I made her the commander of my superfriends deck. My main problem now is finding things that tap for mana. 5-color decks need a bunch of color fixing and next to no legendary lands give you that, and there's next to no legendary mana rocks of use other than Mox Amber which is not good when you're paying 5 mana to get it.
I'm starting to consider cards like Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle that can tap for mana but aren't lands or rocks.
My ideal meta would be somewhere where all archetypes are equally viable, or at least a meta where there's enough people with enough variety to their decks that no archetypes just get hosed more often than not.
My current meta is mostly just combo to some extent. There are only a few people that don't just run dedicated combo for almost every deck, and I mean like 5 with 2 of us only able to make it once a month or so. Luckily, us few non-dedicated combo players play together enough that the combo decks don't just win every game. Enough interaction against the combo decks and it's a fairly balanced mini-meta we have going on. I don't know about anyone else in my group, but if it's just me and a ton of combo players, I tend to play a couple games and go home really early.
Sure, but flavor-wise it might make more sense. Shooting your own creature with aurelia's fury is definitely an odd thing to incentivize. I think the "intent" is that you're using pump spells with her.
I’m sure Boros is not against some discipline and tough love. Aside from Rakdos, Boros is likely the second candidate for the whole “pain is pleasure” motto.
What do you guys think about a “no-creature” Feather deck? I find it a lot easier to keep her alone alive, allow me to use all the targeted boardwipe with impunity.
I don't think it would work well unless you played it like Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest. There are a ton of really good creatures that should just be auto includes, like Sad Robot, Knight of the White Orchard, Sun Titan, and numerous others. That, and I'm really tempted to throw all the white blink spells in the deck. The thought of Knight of the white orchard and Cloudshift is just so tempting.
Also, am I the only one that the more I work on building the deck, the more I think it's really bad? You've got 3 good win cons: Aetherflux Reservoir, Sphinx-bone Wand, and Commander damage. That alone has me really worried the deck is just going to fizzle more often than not, especially in my meta. Sphinx-bone wand is a super slow win condition. Aetherflux Reservoir is a lot better, but still pretty slow and makes you and Feather tremendous targets. Commander damage can pretty easily be the fastest win condition, but as with most voltrons you'll kill one person and then no one will let you do anything.
How does this work with split cards? if i cast bound//determined, just the determined side, does that mean that other players only need a UG to counter it? or the cost of the whole card?
Also, does it allow for example each copy of a stormed hunting pack to get countered? the copies are just put on the stack, and not played, right? the original card that triggers the storm ability can get countered though, i get that.
Combos with vexing shusher? Actually, does it? if i cast a spell, ice cave triggers, i hold priority and shusher the spell. is that right? or is it cast spell, hold priority, shusher the spell, then ice cave on the stack? in that case, wouldn't the spell be countered before the shusher ability stops it from being countered?
Yes, they'd only need to pay UG to counter Determined, but they'd need 3BG to counter Bound if you had cast that one instead.
You can counter the original Hunting pack, because it was cast, but none of the others because it won't trigger for them.
Yes, Shusher can make your spell uncounterable. Ice cave's ability will then resolve and no one is going to try and pay for it to counter an uncounterable spell.
I've played with and against Ice Cave before. Most of the time it just backfires on who ever uses it. It does have the fun of making mana rocks and half-decent equipment never resolve.
It also does very weird political things. Trying to buy favor with the entire table to let things resolve is a thing that happens more often than people think. Then there's the ramp deck's ability to counter a lot more stuff than everyone else assuming the right color combo or lands.
I've been playing Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge lately. Basic goal is to just recast the commander over and over. Basic control shell with a bunch of mana rocks, Wheels, Naban and Panharmonicon, and a bunch of bounce and boardwipes. Goal is to mill via exile. It tends to do very bad things to combo decks while being super casual. Just recently threw in Lab Maniac just cause it seemed appropriate, but Jeleva just ends up exiling him.
I've got an older version of the deck in my sig. Just haven't gotten around to resurrecting the thread.
I don't mind infinites. There are some color combinations that even on a casual level have a very difficult time winning without them or even more obnoxious gameplans. There are also some commanders that just combo and nothing else.
I've been on a more casual kick lately, trying not to run combos, trying to go with aggro instead of control, etc. I've come to realize that some commanders just can't win without combo or just ditching the commander's involvement in the gameplan. Emmara, Soul of the Accord is a good example of this. The gameday promo's art was amazing and Emmara's ability is fairly unique with only one other creature having the same [becomes tapped, make a token] ability. Come to find out, she's hot trash if you don't combo. The deck never came close to competing even in the far more casual parts of my lgs.
Trying to get rid of combos outside of competitive commander, even just dissuading combo isn't very good for the game. First, some commanders and color combinations just get knocked out of the running or worse. Second, and here's that worse part, they start running stax or lockdown instead. It's just not a good environment for inventive deck building.
The only time an ability that produces mana isn't a "mana ability" is when it has a target. Mana Abilities don't use the stack.
Close, but not the whole story. Being a loyalty ability of a planeswalker that adds mana also prevents an activated ability from being a mana ability, and triggered abilities that add mana can only be mana abilities when they trigger due to another mana ability (Utopia Sprawl is an example of this, but Cathodion's triggered ability is not a mana ability).
605.1a An activated ability is a mana ability if it meets all of the following criteria: it doesn’t require a target (see rule 114.6), it could add mana to a player’s mana pool when it resolves, and it’s not a loyalty ability. (See rule 606, “Loyalty Abilities.”)
605.1b A triggered ability is a mana ability if it meets all of the following criteria: it doesn’t require a target (see rule 114.6), it triggers from the resolution of an activated mana ability (see rule 106.11a) or from mana being added to a player’s mana pool, and it could add mana to a player’s mana pool when it resolves.
Yep, my bad. I forgot about the planeswalker thing and to distinguish between activated and triggered. Edited my post for the errors.
The only time an activated ability that produces mana isn't a "mana ability" is when it has a target or is a Loyalty ability. Mana Abilities don't use the stack.
I'm starting to consider cards like Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle that can tap for mana but aren't lands or rocks.
The main problem is that you can play a large number of commanders as spellslingers, but very few actively reward you for doing so.
My current meta is mostly just combo to some extent. There are only a few people that don't just run dedicated combo for almost every deck, and I mean like 5 with 2 of us only able to make it once a month or so. Luckily, us few non-dedicated combo players play together enough that the combo decks don't just win every game. Enough interaction against the combo decks and it's a fairly balanced mini-meta we have going on. I don't know about anyone else in my group, but if it's just me and a ton of combo players, I tend to play a couple games and go home really early.
I don't think it would work well unless you played it like Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest. There are a ton of really good creatures that should just be auto includes, like Sad Robot, Knight of the White Orchard, Sun Titan, and numerous others. That, and I'm really tempted to throw all the white blink spells in the deck. The thought of Knight of the white orchard and Cloudshift is just so tempting.
Also, am I the only one that the more I work on building the deck, the more I think it's really bad? You've got 3 good win cons: Aetherflux Reservoir, Sphinx-bone Wand, and Commander damage. That alone has me really worried the deck is just going to fizzle more often than not, especially in my meta. Sphinx-bone wand is a super slow win condition. Aetherflux Reservoir is a lot better, but still pretty slow and makes you and Feather tremendous targets. Commander damage can pretty easily be the fastest win condition, but as with most voltrons you'll kill one person and then no one will let you do anything.
Basically would you rather have to pay 1WG to populate every turn and get some life, or populate for free?
Yes, they'd only need to pay UG to counter Determined, but they'd need 3BG to counter Bound if you had cast that one instead.
You can counter the original Hunting pack, because it was cast, but none of the others because it won't trigger for them.
Yes, Shusher can make your spell uncounterable. Ice cave's ability will then resolve and no one is going to try and pay for it to counter an uncounterable spell.
It also does very weird political things. Trying to buy favor with the entire table to let things resolve is a thing that happens more often than people think. Then there's the ramp deck's ability to counter a lot more stuff than everyone else assuming the right color combo or lands.
I've got an older version of the deck in my sig. Just haven't gotten around to resurrecting the thread.
I've been on a more casual kick lately, trying not to run combos, trying to go with aggro instead of control, etc. I've come to realize that some commanders just can't win without combo or just ditching the commander's involvement in the gameplan. Emmara, Soul of the Accord is a good example of this. The gameday promo's art was amazing and Emmara's ability is fairly unique with only one other creature having the same [becomes tapped, make a token] ability. Come to find out, she's hot trash if you don't combo. The deck never came close to competing even in the far more casual parts of my lgs.
Trying to get rid of combos outside of competitive commander, even just dissuading combo isn't very good for the game. First, some commanders and color combinations just get knocked out of the running or worse. Second, and here's that worse part, they start running stax or lockdown instead. It's just not a good environment for inventive deck building.
Yep, my bad. I forgot about the planeswalker thing and to distinguish between activated and triggered. Edited my post for the errors.