what? it doesn't interact with angel of jubilation in any way.
Oh yeah, paying life to Killing Wave is something that the angel doesn't prevent. And I had thought they built some nice synergy into the the set there...
So when this one was spoiled (prior to reading pay X life instead of mana) oh did I think it was somethin' special. But then I saw what it actually said, thought of browbeat, and completely disregarded it.
I first misread the card exactly the same way. When I realized my mistake, it was a big letdown.
I guess it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to play against tokens, or with Angel of Jubilation. But even then, I think I'd rather just play a different Wrath effect, or another tutor for one.
I haven't assembled this deck yet, but I'm throwing it up for input before I go and spend money on the cards I need to complete it. It's to be casual multiplayer deck, and I don't to spend more than ~10 dollars on any individual card for the deck (unless it's exceptionally beneficial). With that in mind, I'd like to hear any changes you all might suggest.
I have wanted to play with Repercussion for a long time. While I am limited to including one actual copy of the card in this deck, there are enough red mass-damage spells that the deck should work consistently even in the absence of that particular enchantment. Additionally, playing around Repercussion leads me to play a style of deck I would like to play, anyway: a creature-light control deck with tons of mass damage effects. It's not a Repercussion deck, but a deck inspired by the card.
Endless Whispers is the second card I have been wanting to try out. Running few creatures means that I only stand to gain from the enchantment. If my opponents refuse to give me any of their deceased creatures, then I plan to fall back upon Repercussion. I don't want to focus too much on donating my own stuff with the card, but rather leave it as a potential theft mechanism that has synergy with the primary gameplan.
I've taken a rather conservative approach to building around both Repercussion and Endless Whispers. I didn't want to go all out, and run cards that only work in conjunction with one of those enchantments; I'm trying to reduce the number of conditional cards I play in all my decks. Hunted Dragon and Horror are decent beaters in their own right, and lend themselves to playing politics, so they made the cut. I'm not sold on several other cards that traditionally make it onto decks such as this one:
- Varchild's War-Riders just seems too small to be relevant. Outside of making Blasphemous Act and Chain Reaction slightly better, I don't see the use beyond Repercussion.
- Bronze Bombshell also lacks the size and/or the utility to do much on it's own. It seems like a dead draw without Endless Whispers.
- Phage the Untouchable is less narrow than the previous two cards; she's a decent threat on her own (albeit a clunky one). I might end up throwing her in the deck, just for the lulz. My one reservation thus far has been her lack of evasion, as this is a deck that doesn't have enough creatures to warrant any equipment.
I had a hard time choosing a general for the deck. Lyzolda is my favorite general in these colors, but she requires more creatures to shine; Olivia is already taken, else I would probably be using her; Tsabo Tavoc is cool, but incredibly expensive, and probably needs protection to generate any value; Kaervek is also incredibly expensive, yet his face-burning abilities are thematically appropriate. I'm reluctantly using the last general, for a lack of better candidates. Hopefully, we'll see another R/B legend in Dark Ascension...
I'm thinking that I may need some more passive defensive cards, maybe even some life gain to keep ahead of my own Earthquakes.
So that's the deck--and my thoughts about it--in a nutshell. I'd appreciate any suggestions as to improvements I could make, fun interactions I'm missing, or anything else to make the deck both more fun and effective.
I love Nin--she's cheap, draws cards, and has my two favorite colors in her identity. This casual multiplayer deck is mostly a "goodstuff" list, with Nin helping to keep my hand stocked. I've only played a single game with the present configuration, and it was a game of Horde Magic. I'd appreciate any insight available in tuning this list, as it's pretty rough at present.
It's a control deck, and works as you might expect one to--look innocent, build resources, and set up that one big play which your opponents can't recover from. The deck runs a fair amount of utility creatures that prevent people from taking free shots, and can be traded in for more cards after they've outlived their usefulness. The image presented should fall somewhere between harmful and helpless.
Once the deck has built up sufficient mana, it can combo out, or slowly win by recurring cards and overwhelming the board. That's the plan, at least.
So yes, it's a casual deck with infinite combos--isn't that a contradiction of terms?
You'll notice that all the combos are fairly mana-intensive to get going; you're not going to be winning out of nowhere in the first few turns. Once any deck hits enough mana to abuse Reiterate and Turnabout it's able to make plenty of other game-winning plays. This deck aims to play out a long game if necessary, but if the cards align for an "Oops, I win" situation, that's just EDH. My group recognizes this, and would all prefer to get on with a new game rather than watch someone grind out a victory over the next hour.
My main concern for the deck is the amount of support cards that may prove too narrow. A few are:
- Myr Retriever was included as a cheap Nin target with a somewhat-useful ability. I'm not certain it's worth the space, especially with the recent addition of Academy Ruins.
- Vedalken Aethermage is another cheap dude with marginal utility function. Like the Retriever, it wouldn't make the cut if not for Nin's ability to recycle it.
- Fabricate is a solid card, but it might be redundant with Trinket Mage, Tezzeret, and the Transmute cards I'm already running. I might want Merchant Scroll or Gamble instead.
- Silent Arbiter and Smoke are both some attempts at board control. They both seem powerful if they stick, but I kind of dislike that they hamper opponents from hurting players other than me. I have to wonder if additional board sweepers (or something else entirely) would be more beneficial.
Having a ton of conditional cards that happen to synergize with Nin places a lot of dependence upon her to hold the deck together. I'm a little concerned that if I can't get Nin and an expendable dude to both stick, the deck is going to fall apart. I'd love to hear any ideas for a secondary draw engine--something other than Consecrated Sphinx, that is. Arcanis the Omnipotent? Recurring Insight? Mind Unbound? Maybe something a little cheaper will do?
I'd love to hear any thoughts about these concerns--or anything else regarding the deck--that you may have. Thanks for reading.
Here's mine, shamelessly copied and pasted from the Wizards boards:
My group was playing a FFA game with the Planechase variant rules one night. At some point well into the night, the player furthest behind rolls us all into the Glimmervoid Basin. Because he was in the worst position, he decided to Radiate his Capsize and send us all back to the beginning of the game. Everyone else was obviously pissed off, as the game had been going on for some time already. He laughed the way only a griefer can, dropped a land, and figured out what he was going to discard.
Everyone seemed to reach the same conclusion: since the game was effectively restarting anyway, it would be mostly pointless to concede and begin a new one. The game continued on, but there was hostility lingering in the atmosphere. The next player drew his card, played a land, and rolled his freebie throw of the die. We planeswalked to Naya. Everyone besides Captain Radiate bursted into hysterics, and we all took advantage of the plane until I rolled us away, right before he could get a chance to get back into the game.
If this is to be a multiplayer deck, you're going to need multiplayer-oriented creatures. Cards such as Kird Ape, Wild Nacatl, and Goblin Guide aren't going to amount to much when trying to take out several opponents; there is much more damage to deal, and much more time for control decks to stabilize. Utility creatures are fine, but I'd drop the weenies that only offer a nice power-to-cmc ratio.
I'd look into some relatively cheap creatures that scale for bigger games: Taurean Mauler, Gideon's Avenger, Forgotten Ancient, Lhurgoyf, Bonehoard, ect. You'll be less likely to run out of steam when you have creatures that can become substantial threats on their own.
Also, Traitorous Instinct is a sorcery, so you can't grab it with your Sunforger. You get a very similar effect with Master Warcraft, so I don't think it would be very beneficial, anyway.
So, you can kill people controlling just one creature now. In case you fail to be able to get rid of your own War-Rider in the face of Furnace and Repercussion, is Glacial Chasm worth considering? Or High Market?
One really fun aspect of Varchild's War-Riders is encouraging opponents to attack each other. Caltrops stops this from happening. Now that we have Circle of Flame, I think it deserves Caltrops' space.
Your deck looks a little top-heavy. It seems to have a lot of high-power, high-CMC cards, but is lacking is support cards. Or rather, the support cards that you are running are not the kind that I think would help you the most.
The first cards I'd call into question are Splinter Twin, Primal Rage, Aggravated Assault, and Rite of Replication. I don't see what they provide your deck that is essential; Dragon Broodmother or Dragon Roost are cards that will end the game themselves if left unchecked for a few turns; granting your flying dragons trample, or allowing them to attack twice a turn, seems unnecessary. Both cards pump out a ton of tokens, so I don't see what in particular that Splinter Twin or Rite of Replication are doing for you that warrants space in your deck (and RoR even demands a color splash). I think you already have enough win conditions in your deck without these additional cards.
I would look into adding some cards for defense / disruption / removal. You mentioned lifegain, and that would be a method for some defense. But I think your best bet would be to run some mass removal. Breath of Darigaaz, Earthquake, Fault Line, and Molten Disaster would all be great cards for killing opponents' creatures while leaving your flying dragons unharmed. Creature removal is something that I'd use before lifegain because it permanently deals with problems, rather than just delaying them from killing you. Elixir of Immortality is something that you can probably keep, as it is so efficient and has an added benefit of maybe giving you additional uses of your key cards. Otherwise, I'd use other methods to keep safe.
I would also run a few cards that deal with artifacts and enchantments, lest you run into an Ensnaring Bridge that you can't handle. Hull Breach is good for that. Decimate can also be, provided your games are large enough, or your opponents' decks are diverse enough.
The other thing I'd be wary of is the manabase. You have ten cards that cost six mana, and across three colors. Mana Flare can help you cast the expensive stuff, but only if you draw it. I suggest running 24 lands in your deck to hit your later land drops when you are unable to draw a Mana Flare.
Oh yeah, paying life to Killing Wave is something that the angel doesn't prevent. And I had thought they built some nice synergy into the the set there...
I first misread the card exactly the same way. When I realized my mistake, it was a big letdown.
I guess it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to play against tokens, or with Angel of Jubilation. But even then, I think I'd rather just play a different Wrath effect, or another tutor for one.
Also, no Heartless Hidetsugu?
Anyway, it looks like a lot of fun. I can't wait for my own Gisela to finally ship now.
1 Kaervek the Merciless
Donations (04):
1 Endless Whispers
1 Hunted Dragon
1 Hunted Horror
1 Living Death
Mass Damage (16):
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Bloodchief Ascension
1 Breath of Darigaaz
1 Chain Reaction
1 Coalhauler Swine
1 Earthquake
1 Exsanguinate
1 Fault Line
1 Heartless Hidetsugu
1 Incendiary Command
1 Inferno
1 Molten Disaster
1 Netherborn Phalanx
1 Repercussion
1 Shivan Meteor
1 Starstorm
Draw/Tutor (12):
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Dimir Machinations
1 Expedition Map
1 Memory Jar
1 Mind's Eye
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Syphon Mind
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Aftershock
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Myojin of Night's Reach
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 No Mercy
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Shattering Spree
1 Smoke
1 Suffer the Past
1 Terminate
1 War's Toll
1 Wrecking Ball
Misc. Utility (05):
1 Reiterate
1 Reverberate
1 Shunt
1 Wild Ricochet
1 Yawgmoth's Will
Ramp (07):
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Rakdos Signet
1 Sisay's Ring
1 Sol Ring
1 Talisman of Indulgence
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Ur-Golem's Eye
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Forbidden Orchard
14 Mountain
1 Sulfurous Springs
1 Strip Mine
15 Swamp
1 Tainted Peak
1 Terramorphic Expanse
I have wanted to play with Repercussion for a long time. While I am limited to including one actual copy of the card in this deck, there are enough red mass-damage spells that the deck should work consistently even in the absence of that particular enchantment. Additionally, playing around Repercussion leads me to play a style of deck I would like to play, anyway: a creature-light control deck with tons of mass damage effects. It's not a Repercussion deck, but a deck inspired by the card.
Endless Whispers is the second card I have been wanting to try out. Running few creatures means that I only stand to gain from the enchantment. If my opponents refuse to give me any of their deceased creatures, then I plan to fall back upon Repercussion. I don't want to focus too much on donating my own stuff with the card, but rather leave it as a potential theft mechanism that has synergy with the primary gameplan.
I've taken a rather conservative approach to building around both Repercussion and Endless Whispers. I didn't want to go all out, and run cards that only work in conjunction with one of those enchantments; I'm trying to reduce the number of conditional cards I play in all my decks. Hunted Dragon and Horror are decent beaters in their own right, and lend themselves to playing politics, so they made the cut. I'm not sold on several other cards that traditionally make it onto decks such as this one:
- Varchild's War-Riders just seems too small to be relevant. Outside of making Blasphemous Act and Chain Reaction slightly better, I don't see the use beyond Repercussion.
- Bronze Bombshell also lacks the size and/or the utility to do much on it's own. It seems like a dead draw without Endless Whispers.
- Phage the Untouchable is less narrow than the previous two cards; she's a decent threat on her own (albeit a clunky one). I might end up throwing her in the deck, just for the lulz. My one reservation thus far has been her lack of evasion, as this is a deck that doesn't have enough creatures to warrant any equipment.
I had a hard time choosing a general for the deck. Lyzolda is my favorite general in these colors, but she requires more creatures to shine; Olivia is already taken, else I would probably be using her; Tsabo Tavoc is cool, but incredibly expensive, and probably needs protection to generate any value; Kaervek is also incredibly expensive, yet his face-burning abilities are thematically appropriate. I'm reluctantly using the last general, for a lack of better candidates. Hopefully, we'll see another R/B legend in Dark Ascension...
I'm thinking that I may need some more passive defensive cards, maybe even some life gain to keep ahead of my own Earthquakes.
So that's the deck--and my thoughts about it--in a nutshell. I'd appreciate any suggestions as to improvements I could make, fun interactions I'm missing, or anything else to make the deck both more fun and effective.
Thanks for reading.
1 Nin, the Pain Artist
Creatures (16):
1 Dominating Licid
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Ixidron
1 Izzet Chronarch
1 Magus of the Future
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Myr Retriever
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Psychosis Crawler
1 Silent Arbiter
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Trinket Mage
1 Vedalken Aethermage
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
Counters (07):
1 Arcane Denial
1 Counterspell
1 Forbid
1 Hinder
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Negate
1 Spell Crumple
Removal/Disruption (13):
1 Aftershock
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Brittle Effigy
1 Capsize
1 Evacuation
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Pongify
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Shattering Spree
1 Smoke
1 Starstorm
1 Spin Into Myth
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Brainstorm
1 Expedition Map
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Fabricate
1 Future Sight
1 Mystic Remora
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
Ramp (06):
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Izzet Signet
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Thran Dynamo
The Rest (09):
1 Blatant Thievery
1 Crystal Shard
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Reins of Power
1 Reiterate
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Time Stretch
1 Turnabout
1 Academy Ruins
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
15 Island
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Kher Keep
10 Mountain
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Riptide Laboratory
1 Shivan Reef
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Vent
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Tolaria West
How does this thing work?
It's a control deck, and works as you might expect one to--look innocent, build resources, and set up that one big play which your opponents can't recover from. The deck runs a fair amount of utility creatures that prevent people from taking free shots, and can be traded in for more cards after they've outlived their usefulness. The image presented should fall somewhere between harmful and helpless.
Once the deck has built up sufficient mana, it can combo out, or slowly win by recurring cards and overwhelming the board. That's the plan, at least.
Combos:
Magus of the Future/Future Sight + Etherium Sculptor + Sensei's Divining Top - Draw an arbitrary amount of cards and create an arbitrary Storm count.
Tidespout Tyrant + Sol Ring/Mana Vault + Everflowing Chalice - Infinite colorless mana.
Reiterate + Turnabout - Infinite mana and Storm count.
Izzet Chronarch + Crystal Shard + Time Stretch - Endless turns.
So yes, it's a casual deck with infinite combos--isn't that a contradiction of terms?
You'll notice that all the combos are fairly mana-intensive to get going; you're not going to be winning out of nowhere in the first few turns. Once any deck hits enough mana to abuse Reiterate and Turnabout it's able to make plenty of other game-winning plays. This deck aims to play out a long game if necessary, but if the cards align for an "Oops, I win" situation, that's just EDH. My group recognizes this, and would all prefer to get on with a new game rather than watch someone grind out a victory over the next hour.
My main concern for the deck is the amount of support cards that may prove too narrow. A few are:
- Myr Retriever was included as a cheap Nin target with a somewhat-useful ability. I'm not certain it's worth the space, especially with the recent addition of Academy Ruins.
- Vedalken Aethermage is another cheap dude with marginal utility function. Like the Retriever, it wouldn't make the cut if not for Nin's ability to recycle it.
- Fabricate is a solid card, but it might be redundant with Trinket Mage, Tezzeret, and the Transmute cards I'm already running. I might want Merchant Scroll or Gamble instead.
- Silent Arbiter and Smoke are both some attempts at board control. They both seem powerful if they stick, but I kind of dislike that they hamper opponents from hurting players other than me. I have to wonder if additional board sweepers (or something else entirely) would be more beneficial.
Having a ton of conditional cards that happen to synergize with Nin places a lot of dependence upon her to hold the deck together. I'm a little concerned that if I can't get Nin and an expendable dude to both stick, the deck is going to fall apart. I'd love to hear any ideas for a secondary draw engine--something other than Consecrated Sphinx, that is. Arcanis the Omnipotent? Recurring Insight? Mind Unbound? Maybe something a little cheaper will do?
I'd love to hear any thoughts about these concerns--or anything else regarding the deck--that you may have. Thanks for reading.
Of course, I usually fetch Static Orb with Tezz. That way, he does tend to stick around.
I'm guessing that's about the extent of the elder dragon's Pro Tour experience.
Fauna Shaman
Greater Good
Insidious Dreams
I've started to run Tortured Existence + Krovikan Horror in my own reanimator deck, recently. So far, I've been impressed with this engine.
If you have the cash, you could also run Chains of Mephistopheles for some added redundancy.
My group was playing a FFA game with the Planechase variant rules one night. At some point well into the night, the player furthest behind rolls us all into the Glimmervoid Basin. Because he was in the worst position, he decided to Radiate his Capsize and send us all back to the beginning of the game. Everyone else was obviously pissed off, as the game had been going on for some time already. He laughed the way only a griefer can, dropped a land, and figured out what he was going to discard.
Everyone seemed to reach the same conclusion: since the game was effectively restarting anyway, it would be mostly pointless to concede and begin a new one. The game continued on, but there was hostility lingering in the atmosphere. The next player drew his card, played a land, and rolled his freebie throw of the die. We planeswalked to Naya. Everyone besides Captain Radiate bursted into hysterics, and we all took advantage of the plane until I rolled us away, right before he could get a chance to get back into the game.
I'd look into some relatively cheap creatures that scale for bigger games: Taurean Mauler, Gideon's Avenger, Forgotten Ancient, Lhurgoyf, Bonehoard, ect. You'll be less likely to run out of steam when you have creatures that can become substantial threats on their own.
Also, Traitorous Instinct is a sorcery, so you can't grab it with your Sunforger. You get a very similar effect with Master Warcraft, so I don't think it would be very beneficial, anyway.
One really fun aspect of Varchild's War-Riders is encouraging opponents to attack each other. Caltrops stops this from happening. Now that we have Circle of Flame, I think it deserves Caltrops' space.
The first cards I'd call into question are Splinter Twin, Primal Rage, Aggravated Assault, and Rite of Replication. I don't see what they provide your deck that is essential; Dragon Broodmother or Dragon Roost are cards that will end the game themselves if left unchecked for a few turns; granting your flying dragons trample, or allowing them to attack twice a turn, seems unnecessary. Both cards pump out a ton of tokens, so I don't see what in particular that Splinter Twin or Rite of Replication are doing for you that warrants space in your deck (and RoR even demands a color splash). I think you already have enough win conditions in your deck without these additional cards.
I would look into adding some cards for defense / disruption / removal. You mentioned lifegain, and that would be a method for some defense. But I think your best bet would be to run some mass removal. Breath of Darigaaz, Earthquake, Fault Line, and Molten Disaster would all be great cards for killing opponents' creatures while leaving your flying dragons unharmed. Creature removal is something that I'd use before lifegain because it permanently deals with problems, rather than just delaying them from killing you. Elixir of Immortality is something that you can probably keep, as it is so efficient and has an added benefit of maybe giving you additional uses of your key cards. Otherwise, I'd use other methods to keep safe.
I would also run a few cards that deal with artifacts and enchantments, lest you run into an Ensnaring Bridge that you can't handle. Hull Breach is good for that. Decimate can also be, provided your games are large enough, or your opponents' decks are diverse enough.
The other thing I'd be wary of is the manabase. You have ten cards that cost six mana, and across three colors. Mana Flare can help you cast the expensive stuff, but only if you draw it. I suggest running 24 lands in your deck to hit your later land drops when you are unable to draw a Mana Flare.