Hey there, everyone! Before I get to replies, I'll be taking care of prerelease business!
I hope your prerelease weekend was fun and eventful. I played in my Midnight prerelease event then my Saturday Noon and 6 PM ones, as well. I probably would have played in the two Sunday events there at my fav LGS as well, if I could have I went 3-1 at my Midnight and 6 PM ones and 2-2 at my Noon event, mostly thanks to play mistakes from still being groggy thanks to only sleeping 3 hours. Eesh, I'm worn out.
Even though it's not specifically related to Ayli or her deck, I thought it'd be fun to do a quick recap of my prerelease experience
Event 2 I opened Aethersquall Ancient, 2x Lathnu Hellion (1 foil!), Cultivator of Blades, Rashmi, Eternities Crafter, Aetherflux Reservoir as my promo and finally a Blooming Masrh. Ended up going Simic and splashed Red to play Lathnu Hellions and Aethertorch Renegade, again. I didn't have as much Energy generation as I would have liked but the Lathnu Hellion was still really hard for opponents to deal with. I probably could have gone at least 3-1 again if I didn't make a lot of misplays due to needing food and being so groggy. By the 6 PM run I was full of fajitas and recharged
Even 3, I made everyone hate me. Opened Chandra, Torch of Defiance as my prerelease foil, then opened another Dovin Baan, along with Insidious Will, Kambal, Consule of Allocation, Multiform Wonder, Fleetwheel Cruiser and Metalwork Colossus. Had a massive amount of removal in White and Blue and ended up going that route with a splash of Black to play Kambal. After playing him in limited and getting a feel for him, I enjoy him in a format where opponents have 20 life and are forced to play around him or deal with him. He did work, for real. He won me a couple games because opponents were forced to play through him to keep going and keep up. But, as one can imagine, as soon as they had removal he was their #1 target. If they played hard removal, he died the turn after he came into play. In a format like EDH/Commander where opponents have 40 life and you have 3 people gunning for him, I still think he's going to be hard to keep on the board. I had a pretty hard stance on him when I did the review, but I'm beginning to soften up on it a little and think he may be worth testing in the Lifegain/Bleeder package if you're running protection to keep him on the board so he doesn't get immediately removed and end up more or less a dead card. Time will tell.
Energy as a really fun mechanic to play with, but I'm on the fence about Vehicles because of how easy it is to end up with an unexpected blowout. Using them means taking away blockers a lot of the time if you're in aggro mode, and having your vehicle destroyed after tapping down creatures to Crew it feels pretty bad. I pulled a lot of great stuff, but sadly I didn't open a Demon of Dark Schemes in any of my prize packs, so hopefully I can trade for one sometime this week. I did trade my extra Dovin Baan for a foil prerelease promo because the guy kept going back and forth and I didn't want to lose his interest. Go figure, offering him a Planeswalker made up his mind pretty quick. I'll be testing that Panharmonicon, as well as Morbid Curiosity and Demon of Dark Schemes this weekend, if I can trade for him. Right now I'm deciding what to do with the foil Chandra promo, because I kind of want some of those Masterpiece artifacts... hmmm
But, with all that out of the way, I'll be moving on to replies now
Good luck with the testing! I still need to get one, myself. I did manage to get someone to trade me a foil promor Panharmonicon for an extra Dovin Baan that I opened, so I may try testing it after all Leovold is definitely getting the brunt of hate at the shop as of late up here, so it's ride that train of sheep all the way to victory!
Xenphire, thank you for the amazing guide. I hope you'll keep updating it. I've been able to incorporate a lot of the ideas here and love the deck. Here is my deck, as of right now:
Thanks for posting your list, Gray24! I'll definitely continue to update the list as long as I'm able and continue to post set reviews and other information when I can!
As for your deck list, it looks like you have a lot of pretty solid choices there. How does Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx work out for you? I love that Land, but I've left it out because of the same reasons I don't run Cabal Coffers(needing to have at least 4 Swamps to be better than a Swamp; or Devotion of 4 or better to one color to be better than a Plains or Swamp in Nykthos's case). It's a pretty solid play alongside Divinity of Pride, for sure
If I may make a couple suggestions, is there any reason you don't play Sanguine Bond in the deck alongside Exquisite Blood? Both of those together are a win con in themselves. You could probably replace Death Grasp with it if you wanted to run it, since you have both Profane Command and Exsanguinate
My second suggestion is Cliffhaven Vampire. I recently discovered this guy while building an attrition deck for Queen Marchesa and have been meaning to add him to the Bleeder/Life Gain package in the second post. Your opponents will lose 1 life for each instance of life gain, so the amount he'll drain has enormous potential. He seems pretty harmless to opponents because people tend to underestimate the value of losing 1 life here and there. When you start getting them off of Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat triggers or the Nighthawks and others he starts to add up. I run him alongside Soul Warden, Suture Priest, Soul's Attendant and Pious Evangel and he quickly becomes pretty deadly
Anyway, your build looks pretty solid, regardless! I'm glad you love the deck. Is there anything in Kaladesh you're looking forward to? I saw you're using the Aerial Responder, which I overlooked in my review. Pretty great for the Lifegain/Bleeder build you're focusing in on!
@xenphire: Thank you for the great suggestions....Your list is what helped me to start looking into Ayli, and she's really good. What started me down the path was Loading Ready Runs TapTapConcede episode where they brewed with Kaya, Ghost Assassin for a Highlander deck...she was what made me look at Orzhov, then I found Ayli and then I saw the absolutely masterful job you've done...my Commander career started with Zombies....they were too slow...I'm glad I found you and Ayli.
Nykthos is really interesting as a land...I've yet to really draw it, but the mana advantage it can generate is why I keep it around. As for Sanguine Bond, I steered away from it b/c it's too rote...I wanted people to 'think' it's there and try to play around it rather than it just be tutored and win. Plus, I feel, in some group,s it can generate hate.
As for Cllifehaven, wow totally overlooked him too! I'll have to fit him in. Vampire Whitehawk...I mean Aerial Responder...love him...I'm trying to get redundancy in my deck...but, man Damnation is way too expensive. Though, I WIL have the Player's Reward Promo to match it's white-mana brother....my LGS is on the lookout for me.
What do you think about Ashen Rider? I had him in, but I see him as too greedy...8 mana..but his effect is sooo good...What should I cut to make room for him, in your opinion?
As for Kaladaesh, I was excited for Authority of the Consulate, Filigree Familiar and Kambal, until I read your review and thought about it more. I'm glad you were able to talk me, reasonably, out of it...though CoolStuffInc I'm sure isn't as I had to cancel the Pre-Order.
@xenphire: Thank you for the great suggestions....Your list is what helped me to start looking into Ayli, and she's really good. What started me down the path was Loading Ready Runs TapTapConcede episode where they brewed with Kaya, Ghost Assassin for a Highlander deck...she was what made me look at Orzhov, then I found Ayli and then I saw the absolutely masterful job you've done...my Commander career started with Zombies....they were too slow...I'm glad I found you and Ayli.
Nykthos is really interesting as a land...I've yet to really draw it, but the mana advantage it can generate is why I keep it around. As for Sanguine Bond, I steered away from it b/c it's too rote...I wanted people to 'think' it's there and try to play around it rather than it just be tutored and win. Plus, I feel, in some group,s it can generate hate.
As for Cllifehaven, wow totally overlooked him too! I'll have to fit him in. Vampire Whitehawk...I mean Aerial Responder...love him...I'm trying to get redundancy in my deck...but, man Damnation is way too expensive. Though, I WIL have the Player's Reward Promo to match it's white-mana brother....my LGS is on the lookout for me.
What do you think about Ashen Rider? I had him in, but I see him as too greedy...8 mana..but his effect is sooo good...What should I cut to make room for him, in your opinion?
As for Kaladaesh, I was excited for Authority of the Consulate, Filigree Familiar and Kambal, until I read your review and thought about it more. I'm glad you were able to talk me, reasonably, out of it...though CoolStuffInc I'm sure isn't as I had to cancel the Pre-Order.
I still need to track down and make room for Kaya, Ghost Assassin, myself I'm really glad you enjoy Ayli and all the information consolidated here in the thread. It's a labor of love, for sure. I really want to start making videos about interactions and stuff regarding the deck to put in that section of the second post once I can get a good recording setup
Testing with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx isn't something I've personally done, but it was an exclusion I made based off of my experience with Cabal Coffers, which operates on a similar basis. Cabal Coffers is great when you have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth out but never really at any other time since the you have to get at least 3x Swamp on the battlefield for it to start to provide any sort of advantage. Nytkthos is sort of the same in that you need at least 3 devotion to White or Black on the battlefield for it to produce more than what you paid to tap it. Otherwise you need 2 or 3 permanents of a given color to make it worth while. You have more permanents in your lifegain/bleeder that will stay on the battlefield than my primary build does, but it may be worth exploring since even with just Necropotence on the board, we're already up one mana if we choose Devotion to Black. build Since you run Divinity of Pride you can pay to get back so there's some potential there.
This is by the way just me kind of discussing the viability and talking to myself about whether I should try it, myself, and not me saying you should or shouldn't run it. I've always wanted a foil Nykthos and it'd give me an excuse to run one, haha. I also totally understand about not running Sanguine Bond and keeping your opponent's wondering - that's a good strategy. There's a good chance they're holding back removal or trying to wait to take out the combo when you get it assembled and that leaves them waiting for something that you don't actually play. Pretty great stuff - psychological warfare is one of my favorite parts of Magic and Ayli in general. You can keep your opponents guessing for a very long time
As for Damnation, I know what you mean. It was one of the last cards I got for the deck because it was functionally the same as Wrath of God. I'd like to run both of the Player Rewards Program full art versions, but I'd have to make room for Wrath of God somewhere. I have the textless Damnation, myself. Redundancy is good but I try to run a sort of toolbox selection of mass removal. Merciless Eviction can hit anything, Black Sun's Zenith is one I used to run to get around Hexproof and Indestructible when Archetype of Endurance and Avacyn, Angel of Hope began showing up in my meta together. Plenty have suggested Massacre Wurm, but I like board wipes that I know will take care of the problem and just flat out remove threats. Also used to run Austere Command which is a wonderful removal spell. My 3rd mass removal spell turned into Ugin, the Spirit Dragon when I had the opportunity to pick one up. I've come to almost always prefer exiling problems instead of destroying them because EDH has a way of making things in other player's graveyards come back to haunt you later. He's expensive but as soon as he comes down he can wipe out the majority (if not all) of the threads present then sit around and Lightning Bolt other players in the face or whatever creatures they manage to put out.
Regarding Ashen Rider - I haven't had any problems with him, but I almost exclusively get him on the battlefield through some form of reanimation. His predecessor was Angel of Despair. When he came out in Theros I couldn't not upgrade Angel into the Ashen Rider. Angel of Despair is a staple in EDH for colors running Orzhov, but for one more mana you still get a 5/5 flying beater and removal, but instead you get to exile the permanent instead of destroy it, and trigger that again when it dies. I used to machine gun down permanents with Angel of Despair using Corpse Dance, but now I can do so twice as fast If someone made room for Morbid Curiosity he's also a pretty high value target. If he's on the battlefield and you sacrifice him to Morbid Curiosity you get to Exile a permanent and draw 8 cards, and that's pretty awesome.
Thank you for your time and your helpful review and you responses to my ramblings. I love edh, bc it's a brewers format. It allows me to think about what I wanna see and not stick to top8.deck. Yes, people can copy your list and have a wonderful time with it. But your list shows a real sense of evolution. Too often, I find myself cutting cards by mere percentage points on EDHREC scores. Your list shows the results of testing and retesting. Thank you so much.
I'm so happy to hear you're trying to make room for Kaya. She really does everything the decks wants to do.
Right now, my decks sits at about an average Cmc of 3.48. I know that's a bad metric, but could I add ashen rider safely and stat at 35 lands? I find 35 is my personal sweet spot.
Will Vampire Whitehawk find a spot in your deck?
Thoughts o nOpen the Armory? I saw an article on CommanderSociety that ran it. I know Stoneforge fills the same time for me, but it feels too narrow...
Thank you for your time and your helpful review and you responses to my ramblings. I love edh, bc it's a brewers format. It allows me to think about what I wanna see and not stick to top8.deck. Yes, people can copy your list and have a wonderful time with it. But your list shows a real sense of evolution. Too often, I find myself cutting cards by mere percentage points on EDHREC scores. Your list shows the results of testing and retesting. Thank you so much.
I'm so happy to hear you're trying to make room for Kaya. She really does everything the decks wants to do.
Right now, my decks sits at about an average Cmc of 3.48. I know that's a bad metric, but could I add ashen rider safely and stat at 35 lands? I find 35 is my personal sweet spot.
Will Vampire Whitehawk find a spot in your deck?
Thoughts o nOpen the Armory? I saw an article on CommanderSociety that ran it. I know Stoneforge fills the same time for me, but it feels too narrow...
No problem at all - always willing to talk shop and entertain other ideas and discuss As I write this I'm working on a buylist order on TCGPlayer to try to get enough credit to buy the foil alternate art Kaya
I find EDHREC to be a blessing and a curse. It's a great starting point to get some ideas, but a lot of players treat the statistics there as gospel. There's an inherent problem with EDHREC and how it collects data, and that is that there is a feedback loop present. As new and veteran players alike go to it to get ideas and then attempt to continue to use the same cards already listed there and then create their lists on TappedOut, EDHREC pulls that data in and basically echoes the suggestions already there. Because of that, there is a disproportional amount of the most popular cards entering the database at EDHREC. It's probably the best way to collect that data, but I can't help but feel it's extremely flawed and lends to players not being as creative as they could because so many cards don't end up on there or get pushed down because of that feedback loop.
Your mana curve is just fine, I think. That's about what mine is at, but just like I mentioned with Ashen Rider, I rarely pay the 8 mana to cast him from my hand. Usually he's coming into play with Corpse Dance, Necromancy, Sheoldred, Whispering One, Animate Dead, Reanimate, Victimize or whatever reanimation spells. Because of that, he's almost effectively usually a 3CC spell. The deck can go down to 35 lands with cards like Weathered Wayfarer and with a decent amount of mana rocks, so I think that's fine. Ayli is a slow burn deck that waits to strike, and you can cast removal of different costs at all different points in the game to keep things under control.
Open the Armory is an okay budget option if someone can't afford Enlightened Tutor, but it's target zone is pretty limited. It can find Nim Deathmantle, Skullclamp and Animate Dead if you run it, but out of the core list in the first post that's really it. In your case you can find Umezawa's Jitte, too. I don't really think it's worth it including over a lot of other options unless you have a lot of targets. Vampire Whitehawk won't make it into my main list because I don't really care as much about lifegain in my build and there's not really anything I could justify cutting for it, but it's an understandable inclusion in budget builds or lifegain/bleeder builds
Thank you so much for you time and your words. With that said, are there any glaring weaknesses in my deck? Anything that doesn't fit?
I don't just want to copy your deck whole cloth. Rather, I want my own spin. The meta I play in is comprised of people whose decks are tuned and the power level is high. I think your deck could definitely compete.
I can't wait to see the videos you are going to make regarding this deck. People are starting to catch on to our Eternal Pilgram!
xenphire, I was thinking, could Whip of Erebos be a replacement for Corpse Dance? It's reusable and gives lifelink to all creatures. Plus it can be recurred with the multiple forms or recursion that are in this deck. I'm been reading a lot of the posts and tuning my deck...or at least trying, lol.
Also, stray note....for those who can't find Fiend Hunter...Fairgrounds Warden (from Kaladesh) is essentially the same creature.
Thank you so much for you time and your words. With that said, are there any glaring weaknesses in my deck? Anything that doesn't fit?
I don't just want to copy your deck whole cloth. Rather, I want my own spin. The meta I play in is comprised of people whose decks are tuned and the power level is high. I think your deck could definitely compete.
I can't wait to see the videos you are going to make regarding this deck. People are starting to catch on to our Eternal Pilgram!
xenphire, I was thinking, could Whip of Erebos be a replacement for Corpse Dance? It's reusable and gives lifelink to all creatures. Plus it can be recurred with the multiple forms or recursion that are in this deck. I'm been reading a lot of the posts and tuning my deck...or at least trying, lol.
Also, stray note....for those who can't find Fiend Hunter...Fairgrounds Warden (from Kaladesh) is essentially the same creature.
Decklist: Totally understandable on wanting to have your own personal touch and spin on the deck Mine regularly takes down "Tier 1" Commanders because it uses so many varied answers and when played right it's extremely hard to respond to the combos. I'll take a close look and respond the next time I post here, as I have some things to do tonight and took longer than intended on the philosophy of a couple cards in question
The Lifelink is nice but not particularly relevant unless you're swinging or blocking a lot. In Orzhov colors we really want to be playing on the defense until we're ready to strike and finish someone (or everyone at the same time :p), so we won't be gaining too much life from attacking. There's some potential from blocking, but ideally we have the board under control so that we don't have creature-based threats heading our way. The activated ability is okay, but unfortunately not comparable. The power of Corpse Dance is the ability to re-use it and keep abusing a creature over and over. It reads "Exile it at the beginning of the next end step", but you can get around this by sacrificing it and putting it back into your graveyard before then. They didn't leave this up to chance with Whip of Erebos, which reads "If it would leave the battlefield, exile it instead", which means no matter what you're going to have to Exile that creature and won't get to use it anymore after bringing it back with the Whip. The Whip also requires being tapped, so unless you run something that untaps it then you only get one use per turn, and it can only be used at Sorcery speed.
So in summation:
Corpse Dance:
-3 mana (5 with buyback)
-Instant speed
-Puts the top creature of your graveyard back onto the battlefield
-Can sacrifice the creature to another effect to avoid exiling it
Whip of Erebos
-4 mana to play, 4 mana to activate (8 mana to use on the term it comes into play)
-Only usable once per turn without assistance (taps to activate)
-Gives your creatures Lifelink
-Can only be used on your turn, at Sorcery speed
-Puts any creature from your graveyard back onto the battlefield
-Exiles the creature at the end of turn
Conclusion: Whip of Erebos sadly is not a great replacement for Corpse Dance. Even though you can only target the top creature of your graveyard, it's easy to manipulate that in your favor. The power of Corpse Dance is the ability to respond with it at Instant speed, use it multiple times per turn and keep the creature that you brought back through a sacrifice effect that is common to the deck. Whip's Lifelink isn't particularly relevant, even for builds focusing on Lifegain, is slow and takes the creature away at the end of turn no matter what - it's just very limited by comparison
Although these very similar creatures look much alike, the wording is key and makes the others bad imposters! Fiend Hunter and Oblivion Ring have a specific way in which they work. The effects that exile a creature or permanent and then return them to the battlefield are part of two different triggred abilities, which means you can respond to both events. On the similar cards since then, Wizards went out of their way to tie the exile and re-entry to the same triggered ability. These are cards like Banisher Priest, Banishing Light, and most recently Fairgrounds Warden.
The key difference is the ability to respond. Fiend Hunter and Angel of Serenity are so powerful because when they enter the battlefield and you put their abilities on the stack choosing their target, you can respond to that trigger going on the stack by sacrificing them however way works for you at the time. What happens is that their ETB ability is still on the stack and hasn't resolved, since whatever spell or ability you use to sacrifice them will go on the stack on top of their ETB ability and resolve first, they're gone before they ever exiled anything. The ability still resolves, putting your targets into exile. But, because Fiend Hunter or Angel of Serenity aren't on the battlefield when it resolves, the game can't ever see them as having left the battlefield. The result: the targets you exiled won't be coming back - they're gone forever!
With the new templating that Wizards uses for this ability on cards since then, you don't get a chance to respond to your targets leaving the battlefield because it's all rolled into one triggered ability.
So, while the creatures and cards with the newer templating aren't terrible removal, it's impossible to get around the down side of the exiled targets eventually coming back to haunt you. With Fiend Hunter and Angel of Serenity you can machine gun exile permanents using Corpse Dance or Nim Deathmantle and a sac outlet
Wow...about Fiend Hunter...I hadn't ever thought of it that way! Thank you for your detailed analysis. One word can really make all the difference...
On the Whip or Erebos front, Kaya Ghost Assassin can flicker the whipped creature. Thereby, much like Fiend Hunter, the second effect won't happen.
That is very true in relation to Kaya, Ghost Assassin They have some great synergy together. While Whip certainly isn't a replacement for Corpse Dance, they could certainly be run side by side, especially when you're running Kaya to go with either of them
I didn't mean for Kaya and Ehip to outright replace it but I love Kaya. She was partly the reason I wanted to make the deck. Seeing your wonderful work was confirmation I was on the right track and that it could work. I play in a very degenerate meta lol and I feel like your deck could hold up and flourish.
Thank you for listening to all of my ramblings lol.
Got a chance to play a game tonight! It's a normal thing to lose a lot of important permanents along the journey, but they always game back. We were joking about how Ayli is like Dragon Ball Z: Nothing ever stays dead, and the deck always bounces back stronger than it was. Tonight was a particularly good case for that exact thing.
Early on I had to cast Damnation to stop the Rakdos, Lord of Riots player after he swung in at my opponent and then unloaded a ton of huge threats. Eventually the other player who was playing a Jund Dragon Legend as his Commander (whose name slips my mind - he's now known as Imagine Dragons) got a pretty threatening board state of Atarka, the KoT Sarkhan, Kologarn and Bladewing the Risen on the battlefield, and eventually Scourge of the Throne. Things were getting to a point that they needed reined back in. My Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle were destroyed earlier on in the game, as well as Sheoldred, Whispering One and I had to sacrifice Archon of Justice to get rid of Rakdos's Chandra, Torch of Defiance. Here I ended up using Yawgmoth's Will to cast Damnation from my graveyard, then used my remaining two mana to get Nim Deathmantle back. I could still sacrifice to Ayli or High Market so it was a higher priority than Ashnod's Altar. Rakdos managed to play Void Winnower the next turn, I had a Rune-scarred Demon in my hand, so I played it to Necromancy to play with my remaining 3 mana, bringing back Sheoldred.
Both opponents only had one creature each at this point, so Sheoldred would take care of those and then I could get Yosei, the Morning Star out of my graveyard, which was put there earlier in the game via Geier Reach Sanitarium while I was digging for more answers. Imagine Dragons opponent started getting smart and making Satyr tokens with Xenagos, the Reveler in order to not have to sacrifice any creatures he played on his next upkeep. My turn came around again so I reanimated Yosei with Sheoldred and drew into Entomb and Karmic Guide thanks to Imagine Dragon's Rites of Flourishing drawing me an extra card. I didn't have enough mana to put a lock on the table yet, and I really needed to close the game soon since I was at 18 life from Dragons player smashing into me a few times when he had Scourge of the Throne on the board. I used Entomb to find Sun Titan and put him into my graveyard, then played Karmic Guide to reanimate Sun Titan, then targeting Ashnod's Altar with the Sun Titan to bring it back.
Now it'd be easy to lock down the table, so I started to commence the dirty work. I targeted my Imagine Dragon's Dragons with Yosei this time to prevent any attacks. I left Rakdos open knowing he was really weak without Rakdos himself on the board, but he tried to play It That Betrays to stop my loop using Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle. I used Utter End on it and he was pretty much done for the game. Imagine Dragons managed to get enough mana to play his Commander, which untaps all Dragons and puts them under his control. I sacrificed Yosei in response because I didn't want him to have another 5/5 flier, but because his Commander's ability hadn't resolved yet, Yosei didn't get to tap his Dragons, and that ability resolved 2nd giving him a lot of huge flying creatures. Somewhere in all of this mess I reanimated Archon of Justice with Sheldred and sacrificed him to Deathmantle+Altar a couple times to get rid of Sarkhan and Xenagos.
When Imagine Dragons played his Commander I was at 18 life and Rakdos and Imagine Dragons both thought that he had me. But again, this deck is absurdly resilient. I had swung with Rune-scarred Demon and Sheoldred my last turn to put Rakdos at 2 life, so my only flying Blocker now was Karmic Guide. He declared combat and was coming at me with a 7/6, 6/6, 6/6 and another 6/x something and thought he had lethal with Karmic Guide being my only blocker. So, I sacrificed Sun Titan then Rune-scarred Demon to generate 4 mana to bring back Rune-scarred untapped with Nim Deathmantle, searched my library for a Maze of Ith and put it into my hand. Then I sacrificed Sheoldred and Karmic Guide for 4 more mana, bringing back Karmic Guide with Nim Deathmantle, targeting Yosei so that I had three Blockers. I took 6 damage and went to 12. My turn rolled around and I sacrificed Karmic Guide to Ashnod's Altar to bring her back targeting Sun Titan, bringing him back targeting Necromancy, bringing back Sheoldred. Both opponents knew that last attack was their last hurrah and agreed to scoop.
And that, ladies and gentleman, is an example of the resilience of Ayli Included in the spoiler above are two photos I took of the game. The first is my early game hand, and the second is turn before Dragons played his Commander and I had to sacrifice Yosei to avoid him having him.
Just was wondering, have you been able to test out Recruiter of the Guard any in your deck? How have you found it?
I've been intending to test Recruiter of the Guard, but haven't been able to procure one yet. I was looking at what it could fetch for me, and it can hit a decent amount of very relevant targets in my build:
So, I have 12 potential targets, and functionally that includes: A board wipe (False Prophet), way to Board Wipe or Removal (Xiahou), utility land and mana fixing (Weathered Wayfarer), Reanimation (Nezumi, Puppeteer & Karmic Guide), Other Removal (Fleshbag & Mangara), fodder (Skeleton & Solemn) a Sac Outlet (Viscera Seer), and some of those are part of finishing combos (Karmic Guide & Puppeteer Clique)
I run one (Recruiter of the Guard) in my build and I think it's really good. I hope you can accquire one as I'm very interested to see how it runs.
I was shopping fur some cards recently and was surprised at how cheap Puppeteer Clique, Angelic Renewal and Argrivian Find are. I wanted to thank you for all of your help with my build. Yours is rhe best I've read.
Can I ask, when up again a really oppressive white/blue enchantment and artifact deck...that the builder admits doesn't even have a win Conan has things like Rising Waters and Defense Grid and Mana Vortex etc...hoe can the deck respond to it? I played him last night in a pod of five and the game ended in a draw after he resolved a Divine Intervention.
I run one (Recruiter of the Guard) in my build and I think it's really good. I hope you can accquire one as I'm very interested to see how it runs.
I was shopping fur some cards recently and was surprised at how cheap Puppeteer Clique, Angelic Renewal and Argrivian Find are. I wanted to thank you for all of your help with my build. Yours is rhe best I've read.
Can I ask, when up again a really oppressive white/blue enchantment and artifact deck...that the builder admits doesn't even have a win Conan has things like Rising Waters and Defense Grid and Mana Vortex etc...hoe can the deck respond to it? I played him last night in a pod of five and the game ended in a draw after he resolved a Divine Intervention.
In my local metagame, combating decks like that take an approach like the advice given in the classic 80's movie Wargames.
The only winning move is not to play
That is - if they show up with an oppressive deck that most other players deem as un-fun, don't expect them to play against you.
I see it happening often: "Great, you built a deck to do a thing. We aren't fans of playing that way, so either borrow one of our decks to play with or come back around later when you've made changes to better reflect the playstyle of the group."
I run one (Recruiter of the Guard) in my build and I think it's really good. I hope you can accquire one as I'm very interested to see how it runs.
I was shopping fur some cards recently and was surprised at how cheap Puppeteer Clique, Angelic Renewal and Argrivian Find are. I wanted to thank you for all of your help with my build. Yours is rhe best I've read.
Can I ask, when up again a really oppressive white/blue enchantment and artifact deck...that the builder admits doesn't even have a win Conan has things like Rising Waters and Defense Grid and Mana Vortex etc...hoe can the deck respond to it? I played him last night in a pod of five and the game ended in a draw after he resolved a Divine Intervention.
I run one (Recruiter of the Guard) in my build and I think it's really good. I hope you can accquire one as I'm very interested to see how it runs.
I was shopping fur some cards recently and was surprised at how cheap Puppeteer Clique, Angelic Renewal and Argrivian Find are. I wanted to thank you for all of your help with my build. Yours is rhe best I've read.
Can I ask, when up again a really oppressive white/blue enchantment and artifact deck...that the builder admits doesn't even have a win Conan has things like Rising Waters and Defense Grid and Mana Vortex etc...hoe can the deck respond to it? I played him last night in a pod of five and the game ended in a draw after he resolved a Divine Intervention.
In my local metagame, combating decks like that take an approach like the advice given in the classic 80's movie Wargames.
The only winning move is not to play
That is - if they show up with an oppressive deck that most other players deem as un-fun, don't expect them to play against you.
I see it happening often: "Great, you built a deck to do a thing. We aren't fans of playing that way, so either borrow one of our decks to play with or come back around later when you've made changes to better reflect the playstyle of the group."
Hah. This sounds a lot like my Brago deck list. The funny thing is that the deck I just linked was built as a result of escalation. The game store I first found to play EDH ad had a lot of guys that liked to ******** playing decks that knock people out on Turn 2 or 3, or ones like Roon of the Hidden Realm built so that one can't respond. I ended up wanting to make a deck that would cause them to rage quit before their combos and crap ever got a chance to get online. I was one of very few to get a Mana Crypt and play it, so most of them couldn't race a Turn 2 Brago, King Eternal, Turn 3 Winter Orb into a Turn 4 Tangle Wire.
Departing from that aside, the answer to the question here depends on the speed. Burntgerbil's response is one way to deal with those people, but you could ask anyone at my store and they'd tell you I will attempt to find a way around anyone's strategy. I'll refuse to play with certain people for their personality, but almost never refuse to play against any legitimate deck type or strategy. I even play through the guy that plays Chaos decks. So the question is one of speed. How fast is the guy locking you down? Defense Grid isn't too big of a deal - that hurts him responding to your spells on your turn, too. But here's some things you can do against Stax players:
1.) Get as many mana rocks out as you can. Most Stax effects are interested in keeping your lands tapped down. Mana rocks get around a lot of these and enable you to still play your spells.
2.) Invest in Boseiju, Who Shelters All. While Cavern of Souls is nice, it's about twice as expensive and we want our creatures to enter from the graveyard most of the time, anyway. That happens via Instants and Sorceries. But the main benefit of Boseiju is helping to push through cards like Merciless Eviction.
3.) Try to load up on more utilitarian sweepers. If you have a problem with Artifacts and Enchantments, Austere Command is beautiful for it's versatility.
4.) If you're not above direct deck/meta hating, there's Stromgald Cabal, for countering things like Kismet, Blind Obedience and other White Stax spells, depending on how heavy of a concentration these effects are in White.
5.) Faster Reanimation. Turn 1 Entomb into a Turn 2 (or same turn, depending) Sheoldred, Whispering One is very hard to answer without immediate removal. If you're facing down a Winter Orb then Exhume and Unearth are great cheap removal spells that can get you a Mangara of Corondor to hopefully turn around and Exile one of their Enchantments or Artifacts.
6.) Enchantment-specific hate. We don't run that many Enchantments, so there are options like Cleansing Meditation, Parasalene, and Tempest of Light. If you don't want to seem like you're outright hating that particular person out, Nova Cleric appears as a utilitarian creature you can fetch with tutors or Recruiter of the Guard.
7.) Artifact-specific hate. Kataki, War's Wage can help stop them in their tracks.
8.) Beat them at their own game. If you can find a card like Bitterblossom that gives you a free Creature token every turn, then you can play Smokestack or Contamination and shut them down in kind. Hanweir Militia Captain is an okay budget option that flips into Westvale Cult Leader if you can get enough creatures out to support it. Last night I was testing Queen Marchesa and let someone else have The Monarch so I could keep generating a 1/1 Assassin to sacrifice to Contamination every turn to keep it on the board. They were a UW player but they couldn't play anything because of Contamination, so I didn't care that they were drawing an extra card each turn. Eventually I got a Sorin, Lord of Innistard out and put out Call to the Grave. Wasn't too fun for them, but hey sometimes they need some of their own medicine.
Stax decks are admittedly very difficult to play around, but if you know you're playing a Commander that is built for one beforehand, you can at least try to adapt by doing a mulligan for answers or make some adjustments for if you face those things commonly. There are enough exile and mass removal effects in Ayli to maneuver around these effects and eventually take them out. Decks like the one described tend to be a one trick pony and they invest a lot in setting up ASAP, meaning if you can work with the other players at the table to resolve the issue of the Stax player and dismount their board state, they usually have a really hard time rebounding. If their Commander is what enables them to get away with having so many global Stax effects on the board, keep him off of the board at any costs.
Updates are slowing down a bit as I've been testing some other decks out lately, although I've still been playing Ayli! Last weekend I had an epic 2.5 hour game that was basically 2v1 after Xenagos got knocked out and I was left dealing with Bruna and Tasigur. I got my graveyard taken by a Hedonist's Trove halfway through the game but still had plenty of fuel (I also nuked that Trove post haste with a well-timed Anguished Unmaking). Let me just say that the MVP of this game was Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - if you have been on the fence, then I say jump on over to his side and grab him while you can since he's at an all-time low in terms of monetary value. He helped me keep Bruna in check and clear Tasigur of quite a few abusive permanents. My final challenge was being faced with a Villainous Wealth for 12 targeting me and how many potential answers he got from that including my Sheoldred, Whispering One, False Prophet, Necromancy, Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter, Yawgmoth's Will and a lot more. He was so overwhelmed that he didn't play or stack the triggers very well, and I used Corpse Dance when he tried to target my Fiend Hunter in my graveyard, targeting Sheoldred since I knew he was going to sacrifice the False Prophet to get rid of my Archon of Justice, Ayli, Sun Titan and a few other creatures on my side. So when it was all said and done I still got my Sheoldred back when he was forced to pop False Prophet. I was actually complimented on the deck by everyone watching because of how it just kept bouncing back from everything thrown at it, but each time the interaction was something unexpected or interesting or there was such a level of finesse involved that they couldn't even be mad. It was probably one of the best games I've ever played and I only scratched the surface of all the things that went on in that game - I wish I could have recorded it!
But the best news this week is that I finally obtained Kaya, Ghost Assassin! I've decided to replace Profane Command for now to play her, because I found that I very seldom cared about drawing or searching for it. I'm still on the hunt for Recruiter of the Guard.
I hope everyone's been enjoying their Ayli decks and look forward to hearing about your own games, experiences and modifications, as always!
Updates are slowing down a bit as I've been testing some other decks out lately, although I've still been playing Ayli! Last weekend I had an epic 2.5 hour game that was basically 2v1 after Xenagos got knocked out and I was left dealing with Bruna and Tasigur. I got my graveyard taken by a Hedonist's Trove halfway through the game but still had plenty of fuel (I also nuked that Trove post haste with a well-timed Anguished Unmaking). Let me just say that the MVP of this game was Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - if you have been on the fence, then I say jump on over to his side and grab him while you can since he's at an all-time low in terms of monetary value. He helped me keep Bruna in check and clear Tasigur of quite a few abusive permanents. My final challenge was being faced with a Villainous Wealth for 12 targeting me and how many potential answers he got from that including my Sheoldred, Whispering One, False Prophet, Necromancy, Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter, Yawgmoth's Will and a lot more. He was so overwhelmed that he didn't play or stack the triggers very well, and I used Corpse Dance when he tried to target my Fiend Hunter in my graveyard, targeting Sheoldred since I knew he was going to sacrifice the False Prophet to get rid of my Archon of Justice, Ayli, Sun Titan and a few other creatures on my side. So when it was all said and done I still got my Sheoldred back when he was forced to pop False Prophet. I was actually complimented on the deck by everyone watching because of how it just kept bouncing back from everything thrown at it, but each time the interaction was something unexpected or interesting or there was such a level of finesse involved that they couldn't even be mad. It was probably one of the best games I've ever played and I only scratched the surface of all the things that went on in that game - I wish I could have recorded it!
But the best news this week is that I finally obtained Kaya, Ghost Assassin! I've decided to replace Profane Command for now to play her, because I found that I very seldom cared about drawing or searching for it. I'm still on the hunt for Recruiter of the Guard.
I hope everyone's been enjoying their Ayli decks and look forward to hearing about your own games, experiences and modifications, as always!
First of all, I wish that game was recorded as well! I would love to see some game play from you, so I can better understand the deck. Secondly, Congrats on Kaya! I hope you'll love her. Good luck on Recruiter of the Guard...I hope you can obtain one soon.
Is there anything from Commander2016 you're looking forward to?
In a recent game, I lived the dream of Angelic Renewal and Sun Titan, with Ayli as the Sac outlet...the table was not happy....gained 36 life and began exiling things. The next game, Recruiter into Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed into a recurred Merciless Eviction. The more games I play with the deck, which is heavily influenced by your decklist albeit with a few of my own touches...the more I love it. I wanted to thank you for everything you've done.
Well it looks like we have our Orzhov "Partner" from Commander 2016, and it's Tymna the Weaver. I can safely so that she won't dethrone Ayli from being at the helm of the deck! As for her inclusion in the 99, it's a bit of a dubious one. She only triggerson your turn at your 2nd Main Phase, which means you had to be the one dealing combat damage to your opponents. With the primary build we aren't very combat based, but if you're running a Tokens build this may be a bit more valuable to you. Assuming you're in a pod of 4 players including yourself, you have the max potential of paying 3 life to draw 3 per turn, if you attacked each opponent. A tokens package will more easily fly over this or get around blockers with cards like Behind the Scenes.
Ultimately, there are many much better and more consistent ways to draw cards than Tymna the Weaver. She's not awful, but she's in many ways the antithesis of what this deck is meant to do - glide under the radar and play politics to your advantage to win. Any time you begin attacking your opponents, you're engaging them and asking them to attack you back. We have ample answers for aggressors but are not ones to instigate. So with that said, I'll be passing on trying out Tymna due to her conflicting with what we do with Ayli.
In other good news for those on a budget, Beacon of Unrest was spoiled as being reprinted which means it's price should drop.
Selfless Squire is an interesting and fun utility card but probably won't make it into the deck. We have enough removal and answers to aggressors that it ultimately feels unnecessary, though it is fetchable with Recruiter of the Guard.
Sublime Exhalation will probably be a $1.00 card and thus another nice budget option for board wipes. For those not worrying about budget, Wrath of God is still better and worth the extra mana to prevent creatures from regenerating, and doesn't get worse as the game progresses (eg. less opponents to make it cost less). Eventually it becomes Day of Judgment or worse.
Lastly, Cruel Entertainment is an interesting and fun looking card that doesn't exile itself (meaning you can bring it back to play later with Xiahou-Dun, the One-Eyed or re-cast it with Yawgmoth's Will). I won't be going out of my way to test it or make room for it because it's a cute effect, but has a lot of potential to come back to haunt us when those turns happen. Personally, I plan for and anticipate my opponents behaving certain ways, and it can throw that all out the window. It doesn't particular further our game plan, but is a fun chaos card if someone feels inclined to play it.
I'll be updating with any other cards that I feel are noteworthy for Ayli as previews continue
Ravos, Soultender - Far more interesting than Tymna the Leader for what we do, but of questionable usefulness nontheless. The +1/+1 to our creatures isn't too relevant, unless you're playing a combat oriented Tokens build (personally as tokens I would still be focused more on combo than combat). His second ability is the more interesting part since he can help bring back creatures to cast later. He does suffer the same problem that Athreos, God of Passage does, though: We want to be reanimating from our graveyard, not re-casting. He can fill a niche that Volrath's Stronghold normally does in this deck but not nearly as well, as you can respond to graveyard hate with Volrath's Stronghold when targeted with graveyard hate. Probably won't be fitting him into the deck, but he'd be interesting to build his own deck around, I think.
Xenphire, should I be as excited about Magus of the Will as I am? Is having another Yawg's will, but got 6 mana, a good thing?
I'm still deciding on that, myself! Redundancy on important effects is important. My primary issue with Magus of the Will is that it telegraphs what we're about to do. Personally, I don't run Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots because I find I just don't really need them. So, I know personally I won't give him haste or target removal protection. Spending 6 mana for Yawgmoth'a Will effect also eats up a lot of mana we could use to cast those spells, so I presume we need him to be on the field for a turn before we use him.
The upsides are numerous, however. One is that being a creature means we can sacrifice him in response to Exile effects to store him in the graveyard to bring back later. He's a 3/3 so mini-board wipes like Infest or a low powered Black Sun's Zenith to wipe out an army of Elves, Goblins or tokens won't kill him. But the effect is so powerful that it is hard not to want the opportunity to have a second set. Also worth noting is that we can put him on Mimic Vat, which I've played in the past to great effect (it was removed for being unfun, but extremely effective in Ayli nonetheless - I'm often tempted to play it again). You can also activate him at Instant speed, making him a Yawgmoth's Will playable on an opponent's turn or end step.
The biggest consideration is what opponents will do, though. I talk about politics a lot and how Ayli pulls the strings from the back of the group, playing the silent hand. Many groups will see it and say "Oh hell no" and try their best to keep it off of the battlefield starting immediately. You may gain an ally who sees some advantage for themselves in letting you keep it. It'll certainly create a very sudden and interesting shift in the dynamic of the game at the time. Generally they will get a turn to respond to him unless reanimating him with Corpse Dance or Necromancy, or making clones with Mimic Vat . But, I think my verdict is he'll be worth it. More testing to do
I've typed all this up on my phone, so when I'm at a computer tomorrow evening I'll write up a review of the rest of the Commander 2016 decks and potential swaps and other thoughts!
Normaly I don't visit this forum because I play 60-card multiplayer, not Commander.
But I really enjoyed your post (and music list!). Tool - Aenima (the song) would not be remiss.
I do wonder why you don't run or even mention Austere Command which is to me a nigh perfect toolbox sweeper. I know it doesn't exile but I'm always happy when I play it because of the versatility and the way you can tailor the sweep to hurt the opponents the most.
Normaly I don't visit this forum because I play 60-card multiplayer, not Commander.
But I really enjoyed your post (and music list!). Tool - Aenima (the song) would not be remiss.
I do wonder why you don't run or even mention Austere Command which is to me a nigh perfect toolbox sweeper. I know it doesn't exile but I'm always happy when I play it because of the versatility and the way you can tailor the sweep to hurt the opponents the most.
Hey there, Thijs Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad you enjoyed the post. I love Tool (well, any of Maynard James Keenan's projects, honestly).
As for your question, it involves a short story I have played Austere Command in the past, and do enjoy it! A few years ago when this was still a Ghost Council of Orzhova deck, my entire deck was stolen and it took a while to build the deck back up. In the process Austere Command was one of the very last cards I still needed to get for the deck just because I had started running Merciless Eviction already and had come into possession of the Damnation foil promo thanks to a friend. Eventually I got Ugin, the Spirit Dragon as a deal evener in a trade, so I decided to test him out and fell in love with him. On top of that, Utter End and Anguished Unmaking were printed since I started to rebuild and I really loved the idea of more instant speed spot removal in Exile form. So I guess the short version is that with all the updates to the deck when I started rebuilding, it kind of got pushed out by newer cards that were more convenient for me at the time, but ultimately I feel like I ended up preferring the current removal suite.
For the most part I'd say Ugin ended up replacing Austere Command, even though he doesn't hit Artifacts. But, it's one of the best options among a whole lot of great sweepers in the colors. There's so many cards I want to fit in but I don't mess with the formula too much because it feels just right where it's sitting for now. Toxic Deluge, Black Sun's Zenith and Massacre Wurm are a few others I really like a lot. Ultimately it's about right where it needs to be for my meta, which has a wide range of decks and player mentalities. When Captain Sisay became really popular at my game stores for whatever reason I ended up running Black Sun's Zenith for a bit to get around Avacyn, Angel of Hope + Archtype of Endurance and other Stax cards. In a consistently very aggressive meta I'd probably take out Sorin, Grim Nemesis for Austere Command. I have a few flex slots that sway back and forth as I test new cards as they come out. This year has been surprisingly heavy on the amount of decent cards for the deck that I feel could make the cut in a deck that's has been trimmed so tight
@xenphire: Thank you for the great suggestions....Your list is what helped me to start looking into Ayli, and she's really good. What started me down the path was Loading Ready Runs TapTapConcede episode where they brewed with Kaya, Ghost Assassin for a Highlander deck...she was what made me look at Orzhov, then I found Ayli and then I saw the absolutely masterful job you've done...my Commander career started with Zombies....they were too slow...I'm glad I found you and Ayli.
Nykthos is really interesting as a land...I've yet to really draw it, but the mana advantage it can generate is why I keep it around. As for Sanguine Bond, I steered away from it b/c it's too rote...I wanted people to 'think' it's there and try to play around it rather than it just be tutored and win. Plus, I feel, in some group,s it can generate hate.
As for Cllifehaven, wow totally overlooked him too! I'll have to fit him in. Vampire Whitehawk...I mean Aerial Responder...love him...I'm trying to get redundancy in my deck...but, man Damnation is way too expensive. Though, I WIL have the Player's Reward Promo to match it's white-mana brother....my LGS is on the lookout for me.
What do you think about Ashen Rider? I had him in, but I see him as too greedy...8 mana..but his effect is sooo good...What should I cut to make room for him, in your opinion?
As for Kaladaesh, I was excited for Authority of the Consulate, Filigree Familiar and Kambal, until I read your review and thought about it more. I'm glad you were able to talk me, reasonably, out of it...though CoolStuffInc I'm sure isn't as I had to cancel the Pre-Order.
I still need to track down and make room for Kaya, Ghost Assassin, myself
Testing with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx isn't something I've personally done, but it was an exclusion I made based off of my experience with Cabal Coffers, which operates on a similar basis. Cabal Coffers is great when you have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth out but never really at any other time since the you have to get at least 3x Swamp on the battlefield for it to start to provide any sort of advantage. Nytkthos is sort of the same in that you need at least 3 devotion to White or Black on the battlefield for it to produce more than what you paid to tap it. Otherwise you need 2 or 3 permanents of a given color to make it worth while. You have more permanents in your lifegain/bleeder that will stay on the battlefield than my primary build does, but it may be worth exploring since even with just Necropotence on the board, we're already up one mana if we choose Devotion to Black. build Since you run Divinity of Pride you can pay
This is by the way just me kind of discussing the viability and talking to myself about whether I should try it, myself, and not me saying you should or shouldn't run it. I've always wanted a foil Nykthos and it'd give me an excuse to run one, haha. I also totally understand about not running Sanguine Bond and keeping your opponent's wondering - that's a good strategy. There's a good chance they're holding back removal or trying to wait to take out the combo when you get it assembled and that leaves them waiting for something that you don't actually play. Pretty great stuff - psychological warfare is one of my favorite parts of Magic and Ayli in general. You can keep your opponents guessing for a very long time
As for Damnation, I know what you mean. It was one of the last cards I got for the deck because it was functionally the same as Wrath of God. I'd like to run both of the Player Rewards Program full art versions, but I'd have to make room for Wrath of God somewhere. I have the textless Damnation, myself. Redundancy is good but I try to run a sort of toolbox selection of mass removal. Merciless Eviction can hit anything, Black Sun's Zenith is one I used to run to get around Hexproof and Indestructible when Archetype of Endurance and Avacyn, Angel of Hope began showing up in my meta together. Plenty have suggested Massacre Wurm, but I like board wipes that I know will take care of the problem and just flat out remove threats. Also used to run Austere Command which is a wonderful removal spell. My 3rd mass removal spell turned into Ugin, the Spirit Dragon when I had the opportunity to pick one up. I've come to almost always prefer exiling problems instead of destroying them because EDH has a way of making things in other player's graveyards come back to haunt you later. He's expensive but as soon as he comes down he can wipe out the majority (if not all) of the threads present then sit around and Lightning Bolt other players in the face or whatever creatures they manage to put out.
Regarding Ashen Rider - I haven't had any problems with him, but I almost exclusively get him on the battlefield through some form of reanimation. His predecessor was Angel of Despair. When he came out in Theros I couldn't not upgrade Angel into the Ashen Rider. Angel of Despair is a staple in EDH for colors running Orzhov, but for one more mana you still get a 5/5 flying beater and removal, but instead you get to exile the permanent instead of destroy it, and trigger that again when it dies. I used to machine gun down permanents with Angel of Despair using Corpse Dance, but now I can do so twice as fast
I'm glad my review helped you with your preordering
(Also known as Xenphire)
I'm so happy to hear you're trying to make room for Kaya. She really does everything the decks wants to do.
Right now, my decks sits at about an average Cmc of 3.48. I know that's a bad metric, but could I add ashen rider safely and stat at 35 lands? I find 35 is my personal sweet spot.
Will Vampire Whitehawk find a spot in your deck?
Thoughts o nOpen the Armory? I saw an article on CommanderSociety that ran it. I know Stoneforge fills the same time for me, but it feels too narrow...
No problem at all - always willing to talk shop and entertain other ideas and discuss
I find EDHREC to be a blessing and a curse. It's a great starting point to get some ideas, but a lot of players treat the statistics there as gospel. There's an inherent problem with EDHREC and how it collects data, and that is that there is a feedback loop present. As new and veteran players alike go to it to get ideas and then attempt to continue to use the same cards already listed there and then create their lists on TappedOut, EDHREC pulls that data in and basically echoes the suggestions already there. Because of that, there is a disproportional amount of the most popular cards entering the database at EDHREC. It's probably the best way to collect that data, but I can't help but feel it's extremely flawed and lends to players not being as creative as they could because so many cards don't end up on there or get pushed down because of that feedback loop.
Your mana curve is just fine, I think. That's about what mine is at, but just like I mentioned with Ashen Rider, I rarely pay the 8 mana to cast him from my hand. Usually he's coming into play with Corpse Dance, Necromancy, Sheoldred, Whispering One, Animate Dead, Reanimate, Victimize or whatever reanimation spells. Because of that, he's almost effectively usually a 3CC spell. The deck can go down to 35 lands with cards like Weathered Wayfarer and with a decent amount of mana rocks, so I think that's fine. Ayli is a slow burn deck that waits to strike, and you can cast removal of different costs at all different points in the game to keep things under control.
Open the Armory is an okay budget option if someone can't afford Enlightened Tutor, but it's target zone is pretty limited. It can find Nim Deathmantle, Skullclamp and Animate Dead if you run it, but out of the core list in the first post that's really it. In your case you can find Umezawa's Jitte, too. I don't really think it's worth it including over a lot of other options unless you have a lot of targets. Vampire Whitehawk won't make it into my main list because I don't really care as much about lifegain in my build and there's not really anything I could justify cutting for it, but it's an understandable inclusion in budget builds or lifegain/bleeder builds
(Also known as Xenphire)
I don't just want to copy your deck whole cloth. Rather, I want my own spin. The meta I play in is comprised of people whose decks are tuned and the power level is high. I think your deck could definitely compete.
I can't wait to see the videos you are going to make regarding this deck. People are starting to catch on to our Eternal Pilgram!
Also, stray note....for those who can't find Fiend Hunter...Fairgrounds Warden (from Kaladesh) is essentially the same creature.
Decklist: Totally understandable on wanting to have your own personal touch and spin on the deck
On Corpse Dance vs. Whip of Erebos:
The Lifelink is nice but not particularly relevant unless you're swinging or blocking a lot. In Orzhov colors we really want to be playing on the defense until we're ready to strike and finish someone (or everyone at the same time :p), so we won't be gaining too much life from attacking. There's some potential from blocking, but ideally we have the board under control so that we don't have creature-based threats heading our way. The activated ability is okay, but unfortunately not comparable. The power of Corpse Dance is the ability to re-use it and keep abusing a creature over and over. It reads "Exile it at the beginning of the next end step", but you can get around this by sacrificing it and putting it back into your graveyard before then. They didn't leave this up to chance with Whip of Erebos, which reads "If it would leave the battlefield, exile it instead", which means no matter what you're going to have to Exile that creature and won't get to use it anymore after bringing it back with the Whip. The Whip also requires being tapped, so unless you run something that untaps it then you only get one use per turn, and it can only be used at Sorcery speed.
So in summation:
Corpse Dance:
-3 mana (5 with buyback)
-Instant speed
-Puts the top creature of your graveyard back onto the battlefield
-Can sacrifice the creature to another effect to avoid exiling it
Whip of Erebos
-4 mana to play, 4 mana to activate (8 mana to use on the term it comes into play)
-Only usable once per turn without assistance (taps to activate)
-Gives your creatures Lifelink
-Can only be used on your turn, at Sorcery speed
-Puts any creature from your graveyard back onto the battlefield
-Exiles the creature at the end of turn
Conclusion: Whip of Erebos sadly is not a great replacement for Corpse Dance. Even though you can only target the top creature of your graveyard, it's easy to manipulate that in your favor. The power of Corpse Dance is the ability to respond with it at Instant speed, use it multiple times per turn and keep the creature that you brought back through a sacrifice effect that is common to the deck. Whip's Lifelink isn't particularly relevant, even for builds focusing on Lifegain, is slow and takes the creature away at the end of turn no matter what - it's just very limited by comparison
Fiend Hunter vs Other Similar Creatures:
Although these very similar creatures look much alike, the wording is key and makes the others bad imposters! Fiend Hunter and Oblivion Ring have a specific way in which they work. The effects that exile a creature or permanent and then return them to the battlefield are part of two different triggred abilities, which means you can respond to both events. On the similar cards since then, Wizards went out of their way to tie the exile and re-entry to the same triggered ability. These are cards like Banisher Priest, Banishing Light, and most recently Fairgrounds Warden.
The key difference is the ability to respond. Fiend Hunter and Angel of Serenity are so powerful because when they enter the battlefield and you put their abilities on the stack choosing their target, you can respond to that trigger going on the stack by sacrificing them however way works for you at the time. What happens is that their ETB ability is still on the stack and hasn't resolved, since whatever spell or ability you use to sacrifice them will go on the stack on top of their ETB ability and resolve first, they're gone before they ever exiled anything. The ability still resolves, putting your targets into exile. But, because Fiend Hunter or Angel of Serenity aren't on the battlefield when it resolves, the game can't ever see them as having left the battlefield. The result: the targets you exiled won't be coming back - they're gone forever!
With the new templating that Wizards uses for this ability on cards since then, you don't get a chance to respond to your targets leaving the battlefield because it's all rolled into one triggered ability.
So, while the creatures and cards with the newer templating aren't terrible removal, it's impossible to get around the down side of the exiled targets eventually coming back to haunt you. With Fiend Hunter and Angel of Serenity you can machine gun exile permanents using Corpse Dance or Nim Deathmantle and a sac outlet
(Also known as Xenphire)
On the Whip or Erebos front, Kaya Ghost Assassin can flicker the whipped creature. Thereby, much like Fiend Hunter, the second effect won't happen.
That is very true in relation to Kaya, Ghost Assassin
(Also known as Xenphire)
Thank you for listening to all of my ramblings lol.
Early on I had to cast Damnation to stop the Rakdos, Lord of Riots player after he swung in at my opponent and then unloaded a ton of huge threats. Eventually the other player who was playing a Jund Dragon Legend as his Commander (whose name slips my mind - he's now known as Imagine Dragons) got a pretty threatening board state of Atarka, the KoT Sarkhan, Kologarn and Bladewing the Risen on the battlefield, and eventually Scourge of the Throne. Things were getting to a point that they needed reined back in. My Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle were destroyed earlier on in the game, as well as Sheoldred, Whispering One and I had to sacrifice Archon of Justice to get rid of Rakdos's Chandra, Torch of Defiance. Here I ended up using Yawgmoth's Will to cast Damnation from my graveyard, then used my remaining two mana to get Nim Deathmantle back. I could still sacrifice to Ayli or High Market so it was a higher priority than Ashnod's Altar. Rakdos managed to play Void Winnower the next turn, I had a Rune-scarred Demon in my hand, so I played it to Necromancy to play with my remaining 3 mana, bringing back Sheoldred.
Both opponents only had one creature each at this point, so Sheoldred would take care of those and then I could get Yosei, the Morning Star out of my graveyard, which was put there earlier in the game via Geier Reach Sanitarium while I was digging for more answers. Imagine Dragons opponent started getting smart and making Satyr tokens with Xenagos, the Reveler in order to not have to sacrifice any creatures he played on his next upkeep. My turn came around again so I reanimated Yosei with Sheoldred and drew into Entomb and Karmic Guide thanks to Imagine Dragon's Rites of Flourishing drawing me an extra card. I didn't have enough mana to put a lock on the table yet, and I really needed to close the game soon since I was at 18 life from Dragons player smashing into me a few times when he had Scourge of the Throne on the board. I used Entomb to find Sun Titan and put him into my graveyard, then played Karmic Guide to reanimate Sun Titan, then targeting Ashnod's Altar with the Sun Titan to bring it back.
Now it'd be easy to lock down the table, so I started to commence the dirty work. I targeted my Imagine Dragon's Dragons with Yosei this time to prevent any attacks. I left Rakdos open knowing he was really weak without Rakdos himself on the board, but he tried to play It That Betrays to stop my loop using Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle. I used Utter End on it and he was pretty much done for the game. Imagine Dragons managed to get enough mana to play his Commander, which untaps all Dragons and puts them under his control. I sacrificed Yosei in response because I didn't want him to have another 5/5 flier, but because his Commander's ability hadn't resolved yet, Yosei didn't get to tap his Dragons, and that ability resolved 2nd giving him a lot of huge flying creatures. Somewhere in all of this mess I reanimated Archon of Justice with Sheldred and sacrificed him to Deathmantle+Altar a couple times to get rid of Sarkhan and Xenagos.
When Imagine Dragons played his Commander I was at 18 life and Rakdos and Imagine Dragons both thought that he had me. But again, this deck is absurdly resilient. I had swung with Rune-scarred Demon and Sheoldred my last turn to put Rakdos at 2 life, so my only flying Blocker now was Karmic Guide. He declared combat and was coming at me with a 7/6, 6/6, 6/6 and another 6/x something and thought he had lethal with Karmic Guide being my only blocker. So, I sacrificed Sun Titan then Rune-scarred Demon to generate 4 mana to bring back Rune-scarred untapped with Nim Deathmantle, searched my library for a Maze of Ith and put it into my hand. Then I sacrificed Sheoldred and Karmic Guide for 4 more mana, bringing back Karmic Guide with Nim Deathmantle, targeting Yosei so that I had three Blockers. I took 6 damage and went to 12. My turn rolled around and I sacrificed Karmic Guide to Ashnod's Altar to bring her back targeting Sun Titan, bringing him back targeting Necromancy, bringing back Sheoldred. Both opponents knew that last attack was their last hurrah and agreed to scoop.
And that, ladies and gentleman, is an example of the resilience of Ayli
(Also known as Xenphire)
I've been intending to test Recruiter of the Guard, but haven't been able to procure one yet. I was looking at what it could fetch for me, and it can hit a decent amount of very relevant targets in my build:
False Prophet, Fleshbag Marauder, Karmic Guide, Mangara of Corondor, Nezumi Graverobber, Puppeteer Clique, Reassembling Skeleton, Solemn Simulacrum, Viscera Seer, Vizkopa Guildmage, Weathered Wayfarer, Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed.
So, I have 12 potential targets, and functionally that includes: A board wipe (False Prophet), way to Board Wipe or Removal (Xiahou), utility land and mana fixing (Weathered Wayfarer), Reanimation (Nezumi, Puppeteer & Karmic Guide), Other Removal (Fleshbag & Mangara), fodder (Skeleton & Solemn) a Sac Outlet (Viscera Seer), and some of those are part of finishing combos (Karmic Guide & Puppeteer Clique)
(Also known as Xenphire)
I was shopping fur some cards recently and was surprised at how cheap Puppeteer Clique, Angelic Renewal and Argrivian Find are. I wanted to thank you for all of your help with my build. Yours is rhe best I've read.
Can I ask, when up again a really oppressive white/blue enchantment and artifact deck...that the builder admits doesn't even have a win Conan has things like Rising Waters and Defense Grid and Mana Vortex etc...hoe can the deck respond to it? I played him last night in a pod of five and the game ended in a draw after he resolved a Divine Intervention.
In my local metagame, combating decks like that take an approach like the advice given in the classic 80's movie Wargames.
The only winning move is not to play
That is - if they show up with an oppressive deck that most other players deem as un-fun, don't expect them to play against you.
I see it happening often: "Great, you built a deck to do a thing. We aren't fans of playing that way, so either borrow one of our decks to play with or come back around later when you've made changes to better reflect the playstyle of the group."
Hah. This sounds a lot like my Brago deck list. The funny thing is that the deck I just linked was built as a result of escalation. The game store I first found to play EDH ad had a lot of guys that liked to ******** playing decks that knock people out on Turn 2 or 3, or ones like Roon of the Hidden Realm built so that one can't respond. I ended up wanting to make a deck that would cause them to rage quit before their combos and crap ever got a chance to get online. I was one of very few to get a Mana Crypt and play it, so most of them couldn't race a Turn 2 Brago, King Eternal, Turn 3 Winter Orb into a Turn 4 Tangle Wire.
Departing from that aside, the answer to the question here depends on the speed. Burntgerbil's response is one way to deal with those people, but you could ask anyone at my store and they'd tell you I will attempt to find a way around anyone's strategy. I'll refuse to play with certain people for their personality, but almost never refuse to play against any legitimate deck type or strategy. I even play through the guy that plays Chaos decks. So the question is one of speed. How fast is the guy locking you down? Defense Grid isn't too big of a deal - that hurts him responding to your spells on your turn, too. But here's some things you can do against Stax players:
1.) Get as many mana rocks out as you can. Most Stax effects are interested in keeping your lands tapped down. Mana rocks get around a lot of these and enable you to still play your spells.
2.) Invest in Boseiju, Who Shelters All. While Cavern of Souls is nice, it's about twice as expensive and we want our creatures to enter from the graveyard most of the time, anyway. That happens via Instants and Sorceries. But the main benefit of Boseiju is helping to push through cards like Merciless Eviction.
3.) Try to load up on more utilitarian sweepers. If you have a problem with Artifacts and Enchantments, Austere Command is beautiful for it's versatility.
4.) If you're not above direct deck/meta hating, there's Stromgald Cabal, for countering things like Kismet, Blind Obedience and other White Stax spells, depending on how heavy of a concentration these effects are in White.
5.) Faster Reanimation. Turn 1 Entomb into a Turn 2 (or same turn, depending) Sheoldred, Whispering One is very hard to answer without immediate removal. If you're facing down a Winter Orb then Exhume and Unearth are great cheap removal spells that can get you a Mangara of Corondor to hopefully turn around and Exile one of their Enchantments or Artifacts.
6.) Enchantment-specific hate. We don't run that many Enchantments, so there are options like Cleansing Meditation, Parasalene, and Tempest of Light. If you don't want to seem like you're outright hating that particular person out, Nova Cleric appears as a utilitarian creature you can fetch with tutors or Recruiter of the Guard.
7.) Artifact-specific hate. Kataki, War's Wage can help stop them in their tracks.
8.) Beat them at their own game. If you can find a card like Bitterblossom that gives you a free Creature token every turn, then you can play Smokestack or Contamination and shut them down in kind. Hanweir Militia Captain is an okay budget option that flips into Westvale Cult Leader if you can get enough creatures out to support it. Last night I was testing Queen Marchesa and let someone else have The Monarch so I could keep generating a 1/1 Assassin to sacrifice to Contamination every turn to keep it on the board. They were a UW player but they couldn't play anything because of Contamination, so I didn't care that they were drawing an extra card each turn. Eventually I got a Sorin, Lord of Innistard out and put out Call to the Grave. Wasn't too fun for them, but hey sometimes they need some of their own medicine.
Stax decks are admittedly very difficult to play around, but if you know you're playing a Commander that is built for one beforehand, you can at least try to adapt by doing a mulligan for answers or make some adjustments for if you face those things commonly. There are enough exile and mass removal effects in Ayli to maneuver around these effects and eventually take them out. Decks like the one described tend to be a one trick pony and they invest a lot in setting up ASAP, meaning if you can work with the other players at the table to resolve the issue of the Stax player and dismount their board state, they usually have a really hard time rebounding. If their Commander is what enables them to get away with having so many global Stax effects on the board, keep him off of the board at any costs.
(Also known as Xenphire)
But the best news this week is that I finally obtained Kaya, Ghost Assassin! I've decided to replace Profane Command for now to play her, because I found that I very seldom cared about drawing or searching for it. I'm still on the hunt for Recruiter of the Guard.
I hope everyone's been enjoying their Ayli decks and look forward to hearing about your own games, experiences and modifications, as always!
(Also known as Xenphire)
First of all, I wish that game was recorded as well! I would love to see some game play from you, so I can better understand the deck. Secondly, Congrats on Kaya! I hope you'll love her. Good luck on Recruiter of the Guard...I hope you can obtain one soon.
Is there anything from Commander2016 you're looking forward to?
In a recent game, I lived the dream of Angelic Renewal and Sun Titan, with Ayli as the Sac outlet...the table was not happy....gained 36 life and began exiling things. The next game, Recruiter into Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed into a recurred Merciless Eviction. The more games I play with the deck, which is heavily influenced by your decklist albeit with a few of my own touches...the more I love it. I wanted to thank you for everything you've done.
Here it is at it's current point:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ayli-commander-life-of-attrition/
Ultimately, there are many much better and more consistent ways to draw cards than Tymna the Weaver. She's not awful, but she's in many ways the antithesis of what this deck is meant to do - glide under the radar and play politics to your advantage to win. Any time you begin attacking your opponents, you're engaging them and asking them to attack you back. We have ample answers for aggressors but are not ones to instigate. So with that said, I'll be passing on trying out Tymna due to her conflicting with what we do with Ayli.
In other good news for those on a budget, Beacon of Unrest was spoiled as being reprinted which means it's price should drop.
Selfless Squire is an interesting and fun utility card but probably won't make it into the deck. We have enough removal and answers to aggressors that it ultimately feels unnecessary, though it is fetchable with Recruiter of the Guard.
Sublime Exhalation will probably be a $1.00 card and thus another nice budget option for board wipes. For those not worrying about budget, Wrath of God is still better and worth the extra mana to prevent creatures from regenerating, and doesn't get worse as the game progresses (eg. less opponents to make it cost less). Eventually it becomes Day of Judgment or worse.
Lastly, Cruel Entertainment is an interesting and fun looking card that doesn't exile itself (meaning you can bring it back to play later with Xiahou-Dun, the One-Eyed or re-cast it with Yawgmoth's Will). I won't be going out of my way to test it or make room for it because it's a cute effect, but has a lot of potential to come back to haunt us when those turns happen. Personally, I plan for and anticipate my opponents behaving certain ways, and it can throw that all out the window. It doesn't particular further our game plan, but is a fun chaos card if someone feels inclined to play it.
I'll be updating with any other cards that I feel are noteworthy for Ayli as previews continue
(Also known as Xenphire)
Ravos, Soultender - Far more interesting than Tymna the Leader for what we do, but of questionable usefulness nontheless. The +1/+1 to our creatures isn't too relevant, unless you're playing a combat oriented Tokens build (personally as tokens I would still be focused more on combo than combat). His second ability is the more interesting part since he can help bring back creatures to cast later. He does suffer the same problem that Athreos, God of Passage does, though: We want to be reanimating from our graveyard, not re-casting. He can fill a niche that Volrath's Stronghold normally does in this deck but not nearly as well, as you can respond to graveyard hate with Volrath's Stronghold when targeted with graveyard hate. Probably won't be fitting him into the deck, but he'd be interesting to build his own deck around, I think.
(Also known as Xenphire)
I'm still deciding on that, myself! Redundancy on important effects is important. My primary issue with Magus of the Will is that it telegraphs what we're about to do. Personally, I don't run Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots because I find I just don't really need them. So, I know personally I won't give him haste or target removal protection. Spending 6 mana for Yawgmoth'a Will effect also eats up a lot of mana we could use to cast those spells, so I presume we need him to be on the field for a turn before we use him.
The upsides are numerous, however. One is that being a creature means we can sacrifice him in response to Exile effects to store him in the graveyard to bring back later. He's a 3/3 so mini-board wipes like Infest or a low powered Black Sun's Zenith to wipe out an army of Elves, Goblins or tokens won't kill him. But the effect is so powerful that it is hard not to want the opportunity to have a second set. Also worth noting is that we can put him on Mimic Vat, which I've played in the past to great effect (it was removed for being unfun, but extremely effective in Ayli nonetheless - I'm often tempted to play it again). You can also activate him at Instant speed, making him a Yawgmoth's Will playable on an opponent's turn or end step.
The biggest consideration is what opponents will do, though. I talk about politics a lot and how Ayli pulls the strings from the back of the group, playing the silent hand. Many groups will see it and say "Oh hell no" and try their best to keep it off of the battlefield starting immediately. You may gain an ally who sees some advantage for themselves in letting you keep it. It'll certainly create a very sudden and interesting shift in the dynamic of the game at the time. Generally they will get a turn to respond to him unless reanimating him with Corpse Dance or Necromancy, or making clones with Mimic Vat . But, I think my verdict is he'll be worth it. More testing to do
I've typed all this up on my phone, so when I'm at a computer tomorrow evening I'll write up a review of the rest of the Commander 2016 decks and potential swaps and other thoughts!
(Also known as Xenphire)
But I really enjoyed your post (and music list!). Tool - Aenima (the song) would not be remiss.
I do wonder why you don't run or even mention Austere Command which is to me a nigh perfect toolbox sweeper. I know it doesn't exile but I'm always happy when I play it because of the versatility and the way you can tailor the sweep to hurt the opponents the most.
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Hey there, Thijs
As for your question, it involves a short story
For the most part I'd say Ugin ended up replacing Austere Command, even though he doesn't hit Artifacts. But, it's one of the best options among a whole lot of great sweepers in the colors. There's so many cards I want to fit in but I don't mess with the formula too much because it feels just right where it's sitting for now. Toxic Deluge, Black Sun's Zenith and Massacre Wurm are a few others I really like a lot. Ultimately it's about right where it needs to be for my meta, which has a wide range of decks and player mentalities. When Captain Sisay became really popular at my game stores for whatever reason I ended up running Black Sun's Zenith for a bit to get around Avacyn, Angel of Hope + Archtype of Endurance and other Stax cards. In a consistently very aggressive meta I'd probably take out Sorin, Grim Nemesis for Austere Command. I have a few flex slots that sway back and forth as I test new cards as they come out. This year has been surprisingly heavy on the amount of decent cards for the deck that I feel could make the cut in a deck that's has been trimmed so tight
(Also known as Xenphire)
I'm sure I'll revisit to reread your post 'cause it contains more info than I can process in one sitting.
Enjoy!
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.