Have you, by any chance, seen the website known as edhrec? It's a site dedicated to helping budding deckbuilders come up with cards that synergise with another card. Could help just by punching in nin, and see what pops up.
Another site (that's more obscure) is magic fan. It looks up the words on a card, then uses an algorithm to search for other similar cards. So when you punch in the oracle text for nin, stuff like volcanic island pop up. It's not perfect, but you can find some really weird hits this way.
One thing i remember having in an old nin deck was stuffy doll. Good fun all around. If you wanna punish people for drawing cards, its nekusar, the mindrazer you want, i suspect. Nin is more along the lines of board control/group hugs/something along those lines that you'd wanna do.
You could also just use 'common' commanders, but with a different take.
e.g. I have a zedruu, the greathearted as a voltron general. Yep, trying to deal 21 damage. I just chucked in a mass of 1-2 cmc aura creature power boosts (like immolation), then depending on what sort of aura it is, i donate the various auras to the vaarious opponents around the table (blue scarab to whoever, since the scarab ends up seeing me as an opponent with blue, zedruu; bravado to the tokens player, and so on). and then beat face (and draw cards/gain life along the way).
You could always try weird things like 'geriatric'-tribal, with zur, the enchanter and a bunch of other old-peeps. Or maybe the lich-themed deck (this is one im trying to build right now).
It's not about what obscure general you use, it's about how you use 'em. I've a rakdos the defiler suicide BR that's seriously awesome to play with. It usually doesn't win, but it always bumps the fun level for everyone, AND cuts the game legnth in half. at least.
I find that currently in EDH, 'problems' (i.e. the business cards) are waaaaaaaaay too good, whereas the 'answers' (points of interaction) are just way too weak. In a format like legacy where we can play 4-ofs, we can have efficient answers as a way to slow down even ultra-fast decks, and we have a good amount of consistency in finding said answers. That is fun. There's a lot of give and take, a lot of interactions, and even when playing against decks that deliberately avoid lines of interactions, there are still a lot more meaningful interactions than many EDH games i've played.
Not being able to effectively answer say a deck's constant looping of troublesome permanents/general in and out of the yard/command zone, etc, means that the game kinda spirals into something that just doesn't feel like magic anymore. That is just as unfun as having your general tucked (as in having to sit and watch someone 'ignore' your answers because they just keep looping the same cards over and over to get value). Maybe the tuck rule isn't the way forward to 'fix' the problem, but perhaps the penalty for the general being killed is too lax.
maybe the tax should be 1 for bounced to hand, 2 for normal death, 3 for exile, 4 for tuck, 5 for AWOL removal.
So i was curious... does anyone have experience with ante cards? i wanna throw in everything, from rebirth through to contract from below and even stuff like jeweled bird. It'd make an actual tournament of the cube a bit more interesting, and it's not like you're gonna "lose" any of the cards (since they're all mine anyways). Any advice?
Most of the never-to-be-surpassed cards existed at the format’s inception. It’s always just been a question of how much power you’re willing to sacrifice for innovation, and vice versa.
To me, it sounds like you’ve found a formula you think is best, refuse to move off of it, and then blame the format for your own stubbornness.
To be more constructive: I tend to think of some plan that I want to enact, and then build the deck to maximise my ability to execute that plan. If your plan is always just “win” then that’s probably why you don’t see much variety in your lists.
Well...I'm don't feel that this is the case. I don't have a formula beyond "what's the plan" and "does this card fit my plan". I only have decks that have a somewhat strange strategy or at least unusual in EDH, and make it a point to scour the game's past as much as possible to fit that plan as well as possible. I don't think it's the best way to play, but as of now, it's the best way i know of to keep the game casual enough to not scare off/price out new players and varied enough not to bore off invested/old players.
My lists USED to be to just 'win', but that got old quick, and made the playgroup pretty stale. I'm complaining probably more about the others in my playgroup for being unable/unwilling to take the seriousness/spikiness of the game down and not just 'win'. So maybe it's unfair to say it's all EDH as a format's fault.
And it's pretty much as you say. If one is stuck in a group where everyone is focused on just 'win', then they take all the powerful spells in the old days of the game, couple them with all the creatures of the modern era, and there's the deck. Not sure how to force people to move away from that. I've even tried talking to them (the horror)!
Well, I gotta agree with what the OP is talking about. It's basically the same kinda story at my game group (which is partly why I've dropped out of EDH mostly, and have focused on legacy recently).
The playgroup has a UR artifact combo deck, a mono U artifacts, multiple BUG graveyard decks, a UB control deck, UB ninjas, RUG cascade, a 5c control, and multiple UG goodstuff value grinder decks. All of them outside of the ninjas share a surprisingly high (or not surprising, really) number of pieces. Most of the peeps here could probably end up building the entire deck and be probably 90% correct for each deck.
I've tried shaking it up in my groups by playing a mono U 'colour-control (blind seer', mono white combo, RB suicide aggro, and a zedruu voltron. The other peeps in my meta were generally really into the idea of my decks, but they're mostly a very 'roll-player' sort of deck, where it's got an outside chance for a win.
It's not too bad, since i dont generally mind losing, but its the idea that we're seeing the same old cards over and over again. It feels like it's only ever my decks that sport those "wait.. what does that do?" kinda cards.
Until something big happens to shake up my local meta, i'm not planning to update any of my decks at all. It just doesn't feel like its worth my time anymore.
I’m playing my persistent petitioners deck, and landed a mindcrank, thinking it’d help me end the game via mill (for once).
Then in response to my mill 12 (tap 4 petitioners), someone flashes in a syr konrad. I’d never seen the card before, but it instantly ended the game there and then when syr Konrad basically drained the table for 30 each, chaining his ability with mindcrank.
If you build the deck with the intention of not ending up saccing anything, you’re not gonna like how the deck plays.
Honestly, just make it into a “all-in, suicide aggro” style deck. Big demons, reanimations, some number of fast mana in artifacts and rituals, [cards=infernal contract]draw 4s[/cards], wheel of fortune, and go at it.
my rakdos deck is exactly that, and it’s a crowd pleaser every time. Never plays the same, and always entertains even my opponents.
THis sounds like a good idea, but legacy isn't dead yet. if anything, it's a format that's gonna have more legs than modern or pioneer on the long run. Legacy is a community-run format. It's based off sound and non-arbitrary rules (unlike modern and pioneer). It allows us to play with the oldest cards in the game. the players who play legacy will continue to play legacy regardless of SCG or wotc support, because they are legacy players.
On the long run, i guess modern will be replaced by pioneer. It's cheaper to get into, it also has a arbitrarily set card pool. Legacy is just as broken as modern is, except that modern doesn't have the hate that legacy has access to. That's what makes legacy special, and modern not as fun to play.
I think trinity sounds like it would have been great community driven format, but i think the traction would be the hardest thing to get started. Good luck with the project though! It would be great to see it succeed!
Another site (that's more obscure) is magic fan. It looks up the words on a card, then uses an algorithm to search for other similar cards. So when you punch in the oracle text for nin, stuff like volcanic island pop up. It's not perfect, but you can find some really weird hits this way.
One thing i remember having in an old nin deck was stuffy doll. Good fun all around. If you wanna punish people for drawing cards, its nekusar, the mindrazer you want, i suspect. Nin is more along the lines of board control/group hugs/something along those lines that you'd wanna do.
e.g. I have a zedruu, the greathearted as a voltron general. Yep, trying to deal 21 damage. I just chucked in a mass of 1-2 cmc aura creature power boosts (like immolation), then depending on what sort of aura it is, i donate the various auras to the vaarious opponents around the table (blue scarab to whoever, since the scarab ends up seeing me as an opponent with blue, zedruu; bravado to the tokens player, and so on). and then beat face (and draw cards/gain life along the way).
You could always try weird things like 'geriatric'-tribal, with zur, the enchanter and a bunch of other old-peeps. Or maybe the lich-themed deck (this is one im trying to build right now).
It's not about what obscure general you use, it's about how you use 'em. I've a rakdos the defiler suicide BR that's seriously awesome to play with. It usually doesn't win, but it always bumps the fun level for everyone, AND cuts the game legnth in half. at least.
Not being able to effectively answer say a deck's constant looping of troublesome permanents/general in and out of the yard/command zone, etc, means that the game kinda spirals into something that just doesn't feel like magic anymore. That is just as unfun as having your general tucked (as in having to sit and watch someone 'ignore' your answers because they just keep looping the same cards over and over to get value). Maybe the tuck rule isn't the way forward to 'fix' the problem, but perhaps the penalty for the general being killed is too lax.
maybe the tax should be 1 for bounced to hand, 2 for normal death, 3 for exile, 4 for tuck, 5 for AWOL removal.
I've been on-and-off magic for the last few months, so i figured i'd check here first!
Hope that works. It's not an amazing cube, but it sure is tough to draft a good deck. I'm not very good at drafting aggro weenie strategies with it.
On the other hand Bx (usually UB or BW) prison is pretty good.
So ive already built a cube, but i've had a hard time leaving it alone. So far, it's a powered, 360 card, pre-urza block (except it also has the zen/ons fetches) cube. So obviously, lots of fast mana (black lotus, moxen, channel), lots of game-breaking stuff (yawgmoth's bargain, wheel of fortune, time vault), and not a lot of powerful creatures (force of nature, phyrexian colossus, palinchron), and somewhat prison-heavy (the abyss, invoke prejudice, chains of mephistopheles).
So i was curious... does anyone have experience with ante cards? i wanna throw in everything, from rebirth through to contract from below and even stuff like jeweled bird. It'd make an actual tournament of the cube a bit more interesting, and it's not like you're gonna "lose" any of the cards (since they're all mine anyways). Any advice?
Well...I'm don't feel that this is the case. I don't have a formula beyond "what's the plan" and "does this card fit my plan". I only have decks that have a somewhat strange strategy or at least unusual in EDH, and make it a point to scour the game's past as much as possible to fit that plan as well as possible. I don't think it's the best way to play, but as of now, it's the best way i know of to keep the game casual enough to not scare off/price out new players and varied enough not to bore off invested/old players.
My lists USED to be to just 'win', but that got old quick, and made the playgroup pretty stale. I'm complaining probably more about the others in my playgroup for being unable/unwilling to take the seriousness/spikiness of the game down and not just 'win'. So maybe it's unfair to say it's all EDH as a format's fault.
And it's pretty much as you say. If one is stuck in a group where everyone is focused on just 'win', then they take all the powerful spells in the old days of the game, couple them with all the creatures of the modern era, and there's the deck. Not sure how to force people to move away from that. I've even tried talking to them (the horror)!
That being said, i doubt that deck would survive long in my meta. blood moon and ruination and even wasteland are pretty common.
The playgroup has a UR artifact combo deck, a mono U artifacts, multiple BUG graveyard decks, a UB control deck, UB ninjas, RUG cascade, a 5c control, and multiple UG goodstuff value grinder decks. All of them outside of the ninjas share a surprisingly high (or not surprising, really) number of pieces. Most of the peeps here could probably end up building the entire deck and be probably 90% correct for each deck.
I've tried shaking it up in my groups by playing a mono U 'colour-control (blind seer', mono white combo, RB suicide aggro, and a zedruu voltron. The other peeps in my meta were generally really into the idea of my decks, but they're mostly a very 'roll-player' sort of deck, where it's got an outside chance for a win.
It's not too bad, since i dont generally mind losing, but its the idea that we're seeing the same old cards over and over again. It feels like it's only ever my decks that sport those "wait.. what does that do?" kinda cards.
Until something big happens to shake up my local meta, i'm not planning to update any of my decks at all. It just doesn't feel like its worth my time anymore.
Then in response to my mill 12 (tap 4 petitioners), someone flashes in a syr konrad. I’d never seen the card before, but it instantly ended the game there and then when syr Konrad basically drained the table for 30 each, chaining his ability with mindcrank.
Was epic, and I learned that power creep is real!
Honestly, just make it into a “all-in, suicide aggro” style deck. Big demons, reanimations, some number of fast mana in artifacts and rituals, [cards=infernal contract]draw 4s[/cards], wheel of fortune, and go at it.
my rakdos deck is exactly that, and it’s a crowd pleaser every time. Never plays the same, and always entertains even my opponents.
On the long run, i guess modern will be replaced by pioneer. It's cheaper to get into, it also has a arbitrarily set card pool. Legacy is just as broken as modern is, except that modern doesn't have the hate that legacy has access to. That's what makes legacy special, and modern not as fun to play.
I think trinity sounds like it would have been great community driven format, but i think the traction would be the hardest thing to get started. Good luck with the project though! It would be great to see it succeed!