I ended up not adding any proliferate because as I was putting it together it didn't feel like I was really aiming for ultimates here as finishers like the previous incarnation of the deck was. It seemed like the useful ultimates could be reached easily enough through multiple activations such as with Oath of Teferi. Mana struggles early on this game (and Dack's +1) had me discarding some planeswalkers, but I drew into Primevals' Glorious Rebirth, which was kindof an explosion of planeswalkers that painted a huge target on me (Firesong and Sunspeaker promptly burnt out the rest of my 28 life). The walkers I used this game still had a decent amount of targeted removal for an element of control, although Anguished Unmaking and Innocent Blood came in handy.
Rebirth is a huge amount of logistics to deal with 6-7 planeswalkers all at once, plus being able to activate them twice with Oath of Teferi. I may try Sunbird's Invocation instead and see if that's more manageable for me, since the main thing I didn't like about its performance was how long that turn took. And I should probably practice with the deck so I know all the walker's abilities and don't have to read so much.
Seems like you are using tokens, did they work out well?
Yeah, I had piloted the control+ultimates version for a while, even though I didn't have entirely the same cards (no Humility; one of my ult wincons was Sorin, Grim Nemesis). So this was a rebuild based on your hypothetical token-based list.
Needs some practice (mostly for efficiency in piloting superfriends in general) and tweaking for my playgroup (regarding balance of effects, like how much removal). But it seems doable with my group's power level. There was a bit of discussion regarding details of my first game in this thread on Nexus (the thread's focus being ideas on how to pilot quickly).
I came to the realization that this current iteration has no plan of gradually winning the game. Basically, you either hope for an ultimate, typically with Doubling Season, and that's about it. Nothing in the deck works cohesively as a strategy towards incrementally winning the game.
But this is the core thing I liked about the token version, why I switched, and even that first game with it seems to be proving that idea has legs to stand on.
From this point I'm mostly "thinking out loud", but I hope it's interesting.
There's definitely some cards I'll be swapping in and out to test. Probably ditching Rings of Brighthearth -- I'd rather just have Oath of Teferi in play, cast something else like Repeated Reverberation for a spectacular turn, or use The Chain Veil, really. As far as cutting down on busy-work, I probably won't add any proliferation. In a similar way, Honor-Worn Shaku may get annoying.
Not sure if anyone still follows this thread but there are some awesome cards coming out in Ikoria for this deck!
I still check Salvation occasionally. One of the things I'm most interested in for 5C in general is the triome tricycle lands so that I can maybe run fewer fetches, fewer shocks, and more basics. Mostly hadn't been looking at cards from the perspective of superfriends because there's already still 20 cards I want to test in the list (Sunbird's Invocation and Kamahl's Druidic Vow, for example). But Shark Typhoon, Narset of the Ancient Way, and Whirlwind of Thought seem to have some potential. Oh, and Manascape Refractor.
So Ramos is an interesting commander for the deck, too. Flying is handy, as is the trigger and ability. Got to 5 counters 2-3 times during a game where he actually saw a fair amount of removal (but this last game I was up against two monoblue and one dimir deck, so the interaction was expected). The first time he got to 5 counters, one of the blues (Thryx) cast Expropriate. As I'm contemplating how I can respond, because all I've really got for instant-speed is Naya Charm in hand and Assassin's Trophy in the graveyard, someone notes that if I can get rid of Thryx, they can counter the Expropriate. I'd paid for both my spells off of mana from Ramos and he was right back to 5 counters. Managed to use his mana later, too.
I have 28 walkers in the deck at the moment and probably need to cut back 3-4 and figure out the core set of walkers I want to use. I'm not using Doubling Season because I want to have to work to an ultimate mostly fairly, though I'm not opposed to Oath of Gideon, Pir, Imaginative Rascal, and The Chain Veil, which are all in the list at the moment. The Chain Veil and Teferi, Temporal Archmage, along with some other cards, offer at least one line of combo if I happen to get the pieces together. Because The Chain Veil is really weird and the additional activations that turn, from each resolution of its ability, apply to any planeswalker that enters the battlefield under your control that turn.
Honor-Worn Shaku has not been annoying as far as fiddling, and had a really good synergy with Oath of Nissa, allowing me to use the colorless mana from Shaku via walkers to cast walkers and save colored mana from lands for other stuff. I just need to remember which things are legendary, because I forgot until the end of the game that I could tap the Oaths as well as the walkers.
Martyr's Cause was really, really handy. I underestimated it until I saw it in action. I was considering Righteous Aura to go along with Maze and Kor Haven to protect myself, but Cause does a really good job of protecting walkers. It also helped Garruk, Cursed Huntsman get an emblem really fast.
There's still some cards I mentioned before that I have yet to test, but they'll be going on a list now that I'm getting 1-2 games per week.
It may be handy for Ramos at the helm to use multicolored spells in place of monocolored, such as Treasured Find/Obzedat's Aid/Naya Charm instead of Regrowth. I also may have to swap a couple walkers toward control elements, too. I haven't decided whether to keep Sliver Queen to the side as an alt commander or to put her in the 99.
I may end up identifying a core set of walkers that I want to keep in the deck and have others that I could pull from randomly. There was this 91-card Atla Palani, Nest Tender deck I saw where the last 9 slots are chosen randomly from a pool of 25 possible creatures. Could have a bit of fun with something similar.
Once I test some other stuff I'll update my list again here, but all three opponents from that game thought it was a really fair walker deck and fun to play against.
The basic case is Ajani fueling up other walkers, including Aminatou 1 and 2, then they reset Ajani, each other, and one other permanent. This can also be used to produce mana with Honor-Worn Shaku to pay something like Rings of Brighthearth or TCV.
Ajani Steadfast is usable instead of Greathearted, just not quite as well.
I'm going to find a spot for Aminatou. It may be handy to find a spot for Steadfast, too, as redundancy on that -2 the he and Greathearted share would be nice (repeating the +1 on the commander or on multiple creatures wouldn't be bad, either).
DUDE! First 1:45:00 of this video is my game last night playing the walker deck. Commander didn't matter too much, though Sliver Queen would have been better in the endgame due to Anointed Procession, Parallel Lives, and Tamiyo, Field Researcher's emblem which would have allowed me to pour mana from my lands into token production since I could cast things for free. Ramos seems less scary at the helm, but I might A|B test while running the other in the 99 sometimes.
I kept forgetting to save on tokens by blocking non-tramplers and then sac them to Martyr's Cause to put a bubble on something else. Also should have used removal much earlier in the last turn -- probably Despark on Ur-Dragon at the beginning of the first combat, before attackers declared. Then he wouldn't have got Curse of Opulence in play off of the Ur-Dragon trigger and I would have been free to use Assassin's Trophy on Hellkite Charger. I'm noticing lots of other little mistakes made, too, and not just mine. Need to practice.
DUDE! First 1:45:00 of this video is my game last night playing the walker deck. Commander didn't matter too much, though Sliver Queen would have been better in the endgame due to Anointed Procession, Parallel Lives, and Tamiyo, Field Researcher's emblem which would have allowed me to pour mana from my lands into token production since I could cast things for free. Ramos seems less scary at the helm, but I might A|B test while running the other in the 99 sometimes.
I kept forgetting to save on tokens by blocking non-tramplers and then sac them to Martyr's Cause to put a bubble on something else. Also should have used removal much earlier in the last turn -- probably Despark on Ur-Dragon at the beginning of the first combat, before attackers declared. Then he wouldn't have got Curse of Opulence in play off of the Ur-Dragon trigger and I would have been free to use Assassin's Trophy on Hellkite Charger. I'm noticing lots of other little mistakes made, too, and not just mine. Need to practice.
I don't know why I was never notified of these comments, but I apologize for not seeing them! Hope you guys are still enjoying the deck. I admittedly have not played it in a long time.
I don't know why I was never notified of these comments, but I apologize for not seeing them! Hope you guys are still enjoying the deck. I admittedly have not played it in a long time.
Maybe a quote will work better re:notifications. Figure I'll dump some of my recent thoughts and such on the token-related version.
Didn't get to play at all since October, so not a lot of changes or testing in that time. Got my gaming rig fixed, though, and started playing again (prior to that, had to rely on the work laptop which blocked stuff I needed for webcam play). The other day I played my version and didn't hit any card draw so had to rely on Ramos + Gisela, Blade of Goldnight and couldn't quite take out the imminent threat with commander damage before they ran me over with giant tokens from their Cathars' Crusade and Increasing Devotion.
The token-related version continues to evolve, and I'm guessing it'll end up having a few more creature cards and will probably end up at 15-20 walker cards, but I probably need to re-introduce just a bit of the control element from before. And while the walkers are a big focus and the 1-2 combo lines possible revolve around the walkers, I've relaxed the focus from producing tokens primarily with walkers to primarily producing them from non-creature sources (because Martial Coup is usually really good). I'm still not going to run Doubling Season, but I'm probably going to relax my "no proliferation" rule and run a couple that the other players can expect to be one-shot. Simple draw like Tezzeret's Gambit or big bursts like Planewide Celebration since modality is a big theme of the deck. Mystic Reflection will be neat to play with once I rebuild this, especially with the larger bursts of 3+ tokens, and most of my creature cards are going to end up being things that work decently on their own but also explode with Reflection and/or Mirrorweave (Giant Adephage and Master Biomancer among the considerations).
A couple of my favorite decks have a lot of open-ended cards that have good interactions with a lot of other cards in the deck, so you can generally do well with whatever you happen to draw into, so I'd love it if the deck ended up like that.
Needs some practice (mostly for efficiency in piloting superfriends in general) and tweaking for my playgroup (regarding balance of effects, like how much removal). But it seems doable with my group's power level. There was a bit of discussion regarding details of my first game in this thread on Nexus (the thread's focus being ideas on how to pilot quickly).
But this is the core thing I liked about the token version, why I switched, and even that first game with it seems to be proving that idea has legs to stand on.
From this point I'm mostly "thinking out loud", but I hope it's interesting.
There's definitely some cards I'll be swapping in and out to test. Probably ditching Rings of Brighthearth -- I'd rather just have Oath of Teferi in play, cast something else like Repeated Reverberation for a spectacular turn, or use The Chain Veil, really. As far as cutting down on busy-work, I probably won't add any proliferation. In a similar way, Honor-Worn Shaku may get annoying.
I'm a little on the fence about Garruk Relentless as his ult on the backside may never be good and the other abilities are okay, but Garruk, Cursed Huntsman is good and makes me want to find space for Garruk, Primal Hunter in addition to the others. If I had a handful of important creatures like Maelstrom Wanderer or Urabrask the Hidden then Cursed Hunstman's wolves become great fodder for Relentless's backside -1 Altar of Bone.
I'll be testing some development boosters like Maelstrom Wanderer, Sunbird's Invocation, and Kamahl's Druidic Vow, maybe even have a go with Rashmi, Eternities Crafter. The tokens may also need a little anthem/effect help both defensively and offensively. Some of the walkers like Ajani, the Greathearted/Sarkhan Vol/Wildspeaker/Cursed Huntsman are good, but Venser, the Sojourner, Beastmaster Ascension, Pathbreaker Ibex, good old Overwhelming Stampede, or Akroma's Memorial could be good support (and the latter returns with Primevals' Glorious Rebirth). Sarkhan Unbroken might be good just for his +1 and -2; Sorin, Grim Nemesis might get time in this version, too; haven't got a copy of Vraska, Golgari Queen yet, but plan to.
The legendary angle with Rebirth and Memorial also has me thinking of Homura, Human Ascendant, some of the gods like Purphoros or Iroas, and Throne of the God-Pharaoh. Also some possible fun alts like Sarkhan the Masterless. Especially with multiple activations from Oath of Teferi or The Chain Veil, Oath of Gideon pushes a few of them just enough that I might test it, or at least figure how many in the list it really boosts toward an ultimate or an extra minus.
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old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
triometricycle lands so that I can maybe run fewer fetches, fewer shocks, and more basics. Mostly hadn't been looking at cards from the perspective of superfriends because there's already still 20 cards I want to test in the list (Sunbird's Invocation and Kamahl's Druidic Vow, for example). But Shark Typhoon, Narset of the Ancient Way, and Whirlwind of Thought seem to have some potential. Oh, and Manascape Refractor.old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
I have 28 walkers in the deck at the moment and probably need to cut back 3-4 and figure out the core set of walkers I want to use. I'm not using Doubling Season because I want to have to work to an ultimate mostly fairly, though I'm not opposed to Oath of Gideon, Pir, Imaginative Rascal, and The Chain Veil, which are all in the list at the moment. The Chain Veil and Teferi, Temporal Archmage, along with some other cards, offer at least one line of combo if I happen to get the pieces together. Because The Chain Veil is really weird and the additional activations that turn, from each resolution of its ability, apply to any planeswalker that enters the battlefield under your control that turn.
Honor-Worn Shaku has not been annoying as far as fiddling, and had a really good synergy with Oath of Nissa, allowing me to use the colorless mana from Shaku via walkers to cast walkers and save colored mana from lands for other stuff. I just need to remember which things are legendary, because I forgot until the end of the game that I could tap the Oaths as well as the walkers.
Martyr's Cause was really, really handy. I underestimated it until I saw it in action. I was considering Righteous Aura to go along with Maze and Kor Haven to protect myself, but Cause does a really good job of protecting walkers. It also helped Garruk, Cursed Huntsman get an emblem really fast.
There's still some cards I mentioned before that I have yet to test, but they'll be going on a list now that I'm getting 1-2 games per week.
It may be handy for Ramos at the helm to use multicolored spells in place of monocolored, such as Treasured Find/Obzedat's Aid/Naya Charm instead of Regrowth. I also may have to swap a couple walkers toward control elements, too. I haven't decided whether to keep Sliver Queen to the side as an alt commander or to put her in the 99.
I may end up identifying a core set of walkers that I want to keep in the deck and have others that I could pull from randomly. There was this 91-card Atla Palani, Nest Tender deck I saw where the last 9 slots are chosen randomly from a pool of 25 possible creatures. Could have a bit of fun with something similar.
Once I test some other stuff I'll update my list again here, but all three opponents from that game thought it was a really fair walker deck and fun to play against.
My list at this moment:
1 Ramos, Dragon Engine
Creature (4)
1 Aven Wind Guide
1 Clever Impersonator
1 Pir, Imaginative Rascal
1 Spark Double
Instant (4)
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Despark
1 Sundering Growth
Sorcery (9)
1 Austere Command
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Farseek
1 Overwhelming Stampede
1 Primevals' Glorious Rebirth
1 Regrowth
1 Spoils of Victory
1 Wargate
1 Winds of Abandon
Artifact (8)
1 Arcane Signet
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Honor-Worn Shaku
1 Mox Amber
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Skullclamp
1 Thought Vessel
Enchantment (10)
1 Anointed Procession
1 Martyr's Cause
1 Mirari's Wake
1 Oath of Ajani
1 Oath of Gideon
1 Oath of Liliana
1 Oath of Nissa
1 Oath of Teferi
1 Parallel Lives
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Ajani, the Greathearted
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Dack Fayden
1 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
1 Elspeth Tirel
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Garruk, Cursed Huntsman
1 Huatli, Radiant Champion
1 Jace Beleren
1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
1 Liliana, Dreadhorde General
1 Narset Transcendent
1 Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God
1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
1 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
1 Sarkhan Vol
1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
1 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
1 Teferi, Temporal Archmage
1 Tezzeret, Artifice Master
1 Vraska, Golgari Queen
Land (36)
1 Arid Mesa
1 Ash Barrens
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Breeding Pool
1 Command Tower
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Flooded Strand
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Interplanar Beacon
1 Kher Keep
1 Kor Haven
1 Mana Confluence
1 Marsh Flats
1 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Swamp
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
Oath of Teferi or a single resolution of TCV to allow two activations.
Ajani, the Greathearted to put two loyalty counters on other walkers.
Aminatou, the Fateshifter to reset Ajani and the below
Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God or Spark Double as another permanent using Aminatou's -1 to reset a couple things.
The basic case is Ajani fueling up other walkers, including Aminatou 1 and 2, then they reset Ajani, each other, and one other permanent. This can also be used to produce mana with Honor-Worn Shaku to pay something like Rings of Brighthearth or TCV.
Ajani Steadfast is usable instead of Greathearted, just not quite as well.
I'm going to find a spot for Aminatou. It may be handy to find a spot for Steadfast, too, as redundancy on that -2 the he and Greathearted share would be nice (repeating the +1 on the commander or on multiple creatures wouldn't be bad, either).
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
I also got Huatli, Radiant Champion's emblem (could have done so multiple times), and in the last turn ulted Elspeth, Knight-Errant, and Garruk Wildspeaker for Overrun.
I kept forgetting to save on tokens by blocking non-tramplers and then sac them to Martyr's Cause to put a bubble on something else. Also should have used removal much earlier in the last turn -- probably Despark on Ur-Dragon at the beginning of the first combat, before attackers declared. Then he wouldn't have got Curse of Opulence in play off of the Ur-Dragon trigger and I would have been free to use Assassin's Trophy on Hellkite Charger. I'm noticing lots of other little mistakes made, too, and not just mine. Need to practice.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
I don't know why I was never notified of these comments, but I apologize for not seeing them! Hope you guys are still enjoying the deck. I admittedly have not played it in a long time.
Didn't get to play at all since October, so not a lot of changes or testing in that time. Got my gaming rig fixed, though, and started playing again (prior to that, had to rely on the work laptop which blocked stuff I needed for webcam play). The other day I played my version and didn't hit any card draw so had to rely on Ramos + Gisela, Blade of Goldnight and couldn't quite take out the imminent threat with commander damage before they ran me over with giant tokens from their Cathars' Crusade and Increasing Devotion.
The token-related version continues to evolve, and I'm guessing it'll end up having a few more creature cards and will probably end up at 15-20 walker cards, but I probably need to re-introduce just a bit of the control element from before. And while the walkers are a big focus and the 1-2 combo lines possible revolve around the walkers, I've relaxed the focus from producing tokens primarily with walkers to primarily producing them from non-creature sources (because Martial Coup is usually really good). I'm still not going to run Doubling Season, but I'm probably going to relax my "no proliferation" rule and run a couple that the other players can expect to be one-shot. Simple draw like Tezzeret's Gambit or big bursts like Planewide Celebration since modality is a big theme of the deck. Mystic Reflection will be neat to play with once I rebuild this, especially with the larger bursts of 3+ tokens, and most of my creature cards are going to end up being things that work decently on their own but also explode with Reflection and/or Mirrorweave (Giant Adephage and Master Biomancer among the considerations).
A couple of my favorite decks have a lot of open-ended cards that have good interactions with a lot of other cards in the deck, so you can generally do well with whatever you happen to draw into, so I'd love it if the deck ended up like that.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
I will leave this up for anyone looking though. Thank you all for years!
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko