I had a Wort, the Raidmother deck about 6 or so years ago. Managed to get all the right cards to produce an absurd amount of tokens without infinite mana. Made a bunch of tokens with Mana Echoes out and used it with Perilous Forays to fetch every land with a basic type one turn, and then the next turn I used Goblin Offensive, Saproling Symbiosis, and two Regrowth-type spells to recur them over and over with a Parallel Lives out. Ended up downloading a big number calculator app on my phone to do the math for me. By the time I was out of colored mana, the exponent was into the millions. Dropped a Goblin Bombardment and ended the game. Had I done the math and waited for the best time to tap Gaea's Cradle, the number could have been much higher.
I honestly didn't think it was going to be this type of discussion when I saw the thread's title.
Hmm... Scooping to chaos, and theft, cards specifically to keep other people from touching your expensive cards... I mean, I wouldn't scoop for that reason, but I understand why someone would. Normally, it tends to be players on the newer side that plays mass permanent exchange cards and I can understand not wanting to hand over cards like ABUR duals and Gaea's Cradle's to people that have no clue to their value. I mean... I can see scooping to protect expensive cards like that. I've had a couple people at my lgs want to take a selfie with my Gaea's Cradle, but at least I know those people are fully aware of its value.
I'd just say that if you're going to scoop to cards like that, then do it nicely. People are going to inevitably ask why your scooping and just let them know that some of your cards are valuable enough that you're very uneasy letting other people use them. Try not to sound like it's because of something about them or the others about the table and more about you. Or better yet, just tell them that in the time it takes to go through with the resolution of the card that you all could just set up a whole new game and possibly get a few turn rotations in (aka, the reason I scoop to cards like Scrambleverse).
My playstyle and what cards and strategies I use have taken a pretty drastic turn since starting up Magic again. I don't enjoy control, basically at all anymore, and that's after switching my control decks to be removal based rather than counter based. I've stopped building with infinite combos, and have moved to intentionally remove them. I've never enjoyed MLD, Stasis, Stax, and Taxation strategies in the first place, so I've never really used any of those. I don't use cards that make people scoop or give people the "well, he just won." mindset, even if there's no guarantee of me winning off it. I avoid needlessly complicated cards that just take forever to resolve them, like Warp World. I've grown a lot more casual over the past few months, and a lot of my builds are just really different. I like turning combo commanders, like Inalla, Archmage Ritualist, and building comboless aggro decks with them.
I've always been a player that preferred weird and fun boardstates and card interactions more than winning, and my last group was just too competitive for me to play that way. My current group has a few people that are a bit too competitive for the people they play with, but there's enough people in general that I can go a few weeks and never have to play against them.
I just try and keep the game interesting for everyone at the table rather than just me.
Just a note, but I don't think Necrotic Ooze combos with Pili-pala/Grand Architect, at least not without an external way to turn Necrotic Ooze (or Lazav, once he's copying the ooze) blue or into an artifact creature.
Yep, you're right. It doesn't work. Funny thing is, when I was looking at Mairsil I knew it wouldn't work with him, but somehow missed that It didn't work with Lazav.
I mean, It does mean I can't accidentally win off the infinite mana.
Yeah, It is going to be extremely mana hungry. I'm trying to find a way to make this work, and I've yet to find an infinite mana combo that doesn't require Necrotic Ooze. As much as I've wanted to build lazav, and activated abilities, they do just typically suck in commander and there is a reason almost every Multifarious deck is just a bunch of different ways of one-shoting people. I am on a bit of a hold on the deck. I've pull out a bunch of cards, but I've yet to put up the actual effort of building it cause I don't want to spend hours building a deck that just isn't going to work regardless of how well I plan it out. Heck, I don't even own a copy of Multifarious yet.
I'm honestly having doubts on almost every aspect of the deck. How do I get creatures in the bin without dredge or tutors? How do I get enough mana to be able to repeatedly switch back and forth between even 2cmc creatures and still have mana to use their abilities. Are there any win conditions I can use that don't require Necrotic Ooze or one-shoting people? I mean, at this point I really can't say that Meatwalker's suggestion to play Marsil instead is just blatantly right and that It would be drastically better. At this point, I'm kind of only wanting to build this because I haven't played Dimir in ages and nothing else has ever looked all that interesting.
I don't think Marsil is better. The thing with Marsil is that it can often be the same sort of thing where you have grand plans of doing "heaps of cool things". But what really ends up happening is that you just get an infinite combo, and all these other things go by the way side.
My friend made a Marsil with this idea, and then he realized that if you're going to do a Buried Alive, then it's hard not to just go for the combination that is going to win on the spot, and then you're just like, what is the point of the rest of these value cards?
I have a similar experience with Lazav. But that's cool, you still need X + Y + Z to line up and see if your opponents can stop what you're doing.
Now don't be discouraged. I do think if you specifically avoid the voltron style wins, that you can make a casual build that looks to gain value.
But I will point out that if you're going for any type of infinite mana combos, then chances are you're winning on the spot. Sooo, in this respect maybe it is better just to have a mana ramp style deck. When I was saying you don't have enough mana to do everything you want, well I was also being aggressive with attacking in a voltron build as well. So if you are picking just "value" + maybe protection, then it might work out great.
Oh, yeah, not running Buried Alive just for this reason. The last and, if memory serves correct, only time I ran Buried Alive was in my Alesha, Who Smiles at Death aggro deck and just pulled some cards that made tokens and boosted powers. I avoid the card just to not have that issue. I was actually planning on dredge and Wheels to get things in the grave for Lazav.
I was planning on having a bunch of infinite mana combos, but no way to just win off them other than Infinitely untapping Lazav and using Coretapper to put 20 counters on Darksteel Reactor. The idea for having a bunch of infinite mana combos was to avoid having to play a tremendous amount of ramp that does nothing but enable Lazav. Right now, I'm starting to have the same opinion about Multifarious that I have about Rakdos, Lord of Riots; Looks like a ton of fun to build and play, but a third of the deck needs to be subpar enablers just to make it workable and I greatly dislike that.
Yeah, not getting discouraged. I might put lazav on the ever growing "I don't have the cards to make this good without a lot of infinites" list. It's not the "There's no way to make this good" list like Teshar, Ancestor's ApostleLegend tribal where the amount of half decent white legendaries with 3 or less cmc makes the deck unbuildable.
Disappointed. I was really hoping this would be a "Let's build an Unkillable commander" thread. I was excited to give it a shot. I was already wondering how to be able to repeatedly phase or blink a Sigarda, Host of Herons without removing its auras and equipments.
I am not entirely sure what Darksteel Forge is doing. None of your other cards in this scenario are Artifacts so why even bother with it? I also don't know what Cloak really does for. It makes it tougher to interact with every other turn, I guess? Seems a bit useless. I assume you are trying to find a way to entirely prevent a commander from being removed and you are not going to find a way to do it. Too many things get around Shroud, Hexproof, Indestructible, and so on. And the cards above are just the ones off the top of my head. I am sure there are dozens more that can get around your example situation.
But what I found is that you never have enough mana to do everything.
Because at the end of the day you still need to cast spells from your hand AND you really want to have additional mana to protect him.
By protect I mean things like turning him into hexproof via say Invisible Stalker, or indestructible like Thassa, God of the Sea.
I found this problem in competitive games (75%, not even cEDH), where there is very little breathing room, meaning somebody is threatening to win in a couple of turns, so spending your time on minimal card advantage just wasn't the greatest.
So it might be that you're playing in a more causal environment and you have the luxury of trying to gain value from Lazav, in a sort of mana intensive way?
But I will say if games go longer, one of my favourite things to do is bounce Lazav between a persist creature and an undying creature.
I only have the Glen Elendra Archmage in my deck, but Puppeteer Clique is another nice one.
Let's say you use Lazav as Glen Elendra Archmage, and then you use the counterspell. He will come back to play with a -1/-1 counter. Then you can make him a Treacherous Pit-Dweller maybe blocking or if you have a sacrifice outlet (I use Phyrexian Tower and Bontu the Glorified), then Lazav with come back with undying and have a +1/+1 counter.
If you turn him into Butcher Ghoul then he'll die straight away (has a -1/-1 counter on him) coming back with a +1/+1, so you don't even need anything else.
You can keep looping him this way. It actually feels like really fun and fair play.
I also use Hex Parasite to remove both -1/-1 and +1/+1 counters. So you can reset Lazav for the persist or undying each time.
Yeah, It is going to be extremely mana hungry. I'm trying to find a way to make this work, and I've yet to find an infinite mana combo that doesn't require Necrotic Ooze. As much as I've wanted to build lazav, and activated abilities, they do just typically suck in commander and there is a reason almost every Multifarious deck is just a bunch of different ways of one-shoting people. I am on a bit of a hold on the deck. I've pull out a bunch of cards, but I've yet to put up the actual effort of building it cause I don't want to spend hours building a deck that just isn't going to work regardless of how well I plan it out. Heck, I don't even own a copy of Multifarious yet.
I'm honestly having doubts on almost every aspect of the deck. How do I get creatures in the bin without dredge or tutors? How do I get enough mana to be able to repeatedly switch back and forth between even 2cmc creatures and still have mana to use their abilities. Are there any win conditions I can use that don't require Necrotic Ooze or one-shoting people? I mean, at this point I really can't say that Meatwalker's suggestion to play Marsil instead is just blatantly right and that It would be drastically better. At this point, I'm kind of only wanting to build this because I haven't played Dimir in ages and nothing else has ever looked all that interesting.
Pack Rat is also great protection. This only works with the actual necrotic ooze tho because the copy would be lengendary from Lazav's ability.
I am sure there are many more creatures that work, but these are the main ones I have used.
I like some of these options, especially the Wretch/Poppet combo. I will say that everything is a little high on its cmc though.
I'm having problems, even actively looking through my own cards, to find decent impact abilities that aren't attached to creatures with cmc's of 5+. My main goal is to switch creatures over and over to use a bunch of abilities per turn cycle.
Mairsil just seems like the better version of what you're trying to do. You can even throw Lazav in a cage and do the Lazav stuff on top of the Mairsil stuff.
As someone who played Mairsil for a year or so, my one comment/recommendation is to focus the deck. Just filling the deck with cool activated abilities you want to copy is fun sorta, but it becomes apparent very quickly that they're really just diluting your deck and preventing you from assembling a win-con fast enough.
Mairsil is just better than Lazav, I will admit that. I just already have a grixis deck and I very seldom play dimir
So, I've been looking at building an activated ability based deck for quite some time now. Guildmages, Spellshapers, and numerous other things so long as they have half-relevant, or even just fun, abilities. I've finally found a commander that would make that a bit extra fun as he can have all of the abilities.
So, goal of the deck with probably be to make him a Necrotic Ooze with some sort of infinite mana combo in the grave like the Pili-pala/Grand Architect combo, then use the combo to make him whatever I want, whenever. I would like a win condition that doesn't necessarily use the infinite mana, but I'll be including some combo regardless. Rather than just making him unblockable and making him a one-shot voltron (though the phage thing is definitely going to be in the deck cause Phage), I'd rather fill the grave with cards I can switch back and forth to to make him immune to certain things or let him remove or counter things. I'm looking at cards like Thassa, God of the Sea for indestructible, Tatterkite to defend against infect or for him to survive Black Sun's Zeniths, Disciple of Deceit for tutors, [c]Cavern Harpy[c] for bounce, Hexproof/Shroud things, etc.
Right now, the main win condition I'm thinking about would be the Pili-pala/Grand Architect combo into using Coretapper on a Darksteel Reactor to win in 2 turns. I really don't want to include infinite mill, tokens, or life loss/damage, but I do want combos that only enable weird alt win cons like Darksteel Reactor. Maybe an infinite damage to creatures and turn him into Soul Collector before the pings resolve to steal everything.
Any suggestions for fun win conditions and creatures to run that go against the typical Voltron plan that Most Lazav decks seem to be based on so far. Looking to build something wacky, super janky, an fun to pilot and play against.
Clash? A bunch of "Reveal the top card of your library." cards?
Yeah, I looked at clash. Other than Scattering Stroke and Revive the Fallen there's no good clash cards in esper that you can actually manipulate the top card for. Research the Deep and Hoarder's Greed both clash after a card draw, so Aminatou can't help you win those clashes. Other than those, all the good clash cards are green.
So, I like some of the ideas here and some of the suggested cards. I still want to build Aminatou, but I just realized that I have five decks with black in them already and I don't have enough staples for another one. So... yeah... I don't even have the cards to properly build the deck. I might just have to wait until something else get's old and I feel like taking something apart before I can put any more effort into building Amanatou, and maybe there will be more cards to support the way I want to build her by then anyway.
I picked up a copy of her precon deck and thought her abilities would be pretty cool to build around. I do have some restrictions I would like to work with while building the deck: 1. Non-combo win condition. I find tutoring into a combo to be astoundingly boring, repetitive, and my group is way to casual for that anyway. So, I'm not using combos and will be using cards like Forced Fruition and other alternate wins. 2. Very few creatures. Decks need recursion to sustain themselves against control or just in longer games. Decks that lend themselves to a large creature count typically just end up being reanimator decks, especially in these colors.
My first thought was her +1 with a bunch of topdeck manipulation with cards like Counterbalance to take advantage of being able to put cards on the top of my library, but there were problems. There are very few cards outside of Green that do things with, specifically, the top card. Most cards in black and blue that deal with the top card are things like Scry and Anticipate. There's very few cards that actually do anything that isn't akin to drawing cards.
My second idea was Miracles, until I realized there was very few miracle cards, let alone in black (at 1). Putting miracles on top and drawing at instant speed on another player's turn for a blow out Terminus or at someone else's eot for a game winning Entreat the Angels seemed pretty awesome until I realized that those were 2 of the only 4 good miracles.
I had a few other ideas, decreasingly less fun sounding as time went on. I thought about Astral Slide which lets me blink and draw cards at instant speed to help with my miracles Idea. I thought about Pillow-fort control. I thought about Enchantress. As time goes on, I'm less building an Aminatou deck and more just wanting to build something else.
Anyone else have some ideas? Maybe some topdeck styled cards that I just didn't realize existed? Or perhaps some strategy or synergy with Aminatou I didn't think of at all?
I honestly can't think of a deck, other than Muldrotha, that all five of those cards would be good in. I can give some suggestions based on some things I've been wanting to build.
Hmm... Scooping to chaos, and theft, cards specifically to keep other people from touching your expensive cards... I mean, I wouldn't scoop for that reason, but I understand why someone would. Normally, it tends to be players on the newer side that plays mass permanent exchange cards and I can understand not wanting to hand over cards like ABUR duals and Gaea's Cradle's to people that have no clue to their value. I mean... I can see scooping to protect expensive cards like that. I've had a couple people at my lgs want to take a selfie with my Gaea's Cradle, but at least I know those people are fully aware of its value.
I'd just say that if you're going to scoop to cards like that, then do it nicely. People are going to inevitably ask why your scooping and just let them know that some of your cards are valuable enough that you're very uneasy letting other people use them. Try not to sound like it's because of something about them or the others about the table and more about you. Or better yet, just tell them that in the time it takes to go through with the resolution of the card that you all could just set up a whole new game and possibly get a few turn rotations in (aka, the reason I scoop to cards like Scrambleverse).
I've always been a player that preferred weird and fun boardstates and card interactions more than winning, and my last group was just too competitive for me to play that way. My current group has a few people that are a bit too competitive for the people they play with, but there's enough people in general that I can go a few weeks and never have to play against them.
I just try and keep the game interesting for everyone at the table rather than just me.
Yep, you're right. It doesn't work. Funny thing is, when I was looking at Mairsil I knew it wouldn't work with him, but somehow missed that It didn't work with Lazav.
I mean, It does mean I can't accidentally win off the infinite mana.
Oh, yeah, not running Buried Alive just for this reason. The last and, if memory serves correct, only time I ran Buried Alive was in my Alesha, Who Smiles at Death aggro deck and just pulled some cards that made tokens and boosted powers. I avoid the card just to not have that issue. I was actually planning on dredge and Wheels to get things in the grave for Lazav.
I was planning on having a bunch of infinite mana combos, but no way to just win off them other than Infinitely untapping Lazav and using Coretapper to put 20 counters on Darksteel Reactor. The idea for having a bunch of infinite mana combos was to avoid having to play a tremendous amount of ramp that does nothing but enable Lazav. Right now, I'm starting to have the same opinion about Multifarious that I have about Rakdos, Lord of Riots; Looks like a ton of fun to build and play, but a third of the deck needs to be subpar enablers just to make it workable and I greatly dislike that.
Yeah, not getting discouraged. I might put lazav on the ever growing "I don't have the cards to make this good without a lot of infinites" list. It's not the "There's no way to make this good" list like Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle Legend tribal where the amount of half decent white legendaries with 3 or less cmc makes the deck unbuildable.
Also:
Any exiling board wipes, targeted removal, anything similar to Terminus, Black Sun's Zenith, Barter in Blood, and a lot of other things.
If I didn't know any better, then I'd almost think the pool of cards that can remove it was almost as large as the pool of cards that can't.
Yeah, It is going to be extremely mana hungry. I'm trying to find a way to make this work, and I've yet to find an infinite mana combo that doesn't require Necrotic Ooze. As much as I've wanted to build lazav, and activated abilities, they do just typically suck in commander and there is a reason almost every Multifarious deck is just a bunch of different ways of one-shoting people. I am on a bit of a hold on the deck. I've pull out a bunch of cards, but I've yet to put up the actual effort of building it cause I don't want to spend hours building a deck that just isn't going to work regardless of how well I plan it out. Heck, I don't even own a copy of Multifarious yet.
I'm honestly having doubts on almost every aspect of the deck. How do I get creatures in the bin without dredge or tutors? How do I get enough mana to be able to repeatedly switch back and forth between even 2cmc creatures and still have mana to use their abilities. Are there any win conditions I can use that don't require Necrotic Ooze or one-shoting people? I mean, at this point I really can't say that Meatwalker's suggestion to play Marsil instead is just blatantly right and that It would be drastically better. At this point, I'm kind of only wanting to build this because I haven't played Dimir in ages and nothing else has ever looked all that interesting.
I like some of these options, especially the Wretch/Poppet combo. I will say that everything is a little high on its cmc though.
I'm having problems, even actively looking through my own cards, to find decent impact abilities that aren't attached to creatures with cmc's of 5+. My main goal is to switch creatures over and over to use a bunch of abilities per turn cycle.
Mairsil is just better than Lazav, I will admit that. I just already have a grixis deck and I very seldom play dimir
Current favorites:
Tribal - Inalla, Archmage Ritualist Aggro wizards, not combo.
Spellslinger - Toshiro Umezawa
Token - Emmara, Soul of the Accord
Reanimator - Karador, Ghost Chieftain
Lands Matter - Lord Windgrace
Artifacts -
Equips -
Anything blank is just cause I haven't built one in quite a while, so I don't have one I like a lot right now.
So, goal of the deck with probably be to make him a Necrotic Ooze with some sort of infinite mana combo in the grave like the Pili-pala/Grand Architect combo, then use the combo to make him whatever I want, whenever. I would like a win condition that doesn't necessarily use the infinite mana, but I'll be including some combo regardless. Rather than just making him unblockable and making him a one-shot voltron (though the phage thing is definitely going to be in the deck cause Phage), I'd rather fill the grave with cards I can switch back and forth to to make him immune to certain things or let him remove or counter things. I'm looking at cards like Thassa, God of the Sea for indestructible, Tatterkite to defend against infect or for him to survive Black Sun's Zeniths, Disciple of Deceit for tutors, [c]Cavern Harpy[c] for bounce, Hexproof/Shroud things, etc.
Right now, the main win condition I'm thinking about would be the Pili-pala/Grand Architect combo into using Coretapper on a Darksteel Reactor to win in 2 turns. I really don't want to include infinite mill, tokens, or life loss/damage, but I do want combos that only enable weird alt win cons like Darksteel Reactor. Maybe an infinite damage to creatures and turn him into Soul Collector before the pings resolve to steal everything.
Also looking for a bunch of tech creatures that just get me small values like Ovinomancer, Dreamscape Artist, Survivor of the Unseen, Taigam, Sidisi's Hand. Basically looking for things that gives me draw, ramp, removal, counters, etc.
Any suggestions for fun win conditions and creatures to run that go against the typical Voltron plan that Most Lazav decks seem to be based on so far. Looking to build something wacky, super janky, an fun to pilot and play against.
Yeah, I looked at clash. Other than Scattering Stroke and Revive the Fallen there's no good clash cards in esper that you can actually manipulate the top card for. Research the Deep and Hoarder's Greed both clash after a card draw, so Aminatou can't help you win those clashes. Other than those, all the good clash cards are green.
1. Non-combo win condition. I find tutoring into a combo to be astoundingly boring, repetitive, and my group is way to casual for that anyway. So, I'm not using combos and will be using cards like Forced Fruition and other alternate wins.
2. Very few creatures. Decks need recursion to sustain themselves against control or just in longer games. Decks that lend themselves to a large creature count typically just end up being reanimator decks, especially in these colors.
My first thought was her +1 with a bunch of topdeck manipulation with cards like Counterbalance to take advantage of being able to put cards on the top of my library, but there were problems. There are very few cards outside of Green that do things with, specifically, the top card. Most cards in black and blue that deal with the top card are things like Scry and Anticipate. There's very few cards that actually do anything that isn't akin to drawing cards.
My second idea was Miracles, until I realized there was very few miracle cards, let alone in black (at 1). Putting miracles on top and drawing at instant speed on another player's turn for a blow out Terminus or at someone else's eot for a game winning Entreat the Angels seemed pretty awesome until I realized that those were 2 of the only 4 good miracles.
I had a few other ideas, decreasingly less fun sounding as time went on. I thought about Astral Slide which lets me blink and draw cards at instant speed to help with my miracles Idea. I thought about Pillow-fort control. I thought about Enchantress. As time goes on, I'm less building an Aminatou deck and more just wanting to build something else.
Anyone else have some ideas? Maybe some topdeck styled cards that I just didn't realize existed? Or perhaps some strategy or synergy with Aminatou I didn't think of at all?
Gyrus, Waker of Corpses - Graveyard-based and makes tokens. Doubling Season is really good. Nissa, Vital Force could be ok, though not my favorite Nissa to begin with so bias.
Lazav, the Multifarious - Loves the Ancient Excavation and The Scarab God. He's still grave based and you don't need to use combo for it to be good.