MTG Salvation

Quote from Dragonwyre »

What about Reflecting Pool? So many dual colored lands it should work. Doesn't cost life to tap.

I've never invested in a Reflecting Pool, as it doesn't fix a color that you might be missing in certain situations. I've always been a fetch-land into duel lands, with the 5-color lands that deal damage almost having no downside in 40 life commander. I guess sometimes it's just a preference thing.

Hey darrenhahib, I was reading and saw where you said you've played around 50 games with the Astral Genesis deck. Are you playing on Magic Online? Just curious what platform you're testing on 😊

Very much interested to see how this version develops!

Quote from Kelzam »

Hey darrenhahib, I was reading and saw where you said you've played around 50 games with the Astral Genesis deck. Are you playing on Magic Online? Just curious what platform you're testing on

Very much interested to see how this version develops!

Yes Magic Online is where I get reps in, but I have a commander group for paper as well.
The thing with online is that people don't know what you're playing fully, so the Living End and Hypergenesis is totally unexpected and not planned for by opponents, so in this respect it's not a true indication of play testing, but I don't play these sorts of decks for any serious competitiveness.

Quote from darrenhabib »

Quote from Kelzam »

Hey darrenhahib, I was reading and saw where you said you've played around 50 games with the Astral Genesis deck. Are you playing on Magic Online? Just curious what platform you're testing on

Very much interested to see how this version develops!

Yes Magic Online is where I get reps in, but I have a commander group for paper as well.
The thing with online is that people don't know what you're playing fully, so the Living End and Hypergenesis is totally unexpected and not planned for by opponents, so in this respect it's not a true indication of play testing, but I don't play these sorts of decks for any serious competitiveness.

Understood 😊 I was just curious - wasn't judging by any means! I'm actually interested in this because I already have so many "get easy value" competitive decks (Windgrace, Maelstrom Wanderer, Jhoira) and was brainstorming (fyi that autocorrected to barnstorming and it's not even wrong) how to do Niv-Mizzet that wasn't just doing Superfriends as a copout or another straight play-all-this-goodstuff-value.dec. so the Astral Genssis build you have here has really piqued my interest 😊

Quote from darrenhabib »

Quote from Dragonwyre »

What about Reflecting Pool? So many dual colored lands it should work. Doesn't cost life to tap.

I've never invested in a Reflecting Pool, as it doesn't fix a color that you might be missing in certain situations. I've always been a fetch-land into duel lands, with the 5-color lands that deal damage almost having no downside in 40 life commander. I guess sometimes it's just a preference thing.

Fair enough. After playing a few times I made a few changes. Kaervek the Merciless has been fun and I am trying to decide between Deadbridge Chant and Pharika's Mender to round out golgari as I removed Gleancrawler. Also fun thought is that the Gods count as creatures in the hand and graveyard so some of them could work nicely. Specifically Xenagos, God of Revels, Mogis, God of Slaughter, and Iroas, God of Victory. To a lesser extent Ephara, God of the Polis, Keranos, God of Storms, Phenax, God of Deception could also be options.

Quote from darrenhabib »

I should really change the thread explanation, and have the idea of the Astral Slide as kind of a bonus, rather than the name sake of the deck. But I would have never gotten the core idea of the cascade plan without it, so just left the thread as the original theory-crafting explanation.
I've probably played like 50 games and had a proper Astral Slide setup twice. But I still win a lot of games, because the Living End or Hypergenesis just end up being too much for opponents, with just a single/few Niv-Mizzet Reborn triggers.

I see, I felt that after playing with it once. Two triggers of Niv provides so strong of a lead that my play group started aggressively countering him after seeing it in action. That being said though, I definitely think Astral Slide is the way to build the deck because once you get going it becomes very hard for them to remove Niv or to stop your advantage from growing. The regular cycling cards felt like dead cards most of the time, Niv's primary weakness is that he can't get lands or artifacts, so ramp and hitting land drops are a problem for the deck. Using Land Cycling cards or Borderposts is the main way to cover that flaw, and the Cycling version definitely feels better. I added in Astral Drift for testing purposes and it helped me get the effect in play more often.

Actually as it turns out Rakdos, Lord of Riots has been the least useful of the creatures. Never cast it on Turn 4 (of course) and the colorless portion can only be used on creatures.
Then Golgari Findbroker has also been something I just never used. Really need fetch land to get any use, as I don't want to put creatures back into my hand just in case of Living...stuff.

I definitely see your point on Rakdos and I'll be removing him too. He hardly ever did anything meaningful besides being a body to punch with, which I could use any big creature card for. Golgari Findbroker also felt like a bit of a non-bo to me, I ended up taking him out as well.

Yeah I guess because it doesn't have an ability that is very relevant to commander, that I didn't end up adding it, although haste to all creatures is suuuuper great if you have it. Just killing off the person that could deal with your board means that you normally win the game in that situation.
I have to say much like Astral Slide, I have cast Immortal Servitude only a couple of times. Casting it for 9 mana to get the 6 drops has only happened when I had Cadaverous Bloom to fuel the mana to cast it.
So in the end, distributing your casting costs, doesn't really matter long term for the deck.

I just treated that part of him as flavor text honestly, being able to pull five things out of you graveyard and give them haste is just so powerful for blowing people up. If you happen to hit Aurelia or Medomai with haste enabled it's game over for at least one player usually.The haste enable is ridiculously potent, and I have some bonus spice about it at the bottom of my post. I think part of the woes of trying to hit Immortal Servitude for X = 6 is that there are only four sources of real ramp in the deck: Mirari's Wake, Cadaverous Bloom, The Gitrog Monster and Mina and Denn, Wildborn, but I was still able to hit it twice in one night of playing and once in the other night.

I NEVER have mana spare, certainly not three in opponents turns. I was thinking about Force of Will as a non-color paired card that I might naturally draw, and I just did a count of 26 blue cards, which is fine considering Niv-Miz draw into blue cards as well. There is also Force of Negation, which could be worth considering as well.

Yeah, I felt that entirely. I think I made the mistake of leaning on Wilderness Reclamation too much in my idea of having counter spells. I don't feel like that card helps very much outside of leaning VERY heavily on the Astral cycle plan after you've already established a board state because this deck doesn't play at instant speed for most of its powerful effects. Wilderness Reclamation is an absurdly powerful card, but I feel it shines far more brightly in decks with a ton of instant effects or ways to enable flash. Only twenty cards in the deck, if we include every cycling card, are usable at instant speed and there are no enablers for flash. I'll have to try it again next time my group meets, maybe I just need to be aggressively tutoring for it to set up Niv, Astral, and Wilderness Reclamation with a cycling card in hand. I think I'm ultimately going to keep it removed unless I have a change of heart.

Currently, our lists differ by these cards:

Yours
Force of Will - You added it after our discussion about counter spells. I think I may have been going down the wrong path by thinking of counter spells, but this is arguably the best one ever printed so it might be worth keeping even if Niv can't fish for it.
Wilderness Reclamation - I gave some thoughts about it above, I think it's too narrow for my tastes and I don't like that Niv can't fish for it.
Angel of Despair - I needed to cut one thing from Orzhov and this seemed like the right choice over Ashen Rider because exile is more potent and it can trigger twice situationally.

Mine
Astral Drift - I put in a proxy of it to test with, it definitely feels good to hit the Astral effect more consistently while also providing an enabler or one time use version of the effect.
Molderhulk - I wanted to round out Golgari a bit more, and this guy provides some ramp if you've been cycling or discarding to hand size. He also ends up being a much easier to cast version of Rakdos' 6/6 body.
Rhythm of the Wild - I found a unique answer to the "counter war" problem I was facing, and it also acts as a haste enabler or an anthem if you already have a haste enabler. I kept it in my opener for the turn three play and it ensured Niv hit the table, I felt really good about it.

Do you mind sharing your thoughts about the recent changes you made and if you have any on these few cards?

EDIT: Soulherder got spoiled literally right after I posted. Do you think it's worth replacing Swans of Bryn Argoll for?

Quote from SirGregarious »

Currently, our lists differ by these cards:

Yours
Force of Will - You added it after our discussion about counter spells. I think I may have been going down the wrong path by thinking of counter spells, but this is arguably the best one ever printed so it might be worth keeping even if Niv can't fish for it.
Wilderness Reclamation - I gave some thoughts about it above, I think it's too narrow for my tastes and I don't like that Niv can't fish for it.
Angel of Despair - I needed to cut one thing from Orzhov and this seemed like the right choice over Ashen Rider because exile is more potent and it can trigger twice situationally.

Mine
Astral Drift - I put in a proxy of it to test with, it definitely feels good to hit the Astral effect more consistently while also providing an enabler or one time use version of the effect.
Molderhulk - I wanted to round out Golgari a bit more, and this guy provides some ramp if you've been cycling or discarding to hand size. He also ends up being a much easier to cast version of Rakdos' 6/6 body.
Rhythm of the Wild - I found a unique answer to the "counter war" problem I was facing, and it also acts as a haste enabler or an anthem if you already have a haste enabler. I kept it in my opener for the turn three play and it ensured Niv hit the table, I felt really good about it.

Do you mind sharing your thoughts about the recent changes you made and if you have any on these few cards?

Soulherder got spoiled literally right after I posted. Do you think it's worth replacing Swans of Bryn Argoll for?

Sorry for the late reply.

Soulherder is perfect

I will be adding Soulherder (to both decks) and of course Astral Drift once I get my hands on them.

As far as mono-colored cards, they have to do something special for the deck for sure. Seedborn Muse is normally better than Wilderness Reclamation, but the curve of Astral Slide, Wilderness Reclamation, Niv-Mizzet Reborn is what we are aiming for. Have I eve had that? No, lol. But Wilderness Reclamation has proven to be fine.
I have to say just drawing Force of Will naturally does feel pretty good. However, if you're a good player, you can find opportunities to slip a cascade under a counterspell, especially with Violent Outburst at instant speed.
I thought about New Perspectives as a mono-colored alternative, but the cost isn't really worth it.
Archfiend of Ifnir is another mono-colored card that would be great.
Too be honest it's a bit too much of a can-of-worms thinking about mono-colored cards, as one of the simplicity of Niv-Mizzet Reborn is that you can concentrate on color-paired cards. If I have to think about the 15,000 odd cards I think my mind will explode

Rhythm of the Wild could definitely be a winner. Time and time again haste to all creatures has been a winning combination.

---

Pretty much the recurring thing that has happened in games is that I wish I had ways to remove creatures from opponents graveyards during longer games with Astral-Living-Genesis with setting up Living End, Living Death and Pyrrhic Revival.
So I've added Ashiok, Dream Render, Kaya, Orzhov Usurper and Kaya's Guile to do this.

Astral-Living-Genesis
Added
+ Ashiok, Dream Render
+ Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
+ Kaya's Guile

Removed
- Angel of Despair
- Swans of Bryn Argoll
- Leave // Chance

I found Swans of Bryn Argoll is often a liability as opponents have turned it around and used it for card draw by targeting it for damage. So you can't play it out. Even with the combo of Niv-Mizzet, Parun or Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind I've not used it because by that stage I've already combo'ed.
Angel of Despair was fine, but I'm putting in two Orzov cards so..
Leave // Chance is the slowest of the discard lot.

You're missing the best card that solves the how to cast a fist full of cards, Prophet of Kruphix. It is another simic card, but worth the inclusion. Allows you to unload your creatures on the opponents turn, gives you mana for instant speed interaction, and is found by Niv.

Quote from Makarzorklin »

You're missing the best card that solves the how to cast a fist full of cards, Prophet of Kruphix. It is another simic card, but worth the inclusion. Allows you to unload your creatures on the opponents turn, gives you mana for instant speed interaction, and is found by Niv.

That's because Prophet of Kruphix is banned.