MTG Salvation

I really like this combination of colors. Probably my favorite shard, and I'm looking for ideas to make a solid deck with these colors that will be good for both multiplayer games and duels.

The generals to choose from:
Narset, Enlightened Master - I tried Narset once, didn't have much success and everyone else hated it even though it didn't run extra turn cards, mainly because it's Narset and Narset can do crazy stuff. Got bored of it pretty fast, and I disliked that the general antisynergizes with running creatures that otherwise would be great in these colors. So I'm not going to build around Narset.
Numot, the Devastator - As a six drop it is, again, not optimal outside of green in my opinion. Might be an okay general due to the control it can offer with targeted land destruction? Doesn't really do anything interesting so I don't care much to build a deck with it. Still a possibility though, maybe I'm not fully recognizing the value it can offer?
Ruhan of the Fomori - The most likely choice I'd build around because its is a low-cost, feasibly recastable, large creature. The random attack might be a problem though, and I don't want to build voltron because one, I have very few equipments and auras in my collection, and two, I dislike voltron as a strategy because it is too easily disrupted for my tastes. But I would like to build a deck under it possibly.
Zedruu the Greathearted - The other possibility I might build a deck under, though honestly the whole donation thing seems pretty janky and I don't particularly see it doing well in my metagame. I could build your typical Zedruu deck, but with a meta full of boardwipes and combos I'd probably just end up doing a whole lot of nothing useful. I could be wrong though. As a 4 drop politically oriented general it could do well in multiplayer, but not so much for duels I think.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest - This general I'm not sure what to think of. It's rather unusual. Doesn't really strike me as particularly fun. I could be wrong about that though, I don't really have any idea what this general's potential is.

Mainly, what I'm going for with these colors is I want to build some form of a Control/Aggro deck, since I already have two other EDH decks filling the other two combinations. I have a ton of staple creatures, enchantments, spells, and artifacts that I'd love to just throw together in a deck of these colors with roughly equal distribution of each, and I'd like to build it to have strong recursion. Board control is very strongly present in my metagame, and I'm expecting a couple of stax decks to show up in it soon that other players are working on, so I want to have a deck with an efficient, effective curve prepared for that. White and Red seem great for recurring/reanimating artifacts and enchantments, so something themed primarily around both permanent types would be pretty good. I want to run cards like Scrap Mastery, March of the Machines, Open the Vaults, Mycosynth Lattice, Starfield of Nyx, and others that synergize well with those in the deck.

So the question is, what is the optimal general for such a deck, and how exactly do I design it to be capable of winning? I'm leaning strongly towards Ruhan because I get the feeling there's probably more to it that can make it useful since it's aggressively costed. Either that or Zedruu. I particularly like decks where I can find ways to use the general that boost the versatility of all the other cards in the deck and where the deck doesn't need the general to win.

What do you think?

See, I was thinking specifically of running cards like Scrap Mastery, Mycosynth Lattice, and March of the Machines in the same deck, building from there as those key cards would kind of reflect what the rest of the deck is all about doing. Stax artifacts is another route I suppose, but I prefer my friends to be able to have fun too.

Blue already has plenty of cards that let you draw, as do artifacts, so for a deck focused around artifacts the thing is that card advantage in the general itself (say for a generic one) isn't really necessary. As with most decks, the best ones get (at least) synergistic benefits playing their commander but don't have to rely on it to play a successful game.

Glad to see I'm not the only one wishing for a UR artifact commander (or two) to play.

A favorite color combination of many-a-'Johnny' player, UR decks are often intricate machines of instants, sorceries, and artifacts. I've built a couple myself before and always loved how red and blue compliment each other synergistically. But in my time seeing many different Izzet decks played and trying them myself, I have noticed a certain consistent issue, that being, a lack of synergistic consistency. These colors, though theoretically a decent combination, often seem to run into a lot of problems. Izzet seem to always have shaky, disruptable game plans and some element of randomness. Now, there are certainly many 'Johnny'-esque decks that have been made outside of these colors, but I'd say Izzet is the prime example of a johnny deck because red and blue respectively have the largest pools of artifact-focused cards. White has a lot of artifact-related cards too, but its specifically geared towards equipment artifacts unlike the more universally-suited pools of red and blue. About half of all the Izzet decks I've ever seen in person and in online decklists have a really creative plan of combining all sorts of artifacts to do complex, interesting plays, but mainly in the service of spell-focused plans. But something puzzles me - among all the UR commanders available, none of them specifically refer to or really lend themselves to artifacts. The most consistent, successful Izzet decks are instant and sorcery based.

Yet, these generals exist in mono colors as iconic artifact-centric commanders: Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient, Bosh, Iron Golem, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Feldon of the Third Path, Memnarch, Thada Adel, Acquisitor, Arcum Dagsson, and Muzzio, Visionary Architect. (I may have missed a few, but those all come to mind first)

So many artifact-focused red and blue commanders in these colors, and yet nothing like the above when it actually comes to the UR legendaries. Jhoira of the Ghitu perhaps is the closet thing to being particularly well-suited for it with a colorless activation cost but it isn't specifically geared towards artifacts either. And I'm sure a lot of us wouldn't make a Jhiora deck anyway since that's essentially like asking to be target number one in a multiplayer game and you can potentially be suspending the likes of Blightsteel Colossus, Time Stretch and Warp World.

Has wizards perhaps not made one because a commander synergizing with artifacts in UR could be potentially very powerful, to the point of unbalanced and unfair? After all, if a card like Arcum Dagsson was costed as 2UR instead of 3U it would have access to so much more power than it already has, and its already a very powerful general.

So here's the three questions to discuss in the thread, if you could have an izzet commander that is focused on doing interesting stuff with artifacts, what would you want it to do? Do you think a balance could be found that wouldn't make such a deck too powerful? Secondly, if you've ever made an izzet deck based specifically around artifacts (instead of instants and sorceries), what was your choice of commander and why? Finally, in your own experience with izzet decks, what strategy and deck-planning have you found optimal for having a good deal of success in games?

I've been thinking that perhaps Jori En, Ruin Diver could be a decent UR artifacts general by providing a little bit of draw at low cost for a deck but it doesn't really do a whole lot as a commander since its a once-a-turn trigger which is the kind of balance that is nice to see, but its a very simple effect and its thereby not particularly interesting as a card.

What do you think?

Yeah, my main problem with Wort was that the gameplan it was optimal for was very fragile. I didn't go with Selvala primarily because those colors aren't as fun to me as red/green can be. So I started building it under Wort and then halfway through switched to Thromok the Insatiable. That allows for a lot more flexibility, or rather, versatility in the deck than Wort does, primarily because the way I was building it, the deck wouldn't need the general necessarily to end games (though it definitely helps). The problem with Wort, the Raidmother is primarily that even in green, at a high mana cost of 6 and having an effect that isn't immediate but rather secondary with tapping down my own creatures, it finds itself having the izzet problem - risky, easily disrupted, not good at putting pressure on opponents. Additionally, an ability like Worts would be much better in blue because red and green as a combination lends itself better to powerful creature spells than it does for getting value out of slightly-less spectacular red and green instants and sorceries.

Thromok however gives me a lot more options. I can easily knock two players out of the game with it in a turn with it, and it can be the key to set of a bunch of powerful triggered abilities, works great with tokens, and it's an easy cast at 5 mana and not too bad of a recast at 7 if removed. I even figured out a way to build it to be balanced between spells and creatures without losing any capacity to put pressure on the board against opposing control decks. Has a decent amount of recursion and drawing for its colors too. I put together a list after spending several hours weighing pros and cons of various cards, weaknesses, and synergies in it and here's what I've got:

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/thromok-the-versatile/

Like my Vela deck its built for long political games and not for a fast win, but it's definitely got strong combo and synergy potential.

I'm pretty much set on every card in the list as is now but I'm not completely sold on Fling. I know that card is great with Thromok for just ending a game taking out two people at once by swinging then flinging but I'd prefer if it had a secondary function so its never a dead card. Any suggestions there?

Notable exclusions: Fecundity - likely to help opponents. I can't give my opponents anything extra to work with when I'm trying to pressure them out of the game with my boardstate, Warstorm Surge - Too easily removed, too likely to be a dead card, Pandemonium - too risky for me, I don't have much lifegain to counteract it being used against me, Sylvan Library - again, the draw would be nice but expecting I might become a target at times for having a board-pressuring deck I expect I can't be trading life for cards, Gamble - inconsistent, my recursion isn't extensive enough to cover it working out badly, Collective Unconscious - inconsistent and because my board may get wiped, cards like this can too easily be dead draws that don't help me. I prefer cards that are mostly guaranteed to be helpful at any time/not backfire on me.

There are a lot of good cards I decided not to run for similar reasons to the above as well as because the mana curve is already pretty heavy.

I've been itching to make a new deck for awhile and find myself torn between choosing two commanders. I know I want it to be a green deck and I know I don't want to just build Naya as a compromise, so I'd be interested to see what the forum has to say about each commander's options. Most of my green cards are singles so the key staples can't exactly be shared and I'd rather not be swapping cards between decks.

For the past couple of months I've had Wort, the Raidmother in mind but hadn't actually started theorycrafting a build for it. It interested me for the following reasons: I can run Conspire and Convoke effects together with it, I wanted to make a fun deck without blue (I built Riku once, got bored of it quickly), I've never built a Gruul EDH, it's a cool concept to build off of because it would allow me to follow an 'Izzet' mentality, it could easily be a deck balanced between creatures and instants/sorceries and creatures unlike Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, and I figure I could build it to be able to play aggressively or defensively since it is rather unusual for Gruul as a command in general. I can run some pretty sick combos in it too. Green has some nice recursion and ramp, and red is great at dealing out damage and has a bunch nifty cards like the brand new Mizzix's Mastery which I really want to try to do crazy stuff with in a new deck. Due to its colors it has some notable weaknesses too so I see it as a nice build challenge to work those out if I can. What concerns me though is the deck may be a bit fragile to opposing control or even other aggro decks. It would be a token deck and if I'm tapping down all these tiny little creatures I may not be able to find a good balance of defensive posture and making value out of my spells, keeping my hand filled up might be hard even with every green draw spell I can find, and my recursion (since its green) won't be particularly great for reestablishing after wipes. Green does have some great responses to boardwipes that I could run like Fresh Meat and friends but after one game the control players would probably learn not to let me utilize it, plus keeping lots of mana open on purpose for responses like that in a non-blue deck is kind of strategically risky too. Also seems the deck would need a number of key enchantments to work best and those cut down on the amount of value creatures and spells I can run. Can't say I know how to balance all it out.

But then I passed Selvala, Explorer Returned in my card binder and realized how good it was. Cheap to cast with built in ramp, draw, and lifegain. Crazy. I have never played much white in a deck outside of Sharuum and Narset and have a ton of great white cards I'd love to play sometime so this is a tough choice between that and what made me excited about building a Wort EDH. The advantages - I've never built an EDH deck in Selesnya colors so it would be something new, it allows for political play, with both white and green I have a ton of great recursion options, it has exceptionally strong control options in these colors, and the general lends it towards being built pretty much in any direction I want. Enchantress I'd rather not do because a friend of mine I play with already made one and I'd rather not make a deck 80% identical to that. His is really consistent too and I'd prefer my deck play differently every game (tutoring packages aside) Disadvantages - giving opponents cards is a really big deal even if I know what they're getting. Might still be worth it if I can consistently build up more advantage overall and keep wiping the board as long as I don't build it as some kind of dumb group hug deck. Seems like it could be really strong and strategically flexible. Might not be as fun as Wort, though.

Which would you pick? Why? How would you build them? What are some great cards you'd run in each?

Also, might as well have a poll. Those are always fun.

I made my own version awhile ago, pretty happy with it, and it doesn't require the general to win. It lets me approach the a game pretty much however I want, as aggro, control, or combo. It has ample backup in pretty much every single aspect of strength a deck can have other than perhaps the ramp capacity of green. (So the mana curve was made to be semi-strict and forgiving to a lack of mana abundance) It's primarily a control deck overall, and I did my best to make every card choice versatile enough that draws are rarely dead cards in a game. It's not a consistent powerhouse winning machine but its definitely quite fun.

List is in the link below, I hope it gives you some ideas for synergies and such.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/the-asymetric-strategem-ii/

Quote from Underhill83 »

I think you are overreacting.
Yes, it is strong, but you still need a relevant creature, equip and attack.
Sure, it will do some work in most creature decks, but not in all of them. And it will do just about nothing in decks without many creatures.
Equip 4 is not easy either.

Instant creature or artifact removal (or Tower of the Magistrate or Hallowed Moonlight or...) will solve the problem.
Torpor Orb or Constant Mists will solve some of the problems.

There are lots of potential situations in which people won't have that removal ready or otherwise the Blade of Selves player will have them locked out of stopping them with something like Grand Abolisher or the like. At 6 mana to use normally, and where it can be put into play for two mana, and some cards can even get around the equip cost, I'd call that pretty easy.

Quote from Lithl »

I agree that it's very strong and in theory bannable, however it is not as good as DEN, so I wouldn't expect it to be banned without a DEN ban.

I don't quite think so. DEN costs 8 mana to utilize, this costs 6, and its power scales with the number of players. It would actually be better than DEN most of the time, provided you can attack immediately with what you equip it to.

Consider this:
-All colorless mana to utilize
-2 mana to drop
-4 mana you might be able to avoid paying to equip
-Makes a stupid number of creatures way stronger (Everything with a half decent ETB or LTB)
-Fits into most decks that run a decent amount of creatures or with generals that are powerful when sacrificed
-Consider these cards of the top of my head that are already strong enough without it: Grave Titan (and other titans), Hydra Omnivore, Avenger of Zendikar, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Mulldrifter, Vela the Night-Clad, Kokusho, the Evening Star (and all of its relatives), Craterhoof Behemoth, Master of Cruelties, and there are plenty more with smaller effects it pushes closer to the side of ridiculous.

At least it doesn't give your stuff haste, but it is really easy to build a deck that gets around that problem consistently. Xenagos, God of Revels, for example.

Maybe that's not enough because of the 'it dies to removal argument' though. Still really dislike this card.

1. I won't run it because playing it (and other myriad cards) will get me hated out of games

2. It's stupidly strong as a new piece to run in virtually every deck out there so I think wizards screwed up and it might just be bannable.

3. If it doesn't get banned or house banned by my own group I'll just make sure to kill it on sight since I'm usually the guy with the answers anyway. Tis a thankless job, full of complaints about broken shiny toys. Because I'm sure every metagame has an 'answers' guy who gets rid of dominating cards for the sake of the table, how about everyone just tries option 1 (boycotts myriad, effectively) above and plays cards that will actually resolve and/or stick?

Thank you for all the advice and suggestions.

What I ended up doing however, is dropped this deck idea after thinking it over a lot more and realizing in multiplayer after one game it would be political suicide. Honestly... it was a bad idea. Plus it was a really linear strategy to begin with. How boring. I'm just easily enamored with powerful card combinations like Teferi + Knowledge Pool but often don't think it through about the politics and social contracts inherent to multiplayer. 1v1 perhaps this would be a decent deck to build but multiplayer... not so much I'm thinking now.

So what I did instead... is I built Vela the Night-Clad. I looked at all the old decklists, scoured the internet for new cards that work well in it, meticulously thought over every card choice I made for it from my collection and tried to consider every possible interactions and political situation I could find the deck in. Black shores up most of blue's minor 'weaknesses' and it turns out I was able to brew up something that fits all 3 primary deck archetypes (control, aggro, combo) and should thereby prove to be a solid long-term playable deck since it isn't linear and gimmicky. It's more complex and interesting this way anyhow, and therefore should be way more fun to play (for everyone involved) than something like Teferi.

Somehow I've managed to stuff in so many staple and multi-function cards into it (because blue and black have a stupidly large portion of the good cards in commander) while still having a good mana curve that it should in theory be able to perform the kinds of plays most other linear 'all-in' decks do nearly as well as they do without inefficiency because it has everything in abundance. Tutors, draw, discard, ramp, a diverse and sizable disruption suite, solid recursion package, time magic, staples, political pieces, simple combo pieces, toolbox pieces, tons of synergies and value cards, etc.

It's not too dedicated to any specific gameplan to flop if another deck cuts off one avenue of strategy, but rather suitably solid in each role, which is what I was going for in the first place when I started brewing Teferi beforehand. Only major weaknesses my build has I could think of are Torpor Orb effects and graveyard hate, maybe stuff that searches and exiles cards inside my library but no one runs Sadistic Sacrament and its relatives in my metagame anymore so I'm safe there. Nothing too hard to work around if I run into it and play smart. And with all of that going for it making it potentially quite strong... I think it will play out amiably in terms of politics in my metagame where I'm not target number one from the beginning even once everyone becomes aware of just how well-equipped with options and tuned it is. Just a matter of playing it with politics and mutual fun in mind. A deck designed to oppress to win, like Teferi, would be incapable of that regardless of how I play it and it probably wouldn't even be half as good as Vela can be.

Funny thing is about 2 or 3 years ago when I asked for advice on a Lazav, Dimir Mastermind deck I built and played for awhile, I was advised to build Vela instead. I ignored that suggestion because I didn't realize how well balanced and solid of a general it was. I wouldn't have had the experience or collection options necessary to build a good Vela deck at that time anyway, though.

I absolutely love Praetor's grasp. In fact, I swear by this card. It wins games if used right. Pretty much in the same league as bribery, which has also won me multiple games.

At worst it'll grab you an artifact or a land, both of which could help you a lot depending on what they are.

At best you'll grab a really good spell or pull out a key card of an opponent's deck. It's most effective in a multicolor deck where you have good odds of being able to cast something powerful of a color your deck contains stolen from an opponent's deck. In mono black it's not that great because of the lack of colors you have to use towards playing whatever you steal.

My meta isn't too competitive since we have lots of long games but lots of good cards are still played. Just not any super expensive cards aside from a few since no one has any copies of anything particularly expensive like Mana Drain or Force of Will, both of which I would love to have.

Counterspells are rare in my metagame while boardwipes and targetted removal are much more popular. As such, reanimator is the most reliable deck archetype in my group at the moment. (As proven by the Sidisi, Brood Tyrant and Karador, Ghost Chieftain decks one friend has that almost never lose... which I am attempting to challenge next time we play with my own reanimator brew.)

Because of how my metagame works, politics always proves more important than sheer strength of a deck, though highly synergistic decks tend to dominate. As such, making a counterspell.dec build is just asking to lose to aggro players who grind out threats and target the heavy control player. As such in my current Vela the Night-Clad deck, which is a mix of control, aggro, and combo roughly equally so it can adapt to a game's conditions on the go, I am only running Venser, Shaper Savant (recurrable and perfect for Vela, also gets around 'can't counter effects), Remand (cantrip, political, gets around the numerous 'can't counter' effects in my metagame), Trickbind (because its too good not to run), Arcane Denial (because political and a cantrip), Dream Fracture (political cantrip like arcane denial), and Soul Manipulation (Which is mainly in there to fill a spot as an 8th piece of recursion/graveyard retrieval). They aren't the very best counters but they are politically safe things to run that have some additional functions besides just countering things so that's why I'm running those instead of other options that might be better in a more competitive metagame.

Edit: Looking at this thread, it looks like we have multiple concurrences. 6 counterspells is apparently the ideal number for multiplayer, backed up by boardwipes and other non-counter control cards.

Karador is definitely getting popular again lately.

Someone should do something about that.

As far as a few things I've been considering lately that you might like:
Vela the Night-Clad
Feldon of the Third Path
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury
Gahiji, Honored One
Athreos, God of Passage
Jhoira of the Ghitu
Nahiri, the Lithomancer

A friend of mine has a Karador deck and it almost never loses. Dealing with the graveyard is really difficult when there's just not enough graveyard hate in the metagame to go around. A person in my group would be lucky to happen to draw the 'nerf Karador' card or two that exists in their deck, otherwise the game would end the same - with our boardwipes and removal being mostly pointless.

If you were playing against your own deck or an otherwise a typical Karador reanimator deck, how would you do it, OP?

Also, izzet card suggestions:

Counterflux
Dack's Duplicate
Dack Fayden
Increasing Vengeance
Reiterate
Reverberate
Fork
Twincast
Turnabout
Reduce to Dreams
Steal Enchantment
Copy Artifact
Sphinx's Tutelage
Monastery Siege
Dictate of the Twin Gods

Phyrexian Dreadnought

I happened upon this little gem of a card whilst perusing cockatrice for interesting cards to acquire and wondered what people thought of it.

My first thought of course was how well it works with Varolz, the Scar-Striped but then I thought about it a bit more. Also The Mimeoplasm plays well with it too.

For one mana, assuming you have 12+ power in creatures to sacrifice, you can wipe your own board and get a big fat 12/12 out of it. The super cheap 12/12 isn't what's great about it though. You can wipe your own board for 1 mana as long as you have 12 or more power in creatures to sacrifice - that's the sneaky exploitable part. Think about creatures with persist or leave the battlefield/die effects, or permanents that give you value when something just dies without being a sac outlet. While traditionally a regular old sac outlet like Ashnod's Altar or Greater Good is the ideal for doing these kinds of things with, it seems to me that at 1 mana to play Phyrexian Dreadnought can itself be a very efficient sort of mass sacrifice utility piece if you want to use it like that.

How would you use this card in your decks? If you've run it before, what tricks have you pulled with it other than the simple interactions with the aforementioned legends? I'm curious to know what this card's potential really is, because it seems like it's capable of a heck of a lot.

That does quite effectively clear up my questions about those two cards. I also didn't even know Worldpurge existed until it was mentioned here. Probably a good thing, I doubt a worldpurge game would be at all fun either.