I'm not 100% on the colourless thing just yet but...so?
I can't bring it back with Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed. I can't remember the last time I wanted/needed Pawn of Ulamog back.
If colourless means I can't play cards with waste mana all the lands that used to tap for 1are now errated and tap for waste, ie Wasteland, Volrath's Stronghold and Phyrexian Tower, and would be unusable as well. (this is something I'm still confused with and would like an answer)
I'm not trying to be flippant I just need this explained.
Cromonolith put it well. It's the essential problem with devoid cards: They don't get returned. Pawn is a huge help to the deck, so, in the end...
I subbed out Blood Funnel to test Newlamog, but I haven't seen him yet. I also subbed in Sea Gate Wreckage, but I never got a good chance to use it. We'll see in future games.
I based my list for XHD off of yours, it has been quite fun. I was curious to hear your thoughts on Dark Petition. I've been running it and it hasn't let me down yet. If you haven't tried it out I would suggest giving Cabal Therapy a run.
Private Mod Note
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For Lists, Click Here EDH: GW: Selvala, Let us help YOU. UB: Mirko Vosk, when outmatched cheat BW: Vish Kal, The Arbiter of Reanimation UG: Prime Speaker Zegana, the science of sorcery RB: Malfegor, Traitor's Haven UW: Daxos, Control-Fort-Tron BG: Pharika, Goddess of Stax RW: Gisela, Boros Control RG: Ruric Thar, a Primal Surge deck RU: Niv-Mizzet the Firemind, Spellslinger?!?! B:(Pauper) Mikaeus the Unhallowed R: Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient: The Power of Engineering
I based my list for XHD off of yours, it has been quite fun. I was curious to hear your thoughts on Dark Petition. I've been running it and it hasn't let me down yet. If you haven't tried it out I would suggest giving Cabal Therapy a run.
I have had Dark Petition in hand once, but never got to cast it. Sea Gate Wreckage was quite useful in one game. Most of the other lands are still in the mail.
Void Winnower's ability looks far preferable to that of Newlamog - making everybody else's life difficult seems preferable to having a combat damage-independent clock of ~4 swings on a single player. Newlamog's cast trigger is where it's at.
Void Winnower's ability looks far preferable to that of Newlamog - making everybody else's life difficult seems preferable to having a combat damage-independent clock of ~4 swings on a single player. Newlamog's cast trigger is where it's at.
I don't really want either that much, but I can test Void Winnower.
Another scrub question, I can play Sorin Markov mainly to deal with life gain decks or be an a$*. So should I add the new Tree of Perdition? I realize no haste is an issue, but if nobody can get rid of it my life is made a lot easier.
Another scrub question, I can play Sorin Markov mainly to deal with life gain decks or be an a**. So should I add the new Tree of Perdition? I realize no haste is an issue, but if nobody can get rid of it my life is made a lot easier.
Geier Reach Sanitarium: Ooh… I likey. I think I might test this out. Good lands that draw cards are few and far between.
Haunted Dead: Bleh. The cost on the return is just too damn high.
Liliana, the Last Hope: Yet another 3 mana Liliana… Hm. The +1 is meh. The -2 is cool. The -7 is meh. I think I’ll stick with Liliana of the Veil for utility, but this is a nice alternative.
Midnight Scavengers: This is almost considerable. If only it cost less mana or returned XHD, I would test it.
Oath of Liliana: Overcosted… Sad, because it’s so cool for multiplayer.
How are you finding Shrouded Lore? I've considered it myself before but have always been a bit hesitant due to the potentially high mana investment required to make use of it.
I have played it surprisingly few times, but when I did play it (and in goldfishing), it worked quite well. It works very well in the first few turns, and marginally in the later game.
Fortuitous Find: At 1-2 mana, this would be fortuitous. At 3 mana, this is underwhelming.
Live Fast: I don't have any use for energy counters, and this is worse than my other draw spells. No thanks.
Lost Legacy: I'm waiting for WotC to print an "each player" or "each opponent" variant of this. This one is a nope, unless I switch into a more Iona-heavy meta again.
Inventors' Fair: Maybe. Just maybe. Definitely potential here as a tutor effect. It is, however, a colorless land...
Is there any particular reason why you don't play Gravecrawler? Its another avenue to combo out and is easy to assemble. Also, Zulaport Cutthroat is strictly better than Blood Artist.
Is there any particular reason why you don't play Gravecrawler? Its another avenue to combo out and is easy to assemble. Also, Zulaport Cutthroat is strictly better than Blood Artist.
Re: Gravecrawler - I run four cards that are Zombies or produce a Zombie. Three of those are relatively high in mana cost. The other is in constant consideration for removal (Heck, the other three are inherently somewhat in consideration due to mana cost). Gravecrawler does not seem like a good enough reason to amp up my number of Zombies, unless there are Zombies that are worth it on their own/useful for other reasons.
Re: Zulaport Cutthroat - Actually, no. They are comparable. Blood Artist triggers on all creatures instead of only mine, only hits one player instead of all players, and (irrelevantly) is a 0/1 instead of a 1/1. So it's a question of whether I want to trigger on all creatures or if I want to hit all players. And it's definitely something to take into consideration. At the time of BFZ, the former was significantly better in my meta. At this time, it's up in the air. But I'll definitely give some more thought to Zulaport Cutthroat. Thanks for bringing it to my attention again.
How do you find Tendrils of Agony? It's something I always like the idea of as it's such an iconic B win condition in other formats but reaching a meaningful storm count in a multiplayer EDH game without infinite shenanigans often seems too much work to actually justify using the slot on a storm-based win condition.
I've hit 10 storm without comboing out, and have the potential to go further. There's an inherent challenge to non-infinites in EDH because of the (absurdly) high life totals. But the deck does need win conditions. It's a debate I have with myself regularly, though, because Bitter Ordeal does have so many other uses.
Also, I noticed your mention of Null Profusion in excluded cards. As someone who runs a B deck with a relatively low mana curve I've got a lot of use out of it - turning all those low CMC spells into cantrips means you can generate incredible amounts of card advantage.
The 2-card disadvantage is a little painful, but it's definitely a consideration card. I have been going through my decks and twiddling slots here and there, and I definitely have a few good options to sub out right now. I'll put it on the list for testing and see how it works out.
I keep on forgetting to acquire another Inventor's Fair. This deck still does well, but it has started to feel like it needs some kind of more serious work-through to smooth out play... A project for a few free evenings, maybe. I'll try to come back and do some formatting fixes as well.
Commander 2016 Review:
Magus of the Will: If only it had haste! As is, a 6 mana, easily interruptible Yawgmoth's Will over two turns is orders of magnitude less than impressive for this deck.
Uhh... That's it, actually. That was the only real consideration. I guess I thought about the black undaunted card for a little and said to myself "This is going to be 4 or more mana a lot of the time, and even at 3, isn't super versatile," but that's besides the point. It wasn't a likely consideration to begin with.
Universal Solvent: Nice removal effect for the decks that run cards like Spine of Ish Sah. Definitely a consideration if you can afford the ability mana cost.
There's also Walking Ballista for those of us who run the Ooze combo in the deck.
Fatal push is really sweet though, as stronger metas really run cheap creatures like Bob, Hierarch, pretty much every hatebear, etc. Commander also makes it reusable for really cheap.
There's also Walking Ballista for those of us who run the Ooze combo in the deck.
Fatal push is really sweet though, as stronger metas really run cheap creatures like Bob, Hierarch, pretty much every hatebear, etc. Commander also makes it reusable for really cheap.
Fatal Push is certainly a very good removal spell. Whether I want to include it will very much depend on whether or not I get a regular meta, and what that meta is like.
Here is my build based on yours. Some of the choices are meta calls like Cabal Therapy and Oblivion Stone. Number prefix is CMC, except for basic swamp.
Here is my build based on yours. Some of the choices are meta calls like Cabal Therapy and Oblivion Stone. Number prefix is CMC, except for basic swamp.
I always like looking over people's XHD lists and thinking about why they made certain choices.
I'm guessing Maze of Ith is a meta choice to dampen creature aggro.
I worry about Oblivion Stone because your artifacts are so crucial to you and not as easy to recur. That said, it's a reasonable anti-meta choice against creatures and stuff like Iona.
Let me know how useful Blood Funnel is; I really liked it for a short while, but it started to become less and less helpful over time.
Diabolic Edict … You sure? Not Chainer's Edict? Keep in mind, most of the time you don't care about Sorcery vs Instant, unlike most competitive decks, since you do a lot of your work on your turn.
Are most of your games 1v1? Otherwise Sinkhole, while cool, seems meh.
I think for the mana cost, at the point where you're screwing someone over with Mind Twist, you might as well run one of the 5 mana mass handshaping/mass discard spells instead. It's a hard card to analyze, because while it can be powerful, it provides inherently lower expected value in multiplayer.
If you can get ahold of her, I might suggest running Liliana of the Dark Realms as a budgetish removal and otherwise somewhat useful planeswalker. She's obviously no Liliana of the Veil, but you win some, you lose some. I think she would slot in well for you, despite you going my route and not following the big-mana black focus. My commentary on her was not the greatest before, but I'm slowly going through and updating some of my comments to be a little more fair to reasonable budget cards.
Noosegraf Mob is an awesome inclusion. I wish I had thought of that back when EMN came out; I think I was dismissive on it based on mana cost (and still would probably squirm away from it for that reason in my build). I also think you have a better slot for it than I do, but it's mostly just a very commendable card choice. Cool.
I see you also have a soft spot for Gonti. I love that card and might go as far as to test him in this deck.
I had a really good experience with Gonti in my Chainer deck recently, but it was somewhat to do with luck. It was a bad matchup for my opponents to begin with: Chainer vs Meren vs Mimeoplasm. I knew this Meren deck ran Grave Pact effects and when I used Gonti the top 4 cards of his deck featured 3 of them (Acidic Slime, Nature's Claim, and Tribute to the Wild). Gonti really set the stage for my control of the board with that luck.
He seems to have a bit of an overlap with Geth, though.
I have a question for you regarding mono-black, though. I'm looking for advice in dealing with Torpor Orb and Grafdigger's Cage. Less of a problem for your XHD deck it looks like, but possibly more of a problem with Chainer. I've actually contemplated rebuilding into XHD just to try a different perspective on mono-black.
CommanderEDH Decks:CommanderEDH DecksWULavinia of the Blinking TenthUW RGURiku the Epic Experimenter’s StormUGR UBRThrax and his Super FriendsRBU RWUZedruu the Hard HeartedUWR
WBU Zur the UnstoppableUBW
Cromonolith put it well. It's the essential problem with devoid cards: They don't get returned. Pawn is a huge help to the deck, so, in the end...
...I want it back all the time.
I based my list for XHD off of yours, it has been quite fun. I was curious to hear your thoughts on Dark Petition. I've been running it and it hasn't let me down yet. If you haven't tried it out I would suggest giving Cabal Therapy a run.
For Lists, Click Here
EDH:
GW: Selvala, Let us help YOU.
UB: Mirko Vosk, when outmatched cheat
BW: Vish Kal, The Arbiter of Reanimation
UG: Prime Speaker Zegana, the science of sorcery
RB: Malfegor, Traitor's Haven
UW: Daxos, Control-Fort-Tron
BG: Pharika, Goddess of Stax
RW: Gisela, Boros Control
RG: Ruric Thar, a Primal Surge deck
RU: Niv-Mizzet the Firemind, Spellslinger?!?!
B:(Pauper) Mikaeus the Unhallowed
R: Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient: The Power of Engineering
I have had Dark Petition in hand once, but never got to cast it. Sea Gate Wreckage was quite useful in one game. Most of the other lands are still in the mail.
Command Beacon either did not arrive or I lost it at some point soon after arrival. Buried Alive and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger have not seen play, though Petrified Field was helpful.
Mirrorpool stepped out of consideration with the removal of rule 4. Sea Gate Wreckage is still good enough, though.
Shadows over Innistrad Set Review:
I'm way too picky.
The deck changed as follows:
Cut:
1 Blood Funnel
1 Imp’s Mischief
1 Silence the Believers
Add:
1 Petrified Field
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Buried Alive
1 Dark Petition
Unfortunately, very few opportunities to test out the deck as of late; work has taken a toll on my Magic play. Looking forward to Liliana, Heretical Healer and Petrified Field. Not looking forward to Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.
I cut Blood Funnel and Imp’s Mischief because they were not doing enough.
I cut Silence the Believers because it turned out to have too high of a mana cost for the deck.
About equivalent. Big guy with potentially relevent ability.
I don't really want either that much, but I can test Void Winnower.
CommanderEDH Decks:CommanderEDH DecksWULavinia of the Blinking TenthUW RGURiku the Epic Experimenter’s StormUGR UBRThrax and his Super FriendsRBU RWUZedruu the Hard HeartedUWR
WBU Zur the UnstoppableUBW
Sorin Markov is a good iteration of the effect. Erebos, God of the Dead is a decent choice. Forsaken Wastes is a nasty, but painful way to do it. Magus of the Mirror and Tree of Perdition are derpy non-hasty ways of doing it. Repay in Kind is a worse, but monetarily cheap variation on Sorin Markov. Tainted Remedy is a nice uber-hate card that you can get out early, if life gain decks are a huge problem in your area.
Oh, but if you're going infinite it also doesn't necessarily matter.
I have played it surprisingly few times, but when I did play it (and in goldfishing), it worked quite well. It works very well in the first few turns, and marginally in the later game.
Kaladesh Set Review:
Re: Gravecrawler - I run four cards that are Zombies or produce a Zombie. Three of those are relatively high in mana cost. The other is in constant consideration for removal (Heck, the other three are inherently somewhat in consideration due to mana cost). Gravecrawler does not seem like a good enough reason to amp up my number of Zombies, unless there are Zombies that are worth it on their own/useful for other reasons.
Re: Zulaport Cutthroat - Actually, no. They are comparable. Blood Artist triggers on all creatures instead of only mine, only hits one player instead of all players, and (irrelevantly) is a 0/1 instead of a 1/1. So it's a question of whether I want to trigger on all creatures or if I want to hit all players. And it's definitely something to take into consideration. At the time of BFZ, the former was significantly better in my meta. At this time, it's up in the air. But I'll definitely give some more thought to Zulaport Cutthroat. Thanks for bringing it to my attention again.
I've hit 10 storm without comboing out, and have the potential to go further. There's an inherent challenge to non-infinites in EDH because of the (absurdly) high life totals. But the deck does need win conditions. It's a debate I have with myself regularly, though, because Bitter Ordeal does have so many other uses.
The 2-card disadvantage is a little painful, but it's definitely a consideration card. I have been going through my decks and twiddling slots here and there, and I definitely have a few good options to sub out right now. I'll put it on the list for testing and see how it works out.
Commander 2016 Review:
Aether Revolt Review:
Fatal push is really sweet though, as stronger metas really run cheap creatures like Bob, Hierarch, pretty much every hatebear, etc. Commander also makes it reusable for really cheap.
Fatal Push is certainly a very good removal spell. Whether I want to include it will very much depend on whether or not I get a regular meta, and what that meta is like.
4 Xiahou Dun, the One Eyed
Land:
16 Swamp
0 Myriad Landscape
0 Lake of the Dead
0 Polluted Delta
0 Bloodstained Mire
0 Verdant Catacombs
0 Marsh Flats
0 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
0 Buried Ruin
0 Cabal Coffers
0 Maze of Ith
0 Volrath's Stronghold
0 Bojuka Bog
0 Deserted Temple
0 Nykthos,Shrine to Nyx
0 Ancient Tomb
0 Wasteland
0 Phyrexian Tower
0 Strip Mine
0 High Market
Artifact:
3 Crucible of Worlds
0 Mana Crypt
2 Jet Medallion
3 Ashnod's Altar
2 Nim Deathmantle
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Helm of Obedience
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
3 Phyrexian Altar
3 Rings of Brighthearth
2 Chains of Mephistopheles
3 Necromancy
2 Blood Funnel
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Animate Dead
2 Bitterblossom
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
3 Necropotence
3 Phyrexian Arena
Instant:
2 Diabolic Edict
0 Slaughter Pact
2 Cabal Ritual
3 Dismember
1 Entomb
3 Hero's Downfall
4 Silence the Believers
1 Dark Ritual
3 Corpse Dance
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Snuff Out
Sorcery:
2 Sign in Blood
3 Toxic Deluge
2 Night's Whisper
1 Reanimate
2 Demonic Tutor
3 Bitter Ordeal
3 Read the Bones
4 Tendrils of Agony
3 Sadistic Sacrament
6 Beseech the Queen
5 Dark Petition
4 Diabolic Tutor
3 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mind Twist
2 Sinkhole
1 Cabal Therapy
3 Praetor's Grasp
1 Innocent Blood
4 Mutilate
2 Diabolic Intent
3 Liliana, Heretical Healer
2 Dark Confidant
4 Crypt Ghast
6 Kokusho, the Evening Star
5 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
3 Priest of Gix
5 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
6 Noosegraf Mob
2 Reassembling Skeleton
6 Grave Titan
2 Blood Artist
3 Grim Haruspex
3 Pawn of Ulamog
B Xiahou Dun, The One Eyed Control/Combo
B Gonti, Lord of Luxury Casual funstuff
UBRG Ydris, Maelstrom Wielder Control/Chaos
R Pia Nalaar Artifact fun
WBRG Saskia the Unyielding Human Tribal
WUBR Breya, Etherium Sculptor Pauper control
I always like looking over people's XHD lists and thinking about why they made certain choices.
I see you also have a soft spot for Gonti. I love that card and might go as far as to test him in this deck.
He seems to have a bit of an overlap with Geth, though.
I have a question for you regarding mono-black, though. I'm looking for advice in dealing with Torpor Orb and Grafdigger's Cage. Less of a problem for your XHD deck it looks like, but possibly more of a problem with Chainer. I've actually contemplated rebuilding into XHD just to try a different perspective on mono-black.
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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