Yeah, i think WotC devs doesn't success to create an actual Snake UG Commander here. His mechanic is definitely for a Voltron Deck : why pump another snake while Kaseto is already a snake and become unblockable ? And U doesn't have enough good snakes or snake synergies sadly (but add a lot of protection for Voltron). Some reasons exist but the easiest way stays for far Voltron. I don't understand at all why WotC answers many snake-fanatic players by one of the most insipid mechanics in Magic : "unblockable". This and a boost for a mana cost activation, capacity in the most basic way, weird for a Legend especially in these modern times. It's like WotC said "snake commander done, now go for serious business..." with a lack of interest.
"Snakes! While Kaseto is perfectly fine on its own, essentially acting as an unblockable shade (and there are some other Snakes for you to target in the green-blue deck), if you really want to maximize Kaseto's potential, you'll want to find all the Snakes you can to swap into the deck." said Ben Hayes.
=> YES : a successful Voltron commander himself ;
NO : any actual need of snakes, but protection, board control, mana ramp...
Trying to mix Voltron and tribal is just a bad idea i think. So it's just another Voltron Commander, not the BUG or UG snake tribal than people are waiting. Why not just a Shade Legend is this case ? "Snake" type seems wasted, just after "Naga"...
"another creature" with a minor rebalancing would be very appreciate for a tribal Archmage i think. In Kamigawa, ok Seshiro pumps and CA, and not himself, but snakes "paralyze" also, players need to think, simply unblockable seems inconsistent. So i will stay for a while with my WIP Funcard BUG Snake commander based of the good oldest snake in Magic : "in each opponent upkeep phase, he needs to pay X, mana or/and life loss, X = poison counters on him" and poison counters effective in some other way on creatures also (it's difficult because "infection" and -+1/-+1 in Magic doesn't let space for new mechanics). A bit sad than Seshiro seems to actually stay the good one to do, i would be very glad to see another "tricky & sneaky" way, but paradoxaly unblockable ruins that (with no interaction mainly).
....I really don't understand you reaction at all...he has a powerful effect and you target snake other then himself in order to pump and block or if you go infinite with mana you can pump all the snakes on the board and send them out to kill each player in one turn rather then having to do it one at a time. I don't want a commander that pidgin holds you into a tribal that is never going to get the kind of support merfolk / elves et alia get. He plans both a semi tribal or voltron or control / political game. I think restricting yourself to playing him to voltron is foolish and also not the strongest deck you can make him in, especially in multiplayer.
Really glad I stumbled into this deck. New to Commander but Jaya has always been one of those cards I wanted to make work for me. - Regrettably, a blue mage.
My apologies I ment Temporal Manipulation. Basically a better time stretch since it doesn't target. But either way it's a rather painful / mean thing to include.
Yeah, I think I'm with you guys I think the consistency of the cheap cantrip effects can't be understated ARG!!! Preordain will likely need to go back in.
I'm thinking of cutting Temporal Mastery, while going off with a "witness" effect and DEN or Crystal Shard is powerful it seems very "feel bads" not sure where I fall on this yet will have to see how the play group I find falls on these types of combos. I feel like I would be casting Freed from the Real or Pemmin's Aura usually on other peoples stuff as sudo-removal or "here have a huge" type effects to play politics. If / when they fall off you can always recur them with one of the witness engines and go for infinite mana later, which does allow for me to use my commander to kill just about any number of players... where any number is the number of snakes on the board that can attack that turn. As well as enabling other powerful synergies with DEN and well just about anything...
There are some generically good cards in your list which have little or nothing to do with the main plan of "play snakes; attack with snakes." Maybe these would be acceptable cuts:
Also, I completely missed how awesome Willbreaker must be in this deck the first time around. Props.
Thanks for the response. So I don't think "attack with snakes" is my game plan really. I want to avoid actively playing bad cards, though there is some strategy in doing so from time to time. I don't think I can rationalize cutting Spike Weaver, the deck doesn't really have any meaningful "board presence" at any given point. By that I mean It's not going wide with tokens, and it doesn't go tall at all unless somehow a Lorescale Coatl gets out of hand. So the deck needs some way of staying alive. Beyond hoping someone doesn't want to attack into the guy with an empty board.
Funny I'm not sure how much I like Willbreaker, I mean with Kaseto, Orochi Arhcmage or Cauldren of Souls (one of the many reason Zameck Guildmage is going to stay), it just seems weak, I mean removal breaks it and its not a very stable body. Plus 5UUUUGG for a 2/3 a 2/2 and stealing something doesn't seem that powerful...I guess it's a bit of a build your own Yavimaya's Embrace well have to see.
For now I think Venilion Clique is a cut I could reasonably make without feeling too bad. That puts me at 101 cards out of 99.
Thanks for the suggestions. Any thoughts on cuts? I believe I'm sitting at 104 out of 99... I don't know where I'm falling into "traps" on card selection or just being "too cute" my play group falls in the semi / very cutthroat range several work at WotC and others have played for a while so it feels like the games are at least at "mordern" / "legacy" power level.
You don't need to be actively doing some "broken" but you need to be progressing a powerful strategy of some kind.
Edit: I put a few suggestions in the "cuts and additions" spoiler under "Cards that want a Place" since I haven't even made the cuts to make the deck legal...
Dismiss into Dream - Seems like a great card I'll have to think about when tuning the deck.
I've managed to make a couple cuts but still really looking for some advice. Sitting at 102 rater then 99. Any additional help with cuts. I've already cut 1 land down to 37 so I really don't want to be doing that I don't believe...
Yeah, it's a term I've herd used. Basically for any card or effects that sit obviously on the board that deters anyone from doing anything to you because they don't want to get "bit" by the rattlesnake. Something like Executioner's Capsule is a very good example of this.
Thanks for the feedback. If you'd look at the deck list I've worked on so far I'm working on finding cuts right now... before tuning and honing the decks strategy. In general, the "flash" strategy you mention is the route I'm going.
I'm just not very familiar with the format and find some effects / cards hard to evaluate. Things like Preordain or Ponder. So forth. Are they worth it? Also I'm not sure if my Wizard / Shaman sub themes are "too cute" should I be running Acidic Slime over Reclamation Sage just because it's more powerful? Should I even bother with something like Willbreaker even though it works so well with Kaseto, Orochi Archmage and Cauldron of Souls.
Are there any powerful engines / synergies that I "should be running."
So I'm new to commander as a format over all. I've play here and there. I have mostly stuck to modern or extended before that. As a player I tend to drift towards things I believe are powerful but they never end up being tier 1, usually something between tier 1.5 and 2. UW Tron, Gifts control. Thought I did play quite a bit of my share of CawBlade.
With these new commanders spoiled I thought I would dip my toes into commander as I've gotten a little old now and no longer have the time or drive to grind PTQs or PPTQs or FNMs what have you.
Kaseto, Orochi Archmage seems like a useful commander in a multiplayer setting. First he's UG, two very powerful colors, while still appearing very unassuming at first glance basically a 2/2 "shade." My hope is to build a deck that plays a bit of the political game sitting about enabling people to attack unopposed (making things unblockable) here and there while presenting answers to critical cards that would otherwise end the game, I feel like I need / want Propaganda or rattlesnake / fog effects.
I'm really just looking for some advice and general direction. The list I have that is a WIP can be found here. I know if I don't want to get stomped by my friends and the typical play groups they have I'll need to show up with something that is fairly competitive (the all work at Wizards). For the purpose of this exercise one can consider me to have access to just about any card under $100s.
What type of effects / synergies should I be look at?
I plan on building a Kaseto, Orochi Archmage commander deck. I intend to build the deck for multiplayer games but we'll see where this takes me. For now this is all theorycraft. Any other players musing please let me know!
Note: The cards are sorted by type, mana cost, then alphabetized.
Something to consider is Freed from the Real / Pemmin's Aura next to Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro+Orochi Leafcaller nets you infinite mana and allows you to go for a one turn commander kill. While both Reel and Aura serving double duty as flexible forms of removal or political trickery. Bonus points for staying on theme in my book.
Seems like fun, actually it seems like a more violent form of Edric, Spymaster of Trest without the communal draw
I think this is a really good comparison and point Taleran makes.
You just want to make yourself and unassuming and bad target for creature combat. Poke someone here and there for card advantage while using the evasion on a stick as a tool to get people to attack one another rather then yourself. Have a couple cards like Preordain to help with consistency for yourself at a low cost while working to maintain permission type effects (Voidslime)
Edit: Just want to say I don't really know much about or play commander on any kind of regular basis but this guy has got me excited to put something together.
Under the tab decklists, I post each decklist that I use in a Daily event. For the next iteration I am testing Sigarda, I just haven't had a chance to play in a Daily in a few days. In paper I play Mindslaver lock instead, I think it's better, but I'm more inclined to play Emrakul online just because of the feasibility.
Holy mother of god...
Also, to make this post non-spam: I've been liking Pithing Needle in the sb. It helps vs Lili, Fulminator mages, and Karns.
I'm with you and really enjoy Pithing Needle in the sb so much so that I've picked up using a Trinket Mage package with Engineered Explosives in the main. I don't know if you saw my older list. (Honestly haven't done as much playing as I would have liked in the past 2 months). Darksteel and I, however, have had our little discussion about what you name Kikki or deceiver, deceiver or pestermite or other similar questions. I still have my reasons for liking it even in these match ups, Twin not using Kikki as much and usually favoring a 4/2 split on deciver/ pestermite, but I'll say darksteel has sound reasoning still glad to hear they're working for someone else as well.
I've just read up on everything since my last posts and am really interested in hearing how sigarta has held up?
Any thoughts on a more "Bant" style list that runs Wargate as well as Loam and Gifts? It was something a while back a friend and I had tossed around in our heads but never really put our brains to making a list. I saw it more of a 3 Color Bant control list that used Gifts combo as a primary win condition but also have the option using Wargate and or gift into loam 3 tron piece to build tron, while running only 1-2 copys of each tron land. He had a rather different vision of a almost slower bant tron list (which I really don't like) I think the issue is really that there are not enough good utility lands in Modern to make Wargate for 0 good enough, really I just wish there was a modern equivalent of the Legacy lands deck that locks people out. Just curious if Sigarta / Green adds enough value to warrant it as a color outside of using it as a gifts target.
So on another note, someone came second at his PPTQ in Australia playing UW Tron. His build was a slightly different take though. It had 3 Karn and Wurmcoil MB, and then another Karn, 2 Wurmcoil, and Ugin in the sideboard. His reasoning is that against Abzan he's going to turn into RG Tron and try to just land big threats. He also played both Emrakul and Mindslaver MB, but elected not to play Crucible + second Ruins and played Eye in the sideboard.
Thoughts? I've been talking with him and it seems we have different opinions on the matter. He likes going to a big game sort of deck but I've been having trouble generating the mana for it. I'm not sure I agree as the problems I've been having are before I have Tron mana, not afterwards.
I think I agree with you if I was going to play that stile you might as well be playing GR what advantage do you have going UW if, which it sounds like he did, you're cutting the gifts package. The primary draw to play blue is primarily gifts, remand and colonnade, while white is path, colonnade and the sideboard cards. In my opinion if you're working to deal with the abzan match-up and just want to be slamming over the top threats you might as well be playing GR.
On the T2 note I was really just joshing. Unless one of us planned on qualifying for a Modern PT and then proceeded to pilot the deck to a Top 8 finish I don't believe the deck would get the kind of publicity it required to jump into T2 or 1.5. Which I kind of think is impossible if there is only going to be 1 modern PT a year which has already happened for 2015...
I top8ed a PPTQ today with a relatively stock list. Went undefeated in the swiss and lost to GWb midrange style of deck that Jacob Wilson played in the Pro Tour. There was lots of Twin and Abzan today. Didn't see anyone on RG tron, which I think is losing popularity.
Anyway it helped me score a complete mismatch set of antiquities tron lands, a foil azorius signet, and a foil condescend. I'm only 12 cards away from completely foiling the deck out.
It's truly a blast of a deck to play I think its competitive enough and while it may not reach this forum's definition of tier 2 or 1 for a while, its still a very fun and competitive deck.
Congrats, I'm glad the deck is performing will for you. I'm curious as to what you mean by stock list, I'm guessing your win-con is not mindslaver if it online as darksteal88 has pointed out the "time" issues. What was your sideboard really like and how did you feel games 2-3 verse twin went, was there bloodmoon hate? How did the match up play out.
Ethersworn Canonist is not a card I want to play, it does little to nothing. If you want another Rule of Law, well, I wouldn't want one. Storm isn't enough of a deck nor is it a bad enough matchup. That's the only deck I think Ethersworn is worthwhile against. I'd rather play another Negate or Celestial Purge against them. Negate answers everything except the Electromancer and Purge answers both Electromancer and PA which are pretty much essential to them going off. If you absolutely must play another Storm card, I'd suggest looking at Mindbreak Trap.
Storm seems like a unwinable match up...preboard there is zero ways for us to interact meaningfully and they go off on turn 3 typically or turn 4 if they have a VERY bad hand and are playing it safe. Can't they just go off from a past in flames with no electromancer or PA? I don't know how bad the banning of Cruise is for storm but when I was last playing you basically had to run 3 Mindbreak Trap in the board to have a chance of winning the match up. That said I imagine storm to be a very small part of any field I see myself playing in.
Yeah I realized at some point that my math is wrong. I have the updated math at 39% in the opener after factoring in mulligans (for simplicity I only factor in a single mulligan since the odds of a mull to 5 aren't that high and we're almost assuredly losing that game anyways) (and I got my mulligan numbers via a 100 opening hand sample). I did some math and found that our win ratio goes up about 3% if we board into 4 Leyline, but that took some liberties:
The math you are looking for can be found here. The odds of drawing at least 1 of 4 laylines is 39.5% in your starting 7 with no mulligan and is considerably higher if you mulligan (somewhere between 50-60% on a mulligan to 6).
My opinion on Pithing Needle is that it doesn't do enough. I've been vocal about how bad it is against Twin because there are too many targets to name. Are you going to name Deceiver Exarch and lose to Pestermite? How about lose to Kiki-Jiki? Do you prefer losing to incremental value from Desolate Lighthouse?
It isn't the best against twin despite the fact that I don't think many people run Kiki-Jiki anymore favoring more control / interaction. The issue is remand, timely, wrath, Ugin and company are all garbage in this match up so that is really siding out 7-8 cards at least. I would imagine you would name Deceiver with the first needle since most lists I see run 4 Deceiver 2 Pestermite.
If they really can't deal with it, they probably could just take it from the t1 discard they'll most likely have. This is why I like Leyline against BGx, because it's pointed at blanking 9-12 cards in their deck while also allowing me to find the specific cards I need.
I'd imagin you would name Liliana first because you are still going to run 3-4 laylines in this match up and we still can't beat a resolved Lilian to save our live, our only out is T4 Gifts Iona or Wurmcoil or 1-2 Celestial Purge. Which is really bad. I think the only reason not to bring in pithing needle here is that they will be running 3-4 abrupt decay main (which they likely should be siding out). Also layline should really only be blanking 9 cards (assuming a full set of thoughtseize, inquisitions, and a singleton duress) and still doesn't help with Liliana which I find is the most problematic card in the match up, as she slowly grind our hand into dust before using her ultimate, crushing any chance of really assembling tron or a meaningful board for us.
There's a lot of cards you want to name but just can't. On top of that, every deck is bringing in artifact hate against us.
Really, perhaps this is your experience, I just don't think bring in artifact hate is really what people want to do against us. They can only hit signets (in my case crucible but this should not be present on the board until the turn you're going off really) and the version I'm running has 2 Academy Ruins.
I definitely have experienced bad players leaving in cards that they likely shouldn't be and no longer playing around those cards, which has lost me games before but this is not something I would PLAN to sideboard around. This is somewhat my fear though that players will leave in the full set of abrupt decay which really hits nothing since our deck should operate fine off of 2-3 colored sources from lands as BGx doesn't often present us with a meaningful clock. I think these deck will want to side in there 1-3 additional discard effects as well as 3-4 land destruction cards and only really want to side out some removal but also want to likely leave at lest 1 path and 1 black pieces of removal as outs to Iona.
I could be really wrong though about how a BGx player would sideboard since I've never really played Junk or Jund, so this is something I'm hoping to get more information on both form playing the match up and seeing the game from there perspective.
As far as the list goes, I would never, ever, play a 61 card deck with this deck. While a 61st card seems reasonable with a tutor ability, you also have to remember that we're a combo deck. Reducing your odds to draw Gifts or Tron lands is devastating. I think it's almost impossible to ever justify playing more than 60 cards. The only case I've ever heard that sounded remotely reasonable was when they had issues in Scapeshift where they needed to have enough red sources, enough other sources, and then found themselves with a bad land:spell ratio that they had to play more cards as the only way they could fix it.
I would have to disagree with thinking we are a "combo" deck, we are including a gifts combo package but I see us more as a control deck that is using tron as a means to make more powerful and abusive plays earlier in the game (we don't need to do that to win though). We can very easily win games without setting up tron until the last turn of the game. But I do agree reducing the odds of drawing Gifts is VERY painful.
What would you change from the list and why (from your gut obviously I don't expect you to run out and test a deck list you think is sub-optimum)?
What would you consider the idea Mindslaver version of UW Tron?
....I really don't understand you reaction at all...he has a powerful effect and you target snake other then himself in order to pump and block or if you go infinite with mana you can pump all the snakes on the board and send them out to kill each player in one turn rather then having to do it one at a time. I don't want a commander that pidgin holds you into a tribal that is never going to get the kind of support merfolk / elves et alia get. He plans both a semi tribal or voltron or control / political game. I think restricting yourself to playing him to voltron is foolish and also not the strongest deck you can make him in, especially in multiplayer.
I'm thinking of cutting Temporal Mastery, while going off with a "witness" effect and DEN or Crystal Shard is powerful it seems very "feel bads" not sure where I fall on this yet will have to see how the play group I find falls on these types of combos. I feel like I would be casting Freed from the Real or Pemmin's Aura usually on other peoples stuff as sudo-removal or "here have a huge" type effects to play politics. If / when they fall off you can always recur them with one of the witness engines and go for infinite mana later, which does allow for me to use my commander to kill just about any number of players... where any number is the number of snakes on the board that can attack that turn. As well as enabling other powerful synergies with DEN and well just about anything...
Thanks for the response. So I don't think "attack with snakes" is my game plan really. I want to avoid actively playing bad cards, though there is some strategy in doing so from time to time. I don't think I can rationalize cutting Spike Weaver, the deck doesn't really have any meaningful "board presence" at any given point. By that I mean It's not going wide with tokens, and it doesn't go tall at all unless somehow a Lorescale Coatl gets out of hand. So the deck needs some way of staying alive. Beyond hoping someone doesn't want to attack into the guy with an empty board.
Mulldrifter seems hard to let go because of Eternal Witness and Skullwinder as well as linking hands with Deadeye Navigator.
Of those cards I think Vendilion Clique very well could be a cut thought the synergy with Riptide Laboratory or Voidmage Prodigy would be missed.
Funny I'm not sure how much I like Willbreaker, I mean with Kaseto, Orochi Arhcmage or Cauldren of Souls (one of the many reason Zameck Guildmage is going to stay), it just seems weak, I mean removal breaks it and its not a very stable body. Plus 5UUUUGG for a 2/3 a 2/2 and stealing something doesn't seem that powerful...I guess it's a bit of a build your own Yavimaya's Embrace well have to see.
For now I think Venilion Clique is a cut I could reasonably make without feeling too bad. That puts me at 101 cards out of 99.
You don't need to be actively doing some "broken" but you need to be progressing a powerful strategy of some kind.
Edit: I put a few suggestions in the "cuts and additions" spoiler under "Cards that want a Place" since I haven't even made the cuts to make the deck legal...
Dismiss into Dream - Seems like a great card I'll have to think about when tuning the deck.
I've managed to make a couple cuts but still really looking for some advice. Sitting at 102 rater then 99. Any additional help with cuts. I've already cut 1 land down to 37 so I really don't want to be doing that I don't believe...
Yeah, it's a term I've herd used. Basically for any card or effects that sit obviously on the board that deters anyone from doing anything to you because they don't want to get "bit" by the rattlesnake. Something like Executioner's Capsule is a very good example of this.
Thanks for the feedback. If you'd look at the deck list I've worked on so far I'm working on finding cuts right now... before tuning and honing the decks strategy. In general, the "flash" strategy you mention is the route I'm going.
I'm just not very familiar with the format and find some effects / cards hard to evaluate. Things like Preordain or Ponder. So forth. Are they worth it? Also I'm not sure if my Wizard / Shaman sub themes are "too cute" should I be running Acidic Slime over Reclamation Sage just because it's more powerful? Should I even bother with something like Willbreaker even though it works so well with Kaseto, Orochi Archmage and Cauldron of Souls.
Are there any powerful engines / synergies that I "should be running."
With these new commanders spoiled I thought I would dip my toes into commander as I've gotten a little old now and no longer have the time or drive to grind PTQs or PPTQs or FNMs what have you.
Kaseto, Orochi Archmage seems like a useful commander in a multiplayer setting. First he's UG, two very powerful colors, while still appearing very unassuming at first glance basically a 2/2 "shade." My hope is to build a deck that plays a bit of the political game sitting about enabling people to attack unopposed (making things unblockable) here and there while presenting answers to critical cards that would otherwise end the game, I feel like I need / want Propaganda or rattlesnake / fog effects.
I'm really just looking for some advice and general direction. The list I have that is a WIP can be found here. I know if I don't want to get stomped by my friends and the typical play groups they have I'll need to show up with something that is fairly competitive (the all work at Wizards). For the purpose of this exercise one can consider me to have access to just about any card under $100s.
What type of effects / synergies should I be look at?
Note: The cards are sorted by type, mana cost, then alphabetized.
3 Kaseto, Orochi Archmage
Creatures 32
1 Orochi Leafcaller
2 Bloom Tender
2 Coiling Oracle
2 Fauna Shaman
2 Lotus Cobra
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Voidmage Prodigy
2 Zameck Guildmage
3 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
3 Eternal Witness
3 Lorescale Coatl
3 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
3 Ohran Viper
3 Reclamation Sage
3 Skullwinder
4 Glen Elendra Archmage
4 Mystic Snake
4 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro
4 Shisato, Whispering Hunter
4 Spike Weaver
4 Venser, Shaper Savant
5 Mulldrifter
5 Seedborn Muse
5 Willbreaker
6 Deadeye Navigator
6 Draining Whelk
6 Prime Speaker Zegana
6 Sakiko, Mother of Summer
6 Seshiro the Anointed
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Worldly Tutor
2 Counterspell
2 Cyclonic Rift
3 Beast Within
3 Capsize
3 Krosan Grip
3 Voidslime
4 Cryptic Command
4 Fact or Fiction
5 Mystic Confluence
Sorceries 9
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
2 Life from the Loam
3 Cultivate
4 Rite of Replication
5 Primal Command
5 Temporal Manipulation
6 Verdant Confluence
Artifacts 5
0 Orochi Hatchery
2 Simic Signet
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Crystal Shard
5 Cauldron of Souls
Enchantments 4
1 Exploration
2 Survival of the Fittest
3 Freed from the Real
4 Pemmin's Aura
0 Alchemist's Refuge
0 Blighted Woodland
0 Breeding Pool
0 Cephalid Coliseum
0 Command Tower
0 Command Beacon
0 Dryad Arbor
0 Flooded Grove
0 Flooded Strand
0 Forest - 6
0 Hinterland Harbor - BB?
0 Island - 4
0 Lonely Sandbar - BB?
0 Lumbering Falls
0 Misty Rainforest
0 Mutavault
0 Novijen, Heart of Progress
0 Polluted Delta
0 Remote Isle
0 Riptide Laboratory
0 Simic Growth Chamber
0 Slippery Karst
0 Temple of Mystery
0 Tolaria West
0 Tranquil Thicket
0 Verdant Catacombs
0 Wasteland
0 Yavimaya Hollow
1 Swan Song
3 Vendilion Clique
4 Fatestitcher
4 Kiora, Master of the Depths
4 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
6 Wurmweaver Coil
0 Reliquary Tower
2 Blight Mamba
2 Familiar's Ruse
2 Mire Boa
2 River Boa
4 Chameleon Colossus
5 Genesis
6 Greenwarden of Murasa
Freed from the Real or Pemmin's Aura + Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro and Orochi Leafcaller = Infinite Mana
Deadeye Navigator + Mystic Snake/Venser, Shaper Savant/Draining Whelk = recursive counterspell / bounce.
Deadeye Navigator + Eternal Witness/Skullwinder = recursive "Regrwoth" effect.
Willbreaker + Cauldron of Souls/Kaseto, Orochi Archmage = Mass Mind Control
Cauldron of Souls + Novijen, Heart of Progress = Sweeper Resilience
Deadeye Navigator + Mulldrifter
Life from the Loam + cycle lands
Zameck Guildmage + Lorescale Coatl
Wizard Sub-Theme:
Shaman Sub-Theme:
- BB? Would a basic land be better?
Something to consider is Freed from the Real / Pemmin's Aura next to Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro+Orochi Leafcaller nets you infinite mana and allows you to go for a one turn commander kill. While both Reel and Aura serving double duty as flexible forms of removal or political trickery. Bonus points for staying on theme in my book.
Mystic Snake and perhaps Orochi Hatchery along side other Ophidian type effects as well as Seshiro the Anointed round it out with some permission and other political stuff.
I think this is a really good comparison and point Taleran makes.
You just want to make yourself and unassuming and bad target for creature combat. Poke someone here and there for card advantage while using the evasion on a stick as a tool to get people to attack one another rather then yourself. Have a couple cards like Preordain to help with consistency for yourself at a low cost while working to maintain permission type effects (Voidslime)
Edit: Just want to say I don't really know much about or play commander on any kind of regular basis but this guy has got me excited to put something together.
I'm with you and really enjoy Pithing Needle in the sb so much so that I've picked up using a Trinket Mage package with Engineered Explosives in the main. I don't know if you saw my older list. (Honestly haven't done as much playing as I would have liked in the past 2 months). Darksteel and I, however, have had our little discussion about what you name Kikki or deceiver, deceiver or pestermite or other similar questions. I still have my reasons for liking it even in these match ups, Twin not using Kikki as much and usually favoring a 4/2 split on deciver/ pestermite, but I'll say darksteel has sound reasoning still glad to hear they're working for someone else as well.
I've just read up on everything since my last posts and am really interested in hearing how sigarta has held up?
Any thoughts on a more "Bant" style list that runs Wargate as well as Loam and Gifts? It was something a while back a friend and I had tossed around in our heads but never really put our brains to making a list. I saw it more of a 3 Color Bant control list that used Gifts combo as a primary win condition but also have the option using Wargate and or gift into loam 3 tron piece to build tron, while running only 1-2 copys of each tron land. He had a rather different vision of a almost slower bant tron list (which I really don't like) I think the issue is really that there are not enough good utility lands in Modern to make Wargate for 0 good enough, really I just wish there was a modern equivalent of the Legacy lands deck that locks people out. Just curious if Sigarta / Green adds enough value to warrant it as a color outside of using it as a gifts target.
I think I agree with you if I was going to play that stile you might as well be playing GR what advantage do you have going UW if, which it sounds like he did, you're cutting the gifts package. The primary draw to play blue is primarily gifts, remand and colonnade, while white is path, colonnade and the sideboard cards. In my opinion if you're working to deal with the abzan match-up and just want to be slamming over the top threats you might as well be playing GR.
Congrats, I'm glad the deck is performing will for you. I'm curious as to what you mean by stock list, I'm guessing your win-con is not mindslaver if it online as darksteal88 has pointed out the "time" issues. What was your sideboard really like and how did you feel games 2-3 verse twin went, was there bloodmoon hate? How did the match up play out.
Storm seems like a unwinable match up...preboard there is zero ways for us to interact meaningfully and they go off on turn 3 typically or turn 4 if they have a VERY bad hand and are playing it safe. Can't they just go off from a past in flames with no electromancer or PA? I don't know how bad the banning of Cruise is for storm but when I was last playing you basically had to run 3 Mindbreak Trap in the board to have a chance of winning the match up. That said I imagine storm to be a very small part of any field I see myself playing in.
The math you are looking for can be found here. The odds of drawing at least 1 of 4 laylines is 39.5% in your starting 7 with no mulligan and is considerably higher if you mulligan (somewhere between 50-60% on a mulligan to 6).
It isn't the best against twin despite the fact that I don't think many people run Kiki-Jiki anymore favoring more control / interaction. The issue is remand, timely, wrath, Ugin and company are all garbage in this match up so that is really siding out 7-8 cards at least. I would imagine you would name Deceiver with the first needle since most lists I see run 4 Deceiver 2 Pestermite.
I'd imagin you would name Liliana first because you are still going to run 3-4 laylines in this match up and we still can't beat a resolved Lilian to save our live, our only out is T4 Gifts Iona or Wurmcoil or 1-2 Celestial Purge. Which is really bad. I think the only reason not to bring in pithing needle here is that they will be running 3-4 abrupt decay main (which they likely should be siding out). Also layline should really only be blanking 9 cards (assuming a full set of thoughtseize, inquisitions, and a singleton duress) and still doesn't help with Liliana which I find is the most problematic card in the match up, as she slowly grind our hand into dust before using her ultimate, crushing any chance of really assembling tron or a meaningful board for us.
Really, perhaps this is your experience, I just don't think bring in artifact hate is really what people want to do against us. They can only hit signets (in my case crucible but this should not be present on the board until the turn you're going off really) and the version I'm running has 2 Academy Ruins.
I definitely have experienced bad players leaving in cards that they likely shouldn't be and no longer playing around those cards, which has lost me games before but this is not something I would PLAN to sideboard around. This is somewhat my fear though that players will leave in the full set of abrupt decay which really hits nothing since our deck should operate fine off of 2-3 colored sources from lands as BGx doesn't often present us with a meaningful clock. I think these deck will want to side in there 1-3 additional discard effects as well as 3-4 land destruction cards and only really want to side out some removal but also want to likely leave at lest 1 path and 1 black pieces of removal as outs to Iona.
I could be really wrong though about how a BGx player would sideboard since I've never really played Junk or Jund, so this is something I'm hoping to get more information on both form playing the match up and seeing the game from there perspective.
I would have to disagree with thinking we are a "combo" deck, we are including a gifts combo package but I see us more as a control deck that is using tron as a means to make more powerful and abusive plays earlier in the game (we don't need to do that to win though). We can very easily win games without setting up tron until the last turn of the game. But I do agree reducing the odds of drawing Gifts is VERY painful.
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Seachrome Coast
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Academy Ruins
1 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Plains
Creatures: 4
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Trinket Mage
1 Snapcaster Mage
Planeswalkers: 1
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4 Azorius Signet
3 Expedition Map
1 Mindslaver
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
Instants: 17
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Remand
4 Path to Exile
1 Condescend
1 Repeal
Sorceries: 4
1 Wrath of God
1 Day of Judgment
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Unburial Rites
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Negate
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Celestial Purge
1 Spellskite
1 Rule of Law
1 Suppression Field
2 Pithing Needle
What would you consider the idea Mindslaver version of UW Tron?