With your budget, I would avoid blue. I would build ghave. He's easily scalable in power level with your group. He can be built pretty cheap but also has a very high ceiling should you choose to invest more in the deck going forward.
I can spot Kev Walker art from a mile away. He has a distinct style of highlights and shadow and limited color pallet. Interesting fact; every time Kev Walker draws something undead an angel gets it's wings (may also be true for Carl Critchlow).
I think, ultimately, it depends on what your deck runs. You probably made the right choice, as the cards you kept give you card advantage, vs. the tutor, which basically translates to a single answer. That said, more answers is typically better, and this gives you a chance to assemble your board state at a more relaxed pace, vs. potentially getting targeted for getting a killer combo piece or what have you with the tutor. Commander is more about the long game rather than "how can I immediately kill somebody?", which is something that a lot of people forget when they're transitioning from playing more competitive formats, such as Legacy or Modern. The politics in Commander are a huge aspect of what to consider when taking your turns, and ultimately, with the information we have, I think you made the right choice.
Now, that said...did you win?
I won mostly off of paradox engine. cloned strix a few times to keep untapping.
You should know your deck and sometimes it's not obvious what to do.
However, I don't think T1 Strix is very important in most cases. If you imprinted Dig you would have 3 colors by turn 2 and could represent a Counterspell with UU as well... and play Thirst turn 2 (discard Strix?) to find a black source.
Anyhow, I understand the assumption that exiling one of the best tutors in the game (maybe the best) without much need is a misplay. Use it later to find a combo, answer, draw, ramp... when you'd like to win the game.
... by the way: did you win? Was the decision of any importance?
I won. Had to dig for a quite a bit to get another black source too but i didn't mention that because it might create a bias in answering the question. Strix stuck around and did end up being relevant beyond deterring attacks. I tutored up Paradox Engine EOT with Inventors' Fair then cast it on my turn with pact backup. Cloned strix a few times to help keep paradox engine going till i hit a tutor for win con.
It's a combo deck but i usually play in an answer heavy meta so the deck is full of redundant pieces, plan-B's, and recursion. Threat density is high so i value dig and thirst more than most would and there are a good number of other tutors in the deck so I saw the tutor as a bit expendable in that situation.
I'd have imprinted dig, thirst turn two, still have tutor for the inevitable black mana source at some point. But that's only if I kept, which you could easily mulligan this hand.
I was playing Breya, Etherium Shaper at a table of five and was third in the turn order. I draw an opening hand of Tundra, Mountain, Baleful Strix, Chrome Mox, Vampiric Tutor, Pact of Negation, and Thirst for Knowledge and kept. First two players land go. I draw Dig Through Time. I play Tundra and Chrome Mox, Imprinting Vampiric Tutor, then play Baleful Strix and pass. The friend to the left of me was confused as to why i would ditch the tutor and thinks i misplayed. I disagreed.
My argument had a few points.
-both The mox and tutor are card disadvantage
-ditching tutor and playing strix accelerates and gives me access to black mana
-strix draws me a card
-strix is valuable early board presence (in my usual group we will tear apart a player without an early board but this wasnt my usual group)
-I could have imprinted the strix on mox but that would leave me with no board, i wouldnt have drawn a card, and i wouldn't be using my mana efficiently if i then tutored (also double card disadvantage as mentioned above)
-imprinting one of the other cards would leave me without black
It's not about how broken Iona is (Shes not). I don't think either Iona or Leovold should be banned. I'm pointing out the inconsistent ban criteria. If the justification for banning a card is that it locks players out and leads to unfun situations then both Leovold and Iona should be banned or neither. I'm in favor of neither.
The justification is easily locks players out and despite being just one word, it's functionally a lot of difference when comparing two Legendary creatures in this format, especially when the Command Zone is involved. Leovold is magnitudes easier to lock out someone when he is in the Command Zone compared to Iona, because Iona works better in the 99 than in the Command Zone.
Of course if the Banned as Commander List still existed and Leovold was outright banned I would argue that he is acceptable in a 99 (even though considering the other 3 still-banned cards that were on the list were all in his colors and around his CMC to boot), but this isn't the case.
Iona is harder to remove because she can lock out the color that has the highest likelihood of packing removal. Leovold dies to anything. Sure he can be protected via counter magic to an extent but if the leovold player is trading counters for removal one for one then they're losing. Iona crushes an aspect of the game that is at the heart of commander; color choice.
bans leovold because he easily locks players out of the game. Doesn't ban Iona because herp derp.
As much as I support Iona getting the boot as well, there is still a difference between "easily locks out all other players of the game" and "can lock out a single player for the rest of the game because of their color choice (and inverse-archenemy) while also ironically regardless of their color choice (because Iona can flexibly choose a color and apply the stax effect - other hate cards aren't that flexible and the flexible ones aren't that detrimental in effect)."
Leovold's case is so plain obvious that he got the boot in less than a year after release, which honestly in EDH terms is pretty much banned-in-the-announcement-after-the-PT for Standard cards (just look at how long the debate for Hulk took before this). Iona is more similar in Hulk in that aspect - it's potentially broken rather than outright broken and that "broken" part is debatable, as much as I'm a strong supporter that "a single card that has the potential to lock out a player undermining two major aspects of EDH (multiplayer subverted via Inverse Archenemy and color identity via color choice-stax) should not be permitted regardless of how much that situation actually happens", I also recognize that it doesn't happen a lot of time and is a valid point of view when looking at the format across the board, even if I don't feel it should be valid for Iona in particular because I value the flavor structural integrity of the format perhaps a bit too much (which Iona can undermine greatly).
Okay enough about Iona-rant (man I just keep going when people talk about Iona), if anyone feels like raising the topic back again, there's a thread in the rules subforum I created back then (although we pretty much exhausted every argument). Now onto Protean Hulk...
I'm fully expecting a Kokusho-Situation for Hulk, maybe less so for the competitive groups (since it is more or less more "direct" wincon unlike Kokusho), but ultimately I don't see it as magnitudes faster and/or worse than the array of combos we already have out there in the format. Perhaps a little easier to "hijack" because it a creature, but I also doubt it will be anywhere close the likes of Primeval Titan in terms of being centralizing that it would tear apart competitive groups like PT did to literally everyone.
It's not about how broken Iona is (Shes not). I don't think either Iona or Leovold should be banned. I'm pointing out the inconsistent ban criteria. If the justification for banning a card is that it locks players out and leads to unfun situations then both Leovold and Iona should be banned or neither. I'm in favor of neither.
I know that this statement has been parroted on this board for some time, but I couldn't actually find the article, twitter response, or commentary where this was said. Do you or anyone else on this board have a link to where this was mentioned? I'm genuinely curious about what was said and why.
The closest Wizards said about Goyf was because of the power and history behind it in constructed, although in limited it is terrible unless there is some sort of self mill. If we are all being realistic Goyf would have been rare because it doesn't effect limited at all.
As much as Wizards says they don't look at the secondary market it is rather clear with Goyf and 4-6 cards in EMA that price was a factor for some of the up shifts in rariy.
I do think Wizards looks at the secondary market when placing cards in these sets - especially reprint heavy sets. It makes sense to. Modern Masters 1 was proof enough what happens when Wizards' leaves value on the table... the retailers jack up the price anyways.
The point here is that if we don't have any direct proof of Wizards' saying they do rarity shifts for secondary market concerns, then we shouldn't say it has. We can make suppositions, but lets make sure we have our facts straight.
Not everything needs to be explicit for us to assume it matches reality. Use a little deductive reasoning and heuristic thinking. The only reasons for rarity shifts that have been explicitly stated by WOTC do not apply to tarmogoyf. The next most sensible and simplest (occam's razor) explanation based on the information (lack of explicit statement from wizards and a basic understanding of supply and demand) we have is that secondary market value is the implicit reason for the tarmogoyf rarity shift to mythic since it is an expensive card and printing it at rare would increase supply and damage secondary market prices. It's a valid hypothesis to say that the rarity shift is due to WOTC's collective dislike of the color gold or that they rolled a dice to decide. A valid hypothesis is not necessarily a sensible one.
If you reserve belief on any claim/hypothesis unless there is "direct proof" that invalidates all other possibilities then it's impossible to believe anything because you can keep moving the goal posts.
I should have made myself more clear in my post. I did state that I believe Wizards does in fact look at the secondary market. My original point was that we should not just blindly repeat that Wizards directly said the only reason for mythic on Goyf was for secondary market reasons. It is fine to infer or make suppositions based on the available information, but don't say things like "Wizards directly said X" if you don't have a direct reference.
I didn't think anyone was claiming that wizards explicitly said they shifted the rarity due to the secondary market. The exact opposite of that is stated in one of the posts you quoted. "As much as Wizards says they don't look at the secondary market...". It seems like you're asking people to prove claims they didn't make. The whole point is that wizards says one thing but does another.
I won mostly off of paradox engine. cloned strix a few times to keep untapping.
Good catch. totally derped on not being able to imprint strix.
I won. Had to dig for a quite a bit to get another black source too but i didn't mention that because it might create a bias in answering the question. Strix stuck around and did end up being relevant beyond deterring attacks. I tutored up Paradox Engine EOT with Inventors' Fair then cast it on my turn with pact backup. Cloned strix a few times to help keep paradox engine going till i hit a tutor for win con.
It's a combo deck but i usually play in an answer heavy meta so the deck is full of redundant pieces, plan-B's, and recursion. Threat density is high so i value dig and thirst more than most would and there are a good number of other tutors in the deck so I saw the tutor as a bit expendable in that situation.
yeah I probably should have mulled.
My argument had a few points.
-both The mox and tutor are card disadvantage
-ditching tutor and playing strix accelerates and gives me access to black mana
-strix draws me a card
-strix is valuable early board presence (in my usual group we will tear apart a player without an early board but this wasnt my usual group)
-I could have imprinted the strix on mox but that would leave me with no board, i wouldnt have drawn a card, and i wouldn't be using my mana efficiently if i then tutored (also double card disadvantage as mentioned above)
-imprinting one of the other cards would leave me without black
What would you have done?
Iona is harder to remove because she can lock out the color that has the highest likelihood of packing removal. Leovold dies to anything. Sure he can be protected via counter magic to an extent but if the leovold player is trading counters for removal one for one then they're losing. Iona crushes an aspect of the game that is at the heart of commander; color choice.
Leovold did not need to be banned.
It's not about how broken Iona is (Shes not). I don't think either Iona or Leovold should be banned. I'm pointing out the inconsistent ban criteria. If the justification for banning a card is that it locks players out and leads to unfun situations then both Leovold and Iona should be banned or neither. I'm in favor of neither.
I didn't think anyone was claiming that wizards explicitly said they shifted the rarity due to the secondary market. The exact opposite of that is stated in one of the posts you quoted. "As much as Wizards says they don't look at the secondary market...". It seems like you're asking people to prove claims they didn't make. The whole point is that wizards says one thing but does another.