One thing about Opal Palace: It turns CoA into a 3-turn clock, hence why I'd never remove it.
So does Undying Evil.
With Opal Palace CoA kills 1 turn earlier but comes into play 1 turn later and slows us down to fix mana... I still keep it for now but it's the worst rainbow land IMO. Anyway, one can replace some rainbows with panoramas or guildgates. There's more than one good solution, specially when you go pauper. Bottom line it's personal preference.
I use all 3. D0su and I discussed this about 5 months ago (refer to posts #379 and #380).
This addition is always awesome to 5-color pauper decks just because. I prefer these CIPT&pay1 effects than the "1,T:add one of any color" ones, which demand more ramp to provide CoA castings. That's why I prefer these to, say, Opal Palace (which is - at best - borderline good for me because of its additional effects).
I tend to keep the build with 20 or so basics and rainbow/utility/ramp on others. YMMV on each color.
I don't think there's much of a case to include ramp since we're not ramping to anything in particular, and they're dead draws late. The only ones I like are exploration and Burgeoning since they let us empty our hand of lands to keep it lean and mean, and they have a super low cmc and are backup targets for any tutors that hit telepathy. But that's just my two cents.
Actually I meant land search for our utility lands using a couple spells like Sylvan Scrying. Ramp will be made using 2-3 ramping lands.
Whispers of the muse (and other repeatable draw like arch of orazca) I think circumvent the "don't play repeatable effects" rule because the result of them is both undetermined and separated from the actual board-state change, so they're significantly less threatening. With capsize your opponents know exactly how much havoc you can wreak and will play accordingly. Also to get value out of capsize you have actually bounce permanents, which is bound to make people mad. If you're just playing whispers, you don't need to piss anyone off to get value. You also can just not cast it when you're already at 7 cards. And, like all buyback spells, if it's becoming a problem you can always just cast it without buyback. I haven't played whispers a whole lot, but arch has been consistently excellent and they're very similar effects.
I agree with the threatening part. Will think about it.
Stonecloaker is a different beast and I do wish we had a better tool for the job. Being a creature makes it a target for otherwise-useless removal, and being a repeatable hate card against graveyard decks can put us in the position of being a threat to those players and is likely to attract their attention. But graveyard based decks can be difficult for us to deal with, and having a single-use grave-hate like clear the mind can only delay the problem. I've been using stonecloaker in most version of phelddagrif and my main strategy with it has been to be very judicious about how you use it - don't eot it constantly for value, only use it when you absolutely have to and be apologetic about it. But YMMV, it's definitely one of the least on-brand cards in the deck. If you wanted an alternative, I think perhaps the best option might be including a bunch of deserts alongside scavenger grounds (which already merits a spot) so that you have repeatable, but not unlimited and not without a real cost, grave hate. That way your judicious use of the effect is more explicable as not wanting to lose your lands and not wanting to use your answers against subpar targets, rather than just being permissive for no reason. The deserts could also help speed up the phelddagrif clock by a turn or two, or give some cycling in the late-game, so it's not a bad solution. Even the mill one could be useful as a weak alt wincon. Hmm, I might have talked myself into it. You'd probably want to make sure you have some land tutors, though.
Maybe the (ab)use of Scavenger Grounds is enough. Maybe the aggro-gy player will be the threat of the table abd you don't need to care that much. I will think about it but with a grain of salt.
Flashback is great but there aren't a ton of flashback spells that fit in the deck unfortunately. Deep analysis is a decent draw spell. Fervent Denial is the wrong kind of card to have revealed in your grave, same for divine reckoning, both will have people trying to bait you into firing them off. flash of insight is also decent. memory's journey/krosan reclamation are both ok grave hate/anti-mill tech and can be played. moment's peace is great. prismatic strands is an ok backup but significantly worse in several ways. purify the grave is too low-impact imo, I'd rather have memory's journey. ray of distortion is really overpriced. ray of revelation is too narrow. think twice does too little imo, it's fine but I'd just play a bigger draw spell. aaaand that's all of them. Some ok but replaceable draw, some decent grave hate, and one excellent fog.
Noxious revival has the downside of being effectively sorcery speed when used on yourself (unless you have an instant-speed way to draw it), which makes it a bad choice for recurring counterspells, and really only great for recurring board wipes and our scant few permanents, and even then you're down a card. Unfortunately I don't think there are any ways to recur to hand at instant speed, unless you count reap, which is pretty sketchy (although a very high ceiling, obviously, maybe even too high to be honest). As far as the tempo play of putting a reanimation target on their deck, we're more in the business of value plays instead of tempo plays, so I'd much prefer to exile it than delay the inevitable.
You can always use it on opponent's EOT. And you can use Regrowth or someting like that. I like this idea of redundance, will test a couple options as well. All tests will require a tweak on mana base - I expect to have 42ish lands instead of 45.
OK, so after all that, I think the deserts worth playing are:
scavenger grounds (duh)
desert of the indomitable
desert of the mindful
desert of the true
hashep oasis
Shefet Dunes
Ipnu Rivulet (maybe)
Desert (maybe)
I will consider all colored options. Maybe an Arabian Nights Desert if I can find one Again, this is both a better way to deal with GYs (you continue under the radar) and/or pump your general more often.
Anyway those are my thoughts, I hope you enjoy the deck!
Amazing deck! I am planning to build it - and it'll be the first non-pauper EDH for me
I will start with your budget deck with a slightly different mana base and more ramp & land search.
But I would like to say I wouldn't play Whispers of the Muse and Stonecloaker. Buyback and reusability of these cards are as annoying as Capsize IMO. I'd stick with both pulses only. Oh, and some flashback spells too.
What do you think about Noxious Revival? You can reuse anything on your graveyard (counter, destroyed land, etc) or wreck some renimate effect. I will test this one.When I assemble my deck in my mind I will post it here.
Congrats for now!
Awesome deck! I am leaning towards buying cards to build it!! Heck, I might buy all cards to build the newest ones (Zada, Tatyova, etc), I love these PDH beauties!!
Here are some suggestions to improve the deck, based on redundancies used on my CoA deck and other stuff:
Out: Crypt Rats (looks nonbo with card draw losing life, etc), Frantic Search (-1 CA), High Tide (very situational and not tutorable without Dizzy Spell), Chromatic Sphere (you already have plenty of cards - all more useful - to help you buying your deck), Lotus Petal (meh in this deck IMO), Cadaver Imp (replaced by something better IMO), Brainstorm (staple but I preferred to provide redundance and CA)
The casting cost makes it a little challenging to cast and most lists don't use Breath of Life and False Defeat so not sure if the effect is worthwhile in multiples.
That. Paying WW is quite chalenging. Even Unmake is sometimes uncomfortable to cast.
I tend to agree. I just thought this card is slightly unfair as a recurring threat to opponents so it's not politically good to abuse its usage.
Regardless I will buy a new Fire//Ice to put on my maybeboard.
EDIT: Well, it's not as flexible as DF. If you *need* to avoid some threat without having CoA in board, DF is better... What do you guys think?
EDIT 2: Forget it. It's a sorcery. Duh...
Well, IMO it's better than Opal Palace because it's slower for only one turn. We need all fix we can take on a 5-color deck.
Only problem is to have it signed. Need to find this artist now.
I think it's good for the standard build, but not for Tiny Leaders. You don't want to delay your game plan a turn just to get that counter, plus there is no blink engine. I'm gonna start a new thread about the tiny build, so as not to further derail this one.
Yeah I meant the regular one exactly to abuse the blink engine. Good idea on opening a thread to TL (I know I suck thinking decks in this format lol, built by Gwafa and that's it).
So does Undying Evil.
With Opal Palace CoA kills 1 turn earlier but comes into play 1 turn later and slows us down to fix mana... I still keep it for now but it's the worst rainbow land IMO. Anyway, one can replace some rainbows with panoramas or guildgates. There's more than one good solution, specially when you go pauper. Bottom line it's personal preference.
There's none
Yeah, take a look on my sig. It has a link to my build. It's a bit outdated, I will fix this in a few days.
This addition is always awesome to 5-color pauper decks just because. I prefer these CIPT&pay1 effects than the "1,T:add one of any color" ones, which demand more ramp to provide CoA castings. That's why I prefer these to, say, Opal Palace (which is - at best - borderline good for me because of its additional effects).
I tend to keep the build with 20 or so basics and rainbow/utility/ramp on others. YMMV on each color.
Actually I meant land search for our utility lands using a couple spells like Sylvan Scrying. Ramp will be made using 2-3 ramping lands.
I agree with the threatening part. Will think about it.
Maybe the (ab)use of Scavenger Grounds is enough. Maybe the aggro-gy player will be the threat of the table abd you don't need to care that much. I will think about it but with a grain of salt.
Agree, Deep Analisys and Moment's Peace are the best options.
You can always use it on opponent's EOT. And you can use Regrowth or someting like that. I like this idea of redundance, will test a couple options as well. All tests will require a tweak on mana base - I expect to have 42ish lands instead of 45.
I will consider all colored options. Maybe an Arabian Nights Desert if I can find one
I did, I will!
I will start with your budget deck with a slightly different mana base and more ramp & land search.
But I would like to say I wouldn't play Whispers of the Muse and Stonecloaker. Buyback and reusability of these cards are as annoying as Capsize IMO. I'd stick with both pulses only. Oh, and some flashback spells too.
What do you think about Noxious Revival? You can reuse anything on your graveyard (counter, destroyed land, etc) or wreck some renimate effect. I will test this one.When I assemble my deck in my mind I will post it here.
Congrats for now!
Here are some suggestions to improve the deck, based on redundancies used on my CoA deck and other stuff:
Out:
Crypt Rats (looks nonbo with card draw losing life, etc),
Frantic Search (-1 CA),
High Tide (very situational and not tutorable without Dizzy Spell),
Chromatic Sphere (you already have plenty of cards - all more useful - to help you buying your deck),
Lotus Petal (meh in this deck IMO),
Cadaver Imp (replaced by something better IMO),
Brainstorm (staple but I preferred to provide redundance and CA)
In:
Secrets of the Golden City (more card draw),
Dimir House Guard (take Pierce Strider or Archaeomancer to assemble the combo) ,
Mystical Teachings (reusable toolbox),
Peel from Reality (chump block and/or return annoying creatures to owners' hands),
Disturbed Burial (dig creatures more than once, buyback, yay)
Mortuary Mire and Ash Barrens (returns creatures from gy and fixes colors, and sums lands count to 36)
Maybeboard:
Sign in Blood (CA is always good)
Reality Acid (Recurring "destroy target permanent" for 9 mana with Capsize)
All the best!
That. Paying WW is quite chalenging. Even Unmake is sometimes uncomfortable to cast.
IMO it's weak. It you have a spot removal useless on Child and doesn't exile anything, it's not suited to this deck.
Regardless I will buy a new Fire//Ice to put on my maybeboard.
Severed Strands is an upgraded Devour Flesh, what do you think?
EDIT: Well, it's not as flexible as DF. If you *need* to avoid some threat without having CoA in board, DF is better... What do you guys think?
EDIT 2: Forget it. It's a sorcery. Duh...
As d0su pointed out on CoA thread, Gateway Plaza is a great rainbow land.
Will test them replacing Thought Courier and a Mountain.
Only problem is to have it signed. Need to find this artist now.
This deck looks fun to build. Maybe adding a Expedition Map to fetch Emeria should enhance CA/synergy.
Will take a more detailed look when I can