Had oathbreaker in the back of my head as spoilers have been rolling out, and wrenn seems like a golden opportunity. Low cost makes him easy to get out and start abusing quickly, and makes it easy to start casting his associated spell ASAP.
Decklist in progress, but I thought I'd throw out my ideas.
Spell: mostly contemplating summer bloom. This lets us have incredibly explosive starts and drives what the rest of the deck is capable of. And wrenn fuels it.
Deck composition: mostly lands. Like, 75%+.
Early plan: spirit guides, mox diamond (omfg it's soooo good here it hurts), get out wrenn t1 if possible. Fetches should give a target immediately (plus we got a new one, so there's at least 8).
Turn 2 we drop summer bloom, possibly twice(!).
Late-game: ok, we've got a million mana on turn 3, now what?
Got a few ideas, but my favorites are mostly LD-based. Primarily wildfire, in particular, seems insane. Clear off all threats to wrenn, while nuking everyone back to the Bronze Age while you still have a handful of lands, recursion, and inevitability.
We can also strip lock like a bastard. Hey, it's legal.
Between those two sorts of things, I think our opponents will be struggling to accomplish anything. We're dropping land and board wipes t3. Yikes.
As far as actually winning, maybe burn? Maybe if we throw in some minor life gain/damage we can just burn to win via repeated wildfire-type stuff? Although fetches might add up.
Could also throw in dumb stuff like avenger of zendikar, idk. Dropping that t3 oughta raise an eyebrow or two.
Anyway I'm open to ideas. This was just the ideas I had from my initial brainstorm.
I was thinking of playing with crop rotation as my signature spell to have a great tutor and guarentee we have a target for Wrenn. I don't see a reason why not to run dark depths/stage as the wincon. Something like avenger or Titania sounds like a fine back up plan.
I was thinking of playing with crop rotation as my signature spell to have a great tutor and guarentee we have a target for Wrenn. I don't see a reason why not to run dark depths/stage as the wincon. Something like avenger or Titania sounds like a fine back up plan.
I agree with that. Summer bloom basically means you need something like 3 mana source in hand t1 to take advantage of it (wreen gets you 1 back and you need the other 3 - also you need some accel to actually do this). Crop rotation just requires 1 land and a way to get 1 more mana for close to the best case, like, turn 1 land, whatever accel, wreen, turn 2, crop rotation for strip mine, hit one land, bring strip mine back, if you went first just play it and hit their land on the next turn otherwise blow up their second land. You now have them locked. At some point, they run out of lands and you go for dark depths/Thespian's Stage.
I guess agro decks would be a problem though (if they got some creature down turn 1 - or 2 if they went first - wreen is basically toast).
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Crop rotation (or sylvan scrying or something) for strip mine seems super strong (broken really) for 1v1, but I'm not sure how good it is for multiplayer. Strip lock is basically out of the question unless you've got a way to play additional lands as well, so which land(s) are you hitting off crop rotation?
Obviously the deck would be extremely warped around having summer bloom in the opener. When you can guarantee summer bloom on turn 2-3, 75%+ lands seems very reasonable, since it almost guarantees you can slam a game-winning threat on turn 3-4. And having a 2-drop planeswalker also means we've got a way to guarantee additional lands on follow-up turns, or raw CA if we're cycling lands.
More than anything, this strat just oozes consistency imo. You're almost guaranteed to have massive mana very quickly, with a planeswalker generating CA and a deck with the spiciest bombs available dropping extremely quickly. It's like tron, if you got to start with tron in the command zone.
is there no way to link wren and six here for reference?
The new horizon land and other lands in combination with cycling lands that gives you card drawing is essential to keep this deck churning. seems very good. Is mana denial into concession the chief win-con here then?
I haven't checked, but i assume sundering titan is banned, right? I use it in legacy, and it's a pretty efficient wincon by itself even without welder shenanigans!
I don't think there's enough mana denial to go all-in on it. I think I'm planning to have a combo of mana denial and tron-style wincons like karn1.0, ugin1.0, maybe some eldrazi.
You just write the name in card tags like normal: wrenn and six
The only hard part is to spell the name.
I think the crop rotation one was mainly for 1v1, where it seems broken as you said.
I am unsure how well this would work. Like, you would need say 8 lands for the big bombs like eldrazi (more really I guess).
If the first few bombs gets blown up in various ways (which I would expect in competive play - stp say), then the number of lands you are playing over everybody else will hurt a lot.
I guess you can try for some mana denial as you said, but say that you drop a red mass ld turn 4 or so (I assume you need to do something by turn 4 to have a chance in this format). Now, everybody needs to rebuild and wrenn helps you here, but you need to get to 4 mana (at least) to play summer bloom again, since it was likely played once before. At that point, I guess you can ultimate wreen and do the mass ld every 6th turn. That would be devasting, but if someone went for you and kept their lands back the first time, he likely could kill you between turn 4 and 10. Also, you need to win somehow.
Besides that, I am not sure if turn 4 reset is fast enough. It could be, but I am not certain. I could easily see this format becoming faster than that.
Actually, i thought the mana denial package would include some number of stax effects like reaper9889 says. you forgot 3ball, by the way. that basically locks out players if they're always on 0-2 lands.
could you run a sneaky seismic assault as a wincon? or lightning storm? especially if you've got retrace on, you can quite easily cast it every turn after a while.
also, is there an argument for atarka's command as the sig instead? sure you're stuck on playing 2 lands instead, but the flexibility of stopping someone's aetherflux reservoir combo, or as reach at the end of the game seems useful too.
I am unsure how well this would work. Like, you would need say 8 lands for the big bombs like eldrazi (more really I guess).
If the first few bombs gets blown up in various ways (which I would expect in competive play - stp say), then the number of lands you are playing over everybody else will hurt a lot.
I guess you can try for some mana denial as you said, but say that you drop a red mass ld turn 4 or so (I assume you need to do something by turn 4 to have a chance in this format). Now, everybody needs to rebuild and wrenn helps you here, but you need to get to 4 mana (at least) to play summer bloom again, since it was likely played once before. At that point, I guess you can ultimate wreen and do the mass ld every 6th turn. That would be devasting, but if someone went for you and kept their lands back the first time, he likely could kill you between turn 4 and 10. Also, you need to win somehow.
Besides that, I am not sure if turn 4 reset is fast enough. It could be, but I am not certain. I could easily see this format becoming faster than that.
I wouldn't be running (probably) full resets, but sac-based resets like wildfire. That way I always have some lands left, while the other players have few or none, while also clearing out the creatures. Summer bloom shouldn't need to be played really after T2-3, but it might help occasionally.
Also the deck can use cycling lands to draw a ton of cards and offset the downside of having a high density of lands. And most threats the deck is likely to run with either have powerful cast/etb effects (avenger of zendikar, eldrazi titans), be instant/sorceries (wildfire, rites of ruin), or be difficult to kill (karn, ugin). That's kind of how tron works, which is what we're basically emulating.
Could I still get shut down if people counter/kill everything I play? I mean sure, obviously, what do you expect? No deck can reliably win when getting focused by multiple strong control decks. But they better have the right answers at the right time, or they're getting knocked out fast.
Actually, i thought the mana denial package would include some number of stax effects like reaper9889 says. you forgot 3ball, by the way. that basically locks out players if they're always on 0-2 lands.
could you run a sneaky seismic assault as a wincon? or lightning storm? especially if you've got retrace on, you can quite easily cast it every turn after a while.
also, is there an argument for atarka's command as the sig instead? sure you're stuck on playing 2 lands instead, but the flexibility of stopping someone's aetherflux reservoir combo, or as reach at the end of the game seems useful too.
Trinisphere and co could be interesting. The only thing I don't like is that it doesn't really work as a threat, and doesn't catch us back up if our opponents deployed aggressively to the board on T1-2. Not sure on the assault or lightning storm. I think probably we'd rather play more mana-intensive spells with greater impacts.
Atarka's command I really can't see. The other modes are all way too niche. We run few creatures, lifegain stoppage is very niche(is reservoir even a good wincon in a 20-life format? I mean maybe for storm specifically but otherwise I think not), and bolting face is not our jam at all. Meanwhile getting 1 land instead of 3 means we're playing rampant growth instead of gilded lotus on turn 2. waaaaaaaaay less exciting.
Think your best win con here is gonna be punishinggrove tbh. Seems the most compact and hard to interact with outside of 'Yard hate, which you can play around.
Think your best win con here is gonna be punishinggrove tbh. Seems the most compact and hard to interact with outside of 'Yard hate, which you can play around.
I did see that when I was perusing lands decklists for ideas, so I thought about it a little.
I guess it must have some validity since it sees competitive play there, but considering they're both 1-ofs I think that cuts down the effectiveness considerably. It's really hard to draw both, since we probably aren't running any land tutors and instant tutors hardly exist. It's also much slower to kill an entire table instead of just 1 opponent. In fact it's pretty counterproductive as a kill tool since you're probably healing a total of more than 2 life every time you tap the land. I guess you still win eventually because you focus down one person at a time, but it'd take ages to kill 3 players on its own. With lands you can recur multiple punishing fires with each activation, and do it repeatedly with multiple groves, but that's not really an option here (I mean, we can copy groves with vesuva and such).
I think at best it's a control tool, not a wincon. And I'd be a lot more likely to use it in a version around crop rotation, since at least then you only need to luck into drawing one of the pieces to put the combo together.
Think your best win con here is gonna be punishinggrove tbh. Seems the most compact and hard to interact with outside of 'Yard hate, which you can play around.
I did see that when I was perusing lands decklists for ideas, so I thought about it a little.
I guess it must have some validity since it sees competitive play there, but considering they're both 1-ofs I think that cuts down the effectiveness considerably. It's really hard to draw both, since we probably aren't running any land tutors and instant tutors hardly exist. It's also much slower to kill an entire table instead of just 1 opponent. In fact it's pretty counterproductive as a kill tool since you're probably healing a total of more than 2 life every time you tap the land. I guess you still win eventually because you focus down one person at a time, but it'd take ages to kill 3 players on its own. With lands you can recur multiple punishing fires with each activation, and do it repeatedly with multiple groves, but that's not really an option here (I mean, we can copy groves with vesuva and such).
I think at best it's a control tool, not a wincon. And I'd be a lot more likely to use it in a version around crop rotation, since at least then you only need to luck into drawing one of the pieces to put the combo together.
I think Crop Rotation should be the sig spell, tbh. That, or Realms Uncharted. Probably Realms, W&S can break the symmetry easier and the value is insane.
Punishing Fire as a win con is inevitability. They take two every casting and gain 1 when you recur it for 1RR. Once they see the combo and they don't have the answer, they concede because they're defeated. They know they can't stick a guy or a walker, you'll burn it. If they don't. they slowly get burned out instead.
Man, I can't believe no one else is as sold on summer bloom as I am. I mean, tutoring 3-4 lands to hand is neat and all (you'll have to discard a lot of them anyway, though), but compared to having nearly-guaranteed 7+ lands on turn 3 or 4? It seems like a fine value plan, but the opportunity to have such an explosive start seems way more valuable to me. Idk, testing is required I suppose.
All someone has to do is play a 5+ health minion (well, maybe 6+ because of wrenn's ping) and that gets around punishing fire. Or, since you have multiple opponents, they could just all drop creatures at once and you'll never be able to kill them all. Not to mention, with 3 opponents you're handing out 3 life every time you tap your land.
I really have a hard time imagining it scaling well. Compared to legacy...
We get 1/4 as many groves (which is less relevant if we have a tutor in the CZ, but it still means we only get one naturally and have to use copying for any others)
We get 1/4 as many punishing fires, which we have almost no way to tutor for and no way to copy that I'm aware of
We have 3x as many opponents, making lifegain from grove 3x worse
We have 3x as much enemy life to burn down
We have 3x as many opponents creatures to control
It just seems so much worse, in so many ways, that I can't imagine it'll perform at all the same. Maybe it's still worth including, but I really doubt it'll be a critical centerpiece of the deck or anything.
that's why i thought the atarka's command could work. since mana's not a limiting factor for you (sorta), it can do 6 damage to each opponent when it's time to switch from ramp to kill. I'm not sure if the opponents not being able to gain life would ever be relevant, but you never know. I've built a nourishing-lich deck before (not great though).
But i can tell you're not sold, and that's fine. oh wait.. a good wincon is something like a rolling thunder. if you've got all the mana in the world, you can just do that, right? or that 6 mana 6/6 vigilance beater that hits people for 6 every time they cast a non-creature spell?
Is there going to be a mana denial plan, by the way? 'cuz if so, and you're planning to prison them out, you don't actually need a wincon. 'cuz anything that can poke a damage becomes the wincon. simian spirit guide beats?
Maybe I'm misreading you, but it seems like you're thinking you can pick the same mode twice for atarka's command. Which unfortunately you can't do.
I don't think this is planning to be a huge mana deck. Like we're probably not getting to more than 12 mana very often. Our biggest tempo advantage will be turn 3-4 when we have 7+ and everyone else has 3-5. That's when we need to take maximum advantage by playing something devastating before our opponents can deal with it.
So I don't think rolling thunder is going to make sense. It's pretty low-impact as a 7-drop.
Can't you? ok then. I was just under the impression that you can choose the same mode more than once. In that case, i get why you're not liking it.
whoops not rolling thunder.. fanning the flames i meant. It's not great still, but having a reusable kill spell can be good. But if you're not planning to go for the big mana game, then i'm not really sure what can work as a wincon. ember swallower? hahaha seems pretty bad.
But burning sands-esque effects could be your ticket to win. something that stops your opponent from wanting to power forward, while keeping their mana count down.
I did a fair bit of math to decide how I felt about the land/bomb ratio, as well as the costs, and what I basically decided was that I could either have a deck with a very high ratio (75% or so) and insane 10-drop bombs like eldrazi and the like, or I could go for a lower land count and focus around the 6-drop spot. This basically comes down to - do I want to play wrenn T1, ramp once t2, play bomb t3, or would I rather play wrenn t2, ramp twice t3, and play a huge bomb on t4. You can still get lucky and have fast mana into wrenn t1 and still ramp twice on t2 (as long as your fast mana sticks around), but that requires a very high land density and low odds, and it diminishes the value of the spirit guides etc since you can't accelerate your 10-drops meaningfully without a permanent ramp t1 for W&6. This generally means the deck is more fragile since it's more reliant on keeping W&6 alive (made more difficult when he has to survive until t3 usually) and 10-drops are going to be straight uncastable without the early game succeeding. Whereas the 6-ish drops are conceivably castable even if we're massively disrupted and never get to cast summer bloom. And finally, it means we have a lot more threats, which means more keepable hands and lower odds of flooding out.
Ok, so all the to say - our default gameplan is T1 W&6 into T2 bloom and T3 bomb, usually of the 6-7 cost variety. There are also some cheaper pseudo-bombs that can deployed T2 after bloom, still allowing for the normal, expensive bomb to be dropped on the next turn.
It's a lot less controlly than I had original envisioned, mostly because besides wildfire I don't think the other "each player sacrifices X land cards" are nearly as good. Wildfire fits nicely into our curve and wipes the board - anything that costs 7 has a greater chance of not being castable early, and a lot of the other options don't clear the board which means our commander will likely die. There's also the risk of sacrificing more lands than we'd like, for some of them. The only one I think seems reasonable for the plan as I envision it now is rite of ruin, since that should clear the board while not forcing us to sacrifice an excessive number of lands. But it doesn't clear enemy planeswalkers, so that's still an issue. We'll see how the format plays, but right now I'm aiming to be extremely proactive and aggressive unless that's proven to not be viable.
Anyway, so that's the decklist. Open to suggestions, of course.
I would try to fit Countryside Crusher. It gives you much more gas AND grows based on your sac lands AND makes wrenns ability better.
Also, I feel that Protean Hulk is better than Wurmcoil Engine. If they play a wrath on the former with a few more creatures out, they are likely to be in a worse position than before the wrath while better on the latter. I guess the lifelink is better but I am not sure how often it comes up(i.e. the difference in your life total). The deathtouch seems irrelevant.
Smokestack could work for you I think (on 2 say?). Maybe too slow though.
I was actually reasonably thoughtful with the land selection - you may also notice the conspicuous absence of rootbound crag. The reason both these lands are missing is because our primary goal as far as fixing is always to cast W&6, ideally on turn 1, and neither of those lands is capable of producing mana on turn 1 (at least, not normally). Given that casting W&6 requires having both colors of mana already, I don't think there's much need for fixing lands that can't help cast W&6 by entering untapped on T1.
I also do just like mossfire valley here, though. It always enters untapped, it helps us generate exactly W&6 mana, and the primary risks associated with it - not having another land to fuel it, not needing one color of mana when trying to generate the other, needing only 1 mana at a time - are basically negligible since we'll almost always have lots of lands, and none of our costs are too crazy color heavy or need just 1 mana. There's no primalcruxes or anything like that.
Countryside crusher is a really interesting one, I did decide to cut it but I could definitely be wrong. I think I'll see how the deck is playing, and whether I want another 1-3 drop pseudo-bomb.
TBH I'm not huge on wurmcoil, it's partly just in there because tron runs it. Anything with medium power and no evasion seems....eh. The lifelink is nice at least, but I think it scales a lot less well in multiplayer than 1v1. The difference between 6 and 7 is pretty huge, though, since 6 is castable t3 with any fast mana, whereas 7 is only castable t3 with one of the three permanent fast mana (one of which only works if you don't start first, and the others have their own requirements). And without lifelink, hulk can just be ignored a lot more safely than wurmcoil. But maybe I should be running neither and kick up the land count.
That does remind me, I forgot to put in high market.
Smokestack definitely has possibilities, it's a lot stronger T2 than T3 but that's just luck of the draw. It is a bit slow, but it does also kinda win the game single-handedly almost, if it doesn't get removed. If W&6 ever die we're in trouble though.
GSZ is one I cut and now I think I might have been wrong. Just because it basically works as scute mob #2 (1 vs 2 cost being basically negligible) that can also be a bigger bomb when we have the mana. So maybe I should replace wurmcoil with that.
1 Wrenn and Six
1 Summer Bloom
Bombs (18)
1 Scute Mob
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
1 Budoka Gardner
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Stolen Strategy
1 Nesting Dragon
1 Wildfire
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 Rampaging Baloths
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
1 Dragon Broodmother
1 Inferno Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Omnath, Locus of Rage
1 Panglacial Wurm
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Chancellor of the Tangle
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Amber
Land (32)
7 fetches
1 Taiga
1 Stomping Grounds
1 Prismatic Vista
1 Mossfire Valley
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Sheltered Thicket
1 Spire Garden
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Command Tower
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Raging Ravine
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Blasted Landscape
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
4 Forest
4 Mountain
Wrenn and Six
Had oathbreaker in the back of my head as spoilers have been rolling out, and wrenn seems like a golden opportunity. Low cost makes him easy to get out and start abusing quickly, and makes it easy to start casting his associated spell ASAP.
Decklist in progress, but I thought I'd throw out my ideas.
Spell: mostly contemplating summer bloom. This lets us have incredibly explosive starts and drives what the rest of the deck is capable of. And wrenn fuels it.
Deck composition: mostly lands. Like, 75%+.
Early plan: spirit guides, mox diamond (omfg it's soooo good here it hurts), get out wrenn t1 if possible. Fetches should give a target immediately (plus we got a new one, so there's at least 8).
Turn 2 we drop summer bloom, possibly twice(!).
Late-game: ok, we've got a million mana on turn 3, now what?
Got a few ideas, but my favorites are mostly LD-based. Primarily wildfire, in particular, seems insane. Clear off all threats to wrenn, while nuking everyone back to the Bronze Age while you still have a handful of lands, recursion, and inevitability.
We can also strip lock like a bastard. Hey, it's legal.
Between those two sorts of things, I think our opponents will be struggling to accomplish anything. We're dropping land and board wipes t3. Yikes.
As far as actually winning, maybe burn? Maybe if we throw in some minor life gain/damage we can just burn to win via repeated wildfire-type stuff? Although fetches might add up.
Could also throw in dumb stuff like avenger of zendikar, idk. Dropping that t3 oughta raise an eyebrow or two.
Anyway I'm open to ideas. This was just the ideas I had from my initial brainstorm.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I agree with that. Summer bloom basically means you need something like 3 mana source in hand t1 to take advantage of it (wreen gets you 1 back and you need the other 3 - also you need some accel to actually do this). Crop rotation just requires 1 land and a way to get 1 more mana for close to the best case, like, turn 1 land, whatever accel, wreen, turn 2, crop rotation for strip mine, hit one land, bring strip mine back, if you went first just play it and hit their land on the next turn otherwise blow up their second land. You now have them locked. At some point, they run out of lands and you go for dark depths/Thespian's Stage.
I guess agro decks would be a problem though (if they got some creature down turn 1 - or 2 if they went first - wreen is basically toast).
Obviously the deck would be extremely warped around having summer bloom in the opener. When you can guarantee summer bloom on turn 2-3, 75%+ lands seems very reasonable, since it almost guarantees you can slam a game-winning threat on turn 3-4. And having a 2-drop planeswalker also means we've got a way to guarantee additional lands on follow-up turns, or raw CA if we're cycling lands.
More than anything, this strat just oozes consistency imo. You're almost guaranteed to have massive mana very quickly, with a planeswalker generating CA and a deck with the spiciest bombs available dropping extremely quickly. It's like tron, if you got to start with tron in the command zone.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
The new horizon land and other lands in combination with cycling lands that gives you card drawing is essential to keep this deck churning. seems very good. Is mana denial into concession the chief win-con here then?
I haven't checked, but i assume sundering titan is banned, right? I use it in legacy, and it's a pretty efficient wincon by itself even without welder shenanigans!
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
I don't think there's enough mana denial to go all-in on it. I think I'm planning to have a combo of mana denial and tron-style wincons like karn1.0, ugin1.0, maybe some eldrazi.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
The only hard part is to spell the name.
I think the crop rotation one was mainly for 1v1, where it seems broken as you said.
I am unsure how well this would work. Like, you would need say 8 lands for the big bombs like eldrazi (more really I guess).
If the first few bombs gets blown up in various ways (which I would expect in competive play - stp say), then the number of lands you are playing over everybody else will hurt a lot.
I guess you can try for some mana denial as you said, but say that you drop a red mass ld turn 4 or so (I assume you need to do something by turn 4 to have a chance in this format). Now, everybody needs to rebuild and wrenn helps you here, but you need to get to 4 mana (at least) to play summer bloom again, since it was likely played once before. At that point, I guess you can ultimate wreen and do the mass ld every 6th turn. That would be devasting, but if someone went for you and kept their lands back the first time, he likely could kill you between turn 4 and 10. Also, you need to win somehow.
Besides that, I am not sure if turn 4 reset is fast enough. It could be, but I am not certain. I could easily see this format becoming faster than that.
On the other hand, you could do mana denial that does not hurt someone with a lot of lands. I think that would be rare, like ruination,bloodmoon and magus of the moon, if you are focusing on basics and the usual stax cards like Smokestack, Tangle Wire, Trinisphere, Lodestone Golem, Sphere of Resistance and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, but apart from these?
could you run a sneaky seismic assault as a wincon? or lightning storm? especially if you've got retrace on, you can quite easily cast it every turn after a while.
also, is there an argument for atarka's command as the sig instead? sure you're stuck on playing 2 lands instead, but the flexibility of stopping someone's aetherflux reservoir combo, or as reach at the end of the game seems useful too.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Also the deck can use cycling lands to draw a ton of cards and offset the downside of having a high density of lands. And most threats the deck is likely to run with either have powerful cast/etb effects (avenger of zendikar, eldrazi titans), be instant/sorceries (wildfire, rites of ruin), or be difficult to kill (karn, ugin). That's kind of how tron works, which is what we're basically emulating.
Could I still get shut down if people counter/kill everything I play? I mean sure, obviously, what do you expect? No deck can reliably win when getting focused by multiple strong control decks. But they better have the right answers at the right time, or they're getting knocked out fast. Trinisphere and co could be interesting. The only thing I don't like is that it doesn't really work as a threat, and doesn't catch us back up if our opponents deployed aggressively to the board on T1-2. Not sure on the assault or lightning storm. I think probably we'd rather play more mana-intensive spells with greater impacts.
Atarka's command I really can't see. The other modes are all way too niche. We run few creatures, lifegain stoppage is very niche(is reservoir even a good wincon in a 20-life format? I mean maybe for storm specifically but otherwise I think not), and bolting face is not our jam at all. Meanwhile getting 1 land instead of 3 means we're playing rampant growth instead of gilded lotus on turn 2. waaaaaaaaay less exciting.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
I guess it must have some validity since it sees competitive play there, but considering they're both 1-ofs I think that cuts down the effectiveness considerably. It's really hard to draw both, since we probably aren't running any land tutors and instant tutors hardly exist. It's also much slower to kill an entire table instead of just 1 opponent. In fact it's pretty counterproductive as a kill tool since you're probably healing a total of more than 2 life every time you tap the land. I guess you still win eventually because you focus down one person at a time, but it'd take ages to kill 3 players on its own. With lands you can recur multiple punishing fires with each activation, and do it repeatedly with multiple groves, but that's not really an option here (I mean, we can copy groves with vesuva and such).
I think at best it's a control tool, not a wincon. And I'd be a lot more likely to use it in a version around crop rotation, since at least then you only need to luck into drawing one of the pieces to put the combo together.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I think Crop Rotation should be the sig spell, tbh. That, or Realms Uncharted. Probably Realms, W&S can break the symmetry easier and the value is insane.
Punishing Fire as a win con is inevitability. They take two every casting and gain 1 when you recur it for 1RR. Once they see the combo and they don't have the answer, they concede because they're defeated. They know they can't stick a guy or a walker, you'll burn it. If they don't. they slowly get burned out instead.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
All someone has to do is play a 5+ health minion (well, maybe 6+ because of wrenn's ping) and that gets around punishing fire. Or, since you have multiple opponents, they could just all drop creatures at once and you'll never be able to kill them all. Not to mention, with 3 opponents you're handing out 3 life every time you tap your land.
I really have a hard time imagining it scaling well. Compared to legacy...
We get 1/4 as many groves (which is less relevant if we have a tutor in the CZ, but it still means we only get one naturally and have to use copying for any others)
We get 1/4 as many punishing fires, which we have almost no way to tutor for and no way to copy that I'm aware of
We have 3x as many opponents, making lifegain from grove 3x worse
We have 3x as much enemy life to burn down
We have 3x as many opponents creatures to control
It just seems so much worse, in so many ways, that I can't imagine it'll perform at all the same. Maybe it's still worth including, but I really doubt it'll be a critical centerpiece of the deck or anything.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
But i can tell you're not sold, and that's fine. oh wait.. a good wincon is something like a rolling thunder. if you've got all the mana in the world, you can just do that, right? or that 6 mana 6/6 vigilance beater that hits people for 6 every time they cast a non-creature spell?
Is there going to be a mana denial plan, by the way? 'cuz if so, and you're planning to prison them out, you don't actually need a wincon. 'cuz anything that can poke a damage becomes the wincon. simian spirit guide beats?
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
I don't think this is planning to be a huge mana deck. Like we're probably not getting to more than 12 mana very often. Our biggest tempo advantage will be turn 3-4 when we have 7+ and everyone else has 3-5. That's when we need to take maximum advantage by playing something devastating before our opponents can deal with it.
So I don't think rolling thunder is going to make sense. It's pretty low-impact as a 7-drop.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
whoops not rolling thunder.. fanning the flames i meant. It's not great still, but having a reusable kill spell can be good. But if you're not planning to go for the big mana game, then i'm not really sure what can work as a wincon. ember swallower? hahaha seems pretty bad.
But burning sands-esque effects could be your ticket to win. something that stops your opponent from wanting to power forward, while keeping their mana count down.
if you're going down a lands-route, dark depths+thespian's stage is still doable i guess.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
I did a fair bit of math to decide how I felt about the land/bomb ratio, as well as the costs, and what I basically decided was that I could either have a deck with a very high ratio (75% or so) and insane 10-drop bombs like eldrazi and the like, or I could go for a lower land count and focus around the 6-drop spot. This basically comes down to - do I want to play wrenn T1, ramp once t2, play bomb t3, or would I rather play wrenn t2, ramp twice t3, and play a huge bomb on t4. You can still get lucky and have fast mana into wrenn t1 and still ramp twice on t2 (as long as your fast mana sticks around), but that requires a very high land density and low odds, and it diminishes the value of the spirit guides etc since you can't accelerate your 10-drops meaningfully without a permanent ramp t1 for W&6. This generally means the deck is more fragile since it's more reliant on keeping W&6 alive (made more difficult when he has to survive until t3 usually) and 10-drops are going to be straight uncastable without the early game succeeding. Whereas the 6-ish drops are conceivably castable even if we're massively disrupted and never get to cast summer bloom. And finally, it means we have a lot more threats, which means more keepable hands and lower odds of flooding out.
Ok, so all the to say - our default gameplan is T1 W&6 into T2 bloom and T3 bomb, usually of the 6-7 cost variety. There are also some cheaper pseudo-bombs that can deployed T2 after bloom, still allowing for the normal, expensive bomb to be dropped on the next turn.
It's a lot less controlly than I had original envisioned, mostly because besides wildfire I don't think the other "each player sacrifices X land cards" are nearly as good. Wildfire fits nicely into our curve and wipes the board - anything that costs 7 has a greater chance of not being castable early, and a lot of the other options don't clear the board which means our commander will likely die. There's also the risk of sacrificing more lands than we'd like, for some of them. The only one I think seems reasonable for the plan as I envision it now is rite of ruin, since that should clear the board while not forcing us to sacrifice an excessive number of lands. But it doesn't clear enemy planeswalkers, so that's still an issue. We'll see how the format plays, but right now I'm aiming to be extremely proactive and aggressive unless that's proven to not be viable.
Anyway, so that's the decklist. Open to suggestions, of course.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
I would try to fit Countryside Crusher. It gives you much more gas AND grows based on your sac lands AND makes wrenns ability better.
Also, I feel that Protean Hulk is better than Wurmcoil Engine. If they play a wrath on the former with a few more creatures out, they are likely to be in a worse position than before the wrath while better on the latter. I guess the lifelink is better but I am not sure how often it comes up(i.e. the difference in your life total). The deathtouch seems irrelevant.
Smokestack could work for you I think (on 2 say?). Maybe too slow though.
Green Sun's Zenith seems decent too.
I also do just like mossfire valley here, though. It always enters untapped, it helps us generate exactly W&6 mana, and the primary risks associated with it - not having another land to fuel it, not needing one color of mana when trying to generate the other, needing only 1 mana at a time - are basically negligible since we'll almost always have lots of lands, and none of our costs are too crazy color heavy or need just 1 mana. There's no primalcruxes or anything like that.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
TBH I'm not huge on wurmcoil, it's partly just in there because tron runs it. Anything with medium power and no evasion seems....eh. The lifelink is nice at least, but I think it scales a lot less well in multiplayer than 1v1. The difference between 6 and 7 is pretty huge, though, since 6 is castable t3 with any fast mana, whereas 7 is only castable t3 with one of the three permanent fast mana (one of which only works if you don't start first, and the others have their own requirements). And without lifelink, hulk can just be ignored a lot more safely than wurmcoil. But maybe I should be running neither and kick up the land count.
That does remind me, I forgot to put in high market.
Smokestack definitely has possibilities, it's a lot stronger T2 than T3 but that's just luck of the draw. It is a bit slow, but it does also kinda win the game single-handedly almost, if it doesn't get removed. If W&6 ever die we're in trouble though.
GSZ is one I cut and now I think I might have been wrong. Just because it basically works as scute mob #2 (1 vs 2 cost being basically negligible) that can also be a bigger bomb when we have the mana. So maybe I should replace wurmcoil with that.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6