But exploration and burgeoning, and this is key, accelerate your mana early, while outside of the cheapest commanders, Mox Amber does not. Burgeoning would suck, flat out, if it didn't come online until turn 4-5 for most decks. Same with Exploration. You'd need a specific set of circumstances to make them good, either a way to make them viable turn 1-2, or strong synergies that they can interact with. Mox Amber is in that boat. It works well with artifact synergies, storm, and legend decks, and works like a Mox should work by accelerating early mana with cheap commanders, but it will suck, flat out suck, in something like Prossh. That doesn't mean its a bad card, in fact I think its a pretty great card, but only in the right decks. There are plenty of cards that are pretty great but only in the right circumstances.
I’m not really trying to draw a direct comparison of Mox with Exploration et al, but I don’t agree with the idea that they suck after Turn 4. In my playing decks that include them, they are about the top of the list of cards I want to see when I draw 7+ cards from a card like Greater Good. They are often as good or better than Reliquary Tower and friends in taking the ceiling off of the advantage you get from drawing out your deck. They cost 1 mana, then let you drop all the land out of your hand and onto the board where they go to work for you.
To repeat, there is nothing worse than the second to last land card in your hand. That fact can stand on its own in what makes Moxes good. They don’t need to be strong early. It’s just a question of how costly their condition is. Granted if you are playing a deck that only wants to cast its commander once a game, or rarely, and you have no other creatures, then the condition is too hard to meet. But, I was just adding that point in response to the posters who claim that Moxes are only good because of the early acceleration. That is what they are known for in Constructed 60-card, but they are actually very worthwhile to be drawing off your deck in the later game too.
Thrasios and Vial Smasher are actually very natural partners. I agree with your assessment of Grixis in multiplayer. The colors lack on enchantment removal, mana production, and gaining life. That makes it a challenge to win the attrition game, even if the colors give you all the card draw you need. So, you end up having to do very disruptive things like spell-based combo (aka Storm), Stax with things like Death Cloud, or setting up Cyclonic Rift with wheel effects game after game. It ends up not being very friendly.
For the kind of game you seem to want, I see a lot of players going with Sultai instead. Seeing that Red’s strongest contribution to the format imo are Fork spells and Wilfdire effects, it seems natural to give those up if you are not interested in that style of play.
Another thing that Red offers though is non-combat damage, with things like Warstorm Surge, Kaervek, the Merciless so on. So on that angle, the partner pairing with Thrasios and Vial Smasher is very solid in my experience. Smasher gives you a strong attrition element already, and Thrasios is one of the top partner generals himself. I am not a big fan of 4-color decks, and also prefer Yidris for these colors if I am going there, but I have seen builds with these generals that look solid. You can go in pretty much any direction with them, since all they want is you to have lots of mana and continued things to do with it.
Not to be misunderstood, I don’t see land count as the main consideration for running Amber. If your deck is not built right, then you would certainly cut Amber before you cut a land. But, assume that your deck is built right. You are cutting something else, probably any number of non-land mana sources. It’s part of your overall land count to non-land mana to draw mixture in your deck. Honestly, lots of decks are under-gassed, and they are missing draw more crucially than they are missing mana.
That being the case, say you include a card like Night’s Whisper in enough quantity, what would you rather draw out of 2x land and a land a Mox Amber? Answer, you would rather draw literally anything than your second to last land. By the rules of the game, the second to last land is of zero use. That is what I mean by a Mox out-competing a land.
Granted, most of the time you draw 2 you are not drawing 2x land, but now when you are drawing 5-6 cards at a time from something like Mystic Remora or Greater Good, or you have something like a Crucible? You start to see the difference in having enough non-land mana, and in good quality.
I remember when people used to think Exploration and Burgeoning were mediocre to poor cards, since they didn’t do anything for your opening land count. But, now they are format all-stars, because people realized that cards that depend on draw volume to be good are actually still good. You just find the draw volume.
This card does not make you discard or exile anything from the hand to use it. Very strong. There will probably be a deck that uses 4x of this in Standard, with lots of others on the cusp of including more legendaries to claim access to it.
Now a format where everyone starts with a Legendary creature? That is pushing staple status. Nay-sayers underestimate the power of a Mox. Early game acceleration is not the only reason behind it, even though that is what the Moxes are known for in Vintage. But, even a dead one is no worse than the second to last land in your hand. Their usefulness lies in the subtle strength of being just marginally better than the Land card they emulate.
Great way to kick-off the Brawl format by asking $30 from everyone for their first Mox Amber.
While I think this will be a staple in certain decks and a strong card, it is absolutely not an every deck staple. The power of Moxen can be undone by a severe drawback, and this is a severe drawback, albeit one, like Mox Opals, that can be drastically mitigated by the composition of the deck its in. Mox Diamond is a phenomenal card, but topdecking one with no lands in hand sucks, as does having one in hand when you are too low on land to afford to pitch one. Chrome Mox is often a bad play, because outside the early game the card you imprint is usually worth more than the mana acceleration. It's the early ramp and fixing that make them great, which outside of certain decks Amber lacks. Of course, I'd argue that Amber is better than either Diamond or Chrome later in the game, which is irrelevant to cEDH but important in casual. In the right decks, Amber will be better than Chrome and Diamond, just like Opal is, but those decks are likely fewer than the ones for Opal, and even then you are more likely to end up with it turned off than you are with Opal in its best fit decks.
My exact point is that it does not need to win in a competition with Diamond, Opal, Chrome, etc. That is why Moxes continue to get used, no matter how progressively weak that WOTC prints them. The real competition is a land card. And in that competition, Mox Amber comes out ahead in all but the most land-starved EDH decks.
I play 35 legendary creatures in one of my decks and I still don't want this thing. I need my mana to be available at all times, not be gone after a boardwipe.
I guess no one plays Wildfire, Death Cloud, or other such board wipes in your area. Nothing is guaranteed to survive in the way of mana sources.
This card does not make you discard or exile anything from the hand to use it. Very strong. There will probably be a deck that uses 4x of this in Standard, with lots of others on the cusp of including more legendaries to claim access to it.
Now a format where everyone starts with a Legendary creature? That is pushing staple status. Nay-sayers underestimate the power of a Mox. Early game acceleration is not the only reason behind it, even though that is what the Moxes are known for in Vintage. But, even a dead one is no worse than the second to last land in your hand. Their usefulness lies in the subtle strength of being just marginally better than the Land card they emulate.
Great way to kick-off the Brawl format by asking $30 from everyone for their first Mox Amber.
@Justice: Perhaps a short description of my early experiences with EDH will explain a few things: I came into EDH with a Kaalia angel tribal deck that wasn't great, at least, not up to being Archenemy from the word “go”, but Kaalia meant I was targeted instantly almost every game I played, and had horrible experiences. I never got to see how good or bad the deck truly was, though, because I never actually saw it work. I had similar experiences with my second attempt, a Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith deck that's basically a minor upgrade of the Feline Ferocity precon, adding stuff like Sram, Senior Edificer, Puresteel Paladin, Open the Armory, Sigarda's Aid, etc. I began to think that it was retribution for me playing Kaalia, or maybe because I was new, or because I'm a woman, or whatever other stupid reason. I'm a Timmy, deckbuilding is not my forte. When I build my criteria tend to look like “how can I build a strategy around big creatures and flashy abilities?” I don't really care how often I win so long as it's sometimes, and every now and then I get to feel powerful.
I have heard that a lot of people have similar experiences with Kaalia. I’d consider the possibility that it not working has a lot to do with Kaalia. She’s a fragile 2/2 that everyone will assume is about to drop Rakdos the Defiler on them. And, all that they need to do is point a Sword of Fire and Ice trigger at her. It’s low investment-high reward to stop that. I have seen Kaalia decks work, but they are fully tripped out with all kinds of Mardu denial (land destruction, etc), plenty of recursion to hand for the beaters, and they want to drop Kaalia one time and stop everyone from doing anything for the rest of the game. But, there is not a lot of middle ground with her. She just needs so much protection that it is difficult to strike a balance. Unfortunate, really.
I am surprised to hear bad experiences with Nazahn though. Some people don’t like getting attacked out of a game by a commander though, and it’s also a fairly straightforward approach to target the person at the table to represents the quickest clock. Creature strategies do tend to benefit a lot from protection like Greaves and the Indestructible Hammer, but that also sometimes sets off alarm bells in other players’ heads that they are about to get knocked out with Might of Oaks or something and not have anything that they can do about it. Tough spot also.
To counter MLD I have Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Boros Charm and Sun Titan (which I still need to buy) . I've considered Suppression Field, Darksteel Mutation, and Overwhelming Splendor for Mairsil.
It sounds like the only trouble then is just drawing these cards from your deck at the right time. Honestly, Boros is a very tough color-combination to play (particularly without access to Scroll Rack, Land Tax, and the other premium cards). It has challenges drawing. That is territory where narrowly-tailored options like Suppression Field and Darksteel Mutation are particularly challenging to run. You are down one in hand size, and are no closer to winning. That’s why these decks naturally gravitate toward very comprehensive, pre-emptive disruption like Land Destruction. Again, it is really hard to find middle ground. If you consider yourself a relative newcomer to the game, I would keep that in mind. Boros is a challenge even for seasoned players.
If you have the patience for it, I’d suggest a bit of a change of pace. Maybe try something with more draw and recursion in it, and better access to ramp. Decks with Black and/or Green in them tend to produce lots of fuel in the graveyard, which can free you up to run more answer cards.
I agree with Muspellsheimr. This is not really a 75% deck.
First, I see the term “75% deck” misused about 100% of the time. The term is intended for a deck that is “just good enough to beat a deck built to be 100% optimal if I play tight and get lucky.” “…That way, it is a challenge for me and allows me to benefit from the 100% decks facing opposition from some of the other players at the table. These 75% decks are also not going to turn four an entire table of casual players…” (http://www.gatheringmagic.com/jasonalt-021314-building-a-75-commander-deck/).
So by original definition, a 75% deck needs to have some marginal chance to take a game off of a table of 100% decks. But most decks people claim are “75%” don’t have a snowball’s chance. The term just seems to be used as a way of saying that you are playing whatever the world you want, and any deck that beats you is piloted by a player who doesn’t get it. You do have to actually put in some effort to build to this theory of “75%”. You can’t just build a Warrior tribal deck with Stangg, call it “75%”, and then claim that it is your deckbuilding theory that is preventing you from making a fair showing at a table.
Two, the entire theory of 75% is contradictory, as originally authored – “In a good night of Commander for my playgroup, I will win 1 ÷ X games, where X is the number of players at the table.”
Of course presuming everyone else is playing a “100% deck”, you have a far lower chance of winning. Actually, your chances of winning are exactly the above if you, in fact, are playing 100% against everyone else’s 100%. It is simply a proportional chance to win, aside all other factors. So a deck whose card power is 75% of what is possible in the format I would say has such a low chance of winning against 100% decks that no person would be satisfied playing one in an environment like that. So if the goal is to have involvement in a game that grows beyond what you designed for your deck, then you will fail that goal by building 75%. Based on the above equation, you only reach this level of balance and participation when the power of your deck is exactly what everyone else’s is.
I think the real concept presented in that series is one that just about every source on EDH has commented on – scaleability. (In fact, it goes on to explain how clones scale to the creature-beats decks you are facing). What you want is for your deck to be able to scale to the competition you encounter. Again, you won’t get there automatically. You have to actually play up to the competition. If you are going to do it in a way that doesn’t abruptly foreclose on less explosive decks, then you will generally do it by playing a high answer-density. Ironically that is the exact opposite of the design space the self-styled “75%” players seem like they want to carve out for themselves – one where Clone spamming is a reasonable approach to a game.
In the end, if you do want to play up to these MLD and combo decks, then you will have to react. Play either land-recursion or White-based defensive cards against the MLD. Play lots of Instant removal for combo pieces, and Pithing Needle effects for Mairsil and other such.
I originally read this at the token getting exiled after combat. Sort of like a Blade of Selves that gets around the Legendary rule. But, the tokens stay around.
That being the case, it is harder to find an EDH deck that does NOT like this. After all, about every EDH deck will be built around your legendary creature to some extent. It’s not always worth it to pay 9, but I much prefer this to the delayed effect on Followed Footsteps or Progenitor Mimic. So the intense mana requirements are offset somewhat by the short-term gains. And, the returns on it continue without any addtl mana invested.
That being the case, my first thought would be toward some decks that have lots of protection for the general, but that aren’t necessarily trying to kill by 21 commander damage. I first thought of Trostani, and populating those tokens. Or, decks where having a token copy would protect or recur the original commander somehow, eg Teneb, Karador, Chainer, etc. Also any Blue deck that can protect a lead with countermagic, or that snowballs the tokens into more cards to protect the position.
Certainly, if this gets onto something and goes unresolved for a few orbits, that’s going to be enough to win the game.
I just wish WoTc starts reprinting all those staplets we need to build our decks.
Fun fact, you don't "need" any card in all of your decks - at all.
I'd even go as far as saying so called staples are the bane of the format. We're playing a 100 cards singleton format, yet people waste 20 or so nonland slots on the same stuff over and over again, instead of tailoring individual decks around their commanders and deck tech.
No, not all decks need Vedalken Orrery, Maze of Ith, Ancient Tomb or even the omni-present Sol Ring. Yep, even mono-U is still viable without Cyclonic Rift and Rhystic Study - which i bought as a playset for 1€ each back in the days and cut from all but one of my decks and traded away recently.
If i had to make a wish for the format i'd wish for a revival of creativity. At times i'm tired of these copy and paste deck lists, where i can guess 80% of the deck. There are memorable moments created by fun interactions of wellknown cards, but they are by far outclassed by fun - and not necessaruly weaker - interactions of cards you don't see as often, simply because they have a unique synergy within a certain deck. Idk, but Zada, Hedron Grinder + Otherworldly Outburst or Chaos Warp in response to a board wipe makes me a lot happier than the next best guy Tooth and Nailing into Craterhoof Behemoth + Avenger of Zendikar.
You know what I hate even worse than the same old cards? Missing every land drop after Turn 4… Not being able to cast cards half the time I draw them, just because they have a double or triple requirement of one color mana… Playing Brawl when everyone else is playing EDH…
Those are the kinds of staples we’re talking about – Chromatic Lantern, Rhystic Study, Land Tax so on. They help you draw into your deck and play your cards. I think that everyone is in on the same page that Craterhoof doesn’t go into every deck just for the sake of boredom, but hey, Oracle of Mul Daya does and it is $30.
The problem is, design understandably went astray a few times over the 25 year history of the game, and once you open Pandora’s box you can’t shut it again. So, there are several cards that just wildly outperform any substitutes, and then you lump enough of them together and you are just playing a different game than everyone else. One kind of deck is on enough draw, ramp and tutors that it is looping Venser into Nim Deathmantle or something, and at the same point in the game another kind of deck is just hoping to draw its 5th land so it can cast something like Vanquisher’s Banner so that it can reach a draw pace where it’s not missing even more land drops.
As I’ve said before when giving input on decks, the rule set of drawing a 7 card opener and playing mana from your hand simply does not match a format where you need this much mana. One of the reasons that EDH continues to be played to satisfaction is precisely because there are enough worn-out staples in the Eternal card pool that just give you endless amounts of gas. Playing without them is too tough of a sell.
Another problem is that the best place to reprint cards is in the yearly Commander products, and they want to keep those at a $30 MSRP with 100 cards. And, there is already a huge retail markup on those. So, there is a threshold on market value that a card can’t pass to be reprinted there, when the main factor of its price might just be its limited supply. It would be one thing for a card like C-Sphinx, or Elesh Norn to get reprinted and skew the power-level of a precon. But another thing for Chromatic Lantern, Rhystic Study, Thought Vessel, or some other benign staple to get to $15 and stop being reprintable because of it.
They should print more products like Anthology, but then there is a huge pricetag on those with very small print runs.
If you are primarily/exclusively an EDH player, I don't know why you would ever buy more than 1x of a card, other than for price speculation. If you want to use Orrery in another deck, either temporarily dismantle the original deck, or print off a color image of the card and put it into a sleeve (recommended). Then if anyone has any issue with you playing with a proxy, then go to your other deck and manually unsleeve it and resleeve in the current deck. The show of doing that should convince them that it is silly to have issues with proxies.
I understand the appeal of the collection-building aspect of trading card game, but it is different now in 2018 than it was in 1998. The fact of there being limited physical quantities of cards like Mana Crypt is a bit silly.
I’m a bit baffled from time to time what people consider “casual”. It seems like they are just asking whether it is good or not. I get it that Uril is good at what he does by being untargetable with spot removal. But seeing that EDH is game, if you offer a 5/5 hexproof and a plain 5/5, then players will pick the 5/5 with the abilities. It is part of the game to have abilities like that.
I don’t think Uril ought to cause this situation where you just win abruptly and quickly, without much of an opportunity for interaction. If it becomes an issue, you can remind your group that they can just kill the auras with evasion, and then chump block for days. Now Bruna, Light of Alabaster on the other hand, she has an inbuilt way to recur any auras that do get picked off, and access to Vanishing. She is a bit of a bigger problem for the unprepared, but Uril should be ok.
Other definitions of “casual”, it looks like you came up with this idea off the top of your head with no expert level of preparation or research. So in that sense also, would be “casual” enough for me.
I’m also trying to build UR Control sans-combo. I find that I keep needing to gain life to mitigate chip-damage from decks that run things like Blood Artist, but have really few things that can do it in these colors. I see you’re not running any life-gain. Do you ever find you need it?
One more question, have you tried out a similar deck with Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius instead? I just mention it because he doesn’t raise the suspicion of combo nearly as much.
I am actually surprised and happy to see Fall of the Thran. I didn't think we'd ever see an MLD spell ever again, and this one is a gift to both lockout and tempo uses of MLD.
The lockout use, definitely, find a way to bounce it or reset the counters. The tempo use, just lay it down and watch your deck function on 2-4 mana while everyone else's hiccups. Like a Keldon Firebombers.
I’m not really trying to draw a direct comparison of Mox with Exploration et al, but I don’t agree with the idea that they suck after Turn 4. In my playing decks that include them, they are about the top of the list of cards I want to see when I draw 7+ cards from a card like Greater Good. They are often as good or better than Reliquary Tower and friends in taking the ceiling off of the advantage you get from drawing out your deck. They cost 1 mana, then let you drop all the land out of your hand and onto the board where they go to work for you.
To repeat, there is nothing worse than the second to last land card in your hand. That fact can stand on its own in what makes Moxes good. They don’t need to be strong early. It’s just a question of how costly their condition is. Granted if you are playing a deck that only wants to cast its commander once a game, or rarely, and you have no other creatures, then the condition is too hard to meet. But, I was just adding that point in response to the posters who claim that Moxes are only good because of the early acceleration. That is what they are known for in Constructed 60-card, but they are actually very worthwhile to be drawing off your deck in the later game too.
For the kind of game you seem to want, I see a lot of players going with Sultai instead. Seeing that Red’s strongest contribution to the format imo are Fork spells and Wilfdire effects, it seems natural to give those up if you are not interested in that style of play.
Another thing that Red offers though is non-combat damage, with things like Warstorm Surge, Kaervek, the Merciless so on. So on that angle, the partner pairing with Thrasios and Vial Smasher is very solid in my experience. Smasher gives you a strong attrition element already, and Thrasios is one of the top partner generals himself. I am not a big fan of 4-color decks, and also prefer Yidris for these colors if I am going there, but I have seen builds with these generals that look solid. You can go in pretty much any direction with them, since all they want is you to have lots of mana and continued things to do with it.
That being the case, say you include a card like Night’s Whisper in enough quantity, what would you rather draw out of 2x land and a land a Mox Amber? Answer, you would rather draw literally anything than your second to last land. By the rules of the game, the second to last land is of zero use. That is what I mean by a Mox out-competing a land.
Granted, most of the time you draw 2 you are not drawing 2x land, but now when you are drawing 5-6 cards at a time from something like Mystic Remora or Greater Good, or you have something like a Crucible? You start to see the difference in having enough non-land mana, and in good quality.
I remember when people used to think Exploration and Burgeoning were mediocre to poor cards, since they didn’t do anything for your opening land count. But, now they are format all-stars, because people realized that cards that depend on draw volume to be good are actually still good. You just find the draw volume.
My exact point is that it does not need to win in a competition with Diamond, Opal, Chrome, etc. That is why Moxes continue to get used, no matter how progressively weak that WOTC prints them. The real competition is a land card. And in that competition, Mox Amber comes out ahead in all but the most land-starved EDH decks.
I guess no one plays Wildfire, Death Cloud, or other such board wipes in your area. Nothing is guaranteed to survive in the way of mana sources.
Now a format where everyone starts with a Legendary creature? That is pushing staple status. Nay-sayers underestimate the power of a Mox. Early game acceleration is not the only reason behind it, even though that is what the Moxes are known for in Vintage. But, even a dead one is no worse than the second to last land in your hand. Their usefulness lies in the subtle strength of being just marginally better than the Land card they emulate.
Great way to kick-off the Brawl format by asking $30 from everyone for their first Mox Amber.
I have heard that a lot of people have similar experiences with Kaalia. I’d consider the possibility that it not working has a lot to do with Kaalia. She’s a fragile 2/2 that everyone will assume is about to drop Rakdos the Defiler on them. And, all that they need to do is point a Sword of Fire and Ice trigger at her. It’s low investment-high reward to stop that. I have seen Kaalia decks work, but they are fully tripped out with all kinds of Mardu denial (land destruction, etc), plenty of recursion to hand for the beaters, and they want to drop Kaalia one time and stop everyone from doing anything for the rest of the game. But, there is not a lot of middle ground with her. She just needs so much protection that it is difficult to strike a balance. Unfortunate, really.
I am surprised to hear bad experiences with Nazahn though. Some people don’t like getting attacked out of a game by a commander though, and it’s also a fairly straightforward approach to target the person at the table to represents the quickest clock. Creature strategies do tend to benefit a lot from protection like Greaves and the Indestructible Hammer, but that also sometimes sets off alarm bells in other players’ heads that they are about to get knocked out with Might of Oaks or something and not have anything that they can do about it. Tough spot also.
It sounds like the only trouble then is just drawing these cards from your deck at the right time. Honestly, Boros is a very tough color-combination to play (particularly without access to Scroll Rack, Land Tax, and the other premium cards). It has challenges drawing. That is territory where narrowly-tailored options like Suppression Field and Darksteel Mutation are particularly challenging to run. You are down one in hand size, and are no closer to winning. That’s why these decks naturally gravitate toward very comprehensive, pre-emptive disruption like Land Destruction. Again, it is really hard to find middle ground. If you consider yourself a relative newcomer to the game, I would keep that in mind. Boros is a challenge even for seasoned players.
If you have the patience for it, I’d suggest a bit of a change of pace. Maybe try something with more draw and recursion in it, and better access to ramp. Decks with Black and/or Green in them tend to produce lots of fuel in the graveyard, which can free you up to run more answer cards.
First, I see the term “75% deck” misused about 100% of the time. The term is intended for a deck that is “just good enough to beat a deck built to be 100% optimal if I play tight and get lucky.” “…That way, it is a challenge for me and allows me to benefit from the 100% decks facing opposition from some of the other players at the table. These 75% decks are also not going to turn four an entire table of casual players…” (http://www.gatheringmagic.com/jasonalt-021314-building-a-75-commander-deck/).
So by original definition, a 75% deck needs to have some marginal chance to take a game off of a table of 100% decks. But most decks people claim are “75%” don’t have a snowball’s chance. The term just seems to be used as a way of saying that you are playing whatever the world you want, and any deck that beats you is piloted by a player who doesn’t get it. You do have to actually put in some effort to build to this theory of “75%”. You can’t just build a Warrior tribal deck with Stangg, call it “75%”, and then claim that it is your deckbuilding theory that is preventing you from making a fair showing at a table.
Two, the entire theory of 75% is contradictory, as originally authored – “In a good night of Commander for my playgroup, I will win 1 ÷ X games, where X is the number of players at the table.”
Of course presuming everyone else is playing a “100% deck”, you have a far lower chance of winning. Actually, your chances of winning are exactly the above if you, in fact, are playing 100% against everyone else’s 100%. It is simply a proportional chance to win, aside all other factors. So a deck whose card power is 75% of what is possible in the format I would say has such a low chance of winning against 100% decks that no person would be satisfied playing one in an environment like that. So if the goal is to have involvement in a game that grows beyond what you designed for your deck, then you will fail that goal by building 75%. Based on the above equation, you only reach this level of balance and participation when the power of your deck is exactly what everyone else’s is.
I think the real concept presented in that series is one that just about every source on EDH has commented on – scaleability. (In fact, it goes on to explain how clones scale to the creature-beats decks you are facing). What you want is for your deck to be able to scale to the competition you encounter. Again, you won’t get there automatically. You have to actually play up to the competition. If you are going to do it in a way that doesn’t abruptly foreclose on less explosive decks, then you will generally do it by playing a high answer-density. Ironically that is the exact opposite of the design space the self-styled “75%” players seem like they want to carve out for themselves – one where Clone spamming is a reasonable approach to a game.
In the end, if you do want to play up to these MLD and combo decks, then you will have to react. Play either land-recursion or White-based defensive cards against the MLD. Play lots of Instant removal for combo pieces, and Pithing Needle effects for Mairsil and other such.
That being the case, it is harder to find an EDH deck that does NOT like this. After all, about every EDH deck will be built around your legendary creature to some extent. It’s not always worth it to pay 9, but I much prefer this to the delayed effect on Followed Footsteps or Progenitor Mimic. So the intense mana requirements are offset somewhat by the short-term gains. And, the returns on it continue without any addtl mana invested.
That being the case, my first thought would be toward some decks that have lots of protection for the general, but that aren’t necessarily trying to kill by 21 commander damage. I first thought of Trostani, and populating those tokens. Or, decks where having a token copy would protect or recur the original commander somehow, eg Teneb, Karador, Chainer, etc. Also any Blue deck that can protect a lead with countermagic, or that snowballs the tokens into more cards to protect the position.
Certainly, if this gets onto something and goes unresolved for a few orbits, that’s going to be enough to win the game.
You know what I hate even worse than the same old cards? Missing every land drop after Turn 4… Not being able to cast cards half the time I draw them, just because they have a double or triple requirement of one color mana… Playing Brawl when everyone else is playing EDH…
Those are the kinds of staples we’re talking about – Chromatic Lantern, Rhystic Study, Land Tax so on. They help you draw into your deck and play your cards. I think that everyone is in on the same page that Craterhoof doesn’t go into every deck just for the sake of boredom, but hey, Oracle of Mul Daya does and it is $30.
The problem is, design understandably went astray a few times over the 25 year history of the game, and once you open Pandora’s box you can’t shut it again. So, there are several cards that just wildly outperform any substitutes, and then you lump enough of them together and you are just playing a different game than everyone else. One kind of deck is on enough draw, ramp and tutors that it is looping Venser into Nim Deathmantle or something, and at the same point in the game another kind of deck is just hoping to draw its 5th land so it can cast something like Vanquisher’s Banner so that it can reach a draw pace where it’s not missing even more land drops.
As I’ve said before when giving input on decks, the rule set of drawing a 7 card opener and playing mana from your hand simply does not match a format where you need this much mana. One of the reasons that EDH continues to be played to satisfaction is precisely because there are enough worn-out staples in the Eternal card pool that just give you endless amounts of gas. Playing without them is too tough of a sell.
They should print more products like Anthology, but then there is a huge pricetag on those with very small print runs.
I understand the appeal of the collection-building aspect of trading card game, but it is different now in 2018 than it was in 1998. The fact of there being limited physical quantities of cards like Mana Crypt is a bit silly.
I don’t think Uril ought to cause this situation where you just win abruptly and quickly, without much of an opportunity for interaction. If it becomes an issue, you can remind your group that they can just kill the auras with evasion, and then chump block for days. Now Bruna, Light of Alabaster on the other hand, she has an inbuilt way to recur any auras that do get picked off, and access to Vanishing. She is a bit of a bigger problem for the unprepared, but Uril should be ok.
Other definitions of “casual”, it looks like you came up with this idea off the top of your head with no expert level of preparation or research. So in that sense also, would be “casual” enough for me.
Along those lines, I have been running things like Riverwise Augur and then a few equips like Sword of War and Peace. I see that you have augur in your deck. Any thoughts on Sea Gate Oracle, or Pilgrim’s Eye? Also, a reason that Trinket Mage doesn’t show up too?
One more question, have you tried out a similar deck with Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius instead? I just mention it because he doesn’t raise the suspicion of combo nearly as much.
The lockout use, definitely, find a way to bounce it or reset the counters. The tempo use, just lay it down and watch your deck function on 2-4 mana while everyone else's hiccups. Like a Keldon Firebombers.