MTG Salvation

You are correct, I read improperly. I still think it could be obscene.

So further to the consideration of River Kelpie, Kindred Discovery just got spoiled. It could be obscene. In comparing the two, there are pros and cons both ways.

River Kelpie
- Supports a reanimation strategy
- Incremental card draw, which in most cases is usually preferable
- Can block in a pinch and has resilience

Kindred Discovery
- The synergy with Tombstone Stairwell and Endless Ranks of the Dead and other token strategies is obscene.
- Resilient to destruction due to card type
- Counts for zombies I don't control
- Much like Graveborn Muse, could very well be a suicidal strategy - less in terms of life, more in terms of decking myself. I'd definitely need to consider options to mitigate that.

I'd love to hear thoughts on the issue. I know which I'd lean towards, although of course there is the option of using both. Very interested to see if there are any further tribal synergies from the new set my zombies could misappropriate.

Perpetual Timepiece, Soldevi Digger and Elixir of Immortality are helpful in some cases depending on the specifics of whether you want everything back or one thing back, whether you can dig for it, and whether you want it once or repeatedly. Mirror of Fate can retrieve from exile, and has nice synergy with the delve mechanic.

There's also things like Reminisce, Learn from the Past and Psychic Spiral. PS is the best of these to my mind due to the massive mill for your opponents, even despite the higher CMC.

One of many cards that help elevate Ghave from "Insane" to "Stupidly Insane".

This right here is how I feel about it.

In relation to this, I've made a couple of small changes:

In:
Bow of Nylea
Predator, Flagship

Out:
Creeping Renaissance
Rhonas the Indomitable

I debated for a little while before removing Rhonas. He comes down early and when he's online is a viable rattlesnake. What did it for me is that he relies on the rest of the deck functioning well to do anything. He can't pump himself, and if a sweeper blows out my board, he does absolutely nothing. By contrast, Bow of Nylea forces a tough choice when I attack, and gives me options for removal, recursion, growth and, in a pinch, some life gain. It's a swiss army knife.

Predator, Flagship is expensive removal even if a creature is already flying. But mono green has to take what it can get, and this is have in a folder right now. This'll likely be replaced at some point by Polukranos, World Eater when I can grab a copy (simply because the hydra is more versatile, tutorable with Wild Pair, blinkable and hits more targets at once), but for now it's not redundant like Creeping Renaissance is.

Casual is like Mario Kart with friends. While you're still racing for first place, you want to play a game that isn't too serious and where maybe some crazy things can happen between the start and the finish line.

I dunno man, Mario Kart gets pretty ruthless if you play it enough. Like torture, Rainbow Road will show you what a person is truly like under pressure.
Seriously though, good analogy.

After looking at this advice, and the cards I already have laying about, I've decided to build Thraximundar . It allows for counters, black removal and recursion, and red for artifact and enchantment removal. The commander isn't complicated, and I can showcase the core ideas of the colors in a way that makes sense. The deck is going to be centered around "Kill stuff with red, turn black cards sideways, refill your hand and stop boardwipes with Blue."

It's a fun deck. I'm not 100% sure it's the right choice - this is simply because Thrax is mana hungry and piloting him well requires good timing and reading the board right. But grixis is fun colours, and Thrax is still one of my favourite decks to play. He's barnstorming, solve problems with violence, rapid changes to board state, all around fun. Hope it goes well!

Probably not, and it's likely the players of those decks would find little interest in beating a casual player mercilessly.

To me the takeaway from this thread is that there's no black and white of competitive and casual, it's a spectrum. Most of the competitive edge to me comes from the builder not the deck, except in corner cases in which a commander is just plain competitive, no two ways about it.

This is a game, yes? Isn't the object of the game to...uhh, y'know, win...?

As is any game. Another school of thought is that the win is less important than other objectives - whether it be to enjoy the company of friends, build a deck that works well under self imposed restrictions, or some other random alternate win con as your specific deck might allow.

You either build to win [with what you can acquire], or you accept the loss. No real other avenues, tbh.

It's not quite as black and white as that - as an example I'll build for maximum synergy but I'm reasonably unlikely to use strict tutors or go for infinite combo. To me that's the defining point between competitive and casual, doing anything to win or doing a specific thing to win (even if it's not the strongest play).

The thing is when everyone around the table really puts into winning the game the quality of how everyone plays and how the interactions and the game moves get better and there is a tension there that makes everything including winning better than if everyone is lazily playing decks which durdle.

This not necessarily NOT the case in a casual environment. My wife and I both get tired of the same durdling around your turns etc,etc. If you're going to play, you play with purpose. To be honest, my wife doesn't know any other way to play. She enjoys gaming, but plays with the intention of winning. It's not her only goal, but she's definitely less focused on how well her deck performs than I am. Back on point though, whether our decks burn a blazing path towards victory or play nonsensical jank that might win, we still game with purpose. Again I think that comes from the player, not the deck.

I, for example, have a GY-based deck. When I get the same card in play 5 times in a game I already have the joy that you might get from winning.
At the end of most games I might have lost. But I did some wacky stuff that I will remember for weeks and that's what EDH is all about.

This is the essence of EDH for me.

I sort of think of Meren of Clan Nel Toth as a pretty good intro deck too - her triggers are fun but not too complicated, it's strong enough, and it's a really good intro to triggered effects, , activated abilities and developing synergy.

To me it's in the intent behind your build:

If you build a deck to win, and that's all you care about, you're building competitive.

If you build a deck to leverage certain mechanics, and that synergy happens to be effective, you're casual. This might still lead to a competitive deck (in the sense that the deck is built well and achieves it's goals effectively), but it's still casual.

I know it's grey area, and writing this down, it sort of becomes more clear that it's not really the deck that's competitive or not, it's the user. Any deck can be played casually and either win or not, same applies to competitive. The intent is more whether you as the deck builder focus on the destination (competitive) or the journey (casual).

The deck I usually loan out is Atarka, World Render. It does what it says on the tin; plays dragons, attack with dragons, win if the condition is right.

That being said I find it boring, and it may not last much longer.

Really solid tribal zombie card. High CMC and kills off Gisa and Geralf and Ghoulcaller Gisa, but honestly in zombie tribal this swings things so heavily your way I wouldn't even care. I'd love a copy if I could track one down. Great with Endless Ranks of the Dead or Tombstone Stairwell.