The real gem with Precursor Golem is Mirrorweave, making useless non-PG cards and tokens into PG, thereby greatly increasing the number of PG triggers you have for each cast. Anointed Procession helps out a lot too with the early copy effects so you have a decent number to begin the big copy phases. It's easy to get 20 or so Golem tokens with Anointed Procession and a single-copy spell like Cackling Counterpart. With Mirrorweave, that's an extra 20 triggers to copy Cackling Counterpart flashbacked or something more potent like Heat Shimmer (which gives all the copies haste for an alpha strike).
I need to play more with Mirrorweave anyways since it's such an unusual card and deserves love.
I enjoy reading your Barren Glory wins since it's a hard one to set up and pull off. Good job making that card usable.
Zedruu was my very first EDH deck when I bought the precon a long time ago before I went with Esper (and so on and so forth building more and different decks), and seeing this thread and the Arcane Zada thread makes me want to revisit that commander. I mention the Zada thread as well because of the card Precursor Golem, one I haven't played since standard with it and Venser in UW control. There's been a lot of toys released since then and this deck has so many wild interactions that looks quite fun to play around with.
Just wanted to say that this is a great thread and I hope to keep seeing you play around with the deck as the years go by.
Props on the deck; it looks amazingly fun to play. Grenzo saving himself via getting sac'd, tucked, and flipped is tech I didn't think about before reading this thread although it would remove any counters on him at the time.
As a thought experiment based on that:
What would you do if you had the limitation of only 2 power or less rather than 3?
This would cut out quite a few important cards:
Could it still be viable to play without these? You would always have the consistency of being able to flip all of your creatures no matter how many counters Grenzo had on him, but you cut out some combo wins, a Reito Lantern on a body, mass sacrifice, Deathbringer's powerful removal, tutoring, and reanimation. It is a rather large limitation.
By the title, I was expecting more Monarch cards like Throne of the High City. Instead, this seems more like a deckbuilding methodology that people could follow in creature-heavy decks, encouraging people to diversify and cover a swath of abilities that could come useful. This flavor wouldn't be obvious to the other players unless you all sat down to design decks with this method due to the lack of grid and movement of cards unless you call them by their type while you play.
There's the new Jodah, Archmage Eternal that was spoiled recently if you want to support the merfolk with big splashy spells without needing to deckbuild in one way or another.
I didn't see your previous thread about the original Kaalia deck and your meta but now that I have, just going to make a couple of comments on that along with this new deck: Zacama, Primal Calamity: big mana Naya, Dino Tribal, Aggro
Edgar Markov: Vamp Tribal, Aggro Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and The Mimeoplasm: Reanimator Ezuri, Claw of Progress: Infect, Aggro Starke of Rath: Mono-Red Control (I like this person's choice)
Note: rest of this is just based upon speculating upon their decks. What you know of what they play is best for changing things to fit the meta
More control overall could really help out surviving long enough for flying fatties to get through their defenses. That evasion is one of your benefits you seem to hold over the rest of the table.
Both your commander and Boros Charm give protection against wraths and similar, and Boros Charm is cheap enough to cast with your own wrath. Two of the decks mentioned are Tri-Color, two dual color, and one mono-color. You could take advantage of that by adding more basics to the deck replacing a lot of the tapped lands in order to set yourself up to use cards like Ruination and From the Ashes (which replaces your destroyed lands with untapped lands so you can tap your lands for mana first, floating what you need and get more out of it than the cost of From the Ashes). Boros Charm also protects your own lands from Ruination.
Some other cards: Volcanic Offering removes two creatures of a reasonable size and two nonbasics at instant speed. Incendiary Command can kill off token swarms, kill a nonbasic land, and everyone discards their hand and draws to their former hand size. Condemn is no Swords to Plowshares nor is it Path to Exile, but with the amount of aggro in your meta, it should serve well enough. Tectonic Edge is not expensive and fits a land slot. Scavenger Grounds wipes out all graveyards, only takes a land slot, and can work with Desert of the Fervent and Desert of the True which if you don't need them you can cycle away. The two deserts aren't necessary for Scavenger Grounds to work but give you more uses out of it. Tormod's Crypt can remove one gy for 0 mana, and (though more expensive to activate), Silent Gravestone meanwhile prevents cards in the gy from being targets of spells and abilities. Note that The Mimeoplasm's ability doesn't target.
For dealing with very specific ability problems, there's Pithing Needle, Sorcerous Spyglass, and Phyrexian Revoker. They turn off not only things like Jarad's abilities, but do a lot depending on how much opponents lean on abilities. Gideon's Intervention, Nevermore, Null Chamber (more risky), and Voidstone Gargoyle each prevent an oppoonent from using a card that could stop your gameplan or kill you. Earthquake, Magmaquake, and Fault Line can wipe out non-flyers leaving your angels untouched, and since they will kill your non-flyers as well, can incidentally flip your Avacyn. Staff of Nin has a high cmc but increases your card draw. Reverberate allows you to counter counters as well as pull off shenanigans by copying opponents' spells. Wild Ricochet is similar for double the cmc, but also redirects the copied spell. Rout is Wrath of God that can be cast at instant speed.
Did you see the Dominaria leak? Here is a translation from the original Chinese post (there are more accurate translations available now, but this one is better):
Not dead Squig
{ A } { red } { red }
Legendary creatures ~ ghosts
2/1
You can cast sphinx from your graveyard or exile.
I am definitely changing the thread name to "Not Dead Squig".
That is some great text. The ability makes him play a lot differently from the original since you can't just use him as discard fodder and turn red looters into better value. If you would change the deck to revolve around the new version, how would you do so?
Thanks for the heads up. I'll fix that. I'll also consider those. I may have to cut more expensive angels, and I don't like doing that.. is my mana curve okay now? Should I go with angels and humans in more equal amounts and maybe put in Angel of Glory's Rise? That may not be the best option. I'm also unsure about what to cut to be able to add stuff. I do like Angel of Jubilation because it would turn Kenny's zombie deck OFF completely, and he's a huge threat at the table. Angel of Glory's Rise would screw him over.. but it seems like a lot of hate to put in the deck just for one or two people in a group of people that rotates from week to week. Should I cut Angel of Jubilation then, and put in humans I can sacrifice? I'm not sure I want to make the deck angels and humans, though my ramp with Herald of War would support such a deck just as well as angel tribal. What do you feel would be more effective at the table, given the fact that Archangel Avacyn is strong, but not overly threatening, and has that synergy with non-angels?
It's fine to keep Angel of Jubilation in the deck, you just have to play around it if you want creatures that self-sacrifice. The Unicorn is a nice choice since it targets both artifacts and enchantments rather than only one or the other. To choose only a couple of the ones I listed:
Burnished Hart, Wild-Field Scarecrow (early game blockers and manafixing), Capashen Unicorn (removal), Knight-Captain of Eos for the fogs. All of those are useful earlier on in the game as board states develop. Luminous Angel is extremely expensive for its body and token production, and Requiem Angel is best suited for token decks that make more than one type of token so you can turn Human and Soldier tokens into Spirits and other shenanigans. From there, try out the deck and see what seems weakest for other cuts for what you feel like you need in your meta, how fast or slow your deck feels, and other things you need.
A heads up about the [ deck ] tag:
within the [ deck ] [ /deck ] (remove spaces), put #x (Card Name) down a list (you can use the cmc of the card which is common for people or the number of cards for #), and for separating them, just type in a heading above a section. Example:
[ deck ]
General
5x Archangel Avacyn
1x Avacyn, the Purifier
What's the source for all this?
Anyway, I can actually see Hallar, the Firefletcher work in a number of decks, not necessarily commander ones. Elves in modern right now are using that guy that gets +1 for each time he was kicked and buffs the rest of the team accordingly, I can definitely see some synergy there.
As for Johira, I'll be using her in my Breya deck
Day of Judgment is a decent replacement for Wrath too. The cheaper your wraths are (in cmc), the better. One choice to consider as well is Slaughter the Strong if you don't mind that most of your creatures don't survive it; smaller angels will. Windborn Muse can fit in for Archangel of Tithes if you just want defense.
Your curve is extremely high: I count 13 angels at 6+ cmc, the replacements you suggest have 6 angels at 6+ cmc, and that's not counting the wraths and other big spells.
Some relatively cheaper cmc angels that aren't expensive: Angel of Condemnation: reuse EtB effects, remove opponent's creatures until it dies, remove blockers or attackers against you (if you don't mind the opponent getting an EtB) Angel of Finality: Graveyard Hate Angelic Field Marshal: gives all your creatures vigilance if you control your general too. Avacyn, Guardian Angel: She doesn't measure up to the other two, but, the abilities can be used defensively as well as politically. You might surprise yourself with her. Firemane Avenger: Easy-to-trigger ability that removes utility creatures. Guardian Seraph: protects your life total against smaller bits of damage. Herald of the Host: Serra Angel that can swing at multiple opponents at once. Reaper of Flight Moonsilver: Sac outlet.
Out of what you have and are not using to use for replacements: Mother of Runes and Iroas seem the best since one is cheap and repeatable and the other affects the whole team, making them hard to block and kill in combat.
An interesting point about Garna, the Bloodflame: It returns creatures to hand if they entered the graveyard from anywhera else. In other words, you can use mass mill such as Dread Summons or a big Mesmeric Orb turn as pseudo-draw, recover discarded cards after a Mindslicer or reuse them with cards like Skirge Familiar for big mana turns, and the obvious post-Wrath tech. Even something as simple as Necromancer's Stockpile can be used to fill your hand then regain all the discarded cards.
Obviously, these strategies lend themselves to big mana BR the best, abusing Coffers as much as possible for the explosive turns since Garna costs 5 cmc.
Torgaar is able to cheat the Commander Tax as well like Tasigur's Delve. It's a sac outlet every time you cast it, not as good as instant-speed ones but still a way to trigger Grave Pact effects, get draw off of Dark Prophecy-style cards, counters for Black Market, etc. Wound Reflection with Torgaar can kill a person from full health or more and severely wound people at less than full.
Edit: cyberium_neo, you beat me to the punch; I wasted too much time looking up cards.
I need to play more with Mirrorweave anyways since it's such an unusual card and deserves love.
I enjoy reading your Barren Glory wins since it's a hard one to set up and pull off. Good job making that card usable.
Just wanted to say that this is a great thread and I hope to keep seeing you play around with the deck as the years go by.
As a thought experiment based on that:
What would you do if you had the limitation of only 2 power or less rather than 3?
This would cut out quite a few important cards:
Could it still be viable to play without these? You would always have the consistency of being able to flip all of your creatures no matter how many counters Grenzo had on him, but you cut out some combo wins, a Reito Lantern on a body, mass sacrifice, Deathbringer's powerful removal, tutoring, and reanimation. It is a rather large limitation.
Zacama, Primal Calamity: big mana Naya, Dino Tribal, Aggro
Edgar Markov: Vamp Tribal, Aggro
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and The Mimeoplasm: Reanimator
Ezuri, Claw of Progress: Infect, Aggro
Starke of Rath: Mono-Red Control (I like this person's choice)
Note: rest of this is just based upon speculating upon their decks. What you know of what they play is best for changing things to fit the meta
More control overall could really help out surviving long enough for flying fatties to get through their defenses. That evasion is one of your benefits you seem to hold over the rest of the table.
Both your commander and Boros Charm give protection against wraths and similar, and Boros Charm is cheap enough to cast with your own wrath. Two of the decks mentioned are Tri-Color, two dual color, and one mono-color. You could take advantage of that by adding more basics to the deck replacing a lot of the tapped lands in order to set yourself up to use cards like Ruination and From the Ashes (which replaces your destroyed lands with untapped lands so you can tap your lands for mana first, floating what you need and get more out of it than the cost of From the Ashes). Boros Charm also protects your own lands from Ruination.
Some other cards:
Volcanic Offering removes two creatures of a reasonable size and two nonbasics at instant speed.
Incendiary Command can kill off token swarms, kill a nonbasic land, and everyone discards their hand and draws to their former hand size.
Condemn is no Swords to Plowshares nor is it Path to Exile, but with the amount of aggro in your meta, it should serve well enough.
Tectonic Edge is not expensive and fits a land slot.
Scavenger Grounds wipes out all graveyards, only takes a land slot, and can work with Desert of the Fervent and Desert of the True which if you don't need them you can cycle away. The two deserts aren't necessary for Scavenger Grounds to work but give you more uses out of it.
Tormod's Crypt can remove one gy for 0 mana, and (though more expensive to activate), Silent Gravestone meanwhile prevents cards in the gy from being targets of spells and abilities. Note that The Mimeoplasm's ability doesn't target.
For dealing with very specific ability problems, there's Pithing Needle, Sorcerous Spyglass, and Phyrexian Revoker. They turn off not only things like Jarad's abilities, but do a lot depending on how much opponents lean on abilities.
Gideon's Intervention, Nevermore, Null Chamber (more risky), and Voidstone Gargoyle each prevent an oppoonent from using a card that could stop your gameplan or kill you.
Earthquake, Magmaquake, and Fault Line can wipe out non-flyers leaving your angels untouched, and since they will kill your non-flyers as well, can incidentally flip your Avacyn.
Staff of Nin has a high cmc but increases your card draw.
Reverberate allows you to counter counters as well as pull off shenanigans by copying opponents' spells. Wild Ricochet is similar for double the cmc, but also redirects the copied spell.
Rout is Wrath of God that can be cast at instant speed.
That is some great text. The ability makes him play a lot differently from the original since you can't just use him as discard fodder and turn red looters into better value. If you would change the deck to revolve around the new version, how would you do so?
It's fine to keep Angel of Jubilation in the deck, you just have to play around it if you want creatures that self-sacrifice. The Unicorn is a nice choice since it targets both artifacts and enchantments rather than only one or the other. To choose only a couple of the ones I listed:
Burnished Hart, Wild-Field Scarecrow (early game blockers and manafixing), Capashen Unicorn (removal), Knight-Captain of Eos for the fogs. All of those are useful earlier on in the game as board states develop. Luminous Angel is extremely expensive for its body and token production, and Requiem Angel is best suited for token decks that make more than one type of token so you can turn Human and Soldier tokens into Spirits and other shenanigans. From there, try out the deck and see what seems weakest for other cuts for what you feel like you need in your meta, how fast or slow your deck feels, and other things you need.
Non Angel suggestions to help trigger Avacyn's Transform (Angel of Jubilation prevents you from saccing as a cost, though):
Utility:
Tokens:
within the [ deck ] [ /deck ] (remove spaces), put #x (Card Name) down a list (you can use the cmc of the card which is common for people or the number of cards for #), and for separating them, just type in a heading above a section. Example:
[ deck ]
General
5x Archangel Avacyn
1x Avacyn, the Purifier
Lands
10x Plains
10x Mountain
1x Rogue's Passage
[ /deck ]
which then looks like this:
5x Archangel Avacyn
1x Avacyn, the Purifier
10x Plains
10x Mountain
1x Rogue's Passage
There's a few more but even worse than the ones I listed. This doesn't include anything new.
Day of Judgment is a decent replacement for Wrath too. The cheaper your wraths are (in cmc), the better. One choice to consider as well is Slaughter the Strong if you don't mind that most of your creatures don't survive it; smaller angels will. Windborn Muse can fit in for Archangel of Tithes if you just want defense.
Your curve is extremely high: I count 13 angels at 6+ cmc, the replacements you suggest have 6 angels at 6+ cmc, and that's not counting the wraths and other big spells.
Some relatively cheaper cmc angels that aren't expensive:
Angel of Condemnation: reuse EtB effects, remove opponent's creatures until it dies, remove blockers or attackers against you (if you don't mind the opponent getting an EtB)
Angel of Finality: Graveyard Hate
Angelic Field Marshal: gives all your creatures vigilance if you control your general too.
Avacyn, Guardian Angel: She doesn't measure up to the other two, but, the abilities can be used defensively as well as politically. You might surprise yourself with her.
Firemane Avenger: Easy-to-trigger ability that removes utility creatures.
Guardian Seraph: protects your life total against smaller bits of damage.
Herald of the Host: Serra Angel that can swing at multiple opponents at once.
Reaper of Flight Moonsilver: Sac outlet.
Out of what you have and are not using to use for replacements: Mother of Runes and Iroas seem the best since one is cheap and repeatable and the other affects the whole team, making them hard to block and kill in combat.
For card draw in R/W, a way to gain it would be becoming The Monarch (token: https://www.cardkingdom.com/mtg/conspiracy-take-the-crown/the-monarch-token). It's like having Phyrexian Arena as an emblem you can lose or regain.
Decent Monarch Cards in your colors:
Card Draw on lands:
Clues can be a source of draw too:
Obviously, these strategies lend themselves to big mana BR the best, abusing Coffers as much as possible for the explosive turns since Garna costs 5 cmc.
Torgaar is able to cheat the Commander Tax as well like Tasigur's Delve. It's a sac outlet every time you cast it, not as good as instant-speed ones but still a way to trigger Grave Pact effects, get draw off of Dark Prophecy-style cards, counters for Black Market, etc. Wound Reflection with Torgaar can kill a person from full health or more and severely wound people at less than full.
Edit: cyberium_neo, you beat me to the punch; I wasted too much time looking up cards.
Rocks and Flip Cards
Creatures