Helm of the Host looks rather curious. I'm guessing not that playable in our specific deck, given the current level of refinement. I was just daydreaming about being able to have 2, then 3 xenagos's on the battlefield at once, LOL. This is a battlefield in a can if it can stick around long enough. The token never goes away, so if the original creature dies, you can equip this to the token it produced and still create more tokens.
On the other hand, it can potentially give us haste Emrakuls for only 4 mana to equip. Also Plated Crusher and Combat celebrant would be pretty incredible too.
Come to think of it, if we have an extra combat phase, this mask would trigger twice! Look at this even closer, this looks like infinite extra combat steps if equipped to combat celebrant. At the beginning of combat, make a haste celebrant. One of them attacks/exerts. Next combat, get another celebrant, attack/exert one of the tokens. Next combat, get another token et. et. Maybe this card is worth considering after all...
Honestly, I don't see myself running it. It will require 2 turns to set up which is way to slow for this deck. I'm digging the card though and am still pondering which commander is the best host for this.
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Where your Swole Ape at? Or is it not evasive/impactful enough?
6 mana for a guy with zero evasion that can't one-shot a player without help.
I feel safe leaving him out.
I respectfully disagree. This will hit people for 20 on it's own, 40 when kicked. Give it doulbe strike and it will one shot people unkicked. Of course, playtesting will show but I feel it is really powerful.
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Honestly, I don't see myself running it. It will require 2 turns to set up which is way to slow for this deck. I'm digging the card though and am still pondering which commander is the best host for this.
JaishivaJai's musings do a decent job of touching on infinite combat steps. As such, legends with built in extra combats (Aurelia/Godo come to mind) are easy abuse targets.
Honestly, if I wanted to hit people for 20 with no evasion, I think I'd just much rather go for something like Realm Seekers with extra utility, or go all the way with infect creatures. Mana is a constraint in this deck and so I still kind of want everything as streamlined as possible. Not having trample makes the card unreliable at damaging a desired target and the payoff needs to be ridiculous to justify it. In some metagames it becomes even reasonable to cut Hydra Omnivore.
It is at its best after a boardwipe, but so is the omnivore, and the latter can just end a game outright. Malignus can just feed 40 mana or 40 cards and just end the game outright with the right support cards. Nonetheless, being a 20/20 is still no joke. However, I do feel that while the support cards are usually the true stars of the show, your creature choice still immensely matters.
I think I will try the Helm in the deck, if only for living the dream. Even if you don't draw other creatures, once the fourth Xenagos copy is created it will hit for 6 -> 12 -> 24 -> 48 damage.
Magical Christmas Land but hey, a man's gotta have a dream right
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I played against Grow from the Ashes during prerelease. While this card probably won't go into a well tuned deck, it looks like a budget option possibly. Also looks much better for a 3 or more color commander. I'm considering it as I don't have the crazy ramp spells like Mana Crypt and ancient tomb. I run Temple of the False God in most of my decks. Having another card that enables this is nice. Can help in those awkward situations where I have 4 lands including temple, but have other artifact mana rocks out. I may replace a cultivate or Kodama's Reach.
The thing that caught me off guard is that the land(s) come into play untapped. So the spell can effectively cost only 2 given we can make use of the land that comes into play immediately. When kicked and we can make use of the lands, effective cost is 3 to get out 2 lands. Also color fixes.
I think the flexibility is what makes me do a double take on this card. Say we cast Xenagos at 5 mana and have no more ramp/don't draw a land the next turn. This card will put us to 7 from 5 which is all we need early/mid game. Say you draw an opening hand with this alongside other ramp. As we ramp on turn 1 or 2 and draw more cards, we can evaluate whether to use this at 3 or 5 cost. If we keep drawing lands/ramp, we can play this for only 3 and feel good about it. In those cases when we fail to draw enough lands, we save it to play for 5 to fill the gap.
Here's an even more oddball card for yall: Arena of the Ancients. This too is better than it looks at first glance. I think in the right meta, this could go into the deck. I'm going to make room for it just to test it out.
Consider: This beats hexproof commanders. Also note that it doesn't matter if the creature is tapped down by arena, it will still remained tapped if it becomes so in anyway. This gives players only one chance to attack or use an activated ability before it goes to jail. Also consider that Xenagos is not a legendary creature without devotion. We could play Arena, turn on Xenagos with devotion, and get an extra 6 damage in with him through all of the holes we just created in opponents' defenses. I think given the right circumstances, this can be a "Oops I win" kind of card. If people are leaving up their commanders as a last ditch effort to keep from dying, this card kills them a turn early.
It also shuts down the biggest baddest eldrazi. My deck only has 4 legendary creatures besides Xenagos, so I think it could be more helpful than hurtful?
Last card is Sandstone Oracle. I think possibly usable if your meta has people like us who like to draw a bunch of cards and keep them in hand. Also just helps those times we run out of gas. Not sure if anything is worth cutting for this, but it looks interesting. It's also a creature that adds no devotion to Xenagos. While it's not a beater on its own, it can certainly help us draw into one. Not sure if sacrificing speed for consistency is wanted in this deck though.
Grow from the Ashes is definitly good, just not in this deck. By the time you're in turn 5 or 6 you want to play big creatures to beat face with that cost 5-7 mana, not this. The one or two lands that are untapped now will not be of any use to do anything impactful. In this deck, all your ramp has to be played before Xenagos hits the table, and he should hit it at the first possible opportunity. In other words, the tempo hit is just to big. I'd happily play it in a deck with GU so I have counter mana open post-ramp but that is a different deck.
Arena of the Ancients has it's place but again, it's not this deck. If you play it on turn 1-3 (when you should be ramping) the tempo hit is to big and later in the game well, there shouldn't be a later in the game if your deck functions properly. Why not just run a big threat of yourself instead of this? Killing the owner also beats hexproof commanders
As for the Oracle, again no (sorry). We draw our cards in big swaths at a time with the card draw we have so if we pulled that off once the Oracle loses the CA it can provide. On top of that, it's a 4 power creature for 7 mana. In this deck, creatures need to have AT LEAST power equal to their mana cost, and preferably more. If you want to play a card that will draw cards AND be a big beater, try Combustible Gearhulk. If an opponent refuses you the cards you'll probably deal upwards of 10 damage to them, which means you can now probably kill them in one turn with any creature meant to punch face. And if you get the cards, well that's fine too
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Made me think about throwing it in here. The deck's speed and turbo gas is pretty good, but I'm looking for more card advantage, and playing lands instead of drawing them is always good.
Cutting elvish piper for it. That card is a glorified manadork. It has its uses but doesn't go turbo as hard as other cards in the deck.
Despite having a copy of elvish piper, I took it out of the deck quite a while ago when I got more serious about stomping people's faces with Xenagos. It just doesn't seem better than an actual ramp spell, or Oracle of Mul daya for instance. That goes double in this deck where we are pretty well tuned on the mana curve and ramp.
Seems like a win more card. It's really only good if you want to get out two fatty creatures in a turn. As we've discussed, usually we don't want to do that anyway.
Looks like some possible, but not overly exciting cards. Probably just budget choices if you don't have the money to grab all the best creatures, like me.
Aggressive Mammoth an 8/8 for 6 is a good rate already. Tack on trample to your other creatures. Could be good with extra combat phases and Malignus. I forget, does the deck already run a creature that gives everything trample?
Colossal Majesty a weak, but consistent card draw spell. I don't like this does nothing if we don't have a creature. Probably too risky to play. Thoughts?
I think Colossal Majesty would slot right in a Green/X Voltron style deck, which this deck is not. You just toss out Creatures until you see what sticks the landing for game. If you played one big green machine and protected it, such as a Multani, Maro-Sorcerer, then it is a Green Phyrexian Arena.
I count 8 creatures in your list that can benefit from having trample given to them. 9 if you count Xenagos. I don't have some of the much better, more expensive cards on your list like Balefire Dragon. I can see why you wouldn't want it. I currently have Tyrant's Familiar and Woodland bellower in my deck which I feel are sub-optimum cards. I'm going to take out Woodland bellower as it has no evasion. I do think I'll miss tutoring up Reclamation sage of tireless tracker though That 8 power trample for 6 though!
I just realized I'm still missing Hydra Omnivore from my list! However, it would be downright evil to give that guy trample. I haven't been playing Xenagos much at all. I'm kicking so much ass in my playgroup with my lesser decks that the big guns aren't warranted. I know a lot of that has to do with this awesome thread and the amazing advice I've been given here.
Well, on the topic of core 19, there are two more cards that have potential in them.
One is Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma. The ability sounds good on paper, being able to cost reduce Xenagod and all of his creatures. However, the power of cost reduction comes with playing more than 1 card a turn. Creatures with power 4 and up often have high costs that make it impossible to play two in one turn, even with the cost reduction, so it ends up being a limited 2-ramp option with a little bit of offensive potential. As a result, it has the problem that Dragonlord's Servant has and thus will not make the cut.
The other is Sarkhan's Unsealing. This one is entirely dependent on your lists, as the real payoff here is playing 7 power creatures. This is something that you absolutely need to build around, as the payoffs for playing 4-6 power is mediocre at best if you had to pay 4 mana for it. However, if you have enough 7+ power creatures (say you are on a budget and need to play Verdurous Gearhulk and Terra Stompers), then this thing will absolutely hose your opponents by making sure that they can't leave anything other than powerful beef on the table, threats that this deck can undoubtedly overpower. As a result, I think this card is very worth it in budget lists. You do need to work for it, but the payoff is there.
EDIT: Oh I realized that Xenagod casts trigger this thing.. So in reality it is more like a 2x Mizzium Mortars that give you a free overload when you play a 7-8 power creature. The timing isn't always convenient, but this actually gets a lot of value for 4 mana and is a serious upgrade over Warstorm Surge. Unfortunately I only have six creatures that can trigger the overload mode. If you have more than that, it becomes a really good option.
6 mana for a guy with zero evasion that can't one-shot a player without help.
I feel safe leaving him out.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
On the other hand, it can potentially give us haste Emrakuls for only 4 mana to equip. Also Plated Crusher and Combat celebrant would be pretty incredible too.
Come to think of it, if we have an extra combat phase, this mask would trigger twice! Look at this even closer, this looks like infinite extra combat steps if equipped to combat celebrant. At the beginning of combat, make a haste celebrant. One of them attacks/exerts. Next combat, get another celebrant, attack/exert one of the tokens. Next combat, get another token et. et. Maybe this card is worth considering after all...
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JaishivaJai's musings do a decent job of touching on infinite combat steps. As such, legends with built in extra combats (Aurelia/Godo come to mind) are easy abuse targets.
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It is at its best after a boardwipe, but so is the omnivore, and the latter can just end a game outright. Malignus can just feed 40 mana or 40 cards and just end the game outright with the right support cards. Nonetheless, being a 20/20 is still no joke. However, I do feel that while the support cards are usually the true stars of the show, your creature choice still immensely matters.
Also, Helm of the Host is hilarious with the general, Scourge of the Throne, and Combat Celebrant, but it costs a lot of tempo.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Magical Christmas Land but hey, a man's gotta have a dream right
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I see a certain problem with your plan.
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If your lists run one, you will have a 1-card 11 mana win condition. Achievable in this deck.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
The thing that caught me off guard is that the land(s) come into play untapped. So the spell can effectively cost only 2 given we can make use of the land that comes into play immediately. When kicked and we can make use of the lands, effective cost is 3 to get out 2 lands. Also color fixes.
I think the flexibility is what makes me do a double take on this card. Say we cast Xenagos at 5 mana and have no more ramp/don't draw a land the next turn. This card will put us to 7 from 5 which is all we need early/mid game. Say you draw an opening hand with this alongside other ramp. As we ramp on turn 1 or 2 and draw more cards, we can evaluate whether to use this at 3 or 5 cost. If we keep drawing lands/ramp, we can play this for only 3 and feel good about it. In those cases when we fail to draw enough lands, we save it to play for 5 to fill the gap.
Here's an even more oddball card for yall: Arena of the Ancients. This too is better than it looks at first glance. I think in the right meta, this could go into the deck. I'm going to make room for it just to test it out.
Consider: This beats hexproof commanders. Also note that it doesn't matter if the creature is tapped down by arena, it will still remained tapped if it becomes so in anyway. This gives players only one chance to attack or use an activated ability before it goes to jail. Also consider that Xenagos is not a legendary creature without devotion. We could play Arena, turn on Xenagos with devotion, and get an extra 6 damage in with him through all of the holes we just created in opponents' defenses. I think given the right circumstances, this can be a "Oops I win" kind of card. If people are leaving up their commanders as a last ditch effort to keep from dying, this card kills them a turn early.
It also shuts down the biggest baddest eldrazi. My deck only has 4 legendary creatures besides Xenagos, so I think it could be more helpful than hurtful?
Last card is Sandstone Oracle. I think possibly usable if your meta has people like us who like to draw a bunch of cards and keep them in hand. Also just helps those times we run out of gas. Not sure if anything is worth cutting for this, but it looks interesting. It's also a creature that adds no devotion to Xenagos. While it's not a beater on its own, it can certainly help us draw into one. Not sure if sacrificing speed for consistency is wanted in this deck though.
Arena of the Ancients has it's place but again, it's not this deck. If you play it on turn 1-3 (when you should be ramping) the tempo hit is to big and later in the game well, there shouldn't be a later in the game if your deck functions properly. Why not just run a big threat of yourself instead of this? Killing the owner also beats hexproof commanders
As for the Oracle, again no (sorry). We draw our cards in big swaths at a time with the card draw we have so if we pulled that off once the Oracle loses the CA it can provide. On top of that, it's a 4 power creature for 7 mana. In this deck, creatures need to have AT LEAST power equal to their mana cost, and preferably more. If you want to play a card that will draw cards AND be a big beater, try Combustible Gearhulk. If an opponent refuses you the cards you'll probably deal upwards of 10 damage to them, which means you can now probably kill them in one turn with any creature meant to punch face. And if you get the cards, well that's fine too
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Made me think about throwing it in here. The deck's speed and turbo gas is pretty good, but I'm looking for more card advantage, and playing lands instead of drawing them is always good.
Cutting elvish piper for it. That card is a glorified manadork. It has its uses but doesn't go turbo as hard as other cards in the deck.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Seems like a win more card. It's really only good if you want to get out two fatty creatures in a turn. As we've discussed, usually we don't want to do that anyway.
I can find no shrug emoji, so here you go:
+ Oracle of Mul Daya
- Elvish Piper.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
This was my following sequence of plays
Turn 1: Forest, Carpet of Flowers (with a monoblue player on the table), postcombat play Mana Crypt into Somberwald Sage.
Turn 2: Carnage Tyrant, fetch for Taiga, Crop Rotation forest for Kessig Wolf Run then Wheel of Fortune and play a Sol Ring with the last mana floating.
Turn 3: Xenagos into an attempted Momentous Fall for 14 that got countered.
Turn 4: Go for plan B.. Hydra Omnivore, give it +3 from wolf run precombat, and smack a guy for 22 to make everyone take 22.
Everything got wiped afterwards, but I could not have imagined a crazier start, and if I had drawn those 14 cards I probably would have won the game.
Speaking of Carnage Tyrant, that card gives people headaches. Seeing counterspells and removal completely blank against it is a welcoming sight.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Here's the link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/autocardanywhere/eobkhgkgoejnjaiofdmphhkemmomfabg?hl=en
tyrant is strictly better. I run both though
Aggressive Mammoth an 8/8 for 6 is a good rate already. Tack on trample to your other creatures. Could be good with extra combat phases and Malignus. I forget, does the deck already run a creature that gives everything trample?
Colossal Majesty a weak, but consistent card draw spell. I don't like this does nothing if we don't have a creature. Probably too risky to play. Thoughts?
Colossal Majesty is a bit too weak given that it does nothing if you don't have a creature. You are correct there.
Oh yeah, I drafted Battlebond today and picked up one of these. Now we can start cutting the mediocre dual lands!
- Mossfire Valley
+ Spire Garden
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
I just realized I'm still missing Hydra Omnivore from my list! However, it would be downright evil to give that guy trample. I haven't been playing Xenagos much at all. I'm kicking so much ass in my playgroup with my lesser decks that the big guns aren't warranted. I know a lot of that has to do with this awesome thread and the amazing advice I've been given here.
One is Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma. The ability sounds good on paper, being able to cost reduce Xenagod and all of his creatures. However, the power of cost reduction comes with playing more than 1 card a turn. Creatures with power 4 and up often have high costs that make it impossible to play two in one turn, even with the cost reduction, so it ends up being a limited 2-ramp option with a little bit of offensive potential. As a result, it has the problem that Dragonlord's Servant has and thus will not make the cut.
The other is Sarkhan's Unsealing. This one is entirely dependent on your lists, as the real payoff here is playing 7 power creatures. This is something that you absolutely need to build around, as the payoffs for playing 4-6 power is mediocre at best if you had to pay 4 mana for it. However, if you have enough 7+ power creatures (say you are on a budget and need to play Verdurous Gearhulk and Terra Stompers), then this thing will absolutely hose your opponents by making sure that they can't leave anything other than powerful beef on the table, threats that this deck can undoubtedly overpower. As a result, I think this card is very worth it in budget lists. You do need to work for it, but the payoff is there.
EDIT: Oh I realized that Xenagod casts trigger this thing.. So in reality it is more like a 2x Mizzium Mortars that give you a free overload when you play a 7-8 power creature. The timing isn't always convenient, but this actually gets a lot of value for 4 mana and is a serious upgrade over Warstorm Surge. Unfortunately I only have six creatures that can trigger the overload mode. If you have more than that, it becomes a really good option.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.