I think Ayli's first ablity just checks whatever the toughness of the creature is, this is including */* stats like Serra Avatar, or the minus from an equipped skullclamp, fore example.
Hello! Really liking this guide and I've been using it for inspiration ever since I decided I wanted to start building an Ayli deck (main theme: drain/bleed lifegain wincons, with a token subtheme for use as ammo for Ashnod's Altar or Ayli's second ability, for throwing out spot removal/disruption).
I haven't totally finished my deck yet, but I had a question. Since I'm focusing on lifegain/draining for this deck, one of the cards I planned for my 99 was Serra Avatar. It seems like it has good potential, but I want to be sure before I try it: Say I have 100 life and I sacrifice the Avatar to Ayli's first skill. Would I gain 100 life from that as it's toughness would be 100, tied to my life total, or would it be zero as it's a * amount? Because if it works like I hope it does, it'd have a Beacon of Immortality effect that pairs beautifully with Sanguine Bond or Vizkopa Guildmage. A shame you can't really do any recursion shenanigans with it, though.
I think Ayli's first ablity just checks whatever the toughness of the creature is, this is including */* stats like Serra Avatar, or the minus from an equipped skullclamp, fore example.
So how this works is that when you activate Ayli's ability and sacrifice a creature, putting her ability on the stack, it looks at the last known information about that creature when it was on the battlefield before it was sacrificed. In other words, if you were at 100 life and Serra Avatar was a 100/100 creature on the battlefield and you sacrificed it as part of the cost for Ayli's 1st activated ability, you would gain 100 life. You sacrifice the creature when it's on the battlefield, so that is what the stack looks at. Another way to look at it is that it's power/toughness wouldn't change to 0/0 unless it weren't on the battlefield already, making it an illegal target for Ayli
As an Aside...
I was searching through the Black binder at my LGS for a card for another deck and noticed Demonic Consultation. I had to read it because I couldn't remember what it did.
"Name a card. Exile the top six cards of your library, then reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal the named card. Put that card into your hand and exile all other cards revealed this way."
It then occurred to me that it works perfectly with Approach of the Second Sun after you cast it for your first time, which puts itself as the 7th card from the top. That means you use Demonic Consultation to exile the top 6, name Approach of the Second Sun and to immediately reveal it and put it back in your hand So if anyone wants to have fun with a super cheesy combo, there you go.
So here's the first rough draft of the deck I've got going right now. I'm not really sure if I'm on the right track with this since I'm not following your theme to a T, but if you could give me some tips, I'd greatly appreciate it because I'm not sure what to leave in and what to take out because they're not effective. (As such, I haven't accounted for lands just yet.)
Stuff I have at the side at the moment for consideration but can't decide on: Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Blind Obedience - Blind Obedience seems like the better choice, but it didn't really seem that important Grand Abolisher - Might be nice on turns when I'm going off with a finisher? Underworld Connections - I have better draw engines, I think Sorin, Solemn Visitor - Seems good and fits my theme of lifegain with a pseudo-anthem that gives lifelink, makes tokens, and has an emblem that forces opponents to sacrifice things Nihil Spellbomb - Quick graveyard hate that draws a card could be useful Magus of the Will - Because I can't justify buying Yawgmoth's Will right now Sorin, Grim Nemesis - Seems like a great card, but I don't have the Sensei's Divining Top and such to make his +1 really useful. But either way it's card draw? I don't know. Spectral Procession - With all the reanimation this deck can do, I don't know if it's necessary. Lingering Souls is better anyway. Liliana Vess - Nice utilities! Her -8 is pretty cool. But I already have a Liliana in this deck so I dunno if I want to risk pairing them up. Mark of Asylum - Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant's able to be reanimated, and the enchantment covers more ground. Angelic Accord - Seems like a useful card since I'll be gaining a lot of life, but let's be real, it's because I didn't spring for Luminarch Ascension yet
How does it look so far?
Also on my wish list of sorts that aren't listed at all: Sheoldred, Kokusho, Yosei, Weathered Wayfarer, Rune-Scarred Demon, Vish Kal, Karmic Guide, Reveillark, Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Hey Matsuri, thanks for posting your list I'm trying to look at it to understand what kind of build you're going for here. It looks very much like you're focused on a life gain here more than anything. This'll probably turn into a wall of text, so apologies ahead of time. I haven't normally gotten around to critiquing decks or I forget to, it's not something I do too often so hopefully I don't meander too much here.
Lands - Right now you have 68 non-land cards. That means you only have room for 32 Lands, which is really really low for the deck. You generally don't want to go below 36 unless you have a decent chunk of mana ramp. You have Sol Ring and Commander's Sphere currently, and Everflowing Chalice. I will say I'm not a fan of Everflowing Chalice outside of decks that can ramp mana really fast to help pay the multikicker a few times. Paying 2 mana you get a mana rock that taps for 1, making Mind Stone strictly better, there. Paying 4 you get a mana rock for two, which isn't all that great compared to Thran Dynamo. If you're playing tons of Mana Rocks or ramp and can accelerate ahead of the normal curve to where you can speed it out with 3-4 charge counters on it it's not too spectacular. You'll probably want to run Orzhov Signet and at least one more mana rock. You have a really flat mana curve at the moment so if you don't have some more ramp, there's a high chance you'll stall out in the early game. I'll talk more on that in a moment.
Theme/Archetype - One thing that jumped out at me was some of the cards focused on creating Tokens. There's actually not that many here. You have Annointed Procession in there which is great for a tokens build, but actually have very little support in the build so far for a Tokens build. So far you have 5 cards that can make tokens, and that's not which will probably leave Annointed Procession as a dead card much of the time: Hanweir Militia Captain, Hero of Bladehold, Hidden Stockpile, Oketra's Monument, Phyrexian Processor and Elspeth, Sun's Champion. Hanweir Militia Captain is great in a token build, and for generating sacrificial fodder, but is honestly really slow. Hero of Bladehold is great at making tokens when attacking, but it's combat oriented and you don't really have any support for going into combat in the list. For this reason, Ravos Soultender and Tymna the Weaver seem kind of out of place in the deck. You don't have much of anything else going on with combat in the deck, so their ability and trigger don't particularly seem relevant here. Hidden Stockpile is something I've passed on myself because Viscera Seer allows me to scry by sacrificing a creature for free, and because it's a Creature I can reanimate it if I need to. Getting a single 1/1 Servo per turn if you choose to sacrifice something isn't necessarily the best way to build up fodder or a token army and is a bit slow.
Oketra's Monument lets you discount the mana cost of 14 creatures currently in the deck (before you do any changes). You have 24 White cards that you could get a token off of by casting here. The problem is again that it's kind of out of place in a deck that doesn't particularly care about tokens. The best you could do with your token generation is some life gain off of Soul Sisters, which is okay if Karlov of the Ghost Council or Aetherflux Reservoir are on the battlefield. But if you don't have that setup, the tokens don't do anything by themselves. Meanwhile, Phyrexian Processor seems like a really cute card, but seems counter-intuitive to the point of gaining life in the deck if that's your means of winning. You can pay the initial cost and sacrifice a token to Ayli to gain the life right back, but if you're getting some hate and can't keep your life total up, it ends up a really dead card. It also has the unfortunate downside that the tokens it generates can be blocked all day long, and without Annointed Procession only makes one per turn. In short, Phyrexian Processor is pretty slow and a huge target for removal. In all likeliness you'll pay a large amount of life to make it threatening, and as a result see it removed asap before you get to do much with it.
One token-related thing I will agree with is that Elspeth, Sun's Champion is an excellent Planeswalker and worth including in any build. With Ashnod's Alter or other sac outlets out, the ability to make three 1/1's for fodder is amazing (She pays for herself the turn she comes out if you have Ashnod's by sacrificing the three soldiers to it) and the semi-Wrath for creatures power 4 or greater is very nice. Her ultimate is again less relevant unless you're running a deck that intends to get in the combat zone a lot, but her first two abilities are great. With a Soul Sister or two out, you can gain multitudes of life off of just using her +1 ability.
Card Draw - Dark Prophecy, Phyrexian Arena and Necropotence are great enchantments, but I would probably drop Dark Prophecy for the deck for the same reasons above. It's generally good for decks that are creating a lot of fodder to sacrifice, allowing you to benefit from the triggers, but again there's not much token support here, and if you're going the Lifegain route then you generally aren't going to want to sacrifice many of the creatures you have listed here that are helping you towards that. It's probably a bit overkill to run all three, regardless, and you're also running Well of Lost Dreams and Skullclamp which should let you draw a lot of cards, too.
Finishers - I saw Death Grasp here and unfortunately I just can't imagine running it instead of Profane Command, Exsanguinate or Debt to the Deathless. Only being able to target one player or creatures is a huge drawback of Death Grasp, and it feels even worse if you want to use it on a creature and it's Indestructible or whatnot. Being able to drain every player at the table for the same mana with Exsanguinate that you're paying to drain one player with Death Grasp makes it just that much better. Profane Command at least offers various modes of utility here so that you don't necessarily have a dead card in your hand until you're ready to kill off one player with Death Grasp or a target creature. While Death Grasp can take out Planeswalkers, there is a lot of good removal out there like Utter End, Vindicate and Anguished Unmaking that you can use instead for that purpose. I will say that at the moment I feel like you have some good board wipes, but really need some more targeted removal. One of Orzhov's best abilities is being able to target and kill or exile almost any permanent with removal and that's something I'd really suggest taking advantage of! Also, Merciless Eviction is a very underrated board wipe
Mana Curve - Right now your average mana cost is 3.4. That's not awful, but not great. At the same time, your mana curve isn't really a curve, which is something to take into consideration. I uploaded your deck onto tapped out to check out your stats/averages so I could critique things a bit better - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/matsuriframboise-ayli-help/ and you'll see that you have fourteen 2 and 3 cost cards and twelve 4 and 5 cost cards. The reason this is bad is that with is that about 76% of your deck costs the same amount of mana. That means you have a really high chance of having a lot of cards in your opening hand or early game that you won't be able to play. You want to try to have something to play or do every turn, even if it's removal on your opponent's turn. So you can fix that a few ways. You ideally want 3 to be the top of your curve, so you can do that by taking away some 2-mana and 5-mana cards, which would make it more of a curve like you want to aim for. You can also just take away some 5-mana cards and add more 3-mana cards. How you approach it is up to you, what cards you have available to you and what makes the most sense for the deck. Cutting is hard, but mana curve is super important so you don't end up board waiting for the mana to cast spells a lot of the time.
Last Thoughts - My only other critiques at the moment are that I think even though you're playing a mostly lifegain deck, I think Aetherflux Reservoir may not be the win con you're looking for. The thing about Aetherflux Reservoir is that you're probably not going to gain too much off of it's first ability. Ayli isn't a spellslinging deck so it's very rare to ramp that up. You can probably kill another player with it when you get to 50-60 life, but the problem right there is that anyone can target you with a damage spell in response to paying the life to activate Aetherflux Reservoir[/c] and peg you off. The Reservoir is funny with Exquisite Blood, but again you have to assume you're going to be at 50 life, or that you're well above that to make using the Reservoir less dangerous. Being a lifegain deck you might not have any problem with that, or you might become the archenemy or get hated early in the game and never get your game plan off of the ground. Lastly, even though Whip of Erebos gives your creatures Lifelink, again so far it doesn't look like the deck is supporting hitting opponents with creatures very often, so that seems less relevant than you'd hope. But I also don't like running it because I love to reanimate things, and no matter what happens, the clause of using Whip of Erebos is that you lose your toy at the end of turn. No ifs, ands or buts. It's also a bit slow because you can only use it at Sorcery speed and it costs 8 mana to use on the same turn.
Anyway! I hope some of this helps. I realize I didn't offer too many suggestions on what I'd play instead of some of the things I've mentioned. That's mostly because I'm not sure what your aim is for your build or how you want to play it.
Whow, Xen.. Kelzam :-)! What a detailed analysis. @ MatsuriFramboise: I feel Teysa, Orzhov Scion might perhaps be better, should you decide to go to a more token-focused BW deck instead of Ayli.
Oh wow! Don't mind the wall of text at all, that level of analysis is excellent. Thank you so much for your insight!
I'll give my thoughts on each portion respectively.
Lands:Everflowing Chalice was one I was really on the fence with because I was thinking "oh, make lots of tokens and sac them to the altar to pay the kicker a bunch of times and have a mana rock that taps for a lot"-- but even if I DID use such a cumbersome method, it could be removed, leaving me with nothing-- and that sacrifice could have gone toward something more effective. It's out. I'll put Mind Stone in and pick up an Orzhov Signet while I'm out today. I'll throw in Thought Vessel too, as something that can support the card draw.
Is there anything else I should be considering here? I confess, I'm pretty new to EDH and mana rocks always end up being the last thing on my mind.
Theme/Archetype: The reason why I was so overloaded on non-land cards is because I wasn't sure what was right to make the cut. I think I may need to ditch the tokens subtheme and focus more on a reanimation theme. The main reason why I wanted to try tokens was mainly as fodder for Ayli's second ability, killing off the tokens as ammunition. But I'll agree that maybe I'm trying too hard to blend two concepts together and getting a really lackluster result. I probably would be better off getting rid of that and focusing more on reanimation. So I'll remove:
Phyrexian Processor, I confess, was one of the more silly options I wanted to try, but you're right that it's probably not the best option. The idea was to use it as a finisher-- gain a ton of life and then pay not all of it, but a decent amount, to have a card that can feed out huge bodies for attacking and blocking and sacrifice, gaining the life right back as soon as I use it. But it's probably unnecessary, so I'll drop it too.
So that leaves more space for a reanimation-style theme, which I'm sure is more the point of Ayli as a commander anyway and opens me up to some better finishing combos (Kokusho, Yosei, etc). There's a lot to consider here-- what would probably be the most important pieces for that?
As far as targeted removal goes-- I didn't really put much in because my original idea was to use Ayli's second ability to sac tokens and snipe things. But it's probably not the best idea. Would it be better to run instant/sorcery based removal, or throw in stuff to reanimate/recur like Fiend Hunter, Mangara of Corondor, Ashen Rider, Angel of Serenity, and so on? I didn't really consider Ashen Rider or Archon of Justice or Angel of Serenity because they had such a large mana cost.
Mana Curve: Very good points here. Here's some more stuff I'm cutting: Ajani's Pridemate- Karlov of the Ghost Council does everything the Pridemate can do, and better. Tymna the Weaver- Reasons mentioned before, I just won't be attacking all that much. Rhox Faithmender- Alhammarret's Archive has a better effect, but this is something I can reanimate. Not 100% sure on this one Aetherflux Reservoir- You had good points on this one. It's out. Whip of Erebos- I confess, this was mostly a flavor card because I have Erebos, God of the Dead and Dictate of Erebos in the deck. Also good points about losing toys after reanimating them. Puppeteer Clique does a more fun job of that anyway, letting me use my opponents' graveyards and creatures instead. Tainted Remedy- This was mostly meant to be sort of a snark at my friend that I play 1v1 commander with when he's in town, since he plays Trostani, Selesnya's Voice to gain ridiculous amounts of life. Also flavorful with Liliana, Heretical Healer, but not necessary when Erebos, God of the Dead already locks opponents out of lifegain and I can ruin anyone's lifegain with Tree of Perdition. Ravos, Soultender- I don't know if he's right to cut or not-- he lets me grab a creature out of my graveyard every turn for free, after all. And the card just looks really cool. But he is kind of a nonbo with Skullclamp and Sheoldred, Whispering One probably does that job better-- I just don't have that and it's kind of a pricey card, both in cost and mana. Elspeth, Sun's Champion- Great in a token theme, but kind of pointless outside of it. Good for Altar fodder, but a reanimation theme has better things to do that with.
Last Thoughts: Also good points-- Corpse Dance already does what the Whip does with more combo potential anyway, yeah?
So far, that's 16 cards cut overall, leaving me with:
Whow, Xen.. Kelzam :-)! What a detailed analysis. @ MatsuriFramboise: I feel Teysa, Orzhov Scion might perhaps be better, should you decide to go to a more token-focused BW deck instead of Ayli.
Yeah, also a good point. I want to build a deck for her someday too, but not for a long while (I have other decks I want to build first).
I'm glad the feedback has been useful I'm about to leave for the evening to go play some EDH, so I wanted to drop by and see your response real quick and also touch on the Maybe Board that I forgot to reply to (and fix my post because I've been hearing about Aetherworks Marvel so much the last few months that I kept typing that instead of Aetherflux Reservoir :p)
On the finishers: I'd run Profane Command + ExsanguinateorDebt to the Deathless but probably not both. I prefer to stick to Exsanguinate because if I need to cast it in a rough spot, two Black mana can be easier to come by than XWWBB. The argument for Debt I've heard is that yes, in higher amounts of mana it scales better and you gain more life, which may be more ideal for a Lifegain deck, but you also have to be generating massive amounts of mana for it to be more effective than Exsanguinate, and if you're able to produce that kind of mana, you should be able to just win the game with either of them at that time anyway, making it a moot point.
Stuff I have at the side at the moment for consideration but can't decide on: Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Blind Obedience - Blind Obedience seems like the better choice, but it didn't really seem that important Grand Abolisher - Might be nice on turns when I'm going off with a finisher? Underworld Connections - I have better draw engines, I think Sorin, Solemn Visitor - Seems good and fits my theme of lifegain with a pseudo-anthem that gives lifelink, makes tokens, and has an emblem that forces opponents to sacrifice things Nihil Spellbomb - Quick graveyard hate that draws a card could be useful Magus of the Will - Because I can't justify buying Yawgmoth's Will right now Sorin, Grim Nemesis - Seems like a great card, but I don't have the Sensei's Divining Top and such to make his +1 really useful. But either way it's card draw? I don't know. Spectral Procession - With all the reanimation this deck can do, I don't know if it's necessary. Lingering Souls is better anyway. Liliana Vess - Nice utilities! Her -8 is pretty cool. But I already have a Liliana in this deck so I dunno if I want to risk pairing them up. Mark of Asylum - Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant's able to be reanimated, and the enchantment covers more ground. Angelic Accord - Seems like a useful card since I'll be gaining a lot of life, but let's be real, it's because I didn't spring for Luminarch Ascension yet
How does it look so far?
Also on my wish list of sorts that aren't listed at all: Sheoldred, Kokusho, Yosei, Weathered Wayfarer, Rune-Scarred Demon, Vish Kal, Karmic Guide, Reveillark, Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Thalia, Heretic Cathar & Blind Obedience - The honest question here is why not both? They are both great. Thalia is a creature you can reanimate when she dies, but Blind Obedience gives you Extort which is great in itself
Grand Abolisher - A worthy include not only to help protect your finisher, but to stop a lot of combo shenanigans from happening on your turn. No tutoring on your turn before your next opponent's!
Underworld Connections - I think you assessed correctly: You have better options, and they don't take a land out of play or make you have to decide whether that mana is available or not.
Sorin, Solemn Visitor - Goes along with what I said about the token theme. He's really good, but sadly out of place here.
Nihil Spellbomb - There's a few options for graveyard hate. I prefer Bojuka Bog because I'd rather use a land slot for the ability than a non-land slot.
Magus of the Will - Not being able to by Yawg's Will is understandable. Sadly in my testing, Magus of the Will is too expensive and too slow and usually gets removed before you can use him. Unless you have Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots, he doesn't have Haste so you have to wait a full turn before activating his ability. If you do have Haste, you have to spend his mana cost (3) plus the equip cost (0 or 1) plus the mana to activate him (3) which means you've used 6-7 mana just to use him, and opponents can target him in response to you putting the equip activation on the stack. So, he's really actually a poor immitation, I'm afraid.
Sorin, Grim Nemesis - You don't necessarily need Top to make him worthwhile. His +1 still draws you an extra card each turn while dealing a wallop to your opponents, and his -X is a Death Grasp serving as a removal or killer of other Planeswalkers
Spectral Procession - Was another tokens card. I will say about it though that one-off effects like this are worse in EDH where games last longer than they are in 60-card constructed. You want your spells and abilities to really make a splash in EDH, or work together to make a lot of gains and value over time. For tokens it's a pretty low end card since it's a one-off effect, you'd want to replace it with something you can continuously get value out of.
Liliana Vess - She's an excellent Planeswalker and has a Vampiric Tutor attached to her and her Finisher is extremely dangerous. She's pretty good, even if her +1 isn't that great.
Angelic Accord - It's a pretty poor imitation of Luminarch Ascension but if left unchecked does give you some inevitability in the game.
Some suggestions of my own:
Sidisi, Undead Vizier - If you can't afford many good tutors because they keep getting more and more expensive, Sidisi is relatively cheap and you can sac and reanimate her for value.
Knight-Captain of Eos - She's really cheap and you can reanimate her to keep making more Soldiers to sacrifice to prevent combat damage. She's also a beautiful political tool and can be used to make allies. Incidentally, she works really well with Elspeth, Sun's Champion because you can forever disable opponents from dealing combat damage to you
Gray Merchant of Asphodel - This guy is another potential finisher combined with reanimation shenanigans, and will gain you huge amounts of life otherwise.
And I'll make a point of grabbing those others you mentioned when I get the chance too. If I put in Knight-Captain of Eos, it'd only make sense to put Elspeth back in, but I'm getting concerned that I'm putting too many 5 and 6 drops in... hmm.
I looked through the guide of combos and suggestions again, and I think I'll also be grabbing:
Bitter Ordeal and Blasting Station especially, as they're 3 drops and suit the curve of the deck better, right? As it is, my deck concept doesn't have a lot of game-ending combos, so they'd be a great addition. They're not as flashy as say, locking everyone out with Yosei or decimating everyone with Kokusho (and the only reason I'm getting Yosei over Kokusho is price honestly), but they get the job done. Mangara is just a nice, cheap, recursion-friendly removal card. I'll also be putting one of my Eldrazi Displacer and Fiend Hunter in for exploits.
Now I think my problem is, I have way too many 5-drops in this deck. I'm not sure what to cut! They're all so good.
Okay! So I've managed to collect all the cards I want to work with, and took out a few cards from before. I decided to really focus more on the reanimation theme than anything else, so I tried my best to emphasize that while still maintaining combo potentials. So!
So I happened to find out I had a playset of Surgical Extraction and a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle that I'll never use, so I took them to my LGS and got a ton of store credit which let me get some of the more expensive pieces without breaking my bank.
It's starting to have a more concrete design, which I am liking. But my curve is still very weird (2 and 3 drops have the majority of the deckspace, but I still have a ton of 5 drops and almost no 4 drops). So I'm trying to figure out what to cut before putting a manabase together (and I should add it's not going to be stellar, a lot of the lands that are best for this deck are really expensive and kind of exclusively good in this deck and none of my other decks).
I took out some of the incremental lifegain cards such as Soul's Attendant and those that benefit from it, such as Karlov of the Ghost Council and Archangel of Thune (they'll go better in my Breya deck, which is all about spawning a TON of thopters and pumping them up and then sacrificing them and sweeping). All that's really left to do, I think, is shave off enough cards to fit in a manabase. I also took out Alhammarret's Archive and put Rhox Faithmender back in, as it's a valid Reveillark target (in fact, a LOT of cards in this deck are).
But what should I take out... I have a few in mind, but I'm still stuck: Zulaport Cutthroat - Blood Artist does everything he does, but better-- he may not target all players at once, but that's good if I in some situation I don't want to combo off and hit everyone at once. Either way, since there's so much recursion and reanimation, do I really need 2 cards with the same effect? I'll keep one as a wincon piece though, because if I can go off with an unlimited ETB/LTB loop, everyone dies.
Thalia, Heretic Cathar or Blind Obedience - Again, don't really need 2 cards with the same effect when I'm overloaded like this. Probably Blind Obedience as Thalia can be reanimated? But then again, Sun Titan hits both, too. Not sure.
Wall of Reverence- It's good, and a Reveillark target, but I don't know if it's really necessary.
Phyrexian Reclamation - It's nice and cheap, but there's enough recursion now, I think... right?
Beacon of Immortality - Serra Avatar, when combined with Ayli, pretty much does exactly what this does. It's technically the Beacon on a body and even better if I pair it with Gift of Immortality... (that overrides the "shuffle it into your library" effect, right?)
Palace Siege - Great way to get creatures back, but it's expensive and not as effective as, say, Sheoldred.... maybe.
Black Market - If I'm comboing off and getting a lot of dead creatures built up, I think it's safe to say I'm already winning. This might be better in my other EDH deck.
One of the sweepers - maybe Fumigate? I just think I might have too many.
That's 8 cards out of the whole 77, and I'm assuming I'll need 36-37 lands for this... so I'll need to prune out about 7 or 8 after the ones above to be able to be in that area.
How is it looking so far? Am I on a better track now?
WB has excellent removal.
This is of course super-obvious to us, but it's important to realise all our opponents know and acknowledge this as well. We're the ones they look at when the board-state needs sweeping. We're the ones they fear and plead not to pinpoint remove their commander (or other valuable permanents). What this means is we're investing cards, mana and turns in stopping other people's plans, and they know it. How to maximise our ROI depends largely to how effective table politics work.
Spells spell trouble
Permanents, we can handle easily. We're having trouble with the intangible. Someone storm-comboing out. An end-of-turn Cyclonic Rift.
It's not a fast deck
There's no way we're keeping up with a green players ramp or someone with large amounts of artifact acceleration. We can only hope a well-timed sweeper equals the playing field somewhat.
Card quality is king
Tutors and extra draws (Necropotence or Sorin for example) are the things takes makes our deck work, more so than the superb removal.
Ayli often has either a tedious, grindy endgame or an out-of-nowhere combo finisher
Whether it's Yosei-lock the table or going infinite with Vish Kal, I'm often getting complaints about how unfun my wincons are.
Thing is, turning dudes sideways is not what this makes this deck win.
Spells getting you down? Mana Tithe and Lapse of Certainty work wonders here.
People often hold up exactly 7 mana to rift, or they re-draw it and then main phase it.
These two cards are very unexpected from Ayli.
Maybe something like Rule of Law to slow down multi-spell combos? And we could at least protect ourselves from targeted spells with Leyline of Sanctity? Protect our creatures from Cyclonic Rift with Eerie Interlude or Ghostway, both of which also give us some ETB recursion?
Meanwhile, I'm still puzzling over what cards to remove from the deck so I can fit my manabase in. So far I've taken out: Zulaport Cutthroat - Blood Artist just seems better Kambal, Consul of Allocation - It may be a way to punish spellslingers, but he doesn't really fit in with the combos. I dunno about him. Wall of Reverence - not a lot of high power creatures in the deck, even if it's got a decent body Black Market - The only time it seems really good is if I'm already winning Palace Siege - Sheoldred, Whispering One and Phyrexian Reclamation seem a bit more efficient Fumigate - Not so sure if I should be taking out sweepers, but I still have Profane Command, Toxic Deluge, and Merciless Eviction. Or should I just be going all out with sweepers? I don't know. Liliana Vess - The odds of me pulling off her ultimate are low, and she doesn't have the recursion potential for tutoring like Sidisi, Undead Vizier does. In fact, pairing Sidisi and Gift of Immortality essentially gives me a tutor every turn. So this Lili's out. Gray Merchant of Asphodel - Honestly, he's potentially better than Kokusho, the Evening Star when it comes to draining everyone's life at once, depending on how much your devotion to black is. More importantly, he's able to be recurred with the Reveillark/Karmic Guide combo, while Kokusho isn't. But at the same time, I guess my reasoning was just that if I was going off with that combo, Blood Artist would just be as effective. I don't know. Maybe he can come back, I'm not sure yet. Beacon of Immortality - It just doesn't seem necessary when I have so many more lifegain combos going on. Serra Avatar - It may be my pet card for this deck, but it's kind of in the same boat as the Beacon. Not efficient enough to abuse, no matter how fun it may seem to have an enormous/enormous creature on the battlefield. Divinity of Pride - Great card that's nice and flavorful for the deck, but without Gray Merchant it doesn't have the same presence. Serra Ascendant does the same job and it is much easier to reanimate as Sun Titan and Reveillark can bring it back.
So that's 11 cards out, so I'm down to 66/100. I just need to take 1 or 2 more out... Bitter Ordeal, maybe? It's a little harder to abuse than Blasting Station, which is a permanent I can get back with Sun Titan or Argivian Find AND if I combo off, it kills everyone and anything without indestructible/hexproof. Meanwhile the Ordeal only hits one opponent and if it's countered, it's a dead card as I don't have, like, Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed to grab it back (and probably won't anytime soon).
Maybe 35 lands will be enough, since I removed a big chunk of the high end of my curve?
Also:
Regarding unfun wincons: Eye of the beholder, honestly. Turning creatures sideways is just one way to win the game. I can understand how lock wincons can be unfun because they don't win right away, but just how many of our combos are "out-of-nowhere"? It doesn't really take the most perceptive person to realize what an Ayli deck is trying to do, and it isn't like our combos aren't able to be disrupted if you know what you're doing, too. And besides, I like unconventional win conditions. Decks that rush to win an EDH game in the first few turns are what I feel are unfun to play against, because it means not everyone is getting a chance to play. It may be competitive, but this isn't Legacy or Modern, you know? Slow down and have some fun, play politics and stuff.
I haven't even mentioned my lands yet because I wanted to confirm my color distributions first, so removing the Map is something I want to avoid for the moment. And the Priest is mostly there as a reanimate-able combo piece for unlimited mana for finishers, as a backup, should Ashnod's Altar be taken out of the picture. I can understand removing the priest though.
Profane Command seems really useful as a versatile modal spell-- it can kill an opponent and get me back an expensive creature, and so on. Is it really not that good?
The more I think on it, the more I wanna keep Gray Merchant of Asphodel in; it really does seem like a Reveillark-compatible Kokusho with the right board state-- and that means Divinity of Pride might be able to stay too. So maybe bring those back in and drop Profane Command and Priest of Gix? I don't know... Is Blind Obedience something I can live without? Thalia, Heretic Cathar seems to have the better effect by slowing everyone down, and I can reanimate her, too.
Hey everyone, it's been a crazy weak so I haven't had time to post much.
Cuts I'd make:
-Black Market is essentially a win more card in the deck or any build that's not tokens.4
-Priest of Gix is another combo piece with Ashnod's Altar + Nim Deathmantle, but is one of the few creatures in the deck that does nothing after he enters the battlefield. If you're looking for a cut, he's one of the more reasonable pieces to lose.
Truthfully of all the possible cuts, I'd cut either Palace Siege or Serra Avatar. Palace Siege is a lot of mana for what it does, but Serra Avatar is just a big dumb creature that will more often than not die as soon as it hits the battlefield. It's amazing with Ayli on the board, though.
I'd never cut Expedition Map. There are too many important utility lands for the deck to run with it + Sun Titan you can find any utility land you'd ever need when you need it. Profane Command is also a very versatile finisher and spell in the deck. Making the cuts I'm looking at cards and their potential impact on the game and how much they help you move the game towards closing.
Down to 68/100. Need to drop 4 more if I want to fit 36 lands in the deck. Divinity of Pride is a maybe, it still isn't that great as far as synergy goes (as in, it's not as easy to reanimate and as cheaply costed as Serra Ascendant), but it's a great card paired with Gray Merchant of Asphodel or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, which is among my lands. Rhox Faithmender too, potentially. But as for what else... hmm. Everything else seems to fit either with the combos pretty well, or help pave the path toward dropping finishers. Ghostly Prison and/or Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant may not be very vital to the deck, but they help me protect myself while I assemble the game winning combos. Maybe Soul Warden? Hmmm.
Just wanna say again that I really appreciate the input, guys. This is still pretty new territory for me.
I really like Divinity of Pride in a life gain-focused deck. While you want synergy, you really want cards that can do well and stand by themselves. Divinity of Pride as an 8/8 Flying lifeink that also gives you a lot of devotion (as you were saying) is pretty great. Rhox Faithmender is a card that doesn't do too much by itself, if at all. Ghostly Prison is nice for facing swarm decks and aggro, while Rune-Tail prevents damage but doesn't prevent triggers on attack. I think Rhox Faithmender and Rune-Tail are the cuts that pop out to me.
I meant to point out before, but Blind Obedience and Thalia, Heretic Cathar both serve a different purpose even though they're remarkably close to the same thing. The huge difference is that Blind Obedience makes Artifacts your opponents play come into play tapped. That really, really slows down a lot of abusive Artifact synergy and ramp, whereas Thalia taps down non-basic lands. They're both good and serve a purpose in their own right, though if you had to cut one I'd suggest Thalia over Blind Obedience.
Lastly, I notice you're running Eldrazi Displacer. It's really amazing in Ayli! But keep in mind you need a lot of Colorless sources to make it worthwhile.
Good points. Rune-Tail and the Faithmender are out. A little sad, because I was hoping I finally had a home for old Rune-Tail. It's another one of my pet cards.
As far as Eldrazi Displacer goes, I think I should be okay. I have 7 lands that produce can colorless mana-- 8 if I keep one I originally planned but cut because it's more friendly to swarm-based decks (Vault of the Archangel). It's another reason why I wanted to be sure to keep Expedition Map around.
3 more to cut... Bitter Ordeal and... I don't know. Soul Warden? The Ordeal because it's single-target and not as versatile as Profane Command and the Warden because... I don't know. She's great but not 100% vital?
EDIT: Yeah, final three cuts are Bitter Ordeal, Soul Warden, and Dictate of Erebos. It seems like a great card and probably is, but it's too disruptive and will probably backfire on me.
Went to play in a pod tonight for the first time. My deck is, while somewhat inefficient due to lack of fast tutors, incredibly fun and interactive and the politics were astoundingly fun to play. The game consisted of Ayli, Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Kruphix, God of Horizons, and The Gitrog Monster.
The game was basically the Gitrog player whining about bad draws the whole game, the Scion player over-extending way too quickly against two control decks, and the Kruphix player and I going back and forth, stopping each other's win conditions (I had Exquisite Blood out and was getting good lifegain from it, and he bounced my Tree of Perdition and killed my Sanguine Bond, and cast Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger to exile my Exquisite Blood. Annoyed, I cast Fiend Hunter and targeted Ulamog. He countered it. I cast Animate Dead. He bounced my Spawning Pit. He forgot that I had Ayli on the board and sac'd the Fiend Hunter to exile Ulamog forever. It felt GREAT.)
However, the Gitrog player went off on a combo one turn that took about 30 minutes, and somehow did not kill us all. The next turn? He took over an HOUR. The dude, who was borrowing the deck, forgot the wincon. He spent over an HOUR, only to die to his own combo. The Scion player, whose life I had already nuked with Tree of Perdition, had taken beats from the Kruphix player to 4 (who wouldn't target me because I had 101 life by that point), and played a spiteful Toxic Deluge to kill my Ayli and scooped. The Kruphix player was at 17, and I dropped him to 13, and attempted to reanimate Gray Merchant of Asphodel a couple times to kill him, but after a couple boardwipes I didn't have enough devotion to finish the job. At my end step, he Planar Bridge'd in a Blightsteel Colossus, bounced my Gray Merchant and Tree, and swung for an Infect win. I've never had such a firm handshake after such a long game.
All in all, I'm glad I built this deck and hope to enhance it with time. It's delightfully political and I love that.
Thanks for telling us about your game, Masturi! What you described is how games with Ayli should go, ideally. Whether you win or lose, a lot of politics and back and forth game play - a sort of tug of war - is what makes Ayli so much fun. It's extremely resilient and depending on your play group and meta, some people might be frustrating by how Ayli just keeps coming back from punches; or they might feel like they've played the funnest games of EDH they've ever played when they play with you. The best opponents are other skilled or experienced players that might get frustrated in the moment but end the game with a high because of how challenging it is to play against Ayli and how huge the web of responses and plays is for the deck. At the same time, Ayli is the most fun with opponents who challenge you to keep searching for ways and discover new lines of plays you hadn't thought about before. Despite playing the deck for close to 5 years now, and even though there's very few major shifts in the deck these days, I still find new combos or synergies I hadn't really considered on a monthly basis
Also, apologies again everyone for disappearing for a few days at a time. Been a super busy time! How was everyone's prerelease?? By the way, it's update time!
Tree of Perdition has been on the chopping block for a while. I've gone on a lot about the deck requiring finesse and a good feel for playing politics, and Tree of Perdition goes against both by forcing clunky setups and telling the table that someone is about to come close to dying. It's not far off from Sorin Markov on how it makes people react when it hits the board. Meanwhile, I've taken a while to come around on Sidisi, Undead Vizier because for quite a while I tried to keep the shuffle effects in the deck as low as possible, which is hard to do when you run so many tutor effects and fetch lands. Shuffling and tutoring increases turn time by a lot. I was also convinced that it may not be great because of the need to have fodder on board to Exploit. Having another way to sacrifice Solemn Simulacrum and now having a lot of token fodder from Knight-Captain of Eos, as well as Resassembling Skeleton in the list seems like good enough reason to board her in for more tutor effects and thus more consistency. Tree of Perdition has been a cute but mostly inconsistent card since I've added it to the deck back in October, so replacing it with a 4/6 Deathtouch body to deter aggressors that also lets us tutor seems like a really great change.
I was going to originally cut Faith's Fetters for Desert's Grasp thinking it was an upgrade for the deck, sacrificing the 4 life gain for costing one less. Importantly, I missed the detail that Desert's Grasp can only target a creature, which makes it a huge loss since it can't target Artifacts or Planeswalkers.
Notes: I've been wanting to try Approach of the Second Sun since I first saw it spoiled, knowing that between the card draw and large amount of tutors in the deck that it would be very easy to find it and then cast it a second time. What convinced me to go ahead and test it was playing against a friend who has won two games off of it out of the five I've played against their group hug deck. Once it has been cast the first time, which can be easy for us with our mana ramp and protection from Boseiju, Who Shelters All, it creates a sort of inevitability because it's hard to prevent the second cast. The only way to stop it is to force the player to shuffle their deck, make them mill it, or make them discard their hand once they draw it. It creates this new interaction level where your opponents have to keep track of how many cards you've drawn to know when you're about to draw it and desperately claw for a way to get rid of it. Also, the second time you cast it, you win whether it gets countered or not. It's a win condition and answer when playing in a meta heavy with graveyard hate or cards that make it hard for us to combo out or keep our combo pieces on board. It's easily accessible between all the tutors, draw, Sensei's Divining Top and Scroll Rack.
What to take out for it has been the most perplexing thing. I originally slated Sorin, Grim Nemesis to go out to test it because of the similar mana cost. What changed my mind was effectiveness, though. Kaya, Ghost Assassin has been a good card, but not great. I needed to cut something that doesn't perform great, which is getting harder and harder. Sorin, Grim Nemesis admittedly could be another card draw spell or something else, but he himself creates inevitability. He's creature/Planeswalker removal, his +1 does massive loads of damage with the high cost stuff in the deck, and when his Ultimate is nice though not really the reason he's played, although it has won me a few games before. Kaya on the other hand does very little. She does some long term effects, but often gets removed before the next turn rolls back around and I've gained very little off of her. Between the two, Kaya does the least, which makes me sad with how excited I was for her when she was spoiled. No other considerations were made given the function of the rest of the cards in the deck.
Notes: Razaketh is the elephant in the room for every deck playing Black - that is to say, he cannot be ignored. I'm currently deciding what to cut to test him, or if I even should. Why? There is very few cards with as high of a cost with his function in the deck. Rune-scarred Demon as a cut because of their similarities comes to mind, but truthfully, Razaketh isn't as effective in Ayli. The deck is built to abuse ETB effects like Rune-scarred Demon's and can easily get multiple tutors out of him off of Nim Deathmantle, Corpse Dance and other reanimation triggers alone. On the other hand, Razaketh doesn't require any of that setup and only asks for fodder to sacrifice, and a negligible two life loss. If not Rune-scarred Demon, then what? We're looking at Sorin, Grim Nemesis again because while his effects are good, his +1 cleave damage and draw seems negligible compared to another tutor effect. The last option has been Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter, however he is a finisher in his own right and my goal is not to remove any finishers or game ending options from the deck. Sorin, Grim Nemesis is more or less on the chopping block for Razaketh as of this posting. Once I get one I'll be doing some testing to see how it feels to actually play Razaketh and then go from there
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Hey Kelzam: about Approach of the Second Sun: I think it's the second time you cast it, that it needs to resolve, whether the first one got countered or not, is not important. Please keep us posted on how your changes work out, I'm very interested!
I'm cutting Kaya, Ghost Assassin for Razaketh, the Foulblooded. I'm liking Sorin too much atm, especially with Scroll Rack and Top, but he's definitely not safe from the chopping block. Will see whether Raza is really needed - Is it possible to play perhaps too much tutors? (Demonic, Vampiric, Enlightened, Rune-Scarred, Seal, Recruiter, Entomb)
Hey Kelzam: about Approach of the Second Sun: I think it's the second time you cast it, that it needs to resolve, whether the first one got countered or not, is not important. Please keep us posted on how your changes work out, I'm very interested!
I'm cutting Kaya, Ghost Assassin for Razaketh, the Foulblooded. I'm liking Sorin too much atm, especially with Scroll Rack and Top, but he's definitely not safe from the chopping block. Will see whether Raza is really needed - Is it possible to play perhaps too much tutors? (Demonic, Vampiric, Enlightened, Rune-Scarred, Seal, Recruiter, Entomb)
Just double checked to be sure and you're correct, it's the second one that must resolve, not the other way around. Thanks!
As your second Approach of the Second Sun resolves, it checks only whether the first one was cast, not whether the first one resolved. If your first Approach of the Second Sun was countered, you’ll still win the game as your second one resolves.
WB Ayli, Eternal Recursion WB - GUPir and Toothy GU - WBR Mathas, Fiend SeekerWBR
So how this works is that when you activate Ayli's ability and sacrifice a creature, putting her ability on the stack, it looks at the last known information about that creature when it was on the battlefield before it was sacrificed. In other words, if you were at 100 life and Serra Avatar was a 100/100 creature on the battlefield and you sacrificed it as part of the cost for Ayli's 1st activated ability, you would gain 100 life. You sacrifice the creature when it's on the battlefield, so that is what the stack looks at. Another way to look at it is that it's power/toughness wouldn't change to 0/0 unless it weren't on the battlefield already, making it an illegal target for Ayli
As an Aside...
I was searching through the Black binder at my LGS for a card for another deck and noticed Demonic Consultation. I had to read it because I couldn't remember what it did.
"Name a card. Exile the top six cards of your library, then reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal the named card. Put that card into your hand and exile all other cards revealed this way."
It then occurred to me that it works perfectly with Approach of the Second Sun after you cast it for your first time, which puts itself as the 7th card from the top. That means you use Demonic Consultation to exile the top 6, name Approach of the Second Sun and to immediately reveal it and put it back in your hand So if anyone wants to have fun with a super cheesy combo, there you go.
(Also known as Xenphire)
So here's the first rough draft of the deck I've got going right now. I'm not really sure if I'm on the right track with this since I'm not following your theme to a T, but if you could give me some tips, I'd greatly appreciate it because I'm not sure what to leave in and what to take out because they're not effective. (As such, I haven't accounted for lands just yet.)
1 Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
Creatures:
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Soul Warden
1 Soul's Attendant
1 Vizkopa Guildmage
1 Karlov of the Ghost Council
1 Zulaport Cutthroat
1 Ajani's Pridemate
1 Blood Artist
1 Hanweir Militia Captain
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant
1 Priest of Gix
1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1 Tymna the Weaver
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Rhox Faithmender
1 Wall of Reverence
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Tree of Perdition
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Hero of Bladehold
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Divinity of Pride
1 Ravos, Soultender
1 Puppeteer Clique
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Felidar Sovereign
1 Sun Titan
1 Serra Avatar
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
1 Hidden Stockpile
1 Angelic Renewal
1 Animate Dead
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Gift of Immortality
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Tainted Remedy
1 Necropotence
1 Dark Prophecy
1 Anointed Procession
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Dictate of Erebos
1 Black Market
1 Palace Siege
1 Sanguine Bond
1 Exquisite Blood
Artifacts:
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Expedition Map
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Oketra's Monument
1 Commander's Sphere
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Phyrexian Processor
1 Aetherflux Reservoir
1 Well of Lost Dreams
1 Nim Deathmantle
1 Alhammarret's Archive
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Beacon of Immortality
Sorceries:
1 Death Grasp
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Fumigate
1 Unburial Rites
Planeswalkers:
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Stuff I have at the side at the moment for consideration but can't decide on:
Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Blind Obedience - Blind Obedience seems like the better choice, but it didn't really seem that important
Grand Abolisher - Might be nice on turns when I'm going off with a finisher?
Underworld Connections - I have better draw engines, I think
Sorin, Solemn Visitor - Seems good and fits my theme of lifegain with a pseudo-anthem that gives lifelink, makes tokens, and has an emblem that forces opponents to sacrifice things
Nihil Spellbomb - Quick graveyard hate that draws a card could be useful
Magus of the Will - Because I can't justify buying Yawgmoth's Will right now
Sorin, Grim Nemesis - Seems like a great card, but I don't have the Sensei's Divining Top and such to make his +1 really useful. But either way it's card draw? I don't know.
Spectral Procession - With all the reanimation this deck can do, I don't know if it's necessary. Lingering Souls is better anyway.
Liliana Vess - Nice utilities! Her -8 is pretty cool. But I already have a Liliana in this deck so I dunno if I want to risk pairing them up.
Mark of Asylum - Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant's able to be reanimated, and the enchantment covers more ground.
Angelic Accord - Seems like a useful card since I'll be gaining a lot of life, but let's be real, it's because I didn't spring for Luminarch Ascension yet
How does it look so far?
Also on my wish list of sorts that aren't listed at all: Sheoldred, Kokusho, Yosei, Weathered Wayfarer, Rune-Scarred Demon, Vish Kal, Karmic Guide, Reveillark, Teysa, Orzhov Scion
WB Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim | WBR Queen Marchesa | WUBR Breya, Etherium Shaper
Modern:
/ Death and Taxes | W/ Soul Sisters | Spirits | U Faeries | Tempered Steel Affinity
Lands - Right now you have 68 non-land cards. That means you only have room for 32 Lands, which is really really low for the deck. You generally don't want to go below 36 unless you have a decent chunk of mana ramp. You have Sol Ring and Commander's Sphere currently, and Everflowing Chalice. I will say I'm not a fan of Everflowing Chalice outside of decks that can ramp mana really fast to help pay the multikicker a few times. Paying 2 mana you get a mana rock that taps for 1, making Mind Stone strictly better, there. Paying 4 you get a mana rock for two, which isn't all that great compared to Thran Dynamo. If you're playing tons of Mana Rocks or ramp and can accelerate ahead of the normal curve to where you can speed it out with 3-4 charge counters on it it's not too spectacular. You'll probably want to run Orzhov Signet and at least one more mana rock. You have a really flat mana curve at the moment so if you don't have some more ramp, there's a high chance you'll stall out in the early game. I'll talk more on that in a moment.
Theme/Archetype - One thing that jumped out at me was some of the cards focused on creating Tokens. There's actually not that many here. You have Annointed Procession in there which is great for a tokens build, but actually have very little support in the build so far for a Tokens build. So far you have 5 cards that can make tokens, and that's not which will probably leave Annointed Procession as a dead card much of the time: Hanweir Militia Captain, Hero of Bladehold, Hidden Stockpile, Oketra's Monument, Phyrexian Processor and Elspeth, Sun's Champion. Hanweir Militia Captain is great in a token build, and for generating sacrificial fodder, but is honestly really slow. Hero of Bladehold is great at making tokens when attacking, but it's combat oriented and you don't really have any support for going into combat in the list. For this reason, Ravos Soultender and Tymna the Weaver seem kind of out of place in the deck. You don't have much of anything else going on with combat in the deck, so their ability and trigger don't particularly seem relevant here. Hidden Stockpile is something I've passed on myself because Viscera Seer allows me to scry by sacrificing a creature for free, and because it's a Creature I can reanimate it if I need to. Getting a single 1/1 Servo per turn if you choose to sacrifice something isn't necessarily the best way to build up fodder or a token army and is a bit slow.
Oketra's Monument lets you discount the mana cost of 14 creatures currently in the deck (before you do any changes). You have 24 White cards that you could get a token off of by casting here. The problem is again that it's kind of out of place in a deck that doesn't particularly care about tokens. The best you could do with your token generation is some life gain off of Soul Sisters, which is okay if Karlov of the Ghost Council or Aetherflux Reservoir are on the battlefield. But if you don't have that setup, the tokens don't do anything by themselves. Meanwhile, Phyrexian Processor seems like a really cute card, but seems counter-intuitive to the point of gaining life in the deck if that's your means of winning. You can pay the initial cost and sacrifice a token to Ayli to gain the life right back, but if you're getting some hate and can't keep your life total up, it ends up a really dead card. It also has the unfortunate downside that the tokens it generates can be blocked all day long, and without Annointed Procession only makes one per turn. In short, Phyrexian Processor is pretty slow and a huge target for removal. In all likeliness you'll pay a large amount of life to make it threatening, and as a result see it removed asap before you get to do much with it.
One token-related thing I will agree with is that Elspeth, Sun's Champion is an excellent Planeswalker and worth including in any build. With Ashnod's Alter or other sac outlets out, the ability to make three 1/1's for fodder is amazing (She pays for herself the turn she comes out if you have Ashnod's by sacrificing the three soldiers to it) and the semi-Wrath for creatures power 4 or greater is very nice. Her ultimate is again less relevant unless you're running a deck that intends to get in the combat zone a lot, but her first two abilities are great. With a Soul Sister or two out, you can gain multitudes of life off of just using her +1 ability.
Card Draw - Dark Prophecy, Phyrexian Arena and Necropotence are great enchantments, but I would probably drop Dark Prophecy for the deck for the same reasons above. It's generally good for decks that are creating a lot of fodder to sacrifice, allowing you to benefit from the triggers, but again there's not much token support here, and if you're going the Lifegain route then you generally aren't going to want to sacrifice many of the creatures you have listed here that are helping you towards that. It's probably a bit overkill to run all three, regardless, and you're also running Well of Lost Dreams and Skullclamp which should let you draw a lot of cards, too.
Finishers - I saw Death Grasp here and unfortunately I just can't imagine running it instead of Profane Command, Exsanguinate or Debt to the Deathless. Only being able to target one player or creatures is a huge drawback of Death Grasp, and it feels even worse if you want to use it on a creature and it's Indestructible or whatnot. Being able to drain every player at the table for the same mana with Exsanguinate that you're paying to drain one player with Death Grasp makes it just that much better. Profane Command at least offers various modes of utility here so that you don't necessarily have a dead card in your hand until you're ready to kill off one player with Death Grasp or a target creature. While Death Grasp can take out Planeswalkers, there is a lot of good removal out there like Utter End, Vindicate and Anguished Unmaking that you can use instead for that purpose. I will say that at the moment I feel like you have some good board wipes, but really need some more targeted removal. One of Orzhov's best abilities is being able to target and kill or exile almost any permanent with removal and that's something I'd really suggest taking advantage of! Also, Merciless Eviction is a very underrated board wipe
Mana Curve - Right now your average mana cost is 3.4. That's not awful, but not great. At the same time, your mana curve isn't really a curve, which is something to take into consideration. I uploaded your deck onto tapped out to check out your stats/averages so I could critique things a bit better - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/matsuriframboise-ayli-help/ and you'll see that you have fourteen 2 and 3 cost cards and twelve 4 and 5 cost cards. The reason this is bad is that with is that about 76% of your deck costs the same amount of mana. That means you have a really high chance of having a lot of cards in your opening hand or early game that you won't be able to play. You want to try to have something to play or do every turn, even if it's removal on your opponent's turn. So you can fix that a few ways. You ideally want 3 to be the top of your curve, so you can do that by taking away some 2-mana and 5-mana cards, which would make it more of a curve like you want to aim for. You can also just take away some 5-mana cards and add more 3-mana cards. How you approach it is up to you, what cards you have available to you and what makes the most sense for the deck. Cutting is hard, but mana curve is super important so you don't end up board waiting for the mana to cast spells a lot of the time.
Last Thoughts - My only other critiques at the moment are that I think even though you're playing a mostly lifegain deck, I think Aetherflux Reservoir may not be the win con you're looking for. The thing about Aetherflux Reservoir is that you're probably not going to gain too much off of it's first ability. Ayli isn't a spellslinging deck so it's very rare to ramp that up. You can probably kill another player with it when you get to 50-60 life, but the problem right there is that anyone can target you with a damage spell in response to paying the life to activate Aetherflux Reservoir[/c] and peg you off. The Reservoir is funny with Exquisite Blood, but again you have to assume you're going to be at 50 life, or that you're well above that to make using the Reservoir less dangerous. Being a lifegain deck you might not have any problem with that, or you might become the archenemy or get hated early in the game and never get your game plan off of the ground. Lastly, even though Whip of Erebos gives your creatures Lifelink, again so far it doesn't look like the deck is supporting hitting opponents with creatures very often, so that seems less relevant than you'd hope. But I also don't like running it because I love to reanimate things, and no matter what happens, the clause of using Whip of Erebos is that you lose your toy at the end of turn. No ifs, ands or buts. It's also a bit slow because you can only use it at Sorcery speed and it costs 8 mana to use on the same turn.
Anyway! I hope some of this helps. I realize I didn't offer too many suggestions on what I'd play instead of some of the things I've mentioned. That's mostly because I'm not sure what your aim is for your build or how you want to play it.
(Also known as Xenphire)
WB Ayli, Eternal Recursion WB - GUPir and Toothy GU - WBR Mathas, Fiend SeekerWBR
I'll give my thoughts on each portion respectively.
Lands: Everflowing Chalice was one I was really on the fence with because I was thinking "oh, make lots of tokens and sac them to the altar to pay the kicker a bunch of times and have a mana rock that taps for a lot"-- but even if I DID use such a cumbersome method, it could be removed, leaving me with nothing-- and that sacrifice could have gone toward something more effective. It's out. I'll put Mind Stone in and pick up an Orzhov Signet while I'm out today. I'll throw in Thought Vessel too, as something that can support the card draw.
Is there anything else I should be considering here? I confess, I'm pretty new to EDH and mana rocks always end up being the last thing on my mind.
Theme/Archetype: The reason why I was so overloaded on non-land cards is because I wasn't sure what was right to make the cut. I think I may need to ditch the tokens subtheme and focus more on a reanimation theme. The main reason why I wanted to try tokens was mainly as fodder for Ayli's second ability, killing off the tokens as ammunition. But I'll agree that maybe I'm trying too hard to blend two concepts together and getting a really lackluster result. I probably would be better off getting rid of that and focusing more on reanimation. So I'll remove:
Phyrexian Processor, I confess, was one of the more silly options I wanted to try, but you're right that it's probably not the best option. The idea was to use it as a finisher-- gain a ton of life and then pay not all of it, but a decent amount, to have a card that can feed out huge bodies for attacking and blocking and sacrifice, gaining the life right back as soon as I use it. But it's probably unnecessary, so I'll drop it too.
So that leaves more space for a reanimation-style theme, which I'm sure is more the point of Ayli as a commander anyway and opens me up to some better finishing combos (Kokusho, Yosei, etc). There's a lot to consider here-- what would probably be the most important pieces for that?
Card Draw: Fair points. Dark Prophecy's out.
Finishers: Yeah, Death Grasp was there because it was kind of my best option of cards I had in my collection. I'll drop it and pick up Profane Command, Exsanguinate, and Debt to the Deathless. Maybe Merciless Eviction too, it does seem good.
As far as targeted removal goes-- I didn't really put much in because my original idea was to use Ayli's second ability to sac tokens and snipe things. But it's probably not the best idea. Would it be better to run instant/sorcery based removal, or throw in stuff to reanimate/recur like Fiend Hunter, Mangara of Corondor, Ashen Rider, Angel of Serenity, and so on? I didn't really consider Ashen Rider or Archon of Justice or Angel of Serenity because they had such a large mana cost.
Mana Curve: Very good points here. Here's some more stuff I'm cutting:
Ajani's Pridemate- Karlov of the Ghost Council does everything the Pridemate can do, and better.
Tymna the Weaver- Reasons mentioned before, I just won't be attacking all that much.
Rhox Faithmender- Alhammarret's Archive has a better effect, but this is something I can reanimate. Not 100% sure on this one
Aetherflux Reservoir- You had good points on this one. It's out.
Whip of Erebos- I confess, this was mostly a flavor card because I have Erebos, God of the Dead and Dictate of Erebos in the deck. Also good points about losing toys after reanimating them. Puppeteer Clique does a more fun job of that anyway, letting me use my opponents' graveyards and creatures instead.
Tainted Remedy- This was mostly meant to be sort of a snark at my friend that I play 1v1 commander with when he's in town, since he plays Trostani, Selesnya's Voice to gain ridiculous amounts of life. Also flavorful with Liliana, Heretical Healer, but not necessary when Erebos, God of the Dead already locks opponents out of lifegain and I can ruin anyone's lifegain with Tree of Perdition.
Ravos, Soultender- I don't know if he's right to cut or not-- he lets me grab a creature out of my graveyard every turn for free, after all. And the card just looks really cool. But he is kind of a nonbo with Skullclamp and Sheoldred, Whispering One probably does that job better-- I just don't have that and it's kind of a pricey card, both in cost and mana.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion- Great in a token theme, but kind of pointless outside of it. Good for Altar fodder, but a reanimation theme has better things to do that with.
Last Thoughts: Also good points-- Corpse Dance already does what the Whip does with more combo potential anyway, yeah?
So far, that's 16 cards cut overall, leaving me with:
1 Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
Creatures:
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Soul Warden
1 Soul's Attendant
1 Vizkopa Guildmage
1 Karlov of the Ghost Council
1 Zulaport Cutthroat
1 Blood Artist
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant
1 Priest of Gix
1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Wall of Reverence
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Tree of Perdition
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Divinity of Pride
1 Ravos, Soultender
1 Puppeteer Clique
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Felidar Sovereign
1 Sun Titan
1 Serra Avatar
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
1 Angelic Renewal
1 Animate Dead
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Gift of Immortality
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Necropotence
1 Dictate of Erebos
1 Black Market
1 Palace Siege
1 Sanguine Bond
1 Exquisite Blood
Artifacts:
1 Expedition Map
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Commander's Sphere
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Well of Lost Dreams
1 Nim Deathmantle
1 Alhammarret's Archive
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Beacon of Immortality
Sorceries:
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Fumigate
1 Unburial Rites
Planeswalkers:
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
And to add to my list of things to get for now, but I probably won't go out and get them until I have a totally finished idea for this deck:
Yeah, also a good point. I want to build a deck for her someday too, but not for a long while (I have other decks I want to build first).
WB Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim | WBR Queen Marchesa | WUBR Breya, Etherium Shaper
Modern:
/ Death and Taxes | W/ Soul Sisters | Spirits | U Faeries | Tempered Steel Affinity
On the finishers: I'd run Profane Command + Exsanguinate or Debt to the Deathless but probably not both. I prefer to stick to Exsanguinate because if I need to cast it in a rough spot, two Black mana can be easier to come by than XWWBB. The argument for Debt I've heard is that yes, in higher amounts of mana it scales better and you gain more life, which may be more ideal for a Lifegain deck, but you also have to be generating massive amounts of mana for it to be more effective than Exsanguinate, and if you're able to produce that kind of mana, you should be able to just win the game with either of them at that time anyway, making it a moot point.
Thalia, Heretic Cathar & Blind Obedience - The honest question here is why not both? They are both great. Thalia is a creature you can reanimate when she dies, but Blind Obedience gives you Extort which is great in itself
Grand Abolisher - A worthy include not only to help protect your finisher, but to stop a lot of combo shenanigans from happening on your turn. No tutoring on your turn before your next opponent's!
Underworld Connections - I think you assessed correctly: You have better options, and they don't take a land out of play or make you have to decide whether that mana is available or not.
Sorin, Solemn Visitor - Goes along with what I said about the token theme. He's really good, but sadly out of place here.
Nihil Spellbomb - There's a few options for graveyard hate. I prefer Bojuka Bog because I'd rather use a land slot for the ability than a non-land slot.
Magus of the Will - Not being able to by Yawg's Will is understandable. Sadly in my testing, Magus of the Will is too expensive and too slow and usually gets removed before you can use him. Unless you have Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots, he doesn't have Haste so you have to wait a full turn before activating his ability. If you do have Haste, you have to spend his mana cost (3) plus the equip cost (0 or 1) plus the mana to activate him (3) which means you've used 6-7 mana just to use him, and opponents can target him in response to you putting the equip activation on the stack. So, he's really actually a poor immitation, I'm afraid.
Sorin, Grim Nemesis - You don't necessarily need Top to make him worthwhile. His +1 still draws you an extra card each turn while dealing a wallop to your opponents, and his -X is a Death Grasp serving as a removal or killer of other Planeswalkers
Spectral Procession - Was another tokens card. I will say about it though that one-off effects like this are worse in EDH where games last longer than they are in 60-card constructed. You want your spells and abilities to really make a splash in EDH, or work together to make a lot of gains and value over time. For tokens it's a pretty low end card since it's a one-off effect, you'd want to replace it with something you can continuously get value out of.
Liliana Vess - She's an excellent Planeswalker and has a Vampiric Tutor attached to her and her Finisher is extremely dangerous. She's pretty good, even if her +1 isn't that great.
Mark of Asylum - I agree with sticking to Rune-tail, Kitsune Ascendant here for this type of effect, for exactly the reasons you said
Angelic Accord - It's a pretty poor imitation of Luminarch Ascension but if left unchecked does give you some inevitability in the game.
Some suggestions of my own:
Sidisi, Undead Vizier - If you can't afford many good tutors because they keep getting more and more expensive, Sidisi is relatively cheap and you can sac and reanimate her for value.
Knight-Captain of Eos - She's really cheap and you can reanimate her to keep making more Soldiers to sacrifice to prevent combat damage. She's also a beautiful political tool and can be used to make allies. Incidentally, she works really well with Elspeth, Sun's Champion because you can forever disable opponents from dealing combat damage to you
Test of Endurance - It's not banned, and another win condition
Cliffhaven Vampire - That's a ton of potential triggers!
Gray Merchant of Asphodel - This guy is another potential finisher combined with reanimation shenanigans, and will gain you huge amounts of life otherwise.
(Also known as Xenphire)
And I'll make a point of grabbing those others you mentioned when I get the chance too. If I put in Knight-Captain of Eos, it'd only make sense to put Elspeth back in, but I'm getting concerned that I'm putting too many 5 and 6 drops in... hmm.
I looked through the guide of combos and suggestions again, and I think I'll also be grabbing:
Bitter Ordeal and Blasting Station especially, as they're 3 drops and suit the curve of the deck better, right? As it is, my deck concept doesn't have a lot of game-ending combos, so they'd be a great addition. They're not as flashy as say, locking everyone out with Yosei or decimating everyone with Kokusho (and the only reason I'm getting Yosei over Kokusho is price honestly), but they get the job done. Mangara is just a nice, cheap, recursion-friendly removal card. I'll also be putting one of my Eldrazi Displacer and Fiend Hunter in for exploits.
Now I think my problem is, I have way too many 5-drops in this deck. I'm not sure what to cut! They're all so good.
WB Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim | WBR Queen Marchesa | WUBR Breya, Etherium Shaper
Modern:
/ Death and Taxes | W/ Soul Sisters | Spirits | U Faeries | Tempered Steel Affinity
1 Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
Creatures:
1 Soul Warden
1 Viscera Seer
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Nezumi Graverobber
1 Vizkopa Guildmage
1 Grand Abolisher
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Zulaport Cutthroat
1 Blood Artist
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1 Rune-tail, Kitsune Ascendant
1 Priest of Gix
1 Rhox Faithmender
1 Tree of Perdition
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Wall of Reverence
1 Karmic Guide
1 Reveillark
1 Puppeteer Clique
1 Divinity of Pride
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Yosei, the Morning Star
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Felidar Sovereign
1 Sun Titan
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Serra Avatar
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
1 Expedition Map
1 Thought Vessel
1 Orzhov Signet
1 Spawning Pit
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Commander's Sphere
1 Blasting Station
1 Nim Deathmantle
1 Well of Lost Dreams
Enchantments:
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
1 Angelic Renewal
1 Blind Obedience
1 Animate Dead
1 Necropotence
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Gift of Immortality
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Dictate of Erebos
1 Black Market
1 Palace Siege
1 Exquisite Blood
1 Sanguine Bond
Instants:
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Argivian Find
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Corpse Dance
1 Beacon of Immortality
1 Profane Command
1 Exsanguinate
1 Bitter Ordeal
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Unburial Rites
1 Fumigate
1 Merciless Eviction
Planeswalkers:
1 Liliana Vess
1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Lands:
1 Undecided
TappedOut link for stats
So I happened to find out I had a playset of Surgical Extraction and a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle that I'll never use, so I took them to my LGS and got a ton of store credit which let me get some of the more expensive pieces without breaking my bank.
It's starting to have a more concrete design, which I am liking. But my curve is still very weird (2 and 3 drops have the majority of the deckspace, but I still have a ton of 5 drops and almost no 4 drops). So I'm trying to figure out what to cut before putting a manabase together (and I should add it's not going to be stellar, a lot of the lands that are best for this deck are really expensive and kind of exclusively good in this deck and none of my other decks).
I took out some of the incremental lifegain cards such as Soul's Attendant and those that benefit from it, such as Karlov of the Ghost Council and Archangel of Thune (they'll go better in my Breya deck, which is all about spawning a TON of thopters and pumping them up and then sacrificing them and sweeping). All that's really left to do, I think, is shave off enough cards to fit in a manabase. I also took out Alhammarret's Archive and put Rhox Faithmender back in, as it's a valid Reveillark target (in fact, a LOT of cards in this deck are).
But what should I take out... I have a few in mind, but I'm still stuck:
Zulaport Cutthroat - Blood Artist does everything he does, but better-- he may not target all players at once, but that's good if I in some situation I don't want to combo off and hit everyone at once. Either way, since there's so much recursion and reanimation, do I really need 2 cards with the same effect? I'll keep one as a wincon piece though, because if I can go off with an unlimited ETB/LTB loop, everyone dies.
Thalia, Heretic Cathar or Blind Obedience - Again, don't really need 2 cards with the same effect when I'm overloaded like this. Probably Blind Obedience as Thalia can be reanimated? But then again, Sun Titan hits both, too. Not sure.
Wall of Reverence- It's good, and a Reveillark target, but I don't know if it's really necessary.
Phyrexian Reclamation - It's nice and cheap, but there's enough recursion now, I think... right?
Beacon of Immortality - Serra Avatar, when combined with Ayli, pretty much does exactly what this does. It's technically the Beacon on a body and even better if I pair it with Gift of Immortality... (that overrides the "shuffle it into your library" effect, right?)
Palace Siege - Great way to get creatures back, but it's expensive and not as effective as, say, Sheoldred.... maybe.
Black Market - If I'm comboing off and getting a lot of dead creatures built up, I think it's safe to say I'm already winning. This might be better in my other EDH deck.
One of the sweepers - maybe Fumigate? I just think I might have too many.
That's 8 cards out of the whole 77, and I'm assuming I'll need 36-37 lands for this... so I'll need to prune out about 7 or 8 after the ones above to be able to be in that area.
How is it looking so far? Am I on a better track now?
WB Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim | WBR Queen Marchesa | WUBR Breya, Etherium Shaper
Modern:
/ Death and Taxes | W/ Soul Sisters | Spirits | U Faeries | Tempered Steel Affinity
WB has excellent removal.
This is of course super-obvious to us, but it's important to realise all our opponents know and acknowledge this as well. We're the ones they look at when the board-state needs sweeping. We're the ones they fear and plead not to pinpoint remove their commander (or other valuable permanents). What this means is we're investing cards, mana and turns in stopping other people's plans, and they know it. How to maximise our ROI depends largely to how effective table politics work.
Spells spell trouble
Permanents, we can handle easily. We're having trouble with the intangible. Someone storm-comboing out. An end-of-turn Cyclonic Rift.
It's not a fast deck
There's no way we're keeping up with a green players ramp or someone with large amounts of artifact acceleration. We can only hope a well-timed sweeper equals the playing field somewhat.
Card quality is king
Tutors and extra draws (Necropotence or Sorin for example) are the things takes makes our deck work, more so than the superb removal.
Ayli often has either a tedious, grindy endgame or an out-of-nowhere combo finisher
Whether it's Yosei-lock the table or going infinite with Vish Kal, I'm often getting complaints about how unfun my wincons are.
Thing is, turning dudes sideways is not what this makes this deck win.
WB Ayli, Eternal Recursion WB - GUPir and Toothy GU - WBR Mathas, Fiend SeekerWBR
People often hold up exactly 7 mana to rift, or they re-draw it and then main phase it.
These two cards are very unexpected from Ayli.
Meanwhile, I'm still puzzling over what cards to remove from the deck so I can fit my manabase in. So far I've taken out:
Zulaport Cutthroat - Blood Artist just seems better
Kambal, Consul of Allocation - It may be a way to punish spellslingers, but he doesn't really fit in with the combos. I dunno about him.
Wall of Reverence - not a lot of high power creatures in the deck, even if it's got a decent body
Black Market - The only time it seems really good is if I'm already winning
Palace Siege - Sheoldred, Whispering One and Phyrexian Reclamation seem a bit more efficient
Fumigate - Not so sure if I should be taking out sweepers, but I still have Profane Command, Toxic Deluge, and Merciless Eviction. Or should I just be going all out with sweepers? I don't know.
Liliana Vess - The odds of me pulling off her ultimate are low, and she doesn't have the recursion potential for tutoring like Sidisi, Undead Vizier does. In fact, pairing Sidisi and Gift of Immortality essentially gives me a tutor every turn. So this Lili's out.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel - Honestly, he's potentially better than Kokusho, the Evening Star when it comes to draining everyone's life at once, depending on how much your devotion to black is. More importantly, he's able to be recurred with the Reveillark/Karmic Guide combo, while Kokusho isn't. But at the same time, I guess my reasoning was just that if I was going off with that combo, Blood Artist would just be as effective. I don't know. Maybe he can come back, I'm not sure yet.
Beacon of Immortality - It just doesn't seem necessary when I have so many more lifegain combos going on.
Serra Avatar - It may be my pet card for this deck, but it's kind of in the same boat as the Beacon. Not efficient enough to abuse, no matter how fun it may seem to have an enormous/enormous creature on the battlefield.
Divinity of Pride - Great card that's nice and flavorful for the deck, but without Gray Merchant it doesn't have the same presence. Serra Ascendant does the same job and it is much easier to reanimate as Sun Titan and Reveillark can bring it back.
So that's 11 cards out, so I'm down to 66/100. I just need to take 1 or 2 more out... Bitter Ordeal, maybe? It's a little harder to abuse than Blasting Station, which is a permanent I can get back with Sun Titan or Argivian Find AND if I combo off, it kills everyone and anything without indestructible/hexproof. Meanwhile the Ordeal only hits one opponent and if it's countered, it's a dead card as I don't have, like, Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed to grab it back (and probably won't anytime soon).
Maybe 35 lands will be enough, since I removed a big chunk of the high end of my curve?
Also:
Regarding unfun wincons: Eye of the beholder, honestly. Turning creatures sideways is just one way to win the game. I can understand how lock wincons can be unfun because they don't win right away, but just how many of our combos are "out-of-nowhere"? It doesn't really take the most perceptive person to realize what an Ayli deck is trying to do, and it isn't like our combos aren't able to be disrupted if you know what you're doing, too. And besides, I like unconventional win conditions. Decks that rush to win an EDH game in the first few turns are what I feel are unfun to play against, because it means not everyone is getting a chance to play. It may be competitive, but this isn't Legacy or Modern, you know? Slow down and have some fun, play politics and stuff.
WB Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim | WBR Queen Marchesa | WUBR Breya, Etherium Shaper
Modern:
/ Death and Taxes | W/ Soul Sisters | Spirits | U Faeries | Tempered Steel Affinity
As for cuts -
Wouldn't cut fumigate, it's really good.
Priest seems kinda meh and the map, you don't have any special lands posted so figured...
I haven't even mentioned my lands yet because I wanted to confirm my color distributions first, so removing the Map is something I want to avoid for the moment. And the Priest is mostly there as a reanimate-able combo piece for unlimited mana for finishers, as a backup, should Ashnod's Altar be taken out of the picture. I can understand removing the priest though.
Profane Command seems really useful as a versatile modal spell-- it can kill an opponent and get me back an expensive creature, and so on. Is it really not that good?
The more I think on it, the more I wanna keep Gray Merchant of Asphodel in; it really does seem like a Reveillark-compatible Kokusho with the right board state-- and that means Divinity of Pride might be able to stay too. So maybe bring those back in and drop Profane Command and Priest of Gix? I don't know... Is Blind Obedience something I can live without? Thalia, Heretic Cathar seems to have the better effect by slowing everyone down, and I can reanimate her, too.
WB Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim | WBR Queen Marchesa | WUBR Breya, Etherium Shaper
Modern:
/ Death and Taxes | W/ Soul Sisters | Spirits | U Faeries | Tempered Steel Affinity
Cuts I'd make:
-Black Market is essentially a win more card in the deck or any build that's not tokens.4
-Priest of Gix is another combo piece with Ashnod's Altar + Nim Deathmantle, but is one of the few creatures in the deck that does nothing after he enters the battlefield. If you're looking for a cut, he's one of the more reasonable pieces to lose.
Truthfully of all the possible cuts, I'd cut either Palace Siege or Serra Avatar. Palace Siege is a lot of mana for what it does, but Serra Avatar is just a big dumb creature that will more often than not die as soon as it hits the battlefield. It's amazing with Ayli on the board, though.
I'd never cut Expedition Map. There are too many important utility lands for the deck to run with it + Sun Titan you can find any utility land you'd ever need when you need it. Profane Command is also a very versatile finisher and spell in the deck. Making the cuts I'm looking at cards and their potential impact on the game and how much they help you move the game towards closing.
By the way, Vizkopa Guildmage + Beacon of Immortality is a win con in itself.
(Also known as Xenphire)
My drop list now:
Zulaport Cutthroat
Blind Obedience
Priest of Gix
Kambal, Consul of Allocation
Wall of Reverence
Black Market
Palace Siege
Liliana Vess
Serra Avatar
Down to 68/100. Need to drop 4 more if I want to fit 36 lands in the deck. Divinity of Pride is a maybe, it still isn't that great as far as synergy goes (as in, it's not as easy to reanimate and as cheaply costed as Serra Ascendant), but it's a great card paired with Gray Merchant of Asphodel or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, which is among my lands. Rhox Faithmender too, potentially. But as for what else... hmm. Everything else seems to fit either with the combos pretty well, or help pave the path toward dropping finishers. Ghostly Prison and/or Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant may not be very vital to the deck, but they help me protect myself while I assemble the game winning combos. Maybe Soul Warden? Hmmm.
Just wanna say again that I really appreciate the input, guys. This is still pretty new territory for me.
WB Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim | WBR Queen Marchesa | WUBR Breya, Etherium Shaper
Modern:
/ Death and Taxes | W/ Soul Sisters | Spirits | U Faeries | Tempered Steel Affinity
I meant to point out before, but Blind Obedience and Thalia, Heretic Cathar both serve a different purpose even though they're remarkably close to the same thing. The huge difference is that Blind Obedience makes Artifacts your opponents play come into play tapped. That really, really slows down a lot of abusive Artifact synergy and ramp, whereas Thalia taps down non-basic lands. They're both good and serve a purpose in their own right, though if you had to cut one I'd suggest Thalia over Blind Obedience.
Lastly, I notice you're running Eldrazi Displacer. It's really amazing in Ayli! But keep in mind you need a lot of Colorless sources to make it worthwhile.
(Also known as Xenphire)
3 more to cut left. You have good points on both Blind Obedience and Thalia, Heretic Cathar, so they can stay.
As far as Eldrazi Displacer goes, I think I should be okay. I have 7 lands that produce can colorless mana-- 8 if I keep one I originally planned but cut because it's more friendly to swarm-based decks (Vault of the Archangel). It's another reason why I wanted to be sure to keep Expedition Map around.
3 more to cut... Bitter Ordeal and... I don't know. Soul Warden? The Ordeal because it's single-target and not as versatile as Profane Command and the Warden because... I don't know. She's great but not 100% vital?
EDIT: Yeah, final three cuts are Bitter Ordeal, Soul Warden, and Dictate of Erebos. It seems like a great card and probably is, but it's too disruptive and will probably backfire on me.
WB Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim | WBR Queen Marchesa | WUBR Breya, Etherium Shaper
Modern:
/ Death and Taxes | W/ Soul Sisters | Spirits | U Faeries | Tempered Steel Affinity
The game was basically the Gitrog player whining about bad draws the whole game, the Scion player over-extending way too quickly against two control decks, and the Kruphix player and I going back and forth, stopping each other's win conditions (I had Exquisite Blood out and was getting good lifegain from it, and he bounced my Tree of Perdition and killed my Sanguine Bond, and cast Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger to exile my Exquisite Blood. Annoyed, I cast Fiend Hunter and targeted Ulamog. He countered it. I cast Animate Dead. He bounced my Spawning Pit. He forgot that I had Ayli on the board and sac'd the Fiend Hunter to exile Ulamog forever. It felt GREAT.)
However, the Gitrog player went off on a combo one turn that took about 30 minutes, and somehow did not kill us all. The next turn? He took over an HOUR. The dude, who was borrowing the deck, forgot the wincon. He spent over an HOUR, only to die to his own combo. The Scion player, whose life I had already nuked with Tree of Perdition, had taken beats from the Kruphix player to 4 (who wouldn't target me because I had 101 life by that point), and played a spiteful Toxic Deluge to kill my Ayli and scooped. The Kruphix player was at 17, and I dropped him to 13, and attempted to reanimate Gray Merchant of Asphodel a couple times to kill him, but after a couple boardwipes I didn't have enough devotion to finish the job. At my end step, he Planar Bridge'd in a Blightsteel Colossus, bounced my Gray Merchant and Tree, and swung for an Infect win. I've never had such a firm handshake after such a long game.
All in all, I'm glad I built this deck and hope to enhance it with time. It's delightfully political and I love that.
WB Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim | WBR Queen Marchesa | WUBR Breya, Etherium Shaper
Modern:
/ Death and Taxes | W/ Soul Sisters | Spirits | U Faeries | Tempered Steel Affinity
Also, apologies again everyone for disappearing for a few days at a time. Been a super busy time! How was everyone's prerelease?? By the way, it's update time!
Hour of Devastation Main List Updates:
Out:
-Tree of Perdition
In:
+Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Tree of Perdition has been on the chopping block for a while. I've gone on a lot about the deck requiring finesse and a good feel for playing politics, and Tree of Perdition goes against both by forcing clunky setups and telling the table that someone is about to come close to dying. It's not far off from Sorin Markov on how it makes people react when it hits the board. Meanwhile, I've taken a while to come around on Sidisi, Undead Vizier because for quite a while I tried to keep the shuffle effects in the deck as low as possible, which is hard to do when you run so many tutor effects and fetch lands. Shuffling and tutoring increases turn time by a lot. I was also convinced that it may not be great because of the need to have fodder on board to Exploit. Having another way to sacrifice Solemn Simulacrum and now having a lot of token fodder from Knight-Captain of Eos, as well as Resassembling Skeleton in the list seems like good enough reason to board her in for more tutor effects and thus more consistency. Tree of Perdition has been a cute but mostly inconsistent card since I've added it to the deck back in October, so replacing it with a 4/6 Deathtouch body to deter aggressors that also lets us tutor seems like a really great change.
I was going to originally cut Faith's Fetters for Desert's Grasp thinking it was an upgrade for the deck, sacrificing the 4 life gain for costing one less. Importantly, I missed the detail that Desert's Grasp can only target a creature, which makes it a huge loss since it can't target Artifacts or Planeswalkers.
In Testing:
Kaya, Ghost Assassin out; Approach of the Second Sun
Notes: I've been wanting to try Approach of the Second Sun since I first saw it spoiled, knowing that between the card draw and large amount of tutors in the deck that it would be very easy to find it and then cast it a second time. What convinced me to go ahead and test it was playing against a friend who has won two games off of it out of the five I've played against their group hug deck. Once it has been cast the first time, which can be easy for us with our mana ramp and protection from Boseiju, Who Shelters All, it creates a sort of inevitability because it's hard to prevent the second cast. The only way to stop it is to force the player to shuffle their deck, make them mill it, or make them discard their hand once they draw it. It creates this new interaction level where your opponents have to keep track of how many cards you've drawn to know when you're about to draw it and desperately claw for a way to get rid of it. Also, the second time you cast it, you win whether it gets countered or not. It's a win condition and answer when playing in a meta heavy with graveyard hate or cards that make it hard for us to combo out or keep our combo pieces on board. It's easily accessible between all the tutors, draw, Sensei's Divining Top and Scroll Rack.
What to take out for it has been the most perplexing thing. I originally slated Sorin, Grim Nemesis to go out to test it because of the similar mana cost. What changed my mind was effectiveness, though. Kaya, Ghost Assassin has been a good card, but not great. I needed to cut something that doesn't perform great, which is getting harder and harder. Sorin, Grim Nemesis admittedly could be another card draw spell or something else, but he himself creates inevitability. He's creature/Planeswalker removal, his +1 does massive loads of damage with the high cost stuff in the deck, and when his Ultimate is nice though not really the reason he's played, although it has won me a few games before. Kaya on the other hand does very little. She does some long term effects, but often gets removed before the next turn rolls back around and I've gained very little off of her. Between the two, Kaya does the least, which makes me sad with how excited I was for her when she was spoiled. No other considerations were made given the function of the rest of the cards in the deck.
Other Considerations:
Razaketh, the Fouldblooded
Notes: Razaketh is the elephant in the room for every deck playing Black - that is to say, he cannot be ignored. I'm currently deciding what to cut to test him, or if I even should. Why? There is very few cards with as high of a cost with his function in the deck. Rune-scarred Demon as a cut because of their similarities comes to mind, but truthfully, Razaketh isn't as effective in Ayli. The deck is built to abuse ETB effects like Rune-scarred Demon's and can easily get multiple tutors out of him off of Nim Deathmantle, Corpse Dance and other reanimation triggers alone. On the other hand, Razaketh doesn't require any of that setup and only asks for fodder to sacrifice, and a negligible two life loss. If not Rune-scarred Demon, then what? We're looking at Sorin, Grim Nemesis again because while his effects are good, his +1 cleave damage and draw seems negligible compared to another tutor effect. The last option has been Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter, however he is a finisher in his own right and my goal is not to remove any finishers or game ending options from the deck. Sorin, Grim Nemesis is more or less on the chopping block for Razaketh as of this posting. Once I get one I'll be doing some testing to see how it feels to actually play Razaketh and then go from there
(Also known as Xenphire)
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
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I'm cutting Kaya, Ghost Assassin for Razaketh, the Foulblooded. I'm liking Sorin too much atm, especially with Scroll Rack and Top, but he's definitely not safe from the chopping block. Will see whether Raza is really needed - Is it possible to play perhaps too much tutors? (Demonic, Vampiric, Enlightened, Rune-Scarred, Seal, Recruiter, Entomb)
WB Ayli, Eternal Recursion WB - GUPir and Toothy GU - WBR Mathas, Fiend SeekerWBR
Just double checked to be sure and you're correct, it's the second one that must resolve, not the other way around. Thanks!
(Also known as Xenphire)
WB Ayli, Eternal Recursion WB - GUPir and Toothy GU - WBR Mathas, Fiend SeekerWBR