Tried her out in Patron of the Orochi. Thought process was that she makes dudes who tap for mana, which is nice with Patron's effect. I was not overwhelmed. She wasn't a bad card, just a meh card. I was rarely excited to see her but was never disappointed either. She did her thing and that was that. I've found she's a much smoother general than in the 99.
I've played a Thriss deck, actually. It was a nice casual mono-green deck that played around fight effects and "power matters" stuff. It was fun. Not particularly good, but fun. I liked using Thriss alongside Arena and Ulvenwald Tracker to ruin someone's day.
He *does* cost approximately a million mana though, which is tough.
I really like Patron, it's just unfortunate that I'd like him so much better if he didn't ramp your enemies. I find the splash damage of even cards like Vernal Bloom hard to stomach, so I've never really taken the time to try him out at the helm. If he didn't have a global effect I'd have run him in a heartbeat, though.
It's actually not much of an issue, usually. Most decks, in my experience, don't run enough of a Forest presence to really benefit the way you do from Patron's effect, and many of them don't even have anything to do with it.
With that said, I think he's obviously very powerful. He scales well in multiplayer, should draw minimal hate (at first), and has several cards in-color that synergize well with his abilities.
Exactly. If you can look past the symmetry (which is not as big as you may think on paper) he is absurd.
I also ran Vorinclex for a period of time, which I assume would be somewhat similar. Very awkward in that he doesn't provide any form of CA and the table actively wants to kill him, but he didn't work as badly as one would have expected. The more expensive commanders means your deck functions better without them, as you're not relying on your commanders to do the first leg (of getting to 8 mana).
Vorinclex really suffers from a PR problem. He's just so obviously insane that if you sit down with him as your general, you may get hated off the table before you even get to him. I barely like running him in Patron, much less as my general. It's bold of you, honestly.
It was ultimately my time with Vorinclex that led me to Kamahl, as Kamahl is the ultimate mana sink commander. However, I've found that I'd like to be a little more active at this point, so Freyalise has been nice to have access to a nice set of "spells" that can be cast mid-game (instead of having your general do nothing until you've reached ~15-20 mana).
I do like Freyalise after playing with her, but she's not a big-mana general really. She's a mono-green goodstuff general. She provides removal, dudes, mana, and cards, everything you could ask for in a general, and though she doesn't do anything amazingly, having access to options is nice. She's not an elfball general at all (or shouldn't be, IMO).
And I'm curious to hear about the possible non-linear nature of Ezuri. All the Ezuri builds I've seen have been active attempts to Llanowar Elves/Heritage Druid into G-Waves, Craterhoofs, and Ezuri-Overruns.
I've played solely mono-green since Innistrad, so I consider myself at least somewhat knowledgable in the subject. Ezuri and Patron are two of the few strategies I haven't personally run (for the above reasons), so I'd be curious to hear your takes.
Ok, here's what I've observed over the past two years or so (a little before RTR actually, around Avacyn):
-Ezuri is an Elfball general who has the Kamahl-esque ability to take just a few dudes and go nuts with them. While obviously he can G-Wave/Hoof-it-good with the best of them, that's only one angle of attack. The Ezuri deck I run with has a bunch of solid ways to generate advantage in other areas (like Descendant's Path, Hibernation's End, and Elvish Soultiller) so that he's never really out of gas. He often simply gets a Priest of Titania effect, a few dudes, overruns a few times, and punches people til he gets stopped. Once he is, he likes to switch tactics and play very cautiously, using Ezuri as protection for his elves as he nickel-and-dimes people down, then goes for a big finish. He really put a lot of effort into resource generation and restoration, so he doesn't just get blown out all at once and can recoup through the obvious losses he accrues. He isn't a top tier general, IMO, but he's got things going on for him that actually matter. He's quite similar to Kamahl in a lot of ways, just he wants a specific tribe most of the time (luckily, elves are a solid tribe if you're not a moron about it). Additionally, he's dirt cheap, which is awesome.
-Patron is an entire other story. I run about 5 mana elves (Arbor Elf, Dryad Arbor, Joraga Treespeaker, Fyndhorn Elves [because I own a promo], and like one other), Orochi Sustainer, Sachi, about 15 ramp spells, and like 6 mana doublers. Other than that, the deck is draw and business. The idea is to do things that matter early on, then use Patron in a single major and highly explosive turn to run people over with something nuts. Patron's power is that while he can both go bigger than anything else I've ever encountered (seriously, if you've never used Patron to power a 80-point Genesis Wave, you haven't lived), be can also go wide by just untapping 12 mana every turn and jamming activated token-making abilities every single turn forever. Soul of Zendikar/Nemata, Grove Guardian/Ant Queen/Sprout Swarm/etc are all amazing with Patron. Having credible access to the Helix Pinnacle win is nice too. It's a big mana deck in the extreme, but because Patron costs a billion mana already, the deck naturally configures itself to make lots of mana without him, so you can have hands where you never bother playing him and just use Seedborn Muse/Awakening to sink huge amounts of mana into any repeatable outlet and grind people down under a wave of tokens. Patron loves Kamahl, obviously, and likes fun X spells like Gelatinous Genesis. Tornado goes from a joke to insanely overpowered with Patron (instant-speed Vindicate every turn seems fair). Having access to Snake Offering keeps people honest too, since folks can easily forget it exists and gives Patron flash, letting you flash him in and ruin a combat with his big 7/7 body. Additionally, in a serious bind, Patron does a fine job just beating on folks. The magic 7 power lets him finish people easily if desperate enough. He allows under-appreciated guys like Hydra Broodmaster and Polukranos to go bonkers, acting as an army in a can and a one-sided wrath, respectively. Yeva and Patron are best buddies. Finally, if you are concerned about the symmetry, trust me, it never matters. Only other mono-green decks run enough Forests to matter and Patron is easily capable of out-ramping even a dedicated Omnath deck if you want to, especially because Patron can both tangle with Omnath directly by making a huge pile of mana to sink somewhere *and* presenting varying massive threats that other green ramp decks can't easily match (like Gelatinous Genesis/token makers/Helix Pinnacle), often all at once. The only serious weaknesses the deck seems to have are instant-speed wraths (suuuuck), really seriously dedicated turn 1-4 hatred (like, multiple pieces of LD dedicated), and a counterspell deck who hates Forests (getting Patron countered two+ times is unpleasant; beatable, but not happily).
My list wouldn't be super helpful to you right now sadly, since my meta is unusual in that we have a few players with only one or two decks, several of which are meta-warping (when one guy *only* plays fast Krenko combo, we all kinda work around it). Because of this, I've altered my list considerably, but I could happily sketch out a shell that works if you'd like. I really do hope you give Patron a shake. He is significantly better than he looks and he politics nicely, if that's your bag.
Slivortal, you seem to have given mono-green commanders a great deal of thought. Tell me, what do you think of Patron of the Orochi as a variant ramp commander? I've been running it for about 1.5 years now and can speak with authority about Patron, but I'm curious to get someone else's opinion, especially someone who has given this topic a lot of consideration.
Patron falls much more in the Kamahl area of things than the Omnath/Azuza/Ezuri area of course, but I'd still love your thoughts if you're willing to opine for a bit.
And as a note, I have a very strong Ezuri deck in my meta that I've played against for years as well. I am happy to talk about him as well, if you'd like. Ezuri is a kind of misunderstood beast, honestly. He's not quite as linear as Omnath/Azuza (which basically fold to any sustained pressure, as I'm sure you know).
On the topic of busted sorting, we at release at 2 boxes returned, because they were missing a serious number of rares each (14 and 17). It was highly odd.
The thing where they say "Token" on them is not new, actually. The really old tokens, from the MPR days, actually did this. It was later removed, on the basis of it not mattering. I'd be interested to hear what their reasoning is in bringing it back. It doesn't seem to do anything relevant, beyond making it clear that these aren't cards (though that was pretty obvious already).
Yeah, hey people. Wanted to stop by and say sorry for radio silence on my part. Finishing up my last semester of undergrad right now, life's pretty busy. I'll try to get my list copied up this weekend sometime. I do know that I'm still playing around with lots of slots (and looking at several things from Journey into Nyx right now) but I haven't given Ephara too much love recently. Gotta get around to that.
Anyway, lots of good stuff going on in here. I like the Lark suggestion, I'll have to give it a shot. I run a few small value dorks, so Lark might be a good call. I'm still running Orrery (it works out for me about 75% of the time, which is worth keeping it in), so Lark should be pretty decent. It'd give me another critter to use Flash with too, which is nice.
Here're my thoughts. There's a few twists in here.
White: I'd give it to Sun Titan. He is so incredibly amazing, it's actually hard to know what to say about him. He does it all. My special honorable mention would be Stonehewer Giant, for being incredibly good at what he does.
Blue: Venser, Shaper Savant is my pick here, actually. He's got the versatility in spades, perhaps more than Metamorph. While Metamorph can win games and be a manarock, Venser stops those big bomby spells and very little can stop him from giving you unmatched precision over the stack and the field. Combined with any kind of bounce engine, and Venser can and will take games over. Honorable mention here goes to Palinchron, for being almost a one-card combo machine and perhaps the most efficient combo engine in history.
Red: While I love Purphoros, I have to give it to Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. So good that he routinely comes up in banning discussions and is almost an auto-include into any deck that can support his cost and has guys that matter, there's nothing like him. Honorable mention goes to Imperial Recruiter, who despite his cost and limitations, is amazingly good as a tutor and loves being bounced/cloned/copied and generally abused.
Green: Eternal Witness, no contest. While there's a plethora of great green dudes we could talk about here, Witness's ability to be whatever you need it to be right now is unmatched in the color. My honorable mention goes to Seedborn Muse, for sheer insane lunacy.
Black: I could name a dozen cards here (Sheoldred, Fleshbag Marauder, Bloodghast, and others come to mind) but I actually have to give this one to Crypt Ghast, a highly unconventional choice. Black's power comes from tutors, life-drain, big mana, and creature recursion, and Ghast gives you two of those and is easily acquired with the other two. He is cheap to cast, easily recycled, provides a clear win-condition (Extort is excellent in EDH), and increases mana production to a ludicrous degree. Just fantastic. Honorable mention to Sheoldred, Fleshbag Marauder, Bloodghast, and the dozens of other great black cards.
Multicolor: Too many to really pick, but if forced, I'd say that right now, it is probably Prophet of Kruphix. Honorable mention to hundreds of other great cards and generals.
Colorless: Solemn Simulacrum, yep. If you aren't running one, you need a seriously good reason (along the lines of "I'm running a no-creature theme deck" or "I don't own any more"). Honorable mention goes to Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, for being the better of the two Eldrazi Titans in EDH. While Ulamog is a better beater, Kozilek is cheaper and draws cards, which is far more valuable than a mere Vindicate effect.
I'm not a big fan of monument since we're not keeping many creatures on the field at a time, so we're either going to end up sacrificing the ones we do have, or else having to sacrifice the monument itself if we don't have any creatures. Indestructible and Flying is pretty awesome, but I don't think we can handle the sacrifice trigger well outside of Sacred Mesa / Luminarch Ascension. A card I was thinking about trying out is Thistledown Liege. It has flash so it's on theme and gets me extra draws, it gives 3 devotion for Ephara while still being really easy to cast, and it pumps Ephara by +2/+2 if she's a creature, which makes her lethal in 3 swings rather than 4.
I run a little more token heavy than you do, it seems, since I added Mobilization and Decree of Justice. With four strong token generators, Eldrazi Monument seems worth trying at least, though I definitely hear your concerns. I like that the Monument protects itself (via indestructibility on its food supply) and that it grants evasion. I think I'll give it a shot and report back, it may be terrible, but it might not be.
As for Thistledown Liege, that's a great idea. I forgot that card even exists. Gonna go get one today then and try it out too!
But seriously, play sacrifice effects with this guy. He's awesome.
Everything here is accurate.
There're reasons why High Market is considered an EDH staple, and Academy Rector is one of those reasons. Market-->Rector-->Omniscience continues to be among the strongest and easiest lines of play around.
Man, I really need a copy of Rector, just because he is so amazing. Gets answers, win-conditions, and bombs. Even picks up equipment in desperate situations and attacks for damage.
Only hits creatures. Not sure what format runs Stuffy Doll in Storm, but outside of that... odd situation, it's not a great Storm card. Great removal though for Storm decks... if they ever need removal.
My favorite card, at the moment, is Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. What an EDH general! He's fantastically fun and very entertaining to play with. Everyone should give him a shot!
""I know who I am. I am not a boy. I am Alesha, like my grandmother before me.""
^^direct quotes from that Unearthed Arcana. Alesha was born biologically male but she identifies as female.
He *does* cost approximately a million mana though, which is tough.
It's actually not much of an issue, usually. Most decks, in my experience, don't run enough of a Forest presence to really benefit the way you do from Patron's effect, and many of them don't even have anything to do with it.
Exactly. If you can look past the symmetry (which is not as big as you may think on paper) he is absurd.
Vorinclex really suffers from a PR problem. He's just so obviously insane that if you sit down with him as your general, you may get hated off the table before you even get to him. I barely like running him in Patron, much less as my general. It's bold of you, honestly.
I do like Freyalise after playing with her, but she's not a big-mana general really. She's a mono-green goodstuff general. She provides removal, dudes, mana, and cards, everything you could ask for in a general, and though she doesn't do anything amazingly, having access to options is nice. She's not an elfball general at all (or shouldn't be, IMO).
Ok, here's what I've observed over the past two years or so (a little before RTR actually, around Avacyn):
-Ezuri is an Elfball general who has the Kamahl-esque ability to take just a few dudes and go nuts with them. While obviously he can G-Wave/Hoof-it-good with the best of them, that's only one angle of attack. The Ezuri deck I run with has a bunch of solid ways to generate advantage in other areas (like Descendant's Path, Hibernation's End, and Elvish Soultiller) so that he's never really out of gas. He often simply gets a Priest of Titania effect, a few dudes, overruns a few times, and punches people til he gets stopped. Once he is, he likes to switch tactics and play very cautiously, using Ezuri as protection for his elves as he nickel-and-dimes people down, then goes for a big finish. He really put a lot of effort into resource generation and restoration, so he doesn't just get blown out all at once and can recoup through the obvious losses he accrues. He isn't a top tier general, IMO, but he's got things going on for him that actually matter. He's quite similar to Kamahl in a lot of ways, just he wants a specific tribe most of the time (luckily, elves are a solid tribe if you're not a moron about it). Additionally, he's dirt cheap, which is awesome.
-Patron is an entire other story. I run about 5 mana elves (Arbor Elf, Dryad Arbor, Joraga Treespeaker, Fyndhorn Elves [because I own a promo], and like one other), Orochi Sustainer, Sachi, about 15 ramp spells, and like 6 mana doublers. Other than that, the deck is draw and business. The idea is to do things that matter early on, then use Patron in a single major and highly explosive turn to run people over with something nuts. Patron's power is that while he can both go bigger than anything else I've ever encountered (seriously, if you've never used Patron to power a 80-point Genesis Wave, you haven't lived), be can also go wide by just untapping 12 mana every turn and jamming activated token-making abilities every single turn forever. Soul of Zendikar/Nemata, Grove Guardian/Ant Queen/Sprout Swarm/etc are all amazing with Patron. Having credible access to the Helix Pinnacle win is nice too. It's a big mana deck in the extreme, but because Patron costs a billion mana already, the deck naturally configures itself to make lots of mana without him, so you can have hands where you never bother playing him and just use Seedborn Muse/Awakening to sink huge amounts of mana into any repeatable outlet and grind people down under a wave of tokens. Patron loves Kamahl, obviously, and likes fun X spells like Gelatinous Genesis. Tornado goes from a joke to insanely overpowered with Patron (instant-speed Vindicate every turn seems fair). Having access to Snake Offering keeps people honest too, since folks can easily forget it exists and gives Patron flash, letting you flash him in and ruin a combat with his big 7/7 body. Additionally, in a serious bind, Patron does a fine job just beating on folks. The magic 7 power lets him finish people easily if desperate enough. He allows under-appreciated guys like Hydra Broodmaster and Polukranos to go bonkers, acting as an army in a can and a one-sided wrath, respectively. Yeva and Patron are best buddies. Finally, if you are concerned about the symmetry, trust me, it never matters. Only other mono-green decks run enough Forests to matter and Patron is easily capable of out-ramping even a dedicated Omnath deck if you want to, especially because Patron can both tangle with Omnath directly by making a huge pile of mana to sink somewhere *and* presenting varying massive threats that other green ramp decks can't easily match (like Gelatinous Genesis/token makers/Helix Pinnacle), often all at once. The only serious weaknesses the deck seems to have are instant-speed wraths (suuuuck), really seriously dedicated turn 1-4 hatred (like, multiple pieces of LD dedicated), and a counterspell deck who hates Forests (getting Patron countered two+ times is unpleasant; beatable, but not happily).
My list wouldn't be super helpful to you right now sadly, since my meta is unusual in that we have a few players with only one or two decks, several of which are meta-warping (when one guy *only* plays fast Krenko combo, we all kinda work around it). Because of this, I've altered my list considerably, but I could happily sketch out a shell that works if you'd like. I really do hope you give Patron a shake. He is significantly better than he looks and he politics nicely, if that's your bag.
Patron falls much more in the Kamahl area of things than the Omnath/Azuza/Ezuri area of course, but I'd still love your thoughts if you're willing to opine for a bit.
And as a note, I have a very strong Ezuri deck in my meta that I've played against for years as well. I am happy to talk about him as well, if you'd like. Ezuri is a kind of misunderstood beast, honestly. He's not quite as linear as Omnath/Azuza (which basically fold to any sustained pressure, as I'm sure you know).
Anyway, lots of good stuff going on in here. I like the Lark suggestion, I'll have to give it a shot. I run a few small value dorks, so Lark might be a good call. I'm still running Orrery (it works out for me about 75% of the time, which is worth keeping it in), so Lark should be pretty decent. It'd give me another critter to use Flash with too, which is nice.
White: I'd give it to Sun Titan. He is so incredibly amazing, it's actually hard to know what to say about him. He does it all. My special honorable mention would be Stonehewer Giant, for being incredibly good at what he does.
Blue: Venser, Shaper Savant is my pick here, actually. He's got the versatility in spades, perhaps more than Metamorph. While Metamorph can win games and be a manarock, Venser stops those big bomby spells and very little can stop him from giving you unmatched precision over the stack and the field. Combined with any kind of bounce engine, and Venser can and will take games over. Honorable mention here goes to Palinchron, for being almost a one-card combo machine and perhaps the most efficient combo engine in history.
Red: While I love Purphoros, I have to give it to Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. So good that he routinely comes up in banning discussions and is almost an auto-include into any deck that can support his cost and has guys that matter, there's nothing like him. Honorable mention goes to Imperial Recruiter, who despite his cost and limitations, is amazingly good as a tutor and loves being bounced/cloned/copied and generally abused.
Green: Eternal Witness, no contest. While there's a plethora of great green dudes we could talk about here, Witness's ability to be whatever you need it to be right now is unmatched in the color. My honorable mention goes to Seedborn Muse, for sheer insane lunacy.
Black: I could name a dozen cards here (Sheoldred, Fleshbag Marauder, Bloodghast, and others come to mind) but I actually have to give this one to Crypt Ghast, a highly unconventional choice. Black's power comes from tutors, life-drain, big mana, and creature recursion, and Ghast gives you two of those and is easily acquired with the other two. He is cheap to cast, easily recycled, provides a clear win-condition (Extort is excellent in EDH), and increases mana production to a ludicrous degree. Just fantastic. Honorable mention to Sheoldred, Fleshbag Marauder, Bloodghast, and the dozens of other great black cards.
Multicolor: Too many to really pick, but if forced, I'd say that right now, it is probably Prophet of Kruphix. Honorable mention to hundreds of other great cards and generals.
Colorless: Solemn Simulacrum, yep. If you aren't running one, you need a seriously good reason (along the lines of "I'm running a no-creature theme deck" or "I don't own any more"). Honorable mention goes to Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, for being the better of the two Eldrazi Titans in EDH. While Ulamog is a better beater, Kozilek is cheaper and draws cards, which is far more valuable than a mere Vindicate effect.
I run a little more token heavy than you do, it seems, since I added Mobilization and Decree of Justice. With four strong token generators, Eldrazi Monument seems worth trying at least, though I definitely hear your concerns. I like that the Monument protects itself (via indestructibility on its food supply) and that it grants evasion. I think I'll give it a shot and report back, it may be terrible, but it might not be.
As for Thistledown Liege, that's a great idea. I forgot that card even exists. Gonna go get one today then and try it out too!
Everything here is accurate.
There're reasons why High Market is considered an EDH staple, and Academy Rector is one of those reasons. Market-->Rector-->Omniscience continues to be among the strongest and easiest lines of play around.
Man, I really need a copy of Rector, just because he is so amazing. Gets answers, win-conditions, and bombs. Even picks up equipment in desperate situations and attacks for damage.
Only hits creatures. Not sure what format runs Stuffy Doll in Storm, but outside of that... odd situation, it's not a great Storm card. Great removal though for Storm decks... if they ever need removal.