Hope you're all well, figured I give this form another try. Been a month since the last post. Hope your brews are going well and that you've been trying new things!
Hmm, interesting. 3 damage does add up unless answered to. And with my library manipulation effects I could potentially take advantage of the cards he exiles.
Any card you see that may be worth slotting out for him?
How is Solemn Simulacrum working for you?
That is the interesting thing, in some games I've never seen him until late, but that is the nature of EDH, and in others he's been the fixing I needed. As much as Solemn is basic card, he's some much need draw and land fixing/catchup since I lack a lot of that.
I could see moving him out to test Tetonic Giant tho
Hmm, interesting. 3 damage does add up unless answered to. And with my library manipulation effects I could potentially take advantage of the cards he exiles.
Any card you see that may be worth slotting out for him?
I don't go to many LGS, mainly beause most LGS have just reopend and haven't been allowed to have more than 5 people. That said, I play with my friends online via cockatrice or tabletop simulator.
We all try to bring casual competetive decks, ones that perform strong at our table, but so much at actual LGSs. So along the lines of, we can win in less than 10 turns, but can grind games out if we're having fun just relaxing.
The commanders in our group are
Krenko, Mob Boss : Typical goblin style deck Meren of Clan Nel Toth: Mr. I'm like Karadon, but only if I have less 3+ card combos and just focused on single good stuff Maelstrom Wanderer: I wanna play "Everyone gets to draw 3+ cards and play 3+ lands a turn until I find my combo and kill you" Karador, Ghost Chieftain: Wanna see me empty my deck into the graveyard? *woosh* wanna see me do it again? Nath of the Gilt-Leaf: T1 Land, T2 A BILLION ELVES Norin the Wary: Typical, I wanna see the world burn by playing random, chaos, crazy cards
Performance wise, I play like your average Ruric deck. Make sure if anyone wants to have fun, they take 1-6 damage to do so. Sadly, Karador, Meren, and Nath can pretty much fly under my radar unless I have cards like Harsh Mentor, Burning-Tree Shaman, or Immolation Shaman out, and by that time it becomes a game of "How quickly can I punch them in the mouth"
The only card I could see coming out right now, that is also underperforming at my group is Masked Admirers, compared to the rest of my draw engine cards in Heartwood Storyteller, Runic Armasaur, Sylvan Library,, and Sensei's Divining Top to name a few just do its job better since they're recurrable. A lot of the cards I eye look to help me, in theory, shore up areas of my deck I think I'm weak against. I'd like to jam in Duskwatch since it would speed up my abilty to not only find my hate pieces, but give my deck more library manipulation to prevent clunky draws.
Any suggestions would be appreciated in terms of what cards you think could come out, or what cards I'm looking at are too shallow, narrow, or just plain not good for my group.
Thanks again!
Edit 6/1/2020:
I removed both Masked Admirers and Managorger Hydra for Huntmaster of the Fells and Duskwatch Recruiter. Admirers for the reasons listed above, while an ETB draw a card is fine, the ability to cycle my deck is more valuable in the long run, and helps in the late game to find gas. Hydra came out because now that I'm looking for more value cards as a opposed to cards that are anti-fun stle, Hydra doesn't do much. It becomes a beater but only if played early enough to gain steam, and even then dies to common removal. Huntmaster gives me long term viability with its fight mechanic, 2/2 wolves, life game, and 2 damage, it helps fill a lot of shoes I need.
Edit 6/1/2020:
Removing Radha, heir to keld for Magma Phoenix. In some friendly table top games tonight, I found that my board wipe capabilites were very limited. Only having Inferno Titan and Steel Hellkite as primary wipes, and then having some minor fight cards such as Drakuseth, Maw of Flames, Ravager Wurm, and Terastodon to name a few. So when my friends needed a wipe I constantly came up short. Looking around I feel Magma Phoenix will fix that issue if only slightly. Now it was a toss up between him and Shard Phoenix, but I felt that having that additional p/t plus any time recursion to go along with my flash spells, casting reductions, made Magma a bit more worth it.
Edit: 6/1/2020:
Replacing Copperline Gorge with another basic Forest. I found in many games tonight that it came into play tapped more often than not, and combind with my other numerous ETB tapped lands, I lost tempo on many games I should've won, and found that replacing it with another basic should help more T1 plays with my mana producers. And my overall curve since I seem to spike more around the CMC 2-3 than anything else.
Edit 6/2/2020:
So played some more friendly games, this time in person (woo!!) with a few friends, same ones that play the above decks. Got to talking to one of them, and he suggested I try to add in Genesis to really give me that edge and push me over that the grind. I ended up, after a few more games came to the conclusion that Sunder Shaman, as repeatable as he is, isn't that good for number of reason which are,
RRGG is kinda tricky to pull off, I can't reduce his cost with anything (Nylea and/or Duskwatch), and I have to have perfect mana to get him down which means relying on mana fixing even more.
Without any sort of trample, he can be chumped for days, and while he does require single blocks, he lets players set up their death triggers against him making him awkward to send at people who like to play recurrsion (Meren player, Karadorn player, even Maelstrom runs Veteran Explorer)
If I want Sunder to hit, I need him, plus either Kessig or Skarrg out and is 7 mana for Sunder and a trample trigger.
So I ultimately feel he's just a 4 mana 5/5 and his only upside is giving my +4 devotion to my two gods. Which aren't really in the deck to be beaters anyways. Genesis should happily find a home now, and give my deck even more power by making me more resilent to board wipes and late game grinds.
Edit 6/4/2020:
So I'm testing out replacing Vivien, Champion of the Wilds with Domri, Chaos Bringer. I haven't been able to take advantage of the flash ability of Vivien, when I play her, nor do I think her abilty to give a creature Vigilance and Reach worth while. Her -2 could be worth it, but I'd rather have that card in hand than wait for surprise attack. Domri I think helps me with giving me extra mana, then in turn giving that creature Riot which helps speed up certian cards like Drakesuth to get in there, his -3 to help find more creatures lend him to refuling and avoiding being mana flooded, and his last ability helps give me clocks against so many players by making 4/4s each turn.
Removing Slate of Ancestry for Tamiyo's Journal. While slate is a good card, I feel I can never take advantage of it's effects consistently enough to be worth while. While I do have a lot of cards that can give me +3 creatures, I have just as many cards that can manipulate the top of my deck, or just draw me as many cards without having to sac my hand. The journal also has the upside of minor card draw each turn, plus a free tutor should I find myself need one particular card.
Please note, that while I do follow some sets time to time depending if a card cathes my eye, I haven't actually touched my deck in quite some time and it may appear a bit dated. Some day when my itch to play magic returns, I will probably see what cards are no longer revelant and update.
This deck was made in the time where Boggles, Humans, Green Affinity, Tron, and regular Affinty were still top tier/relavent. This deck was designed to slow or stop them completely with some success against a few, and almost a 100% win rate against others. The matchups I struggled with were Humans, Control, and Burn.
This deck does run the old Nahiri + Emrakul wincon package, tho some post decks that you see posted try to stray away from it since, while strong, probably has outlived its usefulness.
Ya, I haven't touched the competitve scene if forever, my deck list hasn't been upgraded but I don't think it has to be unless I'm itching to do a complete redo of my deck to test things around. |
That monster seems okay, a Greater Gargadon on steriods with some minor card draw. I like it.
so with the new release of cards, are there any that has caught anyones eye to try out yet.
I feel like Vadrok, Apex of Thunder could be an interesting brew. We're already running the proper colors, and the mutate abilty lets us boost our Greater Gargadons AND cast Balance if we need to in a pinch.
I also like Mythos of Vadrok, 4 mana deal 5 split damage, while also buying ourselves some time against troublesom planewalkers.
I know we all kinda faded off here, because there is only so many cards you can review before you wait for a new set to come out. But I like these two so far!
Hopefully you're all doing well admist the covid-19 outbreak.
He may be too cute and his ult might be too difficult to pull off but his + and - abilities seem like they could be useful.
So my question to you is, if you do posts you will hit your devtion for those gods. I always did with Thassa since I ran 8 posts that made U and had several U permanents. Can you also win with those gods a few turns you play them.
For the walker, I think he's cool. I run differen't tuck spells than him, and my only issue is reusing the Ardent Plea without any Balances in deck is a dead abilty. But using his ability to exile pesky enchantments using your indestructible gods is cute. I'd say try it out. It seems a bit weaker, and tricky to pull off but if Calix works like you think he will I don't see why he wouldn't work.
Hi, sorry for a brief absence. But I have a few more questions, for you.
1. Arcum's Astrolabe: I don't think you need this mana fixer in your deck. You don't seem to run enough blue to warrent this.
2. Coldsteel Heart: I feel the ETB-Tapped is a bit slow, compared to your borderposts which do its job better by giving you a -1 land count for balances
3. I like your sideboard. I think you've got a solid one there.
Honestly, I don't think Wrenn and Six will be a big issue.
I think you've said pretty much everything I was going to say with that deck, so I have nothing to add.
Yes, Wrenn and Six help them rebuild their lands, but again. With our deck being able to run so many recover/cast from graveyard effects it becomes a war of attrition. We can let them rebuild all they want, we'll just keep wiping them. And it only works in RG variants. So Esper control decks really don't change against us, and aggro decks probably wont run Wrenn + Six. I can see Jund running it, but that will be determined.
We do well against Amulet Titan because they're land strat, we may be able to reduce a lot of our control elements in our decks to focus more on the aggro decks. I think if we really want a better land, we can also do Gemstone Mine its what Ad Naseum and Living End use to play back in their heyday. Its a quick mana fixer that sac's itself solving our land problem. Don't think Post decks can run it, but ED may
As for Jund/Liliana time will have to tell what their decks will be. If they focus on Value more we may have a chance, but if they go more controll-y/ heavy on the discard we will always lose
I thik with the recently announced Modern bans, we can finally have some more breathing room. How do you guys thinks we'll fair now.
That said, one reason I don't buy into the ED version is their lack of a secondary win con. With the cascade version, we have Nahiri + Emrakrul to win out, and Nahiri herself helps deal with a lot of pesky artifacts, enchantments, or creatures. Then I just flexed two spots out for Gideon as a 3d win con to just "get there" in a beat down style.
I think jamming in more planeswalkers and lessing the reliance on counters, digs, and loot spells, may help us win these maatchups. Planeswalkers can help in any situation, such as regular Jace, Nahiri (as mentioned). Kiora, the Crashing Wave and so on. I did play Kiora for a long time, but switched to Gideon for a more faster answer in the late game and a bit more aggresion overall
My issue is that I couldn't justify $40(?) per leyline, they were only good in the opening hand in my opinion, and then became a slower draw all game. That's if I saw them at all, because in G2 why would I mull a good hand just at a change to have a leyline in opening hand. Discard wasn't really a problem with me, most people don't know what to get rid of in my hand usually and I run the poor man Monastery Siege as well.
I wouldn't be too concerned with adding Opal. It isn't the strongest card we can use, and we don't need that imediate fixing. I feel you're driftting away from the core of the deck, while I don't mind that, it will dilute the overall deck scheme throwing in cards just to support one card.
What would you be pitching Force too? I feel Remand is better than it, without losing out on tempo. Oko seems fine, he's a strong card like you said, Teferi I think is a bit too expensive in modern, and he'll get wiped away with our balances or leave us in a spot where he'll either chump block or leave up and we eat damage.
That is the interesting thing, in some games I've never seen him until late, but that is the nature of EDH, and in others he's been the fixing I needed. As much as Solemn is basic card, he's some much need draw and land fixing/catchup since I lack a lot of that.
I could see moving him out to test Tetonic Giant tho
Any card you see that may be worth slotting out for him?
So I recently got back into EDH last month, and set out to build my all time favorite card Ruric Thar, the Unbowed.
1 Gruul Signet
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Tamiyo's Journal
1 Sol Ring
//Artifact Creature (2)
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Steel Hellkite
//Creature (39)
1 Acidic Slime
1 Bane of Progress
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Brutalizer Exarch
1 Burning-Tree Shaman
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Dosan the Falling Leaf
1 Dragonlair Spider
1 Drakuseth, Maw of Flames
1 Elvish Mystic
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Hanweir Garrison
1 Harsh Mentor
1 Heartwood Storyteller
1 Immolation Shaman
1 Inferno Titan
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Kogla, the Titan Ape
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Huntmaster of the fells
1 Manglehorn
1 Magma Phoenix
1 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Mina and Denn, Wildborn
1 Nikya of the Old Ways
1 Ravager Wurm
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Runic Armasaur
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Shaman of Forgotten Ways
1 Somberwald Sage
1 Sunder Shaman
1 Sylvan Caryatid
1 Terastodon
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Zealous Conscripts
1 Zhur-Taa Druid
1 Cindervines
1 Rhythm of the Wild
1 Sylvan Library
//Instant (2)
1 Beast Within
1 Force of Vigor
//Land Creature (1)
1 Dryad Arbor
//Enchantment Creature (4)
1 Arasta of the Endless Web
1 Klothys, God of Destiny
1 Nylea, Keen-Eyed
1 Xenagos, God of Revels
//Planeswalker (4)
1 Domri Rade
1 Garruk, Caller of Beasts
1 Domri, Chaos Bringer
1 Xenagos, the Reveler
//Snow Creature (1)
1 Ohran Frostfang
//Sorcery (4)
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Hull Breach
1 Rishkar's Expertise
1 Tooth and Nail
//Land (35)
1 Castle Garenbrig
1 Cinder Glade
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
6 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Game Trail
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Gruul Guildgate
1 Gruul Turf
1 Hanweir Battlements
1 Karplusan Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
6 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Mountain Valley
1 Raging Ravine
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Scavenger Grounds
1 Sheltered Thicket
1 Skarrg, the Rage Pits
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple of Abandon
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Treetop Village
I don't go to many LGS, mainly beause most LGS have just reopend and haven't been allowed to have more than 5 people. That said, I play with my friends online via cockatrice or tabletop simulator.
We all try to bring casual competetive decks, ones that perform strong at our table, but so much at actual LGSs. So along the lines of, we can win in less than 10 turns, but can grind games out if we're having fun just relaxing.
The commanders in our group are
Krenko, Mob Boss : Typical goblin style deck
Meren of Clan Nel Toth: Mr. I'm like Karadon, but only if I have less 3+ card combos and just focused on single good stuff
Maelstrom Wanderer: I wanna play "Everyone gets to draw 3+ cards and play 3+ lands a turn until I find my combo and kill you"
Karador, Ghost Chieftain: Wanna see me empty my deck into the graveyard? *woosh* wanna see me do it again?
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf: T1 Land, T2 A BILLION ELVES
Norin the Wary: Typical, I wanna see the world burn by playing random, chaos, crazy cards
Performance wise, I play like your average Ruric deck. Make sure if anyone wants to have fun, they take 1-6 damage to do so. Sadly, Karador, Meren, and Nath can pretty much fly under my radar unless I have cards like Harsh Mentor, Burning-Tree Shaman, or Immolation Shaman out, and by that time it becomes a game of "How quickly can I punch them in the mouth"
Duskwatch Recruiter
Huntmaster of the fells
Soul of New Phyrexia
Asceticism
The only card I could see coming out right now, that is also underperforming at my group is Masked Admirers, compared to the rest of my draw engine cards in Heartwood Storyteller, Runic Armasaur, Sylvan Library,, and Sensei's Divining Top to name a few just do its job better since they're recurrable. A lot of the cards I eye look to help me, in theory, shore up areas of my deck I think I'm weak against. I'd like to jam in Duskwatch since it would speed up my abilty to not only find my hate pieces, but give my deck more library manipulation to prevent clunky draws.
Any suggestions would be appreciated in terms of what cards you think could come out, or what cards I'm looking at are too shallow, narrow, or just plain not good for my group.
Thanks again!
Edit 6/1/2020:
Edit 6/1/2020:
Edit: 6/1/2020:
Edit 6/2/2020:
Edit 6/4/2020:
Edit: 6/9/2020:
Edit: 6/12/2020:
4 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Evolving Wilds
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Mountain
Borderposts = 12
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Firewild Borderpost
4 Wildfield Borderpost
Other Artifacts = 2
2 Bow of Nylea
Planeswalkers = 5
2 Gideon of the Trials
3 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Greater Gargadon
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Instants = 8
4 Violent Outburst
4 Supreme Will
Sorcery = 4
4 Restore Balance
Enchantment = 10
2 Monastery Siege
2 As Foretold
2 Detention Sphere
4 Ardent Plea
3 Ravenous Trap
3 Anger of the Gods
3 Wear // Tear
2 Imprisoned in the Moon
2 Blood Moon
2 Ricochet Trap
Please note, that while I do follow some sets time to time depending if a card cathes my eye, I haven't actually touched my deck in quite some time and it may appear a bit dated. Some day when my itch to play magic returns, I will probably see what cards are no longer revelant and update.
This deck was made in the time where Boggles, Humans, Green Affinity, Tron, and regular Affinty were still top tier/relavent. This deck was designed to slow or stop them completely with some success against a few, and almost a 100% win rate against others. The matchups I struggled with were Humans, Control, and Burn.
This deck does run the old Nahiri + Emrakul wincon package, tho some post decks that you see posted try to stray away from it since, while strong, probably has outlived its usefulness.
That monster seems okay, a Greater Gargadon on steriods with some minor card draw. I like it.
so with the new release of cards, are there any that has caught anyones eye to try out yet.
I feel like Vadrok, Apex of Thunder could be an interesting brew. We're already running the proper colors, and the mutate abilty lets us boost our Greater Gargadons AND cast Balance if we need to in a pinch.
I also like Mythos of Vadrok, 4 mana deal 5 split damage, while also buying ourselves some time against troublesom planewalkers.
I know we all kinda faded off here, because there is only so many cards you can review before you wait for a new set to come out. But I like these two so far!
Hopefully you're all doing well admist the covid-19 outbreak.
So my question to you is, if you do posts you will hit your devtion for those gods. I always did with Thassa since I ran 8 posts that made U and had several U permanents. Can you also win with those gods a few turns you play them.
For the walker, I think he's cool. I run differen't tuck spells than him, and my only issue is reusing the Ardent Plea without any Balances in deck is a dead abilty. But using his ability to exile pesky enchantments using your indestructible gods is cute. I'd say try it out. It seems a bit weaker, and tricky to pull off but if Calix works like you think he will I don't see why he wouldn't work.
1. Arcum's Astrolabe: I don't think you need this mana fixer in your deck. You don't seem to run enough blue to warrent this.
2. Coldsteel Heart: I feel the ETB-Tapped is a bit slow, compared to your borderposts which do its job better by giving you a -1 land count for balances
3. I like your sideboard. I think you've got a solid one there.
I think you've said pretty much everything I was going to say with that deck, so I have nothing to add.
Yes, Wrenn and Six help them rebuild their lands, but again. With our deck being able to run so many recover/cast from graveyard effects it becomes a war of attrition. We can let them rebuild all they want, we'll just keep wiping them. And it only works in RG variants. So Esper control decks really don't change against us, and aggro decks probably wont run Wrenn + Six. I can see Jund running it, but that will be determined.
From what I gather is it just Light Prision/TurboGarg?
As for Jund/Liliana time will have to tell what their decks will be. If they focus on Value more we may have a chance, but if they go more controll-y/ heavy on the discard we will always lose
That said, one reason I don't buy into the ED version is their lack of a secondary win con. With the cascade version, we have Nahiri + Emrakrul to win out, and Nahiri herself helps deal with a lot of pesky artifacts, enchantments, or creatures. Then I just flexed two spots out for Gideon as a 3d win con to just "get there" in a beat down style.
I think jamming in more planeswalkers and lessing the reliance on counters, digs, and loot spells, may help us win these maatchups. Planeswalkers can help in any situation, such as regular Jace, Nahiri (as mentioned). Kiora, the Crashing Wave and so on. I did play Kiora for a long time, but switched to Gideon for a more faster answer in the late game and a bit more aggresion overall
I wouldn't be too concerned with adding Opal. It isn't the strongest card we can use, and we don't need that imediate fixing. I feel you're driftting away from the core of the deck, while I don't mind that, it will dilute the overall deck scheme throwing in cards just to support one card.
What would you be pitching Force too? I feel Remand is better than it, without losing out on tempo. Oko seems fine, he's a strong card like you said, Teferi I think is a bit too expensive in modern, and he'll get wiped away with our balances or leave us in a spot where he'll either chump block or leave up and we eat damage.