A card I have had a lot of fun with in my Superfriends build you may want to consider is Wargate. While expensive on the surface, it does get you any permanent into play and once you hit both Tamiyo emblems, it can put all your lands in play. Just a thought
Nice deck. ETB and bant are made for each other. You may want to consider replacing Deadeye Navigator with Eldrazi Displacer or adding it for additional flicker ability. I almost didn't due to the obvious drawbacks, but found I like it more than Deadeye since I can target any creature on the battlefield, giving it both offensive and defensive capabilities.
Maybe not excited, but I do like Thespian's Stage and Vesuva more now. All opponents color activated lands are fair game in any deck as long as you have one of the many multi-color mana rocks or effects in play.
Personally, I honor deals made with other players exactly as the deal is phrased. I also make sure that we are both clear on what the specifics of the deal are. In the case of the deal you made, I would have made sure it was clear that those hornets could not do damage to me or attack me for the duration of the game but could block creatures I had attacking the other player. If that was not agreed upon I would have gone with option 2 and destroyed his nest (assuming that was the best perceived option under the current game conditions).
That being said, I think backstabbing is a part of the game and once you go down the path of breaking deals, do not expect anyone to honor deals they make with you. The saying, "Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me", is my mantra where this is concerned.
If someone breaks a deal with me I never expect them to honor one in future games and play as if I expect them to break their end. This generally means I phrase things to ensure they are forced to live up to their end before I am expected to do anything. Once they hold up their end, I will generally hold up mine unless something happens between their completion of the terms of the deal and my ability to uphold my end that makes holding up my end extremely undesirable. If they complain should I not fulfill my end I kindly explain that had they consistently honored deals in the past, they could have expected the same from me.
I would love to see your list, and I am not as opposed to your propositions as it may appear. My problem as usual is what those pieces would do when separated from each other. Opalescence is a wonderful finisher, and as heresy0 mentioned in an earlier post that he was looking for a finisher. It accomplishes that. I'd be interested in Gideon, Ally of Zendikar as the anthem effect because it kinda does more in ideal conditions, and emblems can't be removed. As for Enchanted Evening, ehh, maybe. I think that 2 Enchantment matters cards does not a theme make: Serra's Sanctum and Sphere of Safety wouldn't constitute to me a good enough reason to include a 3rd enchantment matters booster, and my resistance is augmented. Really I wouldn't be that opposed to including Opalescence AND Gideon, Ally of Zendikar to accomplish almost the same thing with a higher degree of control, but it is not as good as the Enchanted Evening version, which is a pretty hard lock if my opponents have no anthems.
And as always, thank you for the kind words. I enjoy writing about things I enjoy and look forward to continuing to grow the deck and help others out.
I totally forgot about that Gideon! A superior choice certainly and I will be replacing anthems in any deck containing white where I run a +1 whatever and already have it in the Oloro deck I put together. Thanks to you, I added Gideon and it allowed me to pull off one of my land lock out combos on the first test run in my meta!
My version is a bit different than what you are running, mainly because I face a heavy control Sen Triplets regularly that contains annoying creatures like Notion Thief, Azorius Guildmage, Sun Titan and Stonecloaker, combined with knowing I would be targeted almost exclusively when Sen was in play encouraged me to build around those aspects.
I am actually going to run your build in my meta (since I have all the expensive cards in your list already) as well and see how it runs. I like having more than one version of a commander build just to keep my opponents on their toes and yours looks like it will be a great deal of fun to play. I'll let you know how it does for me once I get some experience piloting it.
What a beautiful and exceptionally detailed post, absolutely worthy of primer status. It takes a great deal of thought to build a good stax deck and play it well. You give great insight into doing both. This should be read by anyone new to stax play. Bravo!
Reading this post actually gave me some great ideas for a deck I just put together and will test in my meta this weekend. I'll be sure to post it up when it has seen enough play to get proof of concept against non AI players.
Don't really expect you would add this next part as it is more combo than stax, but I figured I'd toss it out there for newer players reading the primer as food for thought.
As far as land destruction goes, there is a nice trick I use to destroy all opponents lands and lock them out of playing them in most cases while leaving mine intact. It is a combo that is sort of staxish and uses 3 enchantments available in these colors. Enchanted Evening + ( Angelic Shield or Glorious Anthem ) + Opalescence. Does not work with Humility in play, but it locks their creatures down when Sphere of Safety is on the field. I chose these two buffs as options since they work with your Sun Titan strategy.
It can be risky of course as you are making your lands creatures and enchantments, but if they have no creature toughness buffs or color mana rocks in play when Opalescence hits the field, you win.
Thanks for your contributions to the EDH community and congratulations on achieving primer status!
A deck truly worthy of the merciless moniker. I would concur with Jar of Eyeballs suggestion of Exquisite Blood as a great add. To take out every player quickly with it, add Sanguine Bond for that loop of life/death that keeps on giving/taking!
You have enough indirect opponent life loss that is triggered by opponents actions to make them a scoop generator as no one will be able to do anything once they hit the field.
A red card to consider I use to help keep blue at bay in multiplayer is War's Toll. The risk of the creature effect with your deck is minimal which really allows it to shine.
I have a few Kruphix variants with one sharing many cards with this one. Cards I found that really helped augment the psychosis crawler in multiplayer were:
In my meta, artifact hate runs deep, so there is another trick I've been exploiting with Kruphix to great end. You already have Clever Impersonator and Capsize which are key components so it would require 1 other card for the core of the trick.
The key card is Mirrorworks. Just casting it and following up with the impersonator targeting it and taking the token copy for 2 mana now gives you 3 Mirrorworks in play. Capsize either Mirrorworks or the impersonator and recast them (targeting any of the in play Mirrorworks for the impersonator) ... Combined with your infinite mana combo and now you have infinite artifacts too.
Some other really great synergies this creates unfold, like:
The bonus to all of it is the multiple copies provide insurance that those cards stick around when they start getting targeted. This can make cards like Return to Dust ineffective.
In my deck, I eventually made the Mirrorworks thing a primary strategy, adding Phyrexian Metamorph, Darksteel Forge and the one that brings it all together, Mycosynth Lattice along with several other artifacts that exploit the Mirrorworks effect.... But that's another post
If Arcum isn't working out for you in your meta, that's your decision--I won't push you to keep playing it if you're not enjoying yourself. But, beating control decks is in fact well within Arcum's capacity; there is a reason after all he's developed a reputation as one of the strongest commanders in the format overall, not just one of the strongest combo commanders, and that he can regularly stand toe-to-toe with t4 clock combo/control decks. It simply takes practice in learning how to play Arcum in a control meta, especially an archenemy control meta. I would start by boarding in control-hating pieces, like Defense Grid or Winter Orb. Then I would practice getting good mulligans vs control (looking for solid opening hands with the tools you need to get Arcum on the field and in a pair of shoes, or otherwise comboing off without Arcum, well before the T7 clock decks in your meta get rolling); the fact that you describe yourself as getting landlocked suggests to me that you might not have kept the best starting hands, as that sort of thing practically never happens with this deck when you get a good mulligan unless you just got really really unlucky with your topdecks twice in a row (which of course can happen, but doesn't very often). And lastly I would practice with your overall playstyle--if you know you're playing archenemy you have to adapt to that, doing things like playing under the radar until you're positive you can make a big, explosive play without interruption, rushing into Possessed Portal to give control decks a hard time, and so forth. Without a doubt, even if you do it all perfectly right, playing Arcum in an archenemy control meta will still be a challenge, and you'll still lose sometimes, but you definitely shouldn't be losing 80% of the time, that's pretty anomalous.
In other words, I'm glad you gave Arcum a shot, and I'm sorry to hear he's not playing up to your expectations right now. But almost nobody picks up Arcum for the first time and plays him well the first couple of games ever unless their meta is really asleep at the wheel, it's a very different deck than Kruphix so it's probably not what you're used to (you can flip back through this thread and see numerous testimonies of people just starting out with Arcum who reported similar losses, but then later started winning once they figured out how to better play the deck and how to beat their meta). So, if you won't have fun learning to master Arcum, I won't hold it against you if you choose to drop him, because at the end of the day playing EDH is about doing what you enjoy. But I do think your experience with Arcum would become more of a positive one with further practice and study, if you ever find yourself up to the task.
I'm here to answer any questions you might have in the meantime, if you find yourself stuck on what to do or unsure of why your games aren't going as well as you hoped I'd be happy to offer any tips or insight I can.
There is a learning curve with any deck so I won't be dropping Arcum anytime soon. Winning is not a necessity for me to have fun. My enjoyment comes from gameplay itself. For me, being unpredictable and having impact during a game is where I get my kicks. I do enjoy winning as well though, with my favorite win con being the scoop.
All the above reasons are why I like your Arcum build. It has the ability to be an impact during a game, change tactics on the fly, make players scoop and the bonus of early game pressure with it's ability to set a fast pace.
My meta is filled with decks that have lots of answers to early game shenanigans, which I learned quickly playing with them. This is why I somewhat expected the outcome in two of the games I lost. In both of those games I was either third or fourth in the turn rotation, not ideal when you want to set the pace. I had great hands and played for the quick win, but was met with counter spells to early key plays in one and had Arcum get exiled as I attempted to equip him with greaves in the other, followed by an opponent getting a turn 2 Linvala and attaching Greaves to it while I was tapped out. That is pretty typical in my meta early game. Be the player sprinting out of the gate and you become the player who gets to wear the target leaving you tapped out and without answers to your opponents next move.
The games I got mana locked were totally my fault as I kept hands I was debating on tossing back but wanted to see what the deck would offer up based on the high percentage chance of drawing a mana generating artifact. Those were just the luck of the draw being not so lucky.
Since those first games, my win percentage did improve as I got more familiar with piloting the deck. I am around 40% now which I attribute to becoming more familiar with it. I have also lost a few games to making mistakes that were just stupid once I realized what I had just done. Others I lost were just good play and luck by my opponents (like me casting Possessed Portal with mana open and 2 counter spells in hand, only to be foiled by an opponent activating The Top to dig, finding and then activating to grab / cast Wipe Away after it resolved (doh!).
There were some changes I found were necessary for my meta as there are a few weaknesses this deck has that freeze it's effectiveness. like a turn 2 Linvala that seems to be in every deck my meta has that contains white, or Cursed Totem, Damping Matrix, Stony Silence, etc., which all see play in my meta. Once any of these hit the field, as you well know, Arcum and in some cases almost everything becomes useless until they are gone.
For anyone out there who may experience similar woes, five cards I added that allowed me to deal with these situations were Capsize, All is Dust, Hurkyl's Recall, Mystical Tutor and Duplicant. Players should choose what cards to remove based on their meta should they decide to use any of these options.
Things to be aware of for newer players should any of these options seem appealing:
All is Dust offers a way to remove colored problems all at once while leaving most of your field intact and could care less about hex proof, shroud or indestructible effects with colored cards. It does have the drawbacks of being a sorcery, killing Arcum, and is totally useless when Mycosynth Lattice is in play.
Duplicant is a good fit as it can be a target for Arcum in play as well as a target for Junk Diver, Myr Retriever and Scarecrone in the graveyard. Using Capsize with buy back, or Scarecrone and Arcum, with Duplicant can be effective way to remove creature threats but is somewhat expensive. The other drawbacks to Duplicant are it doesn't do anything if Topor Orb is in play and it needs a target that's a creature, so strait artifacts are out and a Linvala with Greaves would require a combo with Hurkyl's Recall, Capsize or similar effect to remove. Duplicant also does not follow two of the core strategies of this deck, having creatures that don't cost much and pose little to no threat should your opponent steal them from you. The only one who runs Bribery in my meta is me, so I don't have to worry about Duplicant getting used against me besides instant speed change target effects.
Again, all are really meta specific so unless situations like these arise in your meta frequently, leaving the deck as is and adjusting your play is likely the best approach.
I want to thank you again for putting together a really superb Arcum build and Primer. There were several cards in this build I had not considered before as being effective that you exploit to great ends which I will be adding to a few other artifact builds I have. It is always good to see things through the eyes of others.
In the rock paper scissors world of magic, combo doesnt tend to beat out control. If your meta is rich with control, have you considered a more aggro oriented commander (if you are looking for being competative i mean)
Thanks for the tip LordRewind. I have several decks that do well in my meta. I prefer to go either meta custom v. control or control v. control in my meta, with Kruphix and Memnarch decks being my more recent favorites. I do have a Rhys aggro deck that does quite well, but I have been playing so long that I have been trying out different decks to employ strategies I don't usually use in an effort to broaden the scope of my game.
Love your Damia deck BTW, very similar to one I face fairly regularly.
I realized after sephos turn description where the difference in opinion was coming from. @sephos, thank you for such a detailed explanation. The situations you described were the only reason I could think of for keeping Copy Artifact over Mirrorworks. It also gave me insight into why I preferred the opposite, my meta
So I would agree that for overall speed, Copy Artifact holds a two turn advantage. In situations you described, I can understand why you prefer it.
I built this deck and played it in my meta and, as I anticipated, was stopped from doing anything productive early game in all but 1 game. In the 5 games thus far, I am 1 for 5 with the one win coming from a turn 4 combo. The other 4 games I had just about everything countered or exiled before I could get rolling. My meta run with some insanely harsh control decks that are strong early game so I wasn't surprised. Two games I got land locked and never had enough mana to do anything really until it was too late.
I'm going to play it again as is a few more times to give it a fair shake as it did give me three great opening hands. It really just boiled down to who I was facing and the volume of hate I received from running Arcum. It is a fun deck to play, that's for sure.
@sephos, thanks for the polite response, cordial discord is what I enjoy most about EDH players I know.
While I understand your position, I am surprised you don't see Mirrorworks as being a much stronger option than Copy Artifact in this deck. Especially since you use it to such ends as you have described.
Unfortunately, I am just leaving for the rest of today and do not have time to explain for the primer's sake why I believe it is so much better in this deck. If I have time later I will do a comparison of the two.
If you have time, as I may be missing something, could you explain why you don't think it is a good swap for this deck as is? I'm always looking to improve my game, especially by looking through the eyes of others. It would be appreciated by me at the very least
I have a Sisay deck myself, and some suggestions based on experience would be:
Rhys The Redeemed - cheap early target for Sisay that shines with other token creators.
Archangel of Thune - give your creatures +1/+1 counters anytime you gain life.
Sterling Grove + Privileged Position - combined with Avacyn and no one can touch you without mass exile. An almost impossible state to deal with for your opponents.
Angellic Skirmisher - choosing first strike, vigilance or lifelink every combat phase is really nice
Regrowth - who doesn't want any card from their graveyard back for 2 mana?
Eternal Witness + Skullclamp + Sun Titan - get a card back from graveyard! draw 2 cards, return Eternal Witness to play and get another card back from graveyard.....
That being said, I think backstabbing is a part of the game and once you go down the path of breaking deals, do not expect anyone to honor deals they make with you. The saying, "Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me", is my mantra where this is concerned.
If someone breaks a deal with me I never expect them to honor one in future games and play as if I expect them to break their end. This generally means I phrase things to ensure they are forced to live up to their end before I am expected to do anything. Once they hold up their end, I will generally hold up mine unless something happens between their completion of the terms of the deal and my ability to uphold my end that makes holding up my end extremely undesirable. If they complain should I not fulfill my end I kindly explain that had they consistently honored deals in the past, they could have expected the same from me.
I totally forgot about that Gideon! A superior choice certainly and I will be replacing anthems in any deck containing white where I run a +1 whatever and already have it in the Oloro deck I put together. Thanks to you, I added Gideon and it allowed me to pull off one of my land lock out combos on the first test run in my meta!
My version is a bit different than what you are running, mainly because I face a heavy control Sen Triplets regularly that contains annoying creatures like Notion Thief, Azorius Guildmage, Sun Titan and Stonecloaker, combined with knowing I would be targeted almost exclusively when Sen was in play encouraged me to build around those aspects.
I am actually going to run your build in my meta (since I have all the expensive cards in your list already) as well and see how it runs. I like having more than one version of a commander build just to keep my opponents on their toes and yours looks like it will be a great deal of fun to play. I'll let you know how it does for me once I get some experience piloting it.
Reading this post actually gave me some great ideas for a deck I just put together and will test in my meta this weekend. I'll be sure to post it up when it has seen enough play to get proof of concept against non AI players.
Don't really expect you would add this next part as it is more combo than stax, but I figured I'd toss it out there for newer players reading the primer as food for thought.
As far as land destruction goes, there is a nice trick I use to destroy all opponents lands and lock them out of playing them in most cases while leaving mine intact. It is a combo that is sort of staxish and uses 3 enchantments available in these colors. Enchanted Evening + ( Angelic Shield or Glorious Anthem ) + Opalescence. Does not work with Humility in play, but it locks their creatures down when Sphere of Safety is on the field. I chose these two buffs as options since they work with your Sun Titan strategy.
It can be risky of course as you are making your lands creatures and enchantments, but if they have no creature toughness buffs or color mana rocks in play when Opalescence hits the field, you win.
Thanks for your contributions to the EDH community and congratulations on achieving primer status!
You have enough indirect opponent life loss that is triggered by opponents actions to make them a scoop generator as no one will be able to do anything once they hit the field.
A red card to consider I use to help keep blue at bay in multiplayer is War's Toll. The risk of the creature effect with your deck is minimal which really allows it to shine.
Midnight Guard + Presence of Gond
Add Blasting Station to get infinite damage and works great with Ashnod's Altar for infinite mana.
Consecrated Sphinx with Thought Reflection made every turn painful for others
In my meta, artifact hate runs deep, so there is another trick I've been exploiting with Kruphix to great end. You already have Clever Impersonator and Capsize which are key components so it would require 1 other card for the core of the trick.
The key card is Mirrorworks. Just casting it and following up with the impersonator targeting it and taking the token copy for 2 mana now gives you 3 Mirrorworks in play. Capsize either Mirrorworks or the impersonator and recast them (targeting any of the in play Mirrorworks for the impersonator) ... Combined with your infinite mana combo and now you have infinite artifacts too.
Some other really great synergies this creates unfold, like:
The bonus to all of it is the multiple copies provide insurance that those cards stick around when they start getting targeted. This can make cards like Return to Dust ineffective.
In my deck, I eventually made the Mirrorworks thing a primary strategy, adding Phyrexian Metamorph, Darksteel Forge and the one that brings it all together, Mycosynth Lattice along with several other artifacts that exploit the Mirrorworks effect.... But that's another post
There is a learning curve with any deck so I won't be dropping Arcum anytime soon. Winning is not a necessity for me to have fun. My enjoyment comes from gameplay itself. For me, being unpredictable and having impact during a game is where I get my kicks. I do enjoy winning as well though, with my favorite win con being the scoop.
All the above reasons are why I like your Arcum build. It has the ability to be an impact during a game, change tactics on the fly, make players scoop and the bonus of early game pressure with it's ability to set a fast pace.
My meta is filled with decks that have lots of answers to early game shenanigans, which I learned quickly playing with them. This is why I somewhat expected the outcome in two of the games I lost. In both of those games I was either third or fourth in the turn rotation, not ideal when you want to set the pace. I had great hands and played for the quick win, but was met with counter spells to early key plays in one and had Arcum get exiled as I attempted to equip him with greaves in the other, followed by an opponent getting a turn 2 Linvala and attaching Greaves to it while I was tapped out. That is pretty typical in my meta early game. Be the player sprinting out of the gate and you become the player who gets to wear the target leaving you tapped out and without answers to your opponents next move.
The games I got mana locked were totally my fault as I kept hands I was debating on tossing back but wanted to see what the deck would offer up based on the high percentage chance of drawing a mana generating artifact. Those were just the luck of the draw being not so lucky.
Since those first games, my win percentage did improve as I got more familiar with piloting the deck. I am around 40% now which I attribute to becoming more familiar with it. I have also lost a few games to making mistakes that were just stupid once I realized what I had just done. Others I lost were just good play and luck by my opponents (like me casting Possessed Portal with mana open and 2 counter spells in hand, only to be foiled by an opponent activating The Top to dig, finding and then activating to grab / cast Wipe Away after it resolved (doh!).
There were some changes I found were necessary for my meta as there are a few weaknesses this deck has that freeze it's effectiveness. like a turn 2 Linvala that seems to be in every deck my meta has that contains white, or Cursed Totem, Damping Matrix, Stony Silence, etc., which all see play in my meta. Once any of these hit the field, as you well know, Arcum and in some cases almost everything becomes useless until they are gone.
For anyone out there who may experience similar woes, five cards I added that allowed me to deal with these situations were Capsize, All is Dust, Hurkyl's Recall, Mystical Tutor and Duplicant. Players should choose what cards to remove based on their meta should they decide to use any of these options.
Things to be aware of for newer players should any of these options seem appealing:
All is Dust offers a way to remove colored problems all at once while leaving most of your field intact and could care less about hex proof, shroud or indestructible effects with colored cards. It does have the drawbacks of being a sorcery, killing Arcum, and is totally useless when Mycosynth Lattice is in play.
Duplicant is a good fit as it can be a target for Arcum in play as well as a target for Junk Diver, Myr Retriever and Scarecrone in the graveyard. Using Capsize with buy back, or Scarecrone and Arcum, with Duplicant can be effective way to remove creature threats but is somewhat expensive. The other drawbacks to Duplicant are it doesn't do anything if Topor Orb is in play and it needs a target that's a creature, so strait artifacts are out and a Linvala with Greaves would require a combo with Hurkyl's Recall, Capsize or similar effect to remove. Duplicant also does not follow two of the core strategies of this deck, having creatures that don't cost much and pose little to no threat should your opponent steal them from you. The only one who runs Bribery in my meta is me, so I don't have to worry about Duplicant getting used against me besides instant speed change target effects.
Again, all are really meta specific so unless situations like these arise in your meta frequently, leaving the deck as is and adjusting your play is likely the best approach.
I want to thank you again for putting together a really superb Arcum build and Primer. There were several cards in this build I had not considered before as being effective that you exploit to great ends which I will be adding to a few other artifact builds I have. It is always good to see things through the eyes of others.
Thanks for the tip LordRewind. I have several decks that do well in my meta. I prefer to go either meta custom v. control or control v. control in my meta, with Kruphix and Memnarch decks being my more recent favorites. I do have a Rhys aggro deck that does quite well, but I have been playing so long that I have been trying out different decks to employ strategies I don't usually use in an effort to broaden the scope of my game.
Love your Damia deck BTW, very similar to one I face fairly regularly.
I realized after sephos turn description where the difference in opinion was coming from. @sephos, thank you for such a detailed explanation. The situations you described were the only reason I could think of for keeping Copy Artifact over Mirrorworks. It also gave me insight into why I preferred the opposite, my meta
So I would agree that for overall speed, Copy Artifact holds a two turn advantage. In situations you described, I can understand why you prefer it.
I built this deck and played it in my meta and, as I anticipated, was stopped from doing anything productive early game in all but 1 game. In the 5 games thus far, I am 1 for 5 with the one win coming from a turn 4 combo. The other 4 games I had just about everything countered or exiled before I could get rolling. My meta run with some insanely harsh control decks that are strong early game so I wasn't surprised. Two games I got land locked and never had enough mana to do anything really until it was too late.
I'm going to play it again as is a few more times to give it a fair shake as it did give me three great opening hands. It really just boiled down to who I was facing and the volume of hate I received from running Arcum. It is a fun deck to play, that's for sure.
Since you are a fan of combos, here's one you may want to consider adding since you got the elf thing going on:
Midnight Guard + Presence of Gond
Infinite elf warriors. Who knew the Midnight Guard could be so dangerous?
If that wasn't bad enough, here are some others cards that enhance it further:
Enjoy!
While I understand your position, I am surprised you don't see Mirrorworks as being a much stronger option than Copy Artifact in this deck. Especially since you use it to such ends as you have described.
Unfortunately, I am just leaving for the rest of today and do not have time to explain for the primer's sake why I believe it is so much better in this deck. If I have time later I will do a comparison of the two.
If you have time, as I may be missing something, could you explain why you don't think it is a good swap for this deck as is? I'm always looking to improve my game, especially by looking through the eyes of others. It would be appreciated by me at the very least
I have more but have to run right now. Enjoy!