I agree regarding the green. I just don't know how to add green and make it consistent. The baral's expertise is good by itself even without another free spell. It's just really synergistic with Thalia and Authority of the Consuls. I worry if I take out Mausoleum Wanderer I won't have a quick enough curve.
This is the list currently. It seems to stall sometimes but overall it has good tempo. I can only cast Tamiyo with Baral's expertise so I only play 3. It's a rough list though.
Hello I am building a control, tempo version which relies on Baral's Expertise to power out a Tamiyo.
The idea is you basically stall with Authority of Consuls, Spell Queller and Thalia, Heretic Cathar.
Then you play a Baral's Expertise to buy more time to play a free Tamiyo.
Then the rest of the game you swing with your army, generating card advantage and tempo while holding up counter magic. On paper this seems absolutely busted and it's very strong against Saheeli combo with 3 maindeck authority of consuls and 3 thalia, heretic cathar.
I think this combo is better than saheeli because saheeli is fully hated out by authority of the consuls and thalia, heretic cathar while this is not.
This does require either trample or no blockers for lethal for an opponent however. Maybe the best option would be to use a blue/red shell with something which already plays built to smash and creature pump.
Btw, something janky could be made with this combo + ajani + aetherflux reservoir for infinite damage without combat.
Yeah exactly Gmiller. If I spend $1 on a card for 12 copies and it's worth $5+ in a month or so I've made ~$50. Then I can trade what I made for value or sell. But probably the fun will be in speculating. The thing is this is all disposable income for me. I still invest in a retirement at work. My hobbies are what I spend my extra cash on so that's what I'm doing.
Realistically though I'm not expecting to make more than $100 doing this. If I make $50-100 a set that's a success for me. This is just a fun speculative thing I'm doing.
If you want to invest, put your money in a mutual fund or something. You'll have better return on investment on average than guessing at what will become expensive over time.
True but this a hobby I will spend money on either way. If I make money from a hobby I'll probably trade the cards for more cards.
I agree on both Walking Ballista and Herald of Anguish and it appears the market has caught on as well. They both has increased in price.
The expertise seem really powerful as they fundamentally break a rule of the game (playing a card for free outside your colors). I would even speculate on 3 and 4 cost planeswalkers as soon as the expertise become a thing. Liliana may have hit her peak but can you imagine slotting Liliana into a deck with no black? It could be very easy to do with expertise.
I am looking at making a hobby of investing in cards when new sets launch. This is what I feel may be useful looking at the new cards.
I picked up 12 copies of Baral's Expertise around a $1.15 a piece. This card seems like it could be a $4-5 card in a few months. It easily fits into Saheeli combo and you can theoretically play things like Nahiri off of it for free without even playing Nahiri's colors.
Other cards I have looked at are, Indomitable Creativity as I speculate it may be around a $10 card eventually due to turning tokens into Ulamogs as it's a combo generator.
Riskar, Peema Renegade around ~$2 because it seems very strong and tempo orientated. Sram's Expertise because anything that can play things for free is powerful and this also creates 3 1/1s at the same time. I imagine Sram into Oath of Ajani or Nissa, Voice of Zendikar could conceivably be a thing.
Whir of Invention at $1.39 seems risky but it may be okay in commander if it tanks in standard/frontier.
Yahenni's Expertise seems high in price but it seems like a great card. I may regret not getting any. Baral's seems like the safest investment I made.
If I were to play Arcum I'd run Isochron (a ton of op instants) and then paradox engine with a ton of artifact and creature mana ramp.
Being able to cast an instant repeatedly with just a sol ring out is op. Brainstorm the deck to hand maybe or counterspell the table all seem useful. The fun part would be what instant you manage to imprint every game with the initial fetch for isochron. It's like ordered chaos.
Shock will probably find a spot over the galvanic bombardment.
A strength of the deck is that every creature provides a 2 for 1 benefit so targeted creature removal for opponents is typically not very effective.
Aethertide Whale could be another finisher as a near impossible to kill creature. Typically once I get rolling which is the hardest part the deck tends to snowball. Disallow seems very good too.
I played a few variations of blue/red trophy mage dynavolt and my list is below. My initial findings are that trophy mage snowballs very hard with dynavolt.
Here is the main deck I was running. Initially I had more counterspells and radiant flames but the bombardments were necessary for quick weenie strategies until the control engine was setup.
Dynavolt tower is a powerful card on its own. It also is a card which when played in multiples can generate a snowball type advantage. With Trophy Mage we effectively can play eight copies of Dynavolt Tower. Though we only know a few cards in Aether Revolt how could a deck such as this operate?
The strategy I was thinking of employing would be one in which we play a suite of cost efficient counter magic such as Ceremonius Rejection, Negate, Revolutionary Rebuff to provide cost efficient counterspells powerful in specific situations. Then later in the game we can flash in Torrential Gearhulk to grab our toolbox of situational countermagic. Anything which gets through our early countermagic we can theoretically blast with Dynavolt Tower.
So my LGS is not competitive enough for my tastes for EDH. People always seem to complain about decks with a combo/certain deck styles like well-built synergistic decks etc. It wears on me and I am thinking of playing online and seeing if there are any online EDH playgroups available.
Is there anyone part of a group of EDHers that
1) use an online tool like cockatrice?
2) play on a regular basis?
3) my schedule is basically work 11-8 with an hour commute but can play past 9 est most days.
4) most of all enjoy playing competitive, swingy games of EDH trying out new options and won't get salty over people playing synergistic decks with efficient combos?
The most degenerate edh use I currently see is below.
Arcum Daggson taps to grab isochron scepter (imprint) some 1-2 mana draw/counterspell instant.
Arcum next search is to grab the Paradox Engine.
With any combination of a single 2+ mana producing mana rock you win with an infinite loop.
The benefit of this strategy is isochron scepter has literally a ton of good instant cantrip targets. If you choose a lockdown route in place of 1-2 cmc card draw you can just counterspell the table repeatedly over and over.
These pieces are also individually great on their own.
Brainstorm imprinted on isochron, with a mana crypt/sol ring/etc etc and Paradox Engine wins the game by casting your deck assuming you draw into one more free rock to generate infinite mana.
Yes you'd need a 1 or 2 mana instant to imprint but honestly how hard is that to have with blue? Also Gilded Lotus + Any blue buyback spell (capsize + whisper of the muse) is infinite with enough mana rocks.
In my meta I play against a fairly nasty blue, black control deck which plays Liliana to recycle Thing in the Ice early game and Torrential Gearhulks late game. The deck sustains very well against vehicles and energy with things such as, essence extraction and grasp of darkness. They do not play Emrakul though. How do you feel 1-2 Emrakul would fair in this deck with 4 torrential gearhulk and 4 thing in the ice as a creature package. A lot of the removal can be different card types to reduce the cost of Emrakul and cycle with Liliana.
Also U/W spirits was a great deck for a long time
4x thraben inspector
4x mausoleum wanderer
4x selfless spirit
4x spell queller
3x thalia, heretic cathar
3x heart of kiron
3x tamiyo, field researcher
3x archangel avacyn
4x baral's expertise
4x unsubstantiate
3x authority of the consuls
4x port town
4x prairie stream
5x islands
8x plains
The idea is you basically stall with Authority of Consuls, Spell Queller and Thalia, Heretic Cathar.
Then you play a Baral's Expertise to buy more time to play a free Tamiyo.
Then the rest of the game you swing with your army, generating card advantage and tempo while holding up counter magic. On paper this seems absolutely busted and it's very strong against Saheeli combo with 3 maindeck authority of consuls and 3 thalia, heretic cathar.
This does require either trample or no blockers for lethal for an opponent however. Maybe the best option would be to use a blue/red shell with something which already plays built to smash and creature pump.
Btw, something janky could be made with this combo + ajani + aetherflux reservoir for infinite damage without combat.
Realistically though I'm not expecting to make more than $100 doing this. If I make $50-100 a set that's a success for me. This is just a fun speculative thing I'm doing.
True but this a hobby I will spend money on either way. If I make money from a hobby I'll probably trade the cards for more cards.
The expertise seem really powerful as they fundamentally break a rule of the game (playing a card for free outside your colors). I would even speculate on 3 and 4 cost planeswalkers as soon as the expertise become a thing. Liliana may have hit her peak but can you imagine slotting Liliana into a deck with no black? It could be very easy to do with expertise.
I picked up 12 copies of Baral's Expertise around a $1.15 a piece. This card seems like it could be a $4-5 card in a few months. It easily fits into Saheeli combo and you can theoretically play things like Nahiri off of it for free without even playing Nahiri's colors.
Other cards I have looked at are, Indomitable Creativity as I speculate it may be around a $10 card eventually due to turning tokens into Ulamogs as it's a combo generator.
Riskar, Peema Renegade around ~$2 because it seems very strong and tempo orientated. Sram's Expertise because anything that can play things for free is powerful and this also creates 3 1/1s at the same time. I imagine Sram into Oath of Ajani or Nissa, Voice of Zendikar could conceivably be a thing.
Whir of Invention at $1.39 seems risky but it may be okay in commander if it tanks in standard/frontier.
Yahenni's Expertise seems high in price but it seems like a great card. I may regret not getting any. Baral's seems like the safest investment I made.
Being able to cast an instant repeatedly with just a sol ring out is op. Brainstorm the deck to hand maybe or counterspell the table all seem useful. The fun part would be what instant you manage to imprint every game with the initial fetch for isochron. It's like ordered chaos.
A strength of the deck is that every creature provides a 2 for 1 benefit so targeted creature removal for opponents is typically not very effective.
Aethertide Whale could be another finisher as a near impossible to kill creature. Typically once I get rolling which is the hardest part the deck tends to snowball. Disallow seems very good too.
Here is the main deck I was running. Initially I had more counterspells and radiant flames but the bombardments were necessary for quick weenie strategies until the control engine was setup.
4x galvanic bombardment (needs a replacement)
4x harnessed lightning
4x unceremonius rejection
4x revolutinary rebuff
4x anticipate
4x glimmer of genius
4x torrential gearhulk
4x dynavolt tower
4x trophy mage
8x island
4x mountain
4x aether hub
4x wandering fumarole
4x spirebluff canal
Core
4x Dynavolt Tower
4x Trophy Mage
4x Glimmer of Genius
4x Harnessed Lightning
2x Torrential Gearhulk
The strategy I was thinking of employing would be one in which we play a suite of cost efficient counter magic such as Ceremonius Rejection, Negate, Revolutionary Rebuff to provide cost efficient counterspells powerful in specific situations. Then later in the game we can flash in Torrential Gearhulk to grab our toolbox of situational countermagic. Anything which gets through our early countermagic we can theoretically blast with Dynavolt Tower.
Is there anyone part of a group of EDHers that
1) use an online tool like cockatrice?
2) play on a regular basis?
3) my schedule is basically work 11-8 with an hour commute but can play past 9 est most days.
4) most of all enjoy playing competitive, swingy games of EDH trying out new options and won't get salty over people playing synergistic decks with efficient combos?
Arcum Daggson taps to grab isochron scepter (imprint) some 1-2 mana draw/counterspell instant.
Arcum next search is to grab the Paradox Engine.
With any combination of a single 2+ mana producing mana rock you win with an infinite loop.
The benefit of this strategy is isochron scepter has literally a ton of good instant cantrip targets. If you choose a lockdown route in place of 1-2 cmc card draw you can just counterspell the table repeatedly over and over.
These pieces are also individually great on their own.
Brainstorm imprinted on isochron, with a mana crypt/sol ring/etc etc and Paradox Engine wins the game by casting your deck assuming you draw into one more free rock to generate infinite mana.
Yes you'd need a 1 or 2 mana instant to imprint but honestly how hard is that to have with blue? Also Gilded Lotus + Any blue buyback spell (capsize + whisper of the muse) is infinite with enough mana rocks.