I already play Meddling Mage and Deputy of Detention as "counter target Commander" effects. Both are creatures so they are vastly superiors to Tale's End. I also run Silumgar Sorcerer, which is an excellent Exclude variant for our deck, since it works with blink and can determine if we want to leave a good body afterwards.
Even after those, there are plenty of other counterspells I would run over this card, namely Disallow. Otherwise there are some really cool creatures, like Voidmage Prodigy, and with it Patron Wizard. Mostly I wish we could get something out of Spellstutter Sprite, that card is so good.
Well, this is a core set and the overall power level and complexity reflects this. There are not a lot of cards to consider, but there are a couple of doozies. There's no real cohesive theme to discuss. Definitely a ton of new commanders and other things. Yarok, the Desecrated is probably the one to be most on the lookout for. We might need to be packing Tocatli Honor Guard at some point if that thing catches on.
Interestingly Rienne, Angel of rebirth presents another option that is quite powerful for a hatebears commander, though its multicolored restriction is very limiting. knight of the reliquary and Qasali Pridemage get really good when you can just keep them on the battlefield forever.
White
For my build, Brought Back is probably the only card I will consider seriously.
Honorable mention goes to Starfield Mystic who both ramps ephara, can be a fattie, and synergizes with enchantment heavy builds of Ephara.
Cavalier of Dawn is also a fairly strong card that I could see playing in a deck that wants to play fewer support cards for its creatures. It's undeniably powerful and especially blinkable.
There are several fairly strong effects that potentially play in lifegain Ephara builds, such as :
Blue
The only blue card I would seriously consider for the main deck is Agent of Treachery. This card has some serious flaws but it's also an incredibly powerful effect with a massive amount of card draw. The ultimate thing that makes this unplayable for me is that it requires more theft support than I have, and I try to avoid doing too much of that because it's not super casual friendly.
The card falls short in a few other ways but they are less decisive than that -- it can't be recruitered, it has a very underwhelming body, and it's very expensive. It has to be compared to cards like Consecrated Sphinx and will surely fall very short despite its ability to answer problems.
Cavalier of Gales and Flood of Tears get honorable mentions - Cavalier wants more topdeck dependency than I have, but is fairly powerful. Flood is a very powerful card but it wants a higher curve than we have and more bombs I think to take advantage of it. That feels like a spellslinger Ephara build that wants to cast Omniscience for free or something.
Third honorable mention goes to Leyline of Anticipation for an art upgrade and a price downgrade on a foil I would like to have for the deck.
Multiocolor
Nothing really here, but Empyrean Eagle is not horrid in a flyer focused deck, especially on a budget.
Colorless, Lands and Artifacts
Field of the Dead is low key probably the best card in the set for Ephara (in the abstract sense), though I am not sure I will play it. I do think it is better than Inventors' Fair so I might try it there. Entering tapped is very annoying however. My guess is we would like to play more land tutors for this to be a reliable engine, both to fix for it and find it - stuff like Tolaria West and Expedition Map. I don't think I want to go this route, but I may pick up a foil of this anyway.
Mystic Forge is a pretty powerful effect that surely has a place in an affinity-style Ephara list. Comboes quite easily with sculptor+top+forge, and also is just strong independently.
Manifold Key is pretty good in such decks as well, though we are not running the level of artifact ramp to justify it I could see running it as a major upgrade over Voltaic Key in a deck that wanted vault/monoliths/etc.
Summary
Nothing really major, possible addition or two, but nothing that's going to change the archetype in my opinion. Brought Back is great though, I look forward to trying that.
Got in two games with this deck tonight and lost both and it wasn't particularly close. Same struggles I've always had lately with some new ones. My hands were pretty good both times with turn 3 Ephara and some kind of action - I think I made a sequencing mistake with the mox Diamond hand by not waiting to cast Monastery Mentor until after Ephara, even though I could, but it didn't really make a huge difference.
I lost bad to Edgar and also to a mono green Selvala deck. Mono green decks are my nemesis with this deck, just getting owned by overrun effects and a few 6/6s.
Really not sure what to do about that but it's the same problems I started noticing last year dealing with fatties - my deck just doesn't block as well as it used to because creatures are stronger and they seem to be coming out faster and faster.
In one game I mana flooded hard, drawing about 8 cards off Ephara. I did maybe get too aggressive in that game though as I managed to get Elesh Norn and Mentor out, then they both got merciless eviction'd.
Game 2 I got mana stalled at a critical time despite having Ephara online and drawing several cards off her. Might have been too aggressive of a keep.
I'm going to try just playing nothing but Ephara the next few times I play and see if I can get a feel for what's the real issue - it might be I need to figure out some more sweepers even. I drew one in the two games we played (Rift) and it was not quite good enough. It could be I am making sketchy keep decisions, or could be that the deck balance is wrong somehow.
Y'know it didn't occur to me but the new shop is so attacky it might be worth reconsidering peacekeeper. I'll have to noodle on that some too.
Teferi's protection has not been good in this deck. I don't generate the kind of board states it's good for protecting and I am almost always the control deck these days. It rarely will buy me the time to combo out. I need something more reusable and better at stopping aggressive decks for longer.
EDIT for some more thoughts I don't want to lose
I was thinking that some of the changes I've made over the last year or two may have impacted my consistency at playing to the board. These are cards I've cut that may play a role there:
Gonna do some more thinking about that but I think that Ascendant might be one of the biggest pieces there. My curve went up a little with those cuts as well.
Combat is definitely one of the weaker spots in Ephara. Any form of evasion is enough to cause serious trouble when trying to block, if even possible. That's why I love anthem effects - they make a collection of hatebears much stronger and more risky to attack into.
I don't think I'll add Peacekeeper because my playgroup hated it and targeted me for playing it, but it definitely sounds like something you could use. However, ultimately it's just a flimsy 1/1 that we have to continuously pay for. Also, if I'm going to run a "I don't care about combat card", it's going to be Confinement with the new land - that way my opponents can keep killing each other all day.
That's a solid list. One i think you've previously suggested that I'm considering seriously is windborn muse. The respectable flying body is nice
I haven't thought about mangara in a while but she is surely good. Though she really wants greaves.
I'm also thinking about tidespout, big avacyn or stormtide leviathan. I've thought for years the deck could use one more big stupid bomb. Green decks especially really struggle to answer board control creatures so one that can both block reasonably and really mess with combat seems potentially good.
This deck really wants a frigging baleful strix though. Enough so I've been debating the idea of trying Basilisk collar as well.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope is the best of the bombs you mentioned by a mile. Suddenly attackers without trample are pretty much meaningless. However it does make you a huge target, since nobody wants to wrath a board with Avacyn in it, so there's that to consider.
If green is your main problem, I would choose Peacekeeper. Otherwise Avacyn all the way.
While Ascendant and mom are great value for 1 drops, I do think that ultimately they aren't quite good enough to make the final cut. Both are conditional in a way - need to wait a round for them, or play them only early game.
EDIT: I remember you love your blink shenanigans, and Angel of Serenity is a winner in that category.
Blinking it rapidly can permanently exile opponents' fields AND graveyards.
Blinking it over time can bring back creatures to our hands from our graveyard.
Plus it's a giant flying body. Seems pretty good.
Yeah I think you are probably right. Avacyn is also a huge fat vigilant blocker on her own, even tramplers have to think twice - I think her ceiling is lower than Tidespout Tyrant but her floor is waaaay higher. Tidespout has a huge issue in that he doesn't really affect the board the turn he drops, but Avacyn instantly gives me an indestructible crew.
The thing I ran into with Peacekeeper is either it 1) died to random stuff like sword of fire and ice triggers or inferno titan triggers or whatever, or 2) it cost me a ton of mana to maintain and slowed me down. Never was super happy to see it except if I had sun titan or sword of light and shadow.
I think what I am going to do is start testing some two card packages, I think starting with windborn Muse and avacyn, angel of hope and see what goes from there.
I do have Angel of Serenity on the maybe list as well. Lately I have been having a really hard time getting any blink stuff set up. I've been dead by turn 7-9 in 4 of the last 5 games I have played Ephara (out of my last 5 games I remember, I lost to a mono green deck 2 times, edgar aggro 1 time, brudiclad with an assist from mono green 1 time, and I combo'd out in the other game).
Just for my own thinking, those 4 losses I remember:
1) mono green guy killed me on 7 with some kinda overrun effect so windborn might have saved me, avacyn would not
2) mono green assist brudiclad, I took like 20 damage on turn 3, windborn woulda bought me several turns at minimum as neither player had much mana to pay for it or any removal. Avacyn would not have stopped the Brudiclad kill because it was desolation twin+treasure tokens (so an army of 11/9s or whatever).
3) edgar - either avacyn or windborn woulda won this one, I had plenty of mana.
4) mono green killed me on turn 8 or so, windborn woulda easily staved it off, avacyn would have stopped him from the previous turn of attacks by giving me a couple blockers, and made it so the overrun wouldn't have been lethal. Windborn woulda been the bets here.
So perhaps I need to think more lower curve and maybe do like Archangel + Windborn or something. Feels like combat tax would be very good in the stuff that's getting me.
evacuation would have been utterly dominant in every single one of those games though. I even had an archaeomancer in hand in at least one
Maybe just windborn+evac will be sufficient, and I can hold off on bombs, but I'll ponder some more.
I made big buylist to CK just recently and picked up a buncha foils to play with:
You mentioned anthem effects. Something I have been noticing is the bodies in the deck lately are super anemic. Do you have a list of which anthem effects you prefer? Might be worth considering some of that.
I've seen some games lately that got Smothering Tithe into play in a competitive scene. The advantage it grants is just absurd and unheard of. Definitely think it's a card that needs to go in. But oh, my wallet
It definitely looks like the deck you have the most problems with is the mono green deck. Green can really get wrecked by Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, Aven Mindcensor, Hushwing Gryff, which are cards we already play. Mostly though it depends on the deck.
As for me, whenever it comes down to creature decks, I just jam mass removal and laugh as all their gas goes to the yard. Until then I stall with Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Deputy of Detention and stuff. Then again it seems like your group is much more competitive than mine, so that plan would not do as well there.
Anthems are a big group of cards. Most of them have particular upsides and downsides according to their intended use, which can be very different from each card. So to make the most out of anthems it's important to remember a specific function for them.
Ours is accumulating board presence that can be both offensive and defensive, while keeping priority for creatures and flashing ones at that.
With that being said, I think that Angel of Jubilation fits this criteria best. The Angel has a good body and a relevant hate effect - no Necropotence, Greater Good, Birthing Pod, and many other degenerate things. There's also Thistledown Liege which is really only worth it if you have a lot of multicolored creatures.
Other good anthem effects are: Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, which is great since it can spawn creatures for Ephara and the anthem itself is permanent, and if the game goes long you can even risk trying to use the +1 to get him to live after his emblem, and maybe even have two emblems. There's also Force of Virtue, which is far from ideal but can be cast for free at instant speed if it's not your turn, which can help if you get killed too early with a bunch of cards in hand. Benalish Marshal is good since it can enter combat on its own and draws us a card on entry.
Finally there are the more casual ones - Angel of Invention (blink value), Spear of Heliod (fetchable with Trophy Mage and is good in defense), Dictate of Heliod (expensive, but instant speed is good and +2/+2 is a lot).
---
I've discovered a combo with the new Brought Back:
Prerequisites: Have Cloud of Faeries and Blasting Station in play.
1. Sac the Faeries to the Station.
2. Play Archaeomancer and bring something back. Station untaps.
3. Sac the Arch to the Station.
4. Cast Brought Back targeting the Faeries and the Arch.
5. Two Station triggers will go up. Before the second one resolves, sac one of the 2 guys we just brought back.
6. Now second Station trigger resolves and we sac the other.
7. Return Brought Back to your hand.
8. Untap two lands that can produce WW.
Repeat steps 4-8 for infinite damage and storm count.
Note: The Faeries can be any permanent that can create or untap WW worth of mana upon entry, like Treachery or Peregrine Drake.
While it is a 4 card combo, ALL combo pieces are highly tutorable. In fact each combo piece except for Arch can be fetched by at least 2 tutors in the deck. Furthermore none of the cards in the combo (except maybe Station) are dead cards since they all have other things they can do. I think this is worthy of some serious thought.
I think Gideon is probably the one that speaks the most to me, will give some of that some thinking for sure.
Your Brought Back combo is really good! There are probably about a thousand ways Arch+brought Back combos actually; could work with Phyrexian Altar and venser, Shaper Savant to infinite bounce the board as well.
1. sac venser and archaeomancer to altar making WW
2. cast brought back, bringing venser and arch back, get brought back, bounce something
3. sac venser and arch to altar making ww, repeat
Might make Altar even better since it's an open sac outlet and can protect our board from exile effects, giving quite a bit of advantage over station in that respect. You can also start this loop with Recruiter entirely I think if you desire in a few ways.
Some serious advantages to that as you can do it at instant speed at someone's endstep by dropping venser and comboing off.
That's enough for me to get a foil brought back at least
I do not wanna buy a foil phyrexian altar though. oof. maybe next buylist order.
I also like Altar much more than Station, since it can turn tokens and hatebears into mana in a pinch, and that's never useless, while Station can be a bit of a dead card.
yeah, I think I am going to pick one of those up just to have it in the arsenal, but That opens a lot of doors. Deck has a number of potential mana dumps.
Altar actually goes infinite with reveillark/guide/venser or reveillark/body double/venser as well, and recruiter can start many chains for infinite mana and finish anything starting with Lark -- Recruiter + Lark is a combo with trophy mage.
That in essence makes intuition a 1 card combo (intuition for sun titan/reveillark/recruiter of the guard). It kinda is now but Phyrexian Altar is about 2-3 mana more efficient than the Blasting Station chains.
So I'm gonna try starting smallish with the aggro plan:
2019/07/03 updates
CUT
-Trophy mage has just not been what I want to be doing mostly lately. Too slow. Not getting any other creatures is a big issue too.
-Boreas Charger I *still have never drawn* no idea why. But I owe someone an apology on smothering tithe, it's turned out to be almost the format's most defining white card. so I have to at least try it and this is the only thing I can cut.
ADD Smothering Tithe - I think another way to generate really big mana is worth trying, and I think I misjudged this card initially. Going to try it anyway. Windborn Muse - really need to try to do something to stave off some early aggro deaths.
I feel like Boreas Charger demands further testing, especially now that we have Soulherder. I would sooner cut Monastery Mentor.
I'm not satisfied with the Muse in that role - it's true that she draws a card when she enters, but she costs 4 mana, and we've already talked about how that's a lot. Instead, you could try and bring Trophy Mage back and test Crawlspace, which is far more tutorable than her. However only you know your meta, and green decks do deal much better with artifacts and enchantments than actual creatures, so take a grain of salt I guess.
Yeah, I don't necessarily disagree abou tCharger. I am playing so much more lately that I feel like I can through some iterations quickly, so probably have a chance to bring it back in. It not having a foil is a bit annoying tho
I have played Mentor a couple times now and it's always been pretty darned good; my topdecking was bad, but the card did a lot of work, and would have run away with either game had I not just drawn brick after brick after brick (6 lands and a fellwar stone in a row in one case--and it did make the fellwar stone cantrip which was pretty darn good ;)). I was basically finding top, capsize or forbid away from running away with games every time I saw it - just couldn't get there.
My sincere hope with muse is that it is going to help me not be a target of opportunity all the time; Crawlspace doesn't really stop the stuff that gets me which is random pot shots with 7/7s and whatever when I'm trying to stabilize. But I will have to test it out a bit and see.
Trophy Mage has been mostly a brick for me for a while now; it really goes well with cloudstone curio since it's a powerful engine but blasting station is nowhere near that role. I think I can accept it being out for a bit.
Another thing I am thinking about hard is that I think I've been playing like crap lately. I can look back one game in particular where I got sacred mesa down and instead of just maximizing my card draw with it I screwed around committing other pieces to the board and then got ruined when Mesa got removed followed by a sweeper. I could have just drawn 2 or 3 cards.
So this Friday I think I am just gonna try to jam all Ephara games for a bit and see how that goes. I may try seeing if I can think of a cut I'm happy with for boreas charger just so I give it a real college try.
You can't rely on having Forbid or Capsize in my opinion. We are already reliant on our Commander and you're very reliant on having Recruiter, up to the point where Drift of Phantasms could really benefit you for fetching him. Trying to further rely on instants that you almost can't fetch as wincons - purely because of their potential value - seems greedy in my opinion.
In fact it sounds like you might be having a greed problem in your gameplay as well. Not overextending is one of the key aspects of EDH politics, and control decks specifically. You even go into detail about it in your primer IIRC.
The deck is supposed to flourish when the opponents try to blow their expensive resources on our measely board, while we just keep coming up with more stuff.
The lands being useless thing is something that deeply irritates me as well, but I have several cards that help me with that issue, mostly Scroll Rack, Brainstorm and a few cheap fetches like Evolving Wilds. The token generation lands also help a ton with dead hands, and make sure that I also always have what to spend my mana on, not to mention chumping all day.
Yeah the issue I've noticed in the new meta is it is much more punishing. So there's less time to build up. But it is still probably right to try to be more disciplined of course.
I do have quite a few ways to find one of the mentor engines (seeker, mystical and enlightened) but perhaps time to consider some more card selection. I have been thinking on ponder and brainstorm for a while, and rack as well.
I'm thinking if I were to add tribute mage rack would be a strong addition.
Anyway gonna see how this week goes.
edit: altar of dementia is also a pretty straight forward win with the reveillark combo now since you can use it to mill yourself until you hit recruiter or remorseful cleric to stop other people's eldrazi if needed. Might have to noodle on that some too. previously our only grave hate was stonecloaker which wasn't reveillarkable.
Game 1 I lost to a weird octopus deck to this leviathan that taps all your crap down when someone attacks, he got me twice with that and wasn't really much I could do. He just got a really crazy nut mana draw and correctly identified me as the threat.
Game 2 I dominated with Sacred Mesa played correctly, drew a bunch of cards and stalled the game. I had literally everything this game; Mesa + multiple mystical tutors + forbid + blasting station + monastery mentor + hour of revelation in hand. It would have taken an act of God for me to lose. I eventually combo'd off with intuition into the body double combo with double forbid backup.
Game 3 I could have won had I played better politics. I lost my evac-archaeomancer lock to a counterspell I could have easily talked my way out of, just was tired and made bad choices. I almost ultimatted Venser but they teamed up and stopped it (sneaking a rift through a counterspell).
Game 3 did solidify for me that Venser is not where this deck wants to be anymore. I got him on turn 4 after Ephara on turn 3 and started blinking my silver myr and it was about as good as it could be short of having Gilded Drake lock. I decided to cut Venser for my rotating bomb slot.
I really am pretty sure I want to try Tidespout Tyrant since I spent the games thought-exercising what each bomb would do, and Tidespout would have convincingly won any game I had drawn it in (Well not the first one in which I got double timewalked by a stupid fish :)).
Mox diamond did the lord's work in game 2 giving me a turn 2 Ephara off t1 Mox diamond into Azorius signet. Pretty sure I have to keep that despite how awkward it can be.
I did not see Tithe or Windborn because I forgot to put them in the actual paper deck
Venser has been such a theme of the deck for so long but people never let him ultimate anymore and without ultimatting he's not really that great. Sometimes he locks with Gilded Drake but so does tidespout, and it also blocks and cantrips. I suspect Tidespout may be worse than Stormtide Leviathan or Avacyn, or even possibly Kederekt Leviathan, but I am going to just start experimenting in that slot.
I just cannot sympathize with Tyrant. Admittedly the static ability is pretty good, but it all just feels so clunky on a 8 mana card, and the body does not match the power of that mana cost.
If we compare it to, say, God-Eternal Oketra, a card which I rather dislike in this deck, I'd give the edge to Oketra:
Costs less colored mana, and less mana overall
Inevitability (hard to get rid of)
Deals more damage and has higher toughness, so a better body (excluding evasion)
Creates big bodies instead of bouncing stuff, so can actually finish the game
If we agree that the best case scenario for both cards is Whitemane Lion that costs W, I think it's a clear win to her.
I just cannot sympathize with Tyrant. Admittedly the static ability is pretty good, but it all just feels so clunky on a 8 mana card, and the body does not match the power of that mana cost.
If we compare it to, say, God-Eternal Oketra, a card which I rather dislike in this deck, I'd give the edge to Oketra:
Costs less colored mana, and less mana overall
Inevitability (hard to get rid of)
Deals more damage and has higher toughness, so a better body (excluding evasion)
Creates big bodies instead of bouncing stuff, so can actually finish the game
If we agree that the best case scenario for both cards is Whitemane Lion that costs W, I think it's a clear win to her.
Yeah, I 100% agree it might be bad. I don't really struggle to make UUU (playing Teferi and all that) though due to the overpriced manabase
When I think about all the synergies Tyrant has as a bomb though it's pretty tough to pass up at least testing it out. Things like:
* Venser, Shaper Savant - 4 mana cantrip capsize
* Whitemane Lion - 2 mana cantrip capsize
* Stonecloaker - 3 mana cantrip capsize that grave hates
* Capsize - 6 mana double capsize
* Forbid - capsize + counterspell for 1uu and 2 cards
* Reveillark - ridiculous over the top value chain that's nearly unstoppable
Additionally it protects itself from my sweepers, which is pretty nice (though Avacyn does similar for the most part).
I do think I will pick up an Oketra to try at some point in that slot, but for now I have a list of:
Tidespout Tyrant is one the strongest permanents you can untap with. His ceiling is broken. Oketra's ceiling is ~Avenger of Zendikar?
It goes infinite with many mana rocks. When it's time to close out a game, you start bouncing lands. However, Tidespout does incentivize playing/building a certain way (i.e. low cmc) which many decks already strive to do.
Just a heads up that I will be at least trying MTGNexus as my primary primer location. I will mirror changes over here periodically but will not be posting on the regular for a while--sadly I only have bandwidth to keep up on one consistently.
There has got to be something broken we can do with Painter's Servant. We can Muddle for it, as well as Tribute Mage for it, so it would be pretty accessible, though sadly it's not Recruitable.
The obvious combo is Grindstone, but it seems pretty slow and only kills one player at a time.
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Even after those, there are plenty of other counterspells I would run over this card, namely Disallow. Otherwise there are some really cool creatures, like Voidmage Prodigy, and with it Patron Wizard. Mostly I wish we could get something out of Spellstutter Sprite, that card is so good.
Well, this is a core set and the overall power level and complexity reflects this. There are not a lot of cards to consider, but there are a couple of doozies. There's no real cohesive theme to discuss. Definitely a ton of new commanders and other things. Yarok, the Desecrated is probably the one to be most on the lookout for. We might need to be packing Tocatli Honor Guard at some point if that thing catches on.
Interestingly Rienne, Angel of rebirth presents another option that is quite powerful for a hatebears commander, though its multicolored restriction is very limiting. knight of the reliquary and Qasali Pridemage get really good when you can just keep them on the battlefield forever.
White
For my build, Brought Back is probably the only card I will consider seriously.
Honorable mention goes to Starfield Mystic who both ramps ephara, can be a fattie, and synergizes with enchantment heavy builds of Ephara.
Cavalier of Dawn is also a fairly strong card that I could see playing in a deck that wants to play fewer support cards for its creatures. It's undeniably powerful and especially blinkable.
There are several fairly strong effects that potentially play in lifegain Ephara builds, such as :
Blue
The only blue card I would seriously consider for the main deck is Agent of Treachery. This card has some serious flaws but it's also an incredibly powerful effect with a massive amount of card draw. The ultimate thing that makes this unplayable for me is that it requires more theft support than I have, and I try to avoid doing too much of that because it's not super casual friendly.
The card falls short in a few other ways but they are less decisive than that -- it can't be recruitered, it has a very underwhelming body, and it's very expensive. It has to be compared to cards like Consecrated Sphinx and will surely fall very short despite its ability to answer problems.
Cavalier of Gales and Flood of Tears get honorable mentions - Cavalier wants more topdeck dependency than I have, but is fairly powerful. Flood is a very powerful card but it wants a higher curve than we have and more bombs I think to take advantage of it. That feels like a spellslinger Ephara build that wants to cast Omniscience for free or something.
Third honorable mention goes to Leyline of Anticipation for an art upgrade and a price downgrade on a foil I would like to have for the deck.
Multiocolor
Nothing really here, but Empyrean Eagle is not horrid in a flyer focused deck, especially on a budget.
Colorless, Lands and Artifacts
Field of the Dead is low key probably the best card in the set for Ephara (in the abstract sense), though I am not sure I will play it. I do think it is better than Inventors' Fair so I might try it there. Entering tapped is very annoying however. My guess is we would like to play more land tutors for this to be a reliable engine, both to fix for it and find it - stuff like Tolaria West and Expedition Map. I don't think I want to go this route, but I may pick up a foil of this anyway.
Mystic Forge is a pretty powerful effect that surely has a place in an affinity-style Ephara list. Comboes quite easily with sculptor+top+forge, and also is just strong independently.
Manifold Key is pretty good in such decks as well, though we are not running the level of artifact ramp to justify it I could see running it as a major upgrade over Voltaic Key in a deck that wanted vault/monoliths/etc.
Summary
Nothing really major, possible addition or two, but nothing that's going to change the archetype in my opinion. Brought Back is great though, I look forward to trying that.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I lost bad to Edgar and also to a mono green Selvala deck. Mono green decks are my nemesis with this deck, just getting owned by overrun effects and a few 6/6s.
Really not sure what to do about that but it's the same problems I started noticing last year dealing with fatties - my deck just doesn't block as well as it used to because creatures are stronger and they seem to be coming out faster and faster.
In one game I mana flooded hard, drawing about 8 cards off Ephara. I did maybe get too aggressive in that game though as I managed to get Elesh Norn and Mentor out, then they both got merciless eviction'd.
Game 2 I got mana stalled at a critical time despite having Ephara online and drawing several cards off her. Might have been too aggressive of a keep.
I'm going to try just playing nothing but Ephara the next few times I play and see if I can get a feel for what's the real issue - it might be I need to figure out some more sweepers even. I drew one in the two games we played (Rift) and it was not quite good enough. It could be I am making sketchy keep decisions, or could be that the deck balance is wrong somehow.
Y'know it didn't occur to me but the new shop is so attacky it might be worth reconsidering peacekeeper. I'll have to noodle on that some too.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
2019/06/29 update
Add Evacuation remove Teferi's Protection.
Teferi's protection has not been good in this deck. I don't generate the kind of board states it's good for protecting and I am almost always the control deck these days. It rarely will buy me the time to combo out. I need something more reusable and better at stopping aggressive decks for longer.
EDIT for some more thoughts I don't want to lose
I was thinking that some of the changes I've made over the last year or two may have impacted my consistency at playing to the board. These are cards I've cut that may play a role there:
Gonna do some more thinking about that but I think that Ascendant might be one of the biggest pieces there. My curve went up a little with those cuts as well.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I don't think I'll add Peacekeeper because my playgroup hated it and targeted me for playing it, but it definitely sounds like something you could use. However, ultimately it's just a flimsy 1/1 that we have to continuously pay for. Also, if I'm going to run a "I don't care about combat card", it's going to be Confinement with the new land - that way my opponents can keep killing each other all day.
Other options:
Magus of the Moat - Not amazing at all, but green rarely has fliers so it has much the same effect.
Baird, Steward of Argive / Archangel of Tithes - Great versus swarms, and is also good at protecting walkers. One day we'll get those expensive powerhouses.
Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker - Also great versus swarms.
Angel of the Dire Hour - Great versus any combat heavy deck.
Kami of False Hope - If we can keep recurring it, like with Vesperlark or Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle or something else, it can be the game changer that Spore Frog is in Karador decks. Also highly fetchable.
Detention Sphere and Declaration in Stone effects are also great versus tokens. A regular in my playgroup is Krenko, Mob Boss and Deputy of Detention wrecks that deck all day every day.
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Random suggestion: Mangara of Corondor - fetchable creature, takes a round but gets rid of anything, and can be an absolute monster with blink.
I haven't thought about mangara in a while but she is surely good. Though she really wants greaves.
I'm also thinking about tidespout, big avacyn or stormtide leviathan. I've thought for years the deck could use one more big stupid bomb. Green decks especially really struggle to answer board control creatures so one that can both block reasonably and really mess with combat seems potentially good.
This deck really wants a frigging baleful strix though. Enough so I've been debating the idea of trying Basilisk collar as well.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
If green is your main problem, I would choose Peacekeeper. Otherwise Avacyn all the way.
While Ascendant and mom are great value for 1 drops, I do think that ultimately they aren't quite good enough to make the final cut. Both are conditional in a way - need to wait a round for them, or play them only early game.
EDIT: I remember you love your blink shenanigans, and Angel of Serenity is a winner in that category.
Blinking it rapidly can permanently exile opponents' fields AND graveyards.
Blinking it over time can bring back creatures to our hands from our graveyard.
Plus it's a giant flying body. Seems pretty good.
The thing I ran into with Peacekeeper is either it 1) died to random stuff like sword of fire and ice triggers or inferno titan triggers or whatever, or 2) it cost me a ton of mana to maintain and slowed me down. Never was super happy to see it except if I had sun titan or sword of light and shadow.
I think what I am going to do is start testing some two card packages, I think starting with windborn Muse and avacyn, angel of hope and see what goes from there.
I do have Angel of Serenity on the maybe list as well. Lately I have been having a really hard time getting any blink stuff set up. I've been dead by turn 7-9 in 4 of the last 5 games I have played Ephara (out of my last 5 games I remember, I lost to a mono green deck 2 times, edgar aggro 1 time, brudiclad with an assist from mono green 1 time, and I combo'd out in the other game).
Just for my own thinking, those 4 losses I remember:
1) mono green guy killed me on 7 with some kinda overrun effect so windborn might have saved me, avacyn would not
2) mono green assist brudiclad, I took like 20 damage on turn 3, windborn woulda bought me several turns at minimum as neither player had much mana to pay for it or any removal. Avacyn would not have stopped the Brudiclad kill because it was desolation twin+treasure tokens (so an army of 11/9s or whatever).
3) edgar - either avacyn or windborn woulda won this one, I had plenty of mana.
4) mono green killed me on turn 8 or so, windborn woulda easily staved it off, avacyn would have stopped him from the previous turn of attacks by giving me a couple blockers, and made it so the overrun wouldn't have been lethal. Windborn woulda been the bets here.
So perhaps I need to think more lower curve and maybe do like Archangel + Windborn or something. Feels like combat tax would be very good in the stuff that's getting me.
evacuation would have been utterly dominant in every single one of those games though. I even had an archaeomancer in hand in at least one
Maybe just windborn+evac will be sufficient, and I can hold off on bombs, but I'll ponder some more.
I made big buylist to CK just recently and picked up a buncha foils to play with:
and I pulled my Avacyn out of the FTV angels
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
You mentioned anthem effects. Something I have been noticing is the bodies in the deck lately are super anemic. Do you have a list of which anthem effects you prefer? Might be worth considering some of that.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
It definitely looks like the deck you have the most problems with is the mono green deck. Green can really get wrecked by Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, Aven Mindcensor, Hushwing Gryff, which are cards we already play. Mostly though it depends on the deck.
As for me, whenever it comes down to creature decks, I just jam mass removal and laugh as all their gas goes to the yard. Until then I stall with Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Deputy of Detention and stuff. Then again it seems like your group is much more competitive than mine, so that plan would not do as well there.
Anthems are a big group of cards. Most of them have particular upsides and downsides according to their intended use, which can be very different from each card. So to make the most out of anthems it's important to remember a specific function for them.
Ours is accumulating board presence that can be both offensive and defensive, while keeping priority for creatures and flashing ones at that.
With that being said, I think that Angel of Jubilation fits this criteria best. The Angel has a good body and a relevant hate effect - no Necropotence, Greater Good, Birthing Pod, and many other degenerate things. There's also Thistledown Liege which is really only worth it if you have a lot of multicolored creatures.
Other good anthem effects are: Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, which is great since it can spawn creatures for Ephara and the anthem itself is permanent, and if the game goes long you can even risk trying to use the +1 to get him to live after his emblem, and maybe even have two emblems. There's also Force of Virtue, which is far from ideal but can be cast for free at instant speed if it's not your turn, which can help if you get killed too early with a bunch of cards in hand. Benalish Marshal is good since it can enter combat on its own and draws us a card on entry.
Finally there are the more casual ones - Angel of Invention (blink value), Spear of Heliod (fetchable with Trophy Mage and is good in defense), Dictate of Heliod (expensive, but instant speed is good and +2/+2 is a lot).
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I've discovered a combo with the new Brought Back:
1. Sac the Faeries to the Station.
2. Play Archaeomancer and bring something back. Station untaps.
3. Sac the Arch to the Station.
4. Cast Brought Back targeting the Faeries and the Arch.
5. Two Station triggers will go up. Before the second one resolves, sac one of the 2 guys we just brought back.
6. Now second Station trigger resolves and we sac the other.
7. Return Brought Back to your hand.
8. Untap two lands that can produce WW.
Repeat steps 4-8 for infinite damage and storm count.
Note: The Faeries can be any permanent that can create or untap WW worth of mana upon entry, like Treachery or Peregrine Drake.
Your Brought Back combo is really good! There are probably about a thousand ways Arch+brought Back combos actually; could work with Phyrexian Altar and venser, Shaper Savant to infinite bounce the board as well.
1. sac venser and archaeomancer to altar making WW
2. cast brought back, bringing venser and arch back, get brought back, bounce something
3. sac venser and arch to altar making ww, repeat
Might make Altar even better since it's an open sac outlet and can protect our board from exile effects, giving quite a bit of advantage over station in that respect. You can also start this loop with Recruiter entirely I think if you desire in a few ways.
Some serious advantages to that as you can do it at instant speed at someone's endstep by dropping venser and comboing off.
That's enough for me to get a foil brought back at least
I do not wanna buy a foil phyrexian altar though. oof. maybe next buylist order.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
For example:
Oketra's Monument + Phyrexian Altar + Whitemane Lion = infinite ETB and storm to win with Altar of the Brood or AEtherflux Reservoir
Reveillark / Karmic Guide + Archaeomancer + Brought Back + Phyrexian Altar = infinite ETB and storm
Body Double as Reveillark + Phyrexian Altar = infinite mana to dump into infinite tokens or Walking Ballista
I also like Altar much more than Station, since it can turn tokens and hatebears into mana in a pinch, and that's never useless, while Station can be a bit of a dead card.
Altar actually goes infinite with reveillark/guide/venser or reveillark/body double/venser as well, and recruiter can start many chains for infinite mana and finish anything starting with Lark -- Recruiter + Lark is a combo with trophy mage.
That in essence makes intuition a 1 card combo (intuition for sun titan/reveillark/recruiter of the guard). It kinda is now but Phyrexian Altar is about 2-3 mana more efficient than the Blasting Station chains.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
2019/07/03 updates
CUT
-Trophy mage has just not been what I want to be doing mostly lately. Too slow. Not getting any other creatures is a big issue too.
-Boreas Charger I *still have never drawn* no idea why. But I owe someone an apology on smothering tithe, it's turned out to be almost the format's most defining white card. so I have to at least try it and this is the only thing I can cut.
ADD
Smothering Tithe - I think another way to generate really big mana is worth trying, and I think I misjudged this card initially. Going to try it anyway.
Windborn Muse - really need to try to do something to stave off some early aggro deaths.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I'm not satisfied with the Muse in that role - it's true that she draws a card when she enters, but she costs 4 mana, and we've already talked about how that's a lot. Instead, you could try and bring Trophy Mage back and test Crawlspace, which is far more tutorable than her. However only you know your meta, and green decks do deal much better with artifacts and enchantments than actual creatures, so take a grain of salt I guess.
I have played Mentor a couple times now and it's always been pretty darned good; my topdecking was bad, but the card did a lot of work, and would have run away with either game had I not just drawn brick after brick after brick (6 lands and a fellwar stone in a row in one case--and it did make the fellwar stone cantrip which was pretty darn good ;)). I was basically finding top, capsize or forbid away from running away with games every time I saw it - just couldn't get there.
My sincere hope with muse is that it is going to help me not be a target of opportunity all the time; Crawlspace doesn't really stop the stuff that gets me which is random pot shots with 7/7s and whatever when I'm trying to stabilize. But I will have to test it out a bit and see.
Trophy Mage has been mostly a brick for me for a while now; it really goes well with cloudstone curio since it's a powerful engine but blasting station is nowhere near that role. I think I can accept it being out for a bit.
Another thing I am thinking about hard is that I think I've been playing like crap lately. I can look back one game in particular where I got sacred mesa down and instead of just maximizing my card draw with it I screwed around committing other pieces to the board and then got ruined when Mesa got removed followed by a sweeper. I could have just drawn 2 or 3 cards.
So this Friday I think I am just gonna try to jam all Ephara games for a bit and see how that goes. I may try seeing if I can think of a cut I'm happy with for boreas charger just so I give it a real college try.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
In fact it sounds like you might be having a greed problem in your gameplay as well. Not overextending is one of the key aspects of EDH politics, and control decks specifically. You even go into detail about it in your primer IIRC.
The deck is supposed to flourish when the opponents try to blow their expensive resources on our measely board, while we just keep coming up with more stuff.
The lands being useless thing is something that deeply irritates me as well, but I have several cards that help me with that issue, mostly Scroll Rack, Brainstorm and a few cheap fetches like Evolving Wilds. The token generation lands also help a ton with dead hands, and make sure that I also always have what to spend my mana on, not to mention chumping all day.
I do have quite a few ways to find one of the mentor engines (seeker, mystical and enlightened) but perhaps time to consider some more card selection. I have been thinking on ponder and brainstorm for a while, and rack as well.
I'm thinking if I were to add tribute mage rack would be a strong addition.
Anyway gonna see how this week goes.
edit: altar of dementia is also a pretty straight forward win with the reveillark combo now since you can use it to mill yourself until you hit recruiter or remorseful cleric to stop other people's eldrazi if needed. Might have to noodle on that some too. previously our only grave hate was stonecloaker which wasn't reveillarkable.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Game 1 I lost to a weird octopus deck to this leviathan that taps all your crap down when someone attacks, he got me twice with that and wasn't really much I could do. He just got a really crazy nut mana draw and correctly identified me as the threat.
Game 2 I dominated with Sacred Mesa played correctly, drew a bunch of cards and stalled the game. I had literally everything this game; Mesa + multiple mystical tutors + forbid + blasting station + monastery mentor + hour of revelation in hand. It would have taken an act of God for me to lose. I eventually combo'd off with intuition into the body double combo with double forbid backup.
Game 3 I could have won had I played better politics. I lost my evac-archaeomancer lock to a counterspell I could have easily talked my way out of, just was tired and made bad choices. I almost ultimatted Venser but they teamed up and stopped it (sneaking a rift through a counterspell).
Game 3 did solidify for me that Venser is not where this deck wants to be anymore. I got him on turn 4 after Ephara on turn 3 and started blinking my silver myr and it was about as good as it could be short of having Gilded Drake lock. I decided to cut Venser for my rotating bomb slot.
I really am pretty sure I want to try Tidespout Tyrant since I spent the games thought-exercising what each bomb would do, and Tidespout would have convincingly won any game I had drawn it in (Well not the first one in which I got double timewalked by a stupid fish :)).
Mox diamond did the lord's work in game 2 giving me a turn 2 Ephara off t1 Mox diamond into Azorius signet. Pretty sure I have to keep that despite how awkward it can be.
I did not see Tithe or Windborn because I forgot to put them in the actual paper deck
2019/07/06 Update
Cut Venser the Sojourner
add Tidespout Tyrant
Venser has been such a theme of the deck for so long but people never let him ultimate anymore and without ultimatting he's not really that great. Sometimes he locks with Gilded Drake but so does tidespout, and it also blocks and cantrips. I suspect Tidespout may be worse than Stormtide Leviathan or Avacyn, or even possibly Kederekt Leviathan, but I am going to just start experimenting in that slot.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
If we compare it to, say, God-Eternal Oketra, a card which I rather dislike in this deck, I'd give the edge to Oketra:
- Costs less colored mana, and less mana overall
- Inevitability (hard to get rid of)
- Deals more damage and has higher toughness, so a better body (excluding evasion)
- Creates big bodies instead of bouncing stuff, so can actually finish the game
If we agree that the best case scenario for both cards is Whitemane Lion that costs W, I think it's a clear win to her.Yeah, I 100% agree it might be bad. I don't really struggle to make UUU (playing Teferi and all that) though due to the overpriced manabase
When I think about all the synergies Tyrant has as a bomb though it's pretty tough to pass up at least testing it out. Things like:
* Venser, Shaper Savant - 4 mana cantrip capsize
* Whitemane Lion - 2 mana cantrip capsize
* Stonecloaker - 3 mana cantrip capsize that grave hates
* Capsize - 6 mana double capsize
* Forbid - capsize + counterspell for 1uu and 2 cards
* Reveillark - ridiculous over the top value chain that's nearly unstoppable
Additionally it protects itself from my sweepers, which is pretty nice (though Avacyn does similar for the most part).
I do think I will pick up an Oketra to try at some point in that slot, but for now I have a list of:
And I think I'll just try them as I get a chance. No real harm in testing.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
It goes infinite with many mana rocks. When it's time to close out a game, you start bouncing lands. However, Tidespout does incentivize playing/building a certain way (i.e. low cmc) which many decks already strive to do.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
The obvious combo is Grindstone, but it seems pretty slow and only kills one player at a time.