Basically plays like I mentioned above. Newest change was cutting Waterknot for Deep Freeze since, although losing one pip of devotion on the latter, the Freeze takes care of the creature's abilities, which is a huge plus, being a base 0/4 wall is negligible when I'm making creatures unblockable, so then they can't even block with it to remove the enchant and, in the way of the commander, re-cast it.
I like how Thassa provides some benefit in the scry ability early on and over the course of a game can provide a big advantage.
PM me if you have some specific questions, I'm in Portland too!
If you prefer the CMC of Kefnet, then I imagine you'd looked at Thassa, God of the Sea? Very flexible build options as far as how you'd want to go about your control scheme early on - fill the deck with a bunch of instant speed control stuff until you can land enough permenents to get devotion (5 is not really that difficult) and start swinging in with an unblockable 5/5, preferrably buffed with an equipment or two (Fireshrieker, Inquisitor's Flail, and Strata Scythe are my favorites with her). Or you can go with low CMC enchantment control stuff like Claustrophobia, Waterknot, Imprisoned in the Moon, Lost in Thought, Deep Freeze, Fog Bank, Guard Gomazoa, etc. for the quickest way to devottion (notice the ones with two UU in the CMC), playing defense long enough to drop a Cyclonic Rift, River's Rebuke, Scourge of Fleets or other big bounce spell to start swinging in. Plus she can make your late-game 7-plus power beaters unblockable too, like Nezahal, Primal Tide, even if she's not "online".
I'll vouch for Nezahal, Primal Tide too - I put that in my Thassa deck, and it's amazing every time I can play it, like a true full-package creature. Replaces itself almost immediately, it can swing in for good damage, and has protection as long as you have enough cards in hand (not hard in blue) which almost guarantees it's two UU to stick around for Thassa's devotion.
I played around with Kefnet the Mindful a little bit when he was released. Definitely came out early and swinging. I think Kefnet and Thassa are similar in the general strategy (early control to get "online" right away, then some potent voltron hits), but differed in two main ways, for me: 1) Kefnet wanted to be more traditional "draw-go" to keep the hand full at all times, with low CMC stuff that cantriped at the least and provided multiple CA at the most. Flying for evasion is pretty good as most decks (At least in my meta) could only chump block for so long if they even had fliers to spare, but still he would meet some resistance against dedicated commanders with fliers, usually other voltron commanders and any Angel commander. I just felt getting the damage in wasn't as consistent with flying as it is with straight up unblockable, naturally, even though I'd have to pay two mana with Thassa each time. And 2) Kefnet seemed like a more dedicated voltron deck since he didn't really interact with other creatures. Thassa, on the other hand, can make herself and other creatures you control unblockable. This definitely helps when it's late-game and there's still multiple opponents to shift offensively on, or makes for a quicker win once it's 1v1, or just provides another win condition as long as I'm packing a handful of nice beaters like Trench Gorger (20+ power with trample in blue?! Sure, sign me up!), the aforementioned Nezahal, Pearl Lake Ancient, Scourge of Fleets, Stormsurge Kraken, Aetherling, and others.
I may be biased for the OG God though, it does happen to be my favorite deck in all the world.
Whelp, he's one of my favorites from the new set. I was actually gonna go hammer-tribal (no really, I am). Most chunk of cards with hammer (or similar, like sledge, etc.) in the card name, art, or flavor text.
Shove in all the extra combat cards, fill the rest with cheap equipment or cheap repeatable auras (not sure if Crown of Flames was mentioned yet), and voila!
Hey there peoples of mtgsalvation. I've been working on a Dune Brood Nephilim deck for the last couple of weeks here and I feel like it's getting closer and closer to completion but somehow I never feel like it's ready to buy. I always feel like there's some new card that's better than something I already run and I find new things everyday. At this rate I'll be goldfishing the deck forever and that's not fun! When do you feel a deck is complete enough to finally buy and sleeve up? Thanks for any and all opinions I look forward to hearing what you have to say!
Good question as I often feel the same way (keep finding more and more cards). Ultimately, I think this works itself out depending on the individual's deck building process, and with a little bit of discipline. Ultimately, I feel, for me, that I just need to "bite the bullet" if I actually get to a satisfactory 99 cards with enough combo or synergy that I think, theoretically, the deck should do the "thing" I envisioned it to do. I've found that the deck building process is never done, always continual, and there will always be cards I can go back and forth on and new cards that can replace others. That's actually what keeps building decks and playing them fun and refreshing for me. Also, I found it easier to build decks if I use certain rules to limit the card selection on myself. For example, I don't like to use more than just a few or a couple cards in multiple decks (e.g. I have a handful of decks with blue or mono-U, but only two of them have Cyclonic Rift). Or "tribal" restrictions if your meta is casual enough. For example, I built a "hand" tribal deck where every card in the art featured a hand or hands. Forces me to get creative (read: not just automatically include good-stuffs) and helps narrow down the card selection, which ultimately more likely leads to a satisfactory 99 without too much agony.
Not to stray too much from the original stax ideas, but I was thinking of another artifact centric strategy with Nezahal, Primal Tide, maybe coinciding with stax elements:
Keep an artifact heavy theme with lots of mana rocks to get Nezahal out as soon as possible. Then, use Nezahal's discard ability to pitch infect creatures (like Blighted Agent, Viral Drake, or other infect creature that can be given evasion by other means) or other creatures with powerful abilities. Then "reanimate" those creatures via God-Pharaoh's Gift (or Back from the Brink as an alternate way of just pulling pitched creatures back out) searched up via Fabricate, Treasure Mage, Whir of Invention, or Tezzeret the Seeker. Get the infect through and proliferate for profit via Contagion Clasp, Contagion Engine, or Inexorable Tide with a bunch of low-CMC artifacts to cast.
EDIT: GPG makes the Blighted Agent a hasty unblockable 4/4 with infect. Even without proliferation, I don't see games lasting that long if he's left on the field with the right protection (counterspells for board wipes, creature bounce for retaliation attacks (i.e. Aetherize).
Now that I type this out, it seems like a lot to accomplish. But, then I've seen crazier and wilder in games before.
I could lend a few suggestions. Take 'em if you like 'em, forget 'em if you don't.
Might I suggest Mind's Dilation for stealing permanents and Sphinx Ambassador for stealing creatures, as well as play mind games with your opponents?
If you'd like to lean your strategy toward using Thassa herself as a finisher/big threat of your own, then I highly suggest Fireshrieker and Inquisitor's Flail. Either of these equipped to Thassa deal 10 commander damage (unblockable with her ability) unbuffed. Both together is 20 commander damage. Both are tutorable with Tezzeret. Thassa can easily eat up the double damage donw-side of the Flail since she's indestructible. I like these, for Thassa specifically, as opposed to Sword of Fire and Ice, for example, because while a single one of them still leave her at a 3-turn commander damage clock (unbuffed), they do more raw power and the only time she's really leaving the field is a targeted exile effect or mass exile effect - of which red and green are shallow on, so the protection from red and blue don't come into play too often. Plus, with all that extra raw commander damage, the extra 2 thrown out by the sword in comparison likely wouldn't matter as often.
In the same vein of equips and buffs and all that jazz, I'll suggest Ring of Evos Isle. Worst case, it can instant-speed protect a creature for 2, with a relatively cheap 1 equip cost. Best case, you have it on a blue creature (like Thassa) and rack up the +1 counters - until you're ready for a lethal unblockable strike. If Thassa gets the counters, she keeps them even if she stops being a creature and thus can keep that extra power on board when she becomes a creature again. Even just one +1 counter from this along with the aforementioned Fireshrieker or Inquisitor's Flail put Thassa at a 2-turn clock for commander damage. Unblockable lethal with all 3 - the dream!
I see you're running Vesuvan Shapeshifter - would you be interested in running the other half of the "pickles" combo with Brine Elemental? With Vesuvan Shapeshifter on the field face down, you can cast Brine Elemental face up (no morph effect, just a 5/4 beater), then use Vesuvan Shapeshifter's ability to turn face up as the Brine Elemental causing all opponents to skip the untap step. Then, on your next upkeep, turn Vesuvan Shapeshifter back face down, and re-activate his ability turning him face up as the Brine Elemental again . . . and repeat. It's a soft lock since permanents entering the field can be used (say new played lands or casted creatures), but it should hold down log enough for you to finish with Thassa or other big threats you've taken. You can get really mena by also running Frozen Aether, but don't blame me if you lose friends.
Lastly for now, I'll suggest Scourge of Fleets. Maybe replace Shipbreaker Kraken with this? I do like the Shipbreaker, but 14 mana to get its full effect - otherwise just a 6/6 beater for 6CMC. For one more in CMC, you almost always get a one-sided Evacuation. Gives all the creatures you stole back to your opponents' hands, but then they have no creatures and you have a small handful of beaters to go to town with.
With at least two tokens on the field before first combat with the Fury, you get as many combat phases as cards you can draw from your library, not to mention any other shenanigans you can play from actually drawing the cards from the Bident/Piracy. Seems good to me.
Edit: I guess the main requirement here is that the tokens have to actually get through to the opponent with damage, but that shouldn't be too hard with flying and other blue things like Cyclonic Rift
Jori En, Ruin Diver looks really interesting! Definitely less common than all the Mizzix, Melek, and Niv-Mizzets running around. She seems really flexible too - most any blue theme with some burn for removal elements within a horde of small instants/sorcery, wizard tribal, or even packing in low cmc artifacts for an artifact theme. She seems to hit a lot of what I was thinking of: low cmc, includes blue, most any build won't look like a big chunk of my Thassa deck, and I feel a little more unique particularly for the colors. The only thing I personally like that's missing is some form of built-in protection, but she doesn't present an immediate threat and doesn't necessarily shout out a particular strategy so she might be able to fly under the radar as far as spot removal goes anyway (who's using precious spot removal on this when there would most likely be much larger threats on the board especially as the game goes on?). Really something . . . I'll definitely check her our some more, maybe brew something together. Thanks for the suggestion, BlackVise!
1
Sure, here's the current iteration:
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
Lands (38)
33 Island
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Scavenger Grounds
1 Temple of the False God
1 Tolaria West
Artifacts (10)
1 Bident of Thassa
1 Caged Sun
1 Dowsing Dagger
1 Expedition Map
1 Fireshrieker
1 Inquisitor's Flail
1 Sapphire Medallion
1 Sol Ring
1 Strata Scythe
1 Swiftfoot Boots
Enchantments (14)
1 Claustrophobia
1 Coastal Piracy
1 Deep Freeze
1 Dictate of Kruphix
1 Dissipation Field
1 Future Sight
1 Imprisoned in the Moon
1 Kumena's Awakening
1 Lost in Thought
1 Monastery Siege
1 Propaganda
1 Rhystic Study
1 Vanishing
1 Volition Reins
1 Counterspell
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Disallow
1 Dissolve
1 Dream Fracture
1 Evacuation
1 Thassa's Rebuff
Sorceries (7)
1 Curse of the Swine
1 Devastation Tide
1 Foresee
1 Recurring Insight
1 River's Rebuke
1 Wash Out
1 Windfall
Creatures (23)
1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
1 Augury Owl
1 Brine Elemental
1 Clever Impersonator
1 Dominating Licid
1 Fog Bank
1 Guard Gomazoa
1 Guardian of Tazeem
1 Jace's Archivist
1 Lu Xun, Scholar General
1 Merfolk Looter
1 Nezahal, Primal Tide
1 Pearl Lake Ancient
1 Sakashima's Student
1 Scourge of Fleets
1 Somnophore
1 Stormsurge Kraken
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Trench Gorger
1 Trophy Mage
1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
1 Windrider Patrol
1 Ætherling
Basically plays like I mentioned above. Newest change was cutting Waterknot for Deep Freeze since, although losing one pip of devotion on the latter, the Freeze takes care of the creature's abilities, which is a huge plus, being a base 0/4 wall is negligible when I'm making creatures unblockable, so then they can't even block with it to remove the enchant and, in the way of the commander, re-cast it.
I like how Thassa provides some benefit in the scry ability early on and over the course of a game can provide a big advantage.
PM me if you have some specific questions, I'm in Portland too!
3
I'll vouch for Nezahal, Primal Tide too - I put that in my Thassa deck, and it's amazing every time I can play it, like a true full-package creature. Replaces itself almost immediately, it can swing in for good damage, and has protection as long as you have enough cards in hand (not hard in blue) which almost guarantees it's two UU to stick around for Thassa's devotion.
I played around with Kefnet the Mindful a little bit when he was released. Definitely came out early and swinging. I think Kefnet and Thassa are similar in the general strategy (early control to get "online" right away, then some potent voltron hits), but differed in two main ways, for me: 1) Kefnet wanted to be more traditional "draw-go" to keep the hand full at all times, with low CMC stuff that cantriped at the least and provided multiple CA at the most. Flying for evasion is pretty good as most decks (At least in my meta) could only chump block for so long if they even had fliers to spare, but still he would meet some resistance against dedicated commanders with fliers, usually other voltron commanders and any Angel commander. I just felt getting the damage in wasn't as consistent with flying as it is with straight up unblockable, naturally, even though I'd have to pay two mana with Thassa each time. And 2) Kefnet seemed like a more dedicated voltron deck since he didn't really interact with other creatures. Thassa, on the other hand, can make herself and other creatures you control unblockable. This definitely helps when it's late-game and there's still multiple opponents to shift offensively on, or makes for a quicker win once it's 1v1, or just provides another win condition as long as I'm packing a handful of nice beaters like Trench Gorger (20+ power with trample in blue?! Sure, sign me up!), the aforementioned Nezahal, Pearl Lake Ancient, Scourge of Fleets, Stormsurge Kraken, Aetherling, and others.
I may be biased for the OG God though, it does happen to be my favorite deck in all the world.
1
The hammer strikes. The flame awakens
Things like Hammer of Nazahn, Loxodon Warhammer, Hammerhand, Burning Anger, Fall of the Hammer, Koth of the Hammer, Goblin Gaveleer, Goblin Sharpshooter, Hammerfist Giant, and, luckily, Purphoros, God of the Forge is holding his Hammer of Purphoros! There's tons more of (bad) cards for this theme!
Shove in all the extra combat cards, fill the rest with cheap equipment or cheap repeatable auras (not sure if Crown of Flames was mentioned yet), and voila!
2
Good question as I often feel the same way (keep finding more and more cards). Ultimately, I think this works itself out depending on the individual's deck building process, and with a little bit of discipline. Ultimately, I feel, for me, that I just need to "bite the bullet" if I actually get to a satisfactory 99 cards with enough combo or synergy that I think, theoretically, the deck should do the "thing" I envisioned it to do. I've found that the deck building process is never done, always continual, and there will always be cards I can go back and forth on and new cards that can replace others. That's actually what keeps building decks and playing them fun and refreshing for me. Also, I found it easier to build decks if I use certain rules to limit the card selection on myself. For example, I don't like to use more than just a few or a couple cards in multiple decks (e.g. I have a handful of decks with blue or mono-U, but only two of them have Cyclonic Rift). Or "tribal" restrictions if your meta is casual enough. For example, I built a "hand" tribal deck where every card in the art featured a hand or hands. Forces me to get creative (read: not just automatically include good-stuffs) and helps narrow down the card selection, which ultimately more likely leads to a satisfactory 99 without too much agony.
1
Keep an artifact heavy theme with lots of mana rocks to get Nezahal out as soon as possible. Then, use Nezahal's discard ability to pitch infect creatures (like Blighted Agent, Viral Drake, or other infect creature that can be given evasion by other means) or other creatures with powerful abilities. Then "reanimate" those creatures via God-Pharaoh's Gift (or Back from the Brink as an alternate way of just pulling pitched creatures back out) searched up via Fabricate, Treasure Mage, Whir of Invention, or Tezzeret the Seeker. Get the infect through and proliferate for profit via Contagion Clasp, Contagion Engine, or Inexorable Tide with a bunch of low-CMC artifacts to cast.
EDIT: GPG makes the Blighted Agent a hasty unblockable 4/4 with infect. Even without proliferation, I don't see games lasting that long if he's left on the field with the right protection (counterspells for board wipes, creature bounce for retaliation attacks (i.e. Aetherize).
Now that I type this out, it seems like a lot to accomplish. But, then I've seen crazier and wilder in games before.
1
Might I suggest Mind's Dilation for stealing permanents and Sphinx Ambassador for stealing creatures, as well as play mind games with your opponents?
If you'd like to lean your strategy toward using Thassa herself as a finisher/big threat of your own, then I highly suggest Fireshrieker and Inquisitor's Flail. Either of these equipped to Thassa deal 10 commander damage (unblockable with her ability) unbuffed. Both together is 20 commander damage. Both are tutorable with Tezzeret. Thassa can easily eat up the double damage donw-side of the Flail since she's indestructible. I like these, for Thassa specifically, as opposed to Sword of Fire and Ice, for example, because while a single one of them still leave her at a 3-turn commander damage clock (unbuffed), they do more raw power and the only time she's really leaving the field is a targeted exile effect or mass exile effect - of which red and green are shallow on, so the protection from red and blue don't come into play too often. Plus, with all that extra raw commander damage, the extra 2 thrown out by the sword in comparison likely wouldn't matter as often.
In the same vein of equips and buffs and all that jazz, I'll suggest Ring of Evos Isle. Worst case, it can instant-speed protect a creature for 2, with a relatively cheap 1 equip cost. Best case, you have it on a blue creature (like Thassa) and rack up the +1 counters - until you're ready for a lethal unblockable strike. If Thassa gets the counters, she keeps them even if she stops being a creature and thus can keep that extra power on board when she becomes a creature again. Even just one +1 counter from this along with the aforementioned Fireshrieker or Inquisitor's Flail put Thassa at a 2-turn clock for commander damage. Unblockable lethal with all 3 - the dream!
I see you're running Vesuvan Shapeshifter - would you be interested in running the other half of the "pickles" combo with Brine Elemental? With Vesuvan Shapeshifter on the field face down, you can cast Brine Elemental face up (no morph effect, just a 5/4 beater), then use Vesuvan Shapeshifter's ability to turn face up as the Brine Elemental causing all opponents to skip the untap step. Then, on your next upkeep, turn Vesuvan Shapeshifter back face down, and re-activate his ability turning him face up as the Brine Elemental again . . . and repeat. It's a soft lock since permanents entering the field can be used (say new played lands or casted creatures), but it should hold down log enough for you to finish with Thassa or other big threats you've taken. You can get really mena by also running Frozen Aether, but don't blame me if you lose friends.
Lastly for now, I'll suggest Scourge of Fleets. Maybe replace Shipbreaker Kraken with this? I do like the Shipbreaker, but 14 mana to get its full effect - otherwise just a 6/6 beater for 6CMC. For one more in CMC, you almost always get a one-sided Evacuation. Gives all the creatures you stole back to your opponents' hands, but then they have no creatures and you have a small handful of beaters to go to town with.
2
2
1
With at least two tokens on the field before first combat with the Fury, you get as many combat phases as cards you can draw from your library, not to mention any other shenanigans you can play from actually drawing the cards from the Bident/Piracy. Seems good to me.
Edit: I guess the main requirement here is that the tokens have to actually get through to the opponent with damage, but that shouldn't be too hard with flying and other blue things like Cyclonic Rift
1