I think too many of you are used to conventional Magic games. Multiplayer changes the dynamic. You get to spite people for fun. You get to quit out to hurt someone's chances of winning. It isn't 1 v 1 anymore. Your quitting the game doesn't end it, it just impacts it. Politics are an element you just don't want to deal with if you don't like the tactical scoop.
Or maybe you like winning too much and have faced a few blowouts at the hand of tactical scooping. I've never seen someone lobby for the ban of a player because they scooped, and I'm pretty sure banning a player for something like that is the neckbeardiest thing you could do in a group.
Do Wanderer. You can make it super competitive by optimizing your cascades or you can make it super whimsical by having it hit random, fun jank you never get to play anywhere else.
One card that I have nicknamed "The Funsucker" is Avacyn. While I do understand that there are answers, the idea is that she is a gateway escalator. Once someone brings her into a group and it is not discussed, then an arms race inevitably ensues, resulting in a format that is less social.
So, I have not, nor will I ever put Avacyn in a deck that I own, and will forever call her "The Funsucker".
Avacyn is an incredibly simple card to deal with, and a playgroup that can't is kind of laughable.
Colorless answers include Duplicant, Karn Liberated and All Is Dust. Colorless means every single deck in EDH can run them and kill Avacyn if they want. Of all the cards to hate, this isn't it.
Summoner's Pact only finds green creatures, so you would have to use Birthing Pod or Garruk's ultimate to find the griffin.
Wow, card isn't nearly as effective as I thought. Can still hit Mystic Snake in emergency situations, which is usually what it does, but wow, that really is a lot less useful than I assumed.
My friend runs Pillow Fort Zedruu to great effect. A prison effect or two is more than enough deterrent. Then he hangs out with an exorbitant amount of counterspells, donates his Oblivion Rings / a few spare lands (I don't advise this, but he does it anyway), then finally, with his obnoxious board state and massive life total, he'll do something like stick a Felidar Sovereign or combo out into victory.
I've heard of a zegana deck that used food chain and eureka to make ridiculously stupid plays. Not sure if that's what you want to do though.
Also, if you do add food chain, adding in misthollow griffin is a good plan since it goes infinite with it. Infinite mana + infinite zegana ETBs = draw deck + cast everything in it.
Food chain by itself is alright since you can use it to exile zegana for 7 mana after she's drawn you her cards to cast something you picked up. Having her back in command zone is usually more useful anyway.
Food Chain is actually something I was considering. It's a house in Maelstrom Wanderer, and I was thinking it might be a mini-house in this. I don't know how much it has to be built-around though. The biggest problem is that it's impossible to tutor for, but I don't know if that's even that big of a deal, considering the sheer value you can get from it.
Yeah, I'd definitely consider a Food Chain + Griffin package, especially with Summoner's Pact as a way to aggressively tutor for the griffin. It's a perfect goodstuff toy when your general is an engine. I'd consider cutting Garruk, Caller of Beasts for it, since Garruk is an inferior engine all things considered.
If you add Azusa with Crucible of Worlds you could do an infinite turn combo.
While Azusa is arguably a valuable asset in this deck, considering it turns Ziggy's acquired lands from a massive draw into more gas, I'm not sure if it's that good in a deck with 38 lands. It does seem like an interesting setup, though.
Do you use the buyback for walk the aeons? Or is there an infinite combo in here for that?
I've never been in a situation where the buyback is helpful. If you have the money it'd be easy to replace it with Capture of Jingzhou or Temporal Manipulation. In fact, if I owned either of those cards they would probably be in this deck in addition to Walk and Warp.
So I had to throw together a deck for a tryhard EDH tournament. I ended up making Prime Speker Zegana kind of at a whim. The tournament matchups weren't particularly amazing, but I ended up wrecking. To see if she was any good, I tried her again. And again. And again. A few playtests soon revealed that a deck I wasn't too sure about was actually pretty good. I don't know what sort of advice I want for it. I'd only play it at tryhard events, which are rare around here, but I figured I might as well see what opinions I get.
Now okay, you might be saying "Psathus, this is just the millionth goodstuff deck with Zegana as the general I've seen. Only boring nerds play those."
And you know what? You're kind of right. However, there is a method to this goodstuff deck, in that it is built to ensure that when Zegana comes down you will, in fact, draw even more good stuff than usual.
How do I get you more goodstuff than usual?
Enablers.
What are enablers? It's a fancy way of saying 4-7 CMC creatures which will be followed up by a next-turn Zegana who is exceptionally large, or at least medium-sized. The trick to these enablers is, at times, to your opponents, they will appear to be poor threat assessment/a misuse of the card in question. They are, of course, mistaken. However, let's consult the list of enablers in this deck which will draw you into goodstuff.
Enablers Draining Whelk: A more expensive one, but it's bulky as hell and can come down the turn right before Zegana. Duplicant: Iffy, but potentially large. Great Whale: Free 6-card Zegana and a Deadeye Navigator toy. Indrik Stomphowler: Break something good the turn before, nobody deals with the keywordless, unassuming beater, get five cards. Mystic Snake: Underwhelming, but comes out earlier than Whelk and lets you vomit out Zegana right after. Palinchron: Combo machine. Navigator. Mana Reflection. Phantasmal Image. Vorinclex. Even when it doesn't combo, he does work by netting you five cards. Wickerbough Elder: Same philosophy as Indrik Stomphowler. Bribery: Obvious. Garruk, Primal Hunter: On turn 5, odds are unless you're in a heavy aggro matchup, Garruk can survive to +1 and -3 the next turn. If he does, T5 Garruk into a 3/3 beast becomes 8 cards next turn - 4 off Zegana, 4 off Garruk. Treachery: God-tier enabler. Much like the Palinchron/Great Whale toys, but with so much more burst potential. Opponents sticking something huge immediately regret it as it not only becomes yours, but nets you tons of card advantage.
If you don't understand the game plan after reading this decklist, I am deeply ashamed of you.
Why is everyone such a baby when it comes to not letting people scoop? You're basically saying "Omg you can't make this decision because it hurts me!" Much like, oh, I don't know, every other decision they've made for the entire game?
It's a perfectly valid choice. I welcome it when it happens to me, and I do it myself as a last hurrah after getting hated out.
Plasm Capture fuels your win to a dumb degree. Voidslime is reactive, but half the time it's just a counterspell. I cut it, because I'll take the less versatile counterspell if it says I jettison my early game into some scary late game play the turn after.
Or maybe you like winning too much and have faced a few blowouts at the hand of tactical scooping. I've never seen someone lobby for the ban of a player because they scooped, and I'm pretty sure banning a player for something like that is the neckbeardiest thing you could do in a group.
Avacyn is an incredibly simple card to deal with, and a playgroup that can't is kind of laughable.
Colorless answers include Duplicant, Karn Liberated and All Is Dust. Colorless means every single deck in EDH can run them and kill Avacyn if they want. Of all the cards to hate, this isn't it.
Wow, card isn't nearly as effective as I thought. Can still hit Mystic Snake in emergency situations, which is usually what it does, but wow, that really is a lot less useful than I assumed.
Food Chain is actually something I was considering. It's a house in Maelstrom Wanderer, and I was thinking it might be a mini-house in this. I don't know how much it has to be built-around though. The biggest problem is that it's impossible to tutor for, but I don't know if that's even that big of a deal, considering the sheer value you can get from it.
Yeah, I'd definitely consider a Food Chain + Griffin package, especially with Summoner's Pact as a way to aggressively tutor for the griffin. It's a perfect goodstuff toy when your general is an engine. I'd consider cutting Garruk, Caller of Beasts for it, since Garruk is an inferior engine all things considered.
While Azusa is arguably a valuable asset in this deck, considering it turns Ziggy's acquired lands from a massive draw into more gas, I'm not sure if it's that good in a deck with 38 lands. It does seem like an interesting setup, though.
If this was Momir Vig I'd consider it, since tons of mana + clone tutors makes it semi-viable, but in here it'd just be a card that rots in your hand.
I know it's a novel concept.
I've never been in a situation where the buyback is helpful. If you have the money it'd be easy to replace it with Capture of Jingzhou or Temporal Manipulation. In fact, if I owned either of those cards they would probably be in this deck in addition to Walk and Warp.
Of course, both of these cards also enable Eternal Witness with Deadeye Navigator or Crystal Shard.
Now okay, you might be saying "Psathus, this is just the millionth goodstuff deck with Zegana as the general I've seen. Only boring nerds play those."
And you know what? You're kind of right. However, there is a method to this goodstuff deck, in that it is built to ensure that when Zegana comes down you will, in fact, draw even more good stuff than usual.
How do I get you more goodstuff than usual?
Enablers.
What are enablers? It's a fancy way of saying 4-7 CMC creatures which will be followed up by a next-turn Zegana who is exceptionally large, or at least medium-sized. The trick to these enablers is, at times, to your opponents, they will appear to be poor threat assessment/a misuse of the card in question. They are, of course, mistaken. However, let's consult the list of enablers in this deck which will draw you into goodstuff.
Enablers
Draining Whelk: A more expensive one, but it's bulky as hell and can come down the turn right before Zegana.
Duplicant: Iffy, but potentially large.
Great Whale: Free 6-card Zegana and a Deadeye Navigator toy.
Indrik Stomphowler: Break something good the turn before, nobody deals with the keywordless, unassuming beater, get five cards.
Mystic Snake: Underwhelming, but comes out earlier than Whelk and lets you vomit out Zegana right after.
Palinchron: Combo machine. Navigator. Mana Reflection. Phantasmal Image. Vorinclex. Even when it doesn't combo, he does work by netting you five cards.
Wickerbough Elder: Same philosophy as Indrik Stomphowler.
Bribery: Obvious.
Garruk, Primal Hunter: On turn 5, odds are unless you're in a heavy aggro matchup, Garruk can survive to +1 and -3 the next turn. If he does, T5 Garruk into a 3/3 beast becomes 8 cards next turn - 4 off Zegana, 4 off Garruk.
Treachery: God-tier enabler. Much like the Palinchron/Great Whale toys, but with so much more burst potential. Opponents sticking something huge immediately regret it as it not only becomes yours, but nets you tons of card advantage.
If you don't understand the game plan after reading this decklist, I am deeply ashamed of you.
1x Acidic Slime
1x Deadeye Navigator
1x Draining Whelk
1x Duplicant
1x Eternal Witness
1x Farhaven Elf
1x Glen Elendra Archmage
1x Great Whale
1x Indrik Stomphowler
1x Mystic Snake
1x Oracle of Mul Daya
1x Palinchron
1x Phantasmal Image
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
1x Seedborn Muse
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Spike Weaver
1x Sylvan Primordial
1x Venser, Shaper Savant
1x Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
1x Wickerbough Elder
1x Yavimaya Elder
1x Arcane Denial
1x Capsize
1x Commandeer
1x Cryptic Command
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Desertion
1x Dismiss
1x Evacuation
1x Hinder
1x Pact of Negation
1x Plasm Capture
1x Summoner's Pact
Sorceries
1x All Is Dust
1x Bribery
1x Cultivate
1x Explosive Vegetation
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Knowledge Exploitation
1x Kodama's Reach
1x Ponder
1x Skyshroud Claim
1x Time Spiral
1x Time Warp
1x Tooth and Nail
1x Walk the Aeons
1x Birthing Pod
1x Crystal Shard
1x Mana Vault
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Simic Signet
1x Sol Ring
1x Strionic Resonator
Planeswalkers
1x Garruk, Caller of Beasts
1x Garruk, Primal Hunter
Enchantments
1x Mana Reflection
1x Sylvan Library
1x Treachery
Lands
1x Alchemist's Refuge
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Breeding Pool
1x Command Tower
11x Forest
1x Hinterland Harbor
17x Island
1x Lonely Sandbar
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Temple of the False God
1x Tranquil Thicket
1x Yavimaya Coast
It's a perfectly valid choice. I welcome it when it happens to me, and I do it myself as a last hurrah after getting hated out.