavimaya Elder: Card draw and land search, a solid early game play.
Young Wolf: The cheapest undying creature, can give you unlimited mana and saprolings. Also, funny to see people scratch there heads the first time you play this.
Enchantments
Aura Shards: Artifact and enchantment hate that is reusable. At worst with Ghave, it reads 2: Destroy target artifact of enchantment.
Cathars' Crusade: Combo's with persist creatures and with Ghave and Earthcraft.
Doubling Season: This wonderful enchantment enables a large swath of combos, but when this hits play, get ready to feel the hate. I dislike the fact that this thing cost 5 and that it single handedly draws more hate than any other combo piece in the deck. I recently cut this card and haven't really missed it, but removing it does cut down on the inherent redundancy of the deck. However, consider this card if you expect a lot of grave hate as most of it's combos avoid the grave.
Earthcraft: This card is half mana ramp, half combo piece, and all brokenness. Lets you get value out of creatures that you just cast, combo with creatures that enter and leave the battlefield often.
Fecundity: Things are going to die, might as well draw some cards. Sucks that it lets your opponents do it too, but you will draw a lot more than they do.
Grave Pact: There's nothing quite like a permanent board wipe for your opponents.
Mana Reflection and Mirari's Wake: these 2 mana doublers give your a massive boost of mana, that is often unessisary. In many people's lists, these proved to be win-more and have been dropped.
Phyrexian Arena: Extra draw is valuable in these colors, so this can give you a lot of value over a long time.
Sterling Grove: Protection and a tutor all rolled up into one.
Survival of the Fittest: One of the best creature tutors, especially in a deck that can use the grave. I don't run this card because there aren't that many creatures that I want to discard to it even with graveyard access.
Sylvan Library: Filtering or card draw depending on how much your willing to pay.
Instants
Argivian Find: A lot of combo pieces in this deck are artifacts of enchantments, so this can be a powerful and cheap piece of recursion.
Beast Within: A good piece of removal and the downside is usually meaningless.
Chord of Calling: This is one of the strongest creature tutors with the ability to search for anything and put it straight into play.
Eladamri's Call: An instant speed creature tutor that puts things into your hand for cheep.
Enlightened Tutor: With the number of important artifacts and enchantments in this deck, this will always have a relevant target.
Summoner's Pact: An instant speed tutor for free that drops things into you hand, the green only limiter severely weakens this card, and has made me consider doping it.
Vampiric Tutor: Instant speed tutor for anything.
Worldly Tutor: Creatures are parts of every combo, so being able to find them is key.
Sorceries
Bitter Ordeal: A solid win condition that is nigh unstoppable, I've been trying to find a place for this and as of yet have not, but it is always on my list of things to consider.
Cultivate: Descent ramp for multiple lands.
Demonic Tutor: One of if not the best tutor.
Diabolic Intent: With the tokens and recursion present in this deck, this might as well be Demonic tutor #2.
Diabolic Tutor: An ok tutor, I only run it because of the rarity and cost prohibitive nature of some of the better tutors.
Farseek: A good card with lots of lands that have basic land types.
Green Sun's Zenith: A tutor that searches anything green into play and shuffles itself back. The green only limiter does greatly reduce its usefulness.
Grim Tutor: A good second tier tutor, a good include if you have one and not something that you need to get if you don't.
Idyllic Tutor: Searches for Earthcraft, anything after that is just gravy.
Maelstrom Pulse: good removal that can hit almost anything and clear out token swarms, similar to its cousin Vindicate.
Nature's Lore: Search for any forest and put it into play untapped, one of the best 2 mana ramp spells.
Replenish: Recur all of your enchantments. I don't actually have this in paper, and can't say that I've ever used it online. Use it if you want, don't if you don't. I am considering dropping this.
Three Visits: A functional Nature's Lore reprint.
Tooth and Nail: Search for anything and put anything into play, there is a reason this card often gets mentioned in banning discussions.
Viper's Thread
This Thread has a lot of good discussion and lists from many people posted
UWRasputin DreamweaverUW
UWBSen TripletsUWB
Where is Tooth and Nail and Doubling Season? They are really good for Ghave as it lets you assemble combo pieces and powers up Ghave a lot faster.
Earthcraft with only 3 basics? that's pretty questionable.
and KotR seems rather lackluster with so few Plains/Forests to sac to him. i realize you have crucible, but still, i would personally feel safer with a few more basics at least to cover Knight activations, Farseek, Nature's Lore, Yavimaya Elder, etc.
especially running things like Azusa, how often are you really going to have extra lands in hand to abuse her when you are running so few? i know Cradle can kind of make up for lack of drawing lands, but it feels like you might have to get lucky or mulligan aggressively to make sure you have a hand capable of fetching the lands you need to get on the right track.
idk, just theorizing. maybe you have amazing luck. i know personally, running 38 lands, i still occasionally have trouble getting a hand with sufficient mana sources. my w/g tokens deck runs 36 and approx 10-12 ways to accel, fetch (not including fetch land), or fix mana sources. i just wouldn't feel comfortable going any lower than that, but to each his own.
Edit: also, yes, Doubling Season is an auto-include for Ghave, imo. it's friggin' bonkers.
WR Heroic
Modern
FISH
Legacy
FISH
EDH
Hanna, Ship Navigator - Enchantments
Sygg, River Guide - Fish Tribal
Mayael, the Anima - Power5orGreater
Zedruu, the Greathearted - Gifts
Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker - 1 Power Recursion
Roon of the Hidden Realm - ETB Triggers
Edric, Spymaster of Trent - TurboFog
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind - Shapeshifters *IN PROGRESS*
Krenko, Mob Boss - Goblins *IN PROGRESS*
Second, I took out genesis for Volrath's Stronghold I'm not sure how I feel about this and Genesis might find its way back in after more play testing.
On why Doubling Season isn't in here yet, I've heard that this card is actually over kill the vast majority of the time, so I haven't added it, but its near the top of my list to test.
Other than that, I'm going to test a few other cards that I'll add to the list once I know what I'm taking out for them. These are(in no particular order):
Sensei's Divining Top
Sol Ring
Triskelion
Beast Within
Regrowth
Tooth and Nail
Idyllic Tutor
I also am putting these cards on my watch list for taking out:
Adarkar Valkyrie
Knight of the Reliquary
The entire Reveillark combo
Edit:
Yeah, that's one thing that I don't really like right now, I felt like I had this great idea to do something original, but I think that it kind of got lost in the shuffle of building the deck. I cut Heartmender early on because I want to use the persist several times a turn, and the once a turn wasn't really effective. In that same vain, none of the others seemed that impressive either, about all I do is use Cauldron of Souls and Dross Scorpion to machine gun etb or death trigers. I'm almost to the point of giving up trying to call it a persist abuse deck.
Edit 2: But yeah Melira, Sylvok Outcast seems good, I'll have to try it out.
UWRasputin DreamweaverUW
UWBSen TripletsUWB
The changes include:
+Sol ring
+Sensei's Divining Top
+Skullclamp
+Ashnod's Altar
+Beast Within
+Forest
+Doubling Season
+Sigil Captain
+Tooth and Nail
+Crime / Punishment
-Cauldron of Souls
-Fleshbag Marader
-Asusa, Lost but Seeking
-Dross Scorpion
-Krosan Restorer
-Bloodghast
-Adarkar Valkyrie
-Dryad Arbor
-Dimir House Guard
-Concordant Crossroads
Beyond these changes, I am amazed by this deck's ability to build insurmountable board presence, and its ability to come out of nowhere and win. However, I am still undecided about the inclusion of the Reveillark combo (Reveillark, Karmic Guide, and Saffi Eriksdotter). The guide is always good, but reveillark doesn't have many targets outside of the combo, and saffi is just a lightning rod I guess. These three slots might have better uses, but the win I just pulled off out of nowhere to end a 3.5 hour game makes me feel good about its existence. The only other issue I have with this deck is I feel that it isn't fast enough. I've seen viper's list and he said that he can set up a combo by about turn 6 regularly, whereas I have yet to achieve anything like that. I was wondering if anyone has any insights as to how to speed the deck up
Thanks,
u5
UWRasputin DreamweaverUW
UWBSen TripletsUWB
I am hesitant to add planeswalkers due to their inherent weakness in a multilayer format. The only ones that I would consider adding would be Elspeth, Knight-Errant and maybe Liliana Vess.
Thank you for the input, and anymore you might have would be appreciated,
u5
UWRasputin DreamweaverUW
UWBSen TripletsUWB
UWRasputin DreamweaverUW
UWBSen TripletsUWB
City can get out of hand very quickly. Very similar to Gaeas Cradle but if they do wipe your board it sticks around.
Saporling Burst is crazy good with doubling season or proliferate shennanigans
Attrition was some good back in the day and in a token deck it still is. Its like 1/2 a pact and with a pact on the table, empties the board VERY quickly.
Contagion engine just screams for some love and this is the only deck i feel is perfect for it.
Saffi
Eldric
Gogo Godo Voltron
Azusa 1v1 viable
Zedru the Greathearted
Reaper King
EDH 1v1:
Azami Lady of the CA
Momir Vig Combo
UWRasputin DreamweaverUW
UWBSen TripletsUWB
U-579 question: How are the signets working for you? What targets do you pick with Tooth and Nail? (I use neither signets or Tooth and Nail in my deck) Some would argue Tooth and Nail is a staple in any green deck, but honestly in Ghave, enchantment tutor is more important.
edit: One more question, why Karmic Guide and not Saffi Eriksdotter? Seems like Saffi is cheaper. I have been thinking of adding Reveillark and Saffi. (maybe I just answered question #2)
Azusa - Derevi - Glissa - Mizzix - Sharuum - Wanderer - Wort
trancer99 is right, you have so many sac outlets, you usually just sac whatever they are trying to steal to stop them. In regards to your other question, I want to keep the basic land count above 10 so that I can reliably get whatever color I want with earthcraft.
Um the signets......well they are the signets and I could probably put something better in, but to be honest, even though I have played this deck may times, I have only played one once that I can think of. Tooth and Nail, where to begin, I can search for Juniper Order Ranger + Woodfall Primus, the reveillark combo, or
any other two important creatures. As to why Saffi Eriksdotter isn't in here, she was only useful in this combo and not really anywhere else. So instead, especially if I have an active earthcraft I would rather just return Eternal Witness and return anything to my hand where I can recast it. That is also the reason I play Sadistic Hypnotist, a recurrable sac outlet for the combo, that and he protects you fairly nicely.
Edit: I still want to find a spot for Bitter Ordeal, what would you suggest taking out?
UWRasputin DreamweaverUW
UWBSen TripletsUWB
Scavenging Ooze is not part of any combo, and only useful if you your meta does grave shenanigans. I do not run it in my deck.
Bitter Ordeal is awesome, It is my preferred wincon now with my Ghave deck. It will also work with Reveillark/Karmic Guide combo if you have a free sac like Ashnod's Altar or if you have Earthcraft and Ghave out to make 1 to sac.
Azusa - Derevi - Glissa - Mizzix - Sharuum - Wanderer - Wort
Yeah, I'll agree that the ooze doesn't do anything for the combo, but I have been jumping around a bunch of playgroups lately and one of them did have grave abuse. But tonight I am going to play at a new group that will probably become my main group, so we shall see what that is like.
Got any general thoughts on my take of the deck?
UWRasputin DreamweaverUW
UWBSen TripletsUWB
EDH:▼
(links to 3D generals)
Playing: Designing:
Retired:
Hmm, I really didn't know about that one. You have found a card that I missed somehow. It certainly will need to be tested, because you are right that it is an infinite combo. The only strike against it that I see is that it has to untap, so it has to pass around a turn, and being small it will probably die a lot.
UWRasputin DreamweaverUW
UWBSen TripletsUWB
UWRasputin DreamweaverUW
UWBSen TripletsUWB
It doesn't work right? While you can target Primus and Sac it to Ghave's ability the ability will be countered on resolution for having an illegal target because the Primus that has returned is not the same as the one that was originally targeted.
Despite the sequencing of wording. I believe you have to target before you pay the cost.
Yes, you are right. That is something that hasn't been fixed since originally posted it at 2AM some night long ago. Instead, the combo should be more akin to 3: Destroy target non-creature permanent.
Edit: to anyone else who is reading this and finds something wrong, this thread is undergoing a slow rewrite, so just pm with what is wrong and it will get fixed when I update.
UWRasputin DreamweaverUW
UWBSen TripletsUWB
GRRWHazezon Tamar (Valakut)GRRW
UKami of the Crescent Moon (
Group Hug)UUHeidar, Rimewind Master [Mini-Primer]U
WKemba, Kha Regent (Stax)W
GEzuri, Renegade Leader [Primer]G