Destructive Flow is a great suggestion. It's the perfect card for this situation; normally even running a few nonbasics limits the value of the card because you end up losing one or two cards, but with zero nonbasics it ends up being completely non-symmetrical.
Nah you misunderstood, Ruination is fine, but Global Ruin is probably too MLD-ey, since it will bring everybody down to 2-3 lands. I might go for it anyway, depending on how much help the deck needs.
Ruination is in for sure, Back to Basics depends on whether I have one in my stash or not or not, since I want this to be a sorta-budget list and want to limit how much money I spend on making the deck. I know for sure I don't have any blood moons or magi.
Basically my plan is to play a lot of generic good draw and removal spells like allied strategies and cabal conditioning while trying to stay away from double-color costs unless the manacost is 7+, use a lot of the Tarkir-block dragons for the 4, 5, and 6-drop slot, and run a few game-changing enchantments that I can drop off the commander's ability or just cast, like mind's dilation or grave betrayal.
Thanks for the suggestions so far. Good catch with Draco - I knew he's a pretty good beater for cheap once you get domain, but I forgot that he also gets cheaper thanks to the commander's effect. 5 for a 9/9 flying is good enough for a straight beater I think.
What bothers me most about combo is when people think it's acceptable to bring their decks to low-powered tables because the deck isn't hyper competitive. I've seen guests to my playgroup:
- People who insist that their deck isn't a combo deck, proceed to play nothing but lands and defensive cards like Propaganda and evacuation, then when everybody's tapped out draw their entire deck and win the game on the spot.
- People who insist that combo wins aren't the focus of the deck and it's not really all that strong of a combo deck, then proceed to chain three tutors together to win by turn six (again, once everybody's tapped out)
- People who say "this is my pet deck, it's not that strong but I really like it", then proceed to start off with the trifecta of turn one mana rocks and wipe the table before anybody else makes their fourth land drop.
Our playgroup tends to be low-powered because people prefer it like that. Having an environment where new players can join and be relevant, people without the time or energy to build their own decks can simply buy precons, and where everybody can feel like they're contributing to the game, even if they start off with a *****ty hand, it's what attracts people to our playgroup. Quite often however, outsiders tend to either miss the intended power level target, or intentionally misunderstand it, and create problems. Usually with combo.
So since my local store was selling the oversized Ur-dragon cards for like 50c each so I decided to pick one up and make my first five-color deck. I kinda want it to be budget though, so an almost-entirely basic Mana base sounds like a unique approach that might have a few options that decks that end up with 50% or more of their lands being nonbasic might miss.
Stuff like Ruination sounds good, but Global Ruin is probably a little too "MLD-like" for my tastes.
Pragmatically speaking, the whole "I don't want to draft cards that I won't be able to use" issue is a real problem to Unstable and likely a big reason why they have taken so long to revisit it; they couldn't find a nice solution to it. From a business perspective, it could pose a serious barrier to sales.
Conspiracy is a good analogy here. There are a large number of cards in Conspiracy that are completely useless in all formats except cube (which isn't a significant factor because there are way fewer cubes per player than there are EDH decks per player). In fact pretty much the only thing that propped up CNS prices were chase reprints and a couple lucky Legacy chase cards like Leovold.
Assuming they're not going to just have Steamflogger Boss and basic lands for black-bordered cards, I think having a good 10-15 black-bordered cards that are Legacy and Commander-legal would be a good solution.
Another possibility would be to have the whole set be commander-legal and simply design the cards to not be annoying as hell to play against like Unhinged was like (it should be noted that Sword of Dungeons and Dragons is the only known card from this set so far; all the other silver-bordered cards were Hascon promos).
A third option would be to have a small 10-card whitelist of UN-cards. There are a few of them such as The Cheese Stands Alone or Blast from the Past which are perfectly serviceable in normal Magic, though without some way to elegantly signify the whitelist (like black borders mentioned above) tacking this on the banlist section of the Commander rules is a tad unwieldy.
Since the price markup usually comes from value and demand disparity between the precon decks from each set (e.g. the store has to buy all four at a time, one deck doesn't sell while another sells out immediately, so they modify prices so they're not sitting on hundreds of cat decks), Here's a couple of options that may help if you can't find single decks at MSRP:
- You can ask your local store if you could just buy the deck you want minus the expensive card. I did that with the Jevala deck when it came out, got the whole thing minus True-Name Nemesis for like $10.
- You could buy a case of all four for MSRP. You get the most cards from this but obviously not everybody wants to spend so much money at once. Still, it's an option if you insist on getting the decks for MSRP and you can't find them individually.
My two favorites are Natural Balance and Balancing Act for direct anti-ramp removal cards. The former is incredibly fair and basically only really hurts decks that aren't comfortable until they hit 16 lands, the latter is a bit more hit and miss unless your deck is specifically made to be light on permanents.
He'll probably end up like Niv Mizzet or Narset: Fun and powerful to build around, but with so many people building broken-strong cutthroat decks he'll immediately get a reputation that gets him hated out regardless of the actual deck contents.
deserted temple is a card that's value increases the more utility nonbasics you have. Playing multiple colors, a lot of your nonbasic slots are filled with color-fixing lands, but in mono-colored decks you can easily fit 10-15 utility nonbasics, even as much as 20 if you're not relying too heavily on gauntlet of power effects.
Magister, Sunblast, and Massacre are the three main wipes I use in my deck. As long as you have a fierce empath and a woodland bellower, that's enough consistency to clear the board when things get crazy.
My main gripe with Rune-Scarred Demon is how frequently he ends up on an opponents side of the battlefield, from a bribery, clone, or some random reanimate effect.
Razaketh could absolutely be stolen as well, but not every opponent will be able to take advantage of his tutor as easily as you can.
In general, I'd agree, but I'd say the people most likely to copy/re-animate/steal Raz are those who are able to best benefit from it. e.g. the token deck, instead of tutoring for an anthem effect, tutors for a reanimate effect, exclusively because if he gets that guy on his side, You're Going To Have A Bad Time.
Back to the topic at hand, my thoughts is that Raz is definitely a good option if you can pump out buckets of mana really quickly. He makes an excellent turn six threat (since he can basically win in combat against most other turn sixers), and late-game if you've got 12+ mana you can cast a creature-producing card then follow up with Raz, then tutor for an even better token producing card for next turn. In other words, if the extra mana cost involved isn't that big of a deal, he basically turns into a must-answer threat because any deck that includes him can simply include an easy token producing creature to chain 5+ tutors from.
I wonder if there are any -1/-1 counter-relevant cards that attack resources other than creatures? I can imagine one problem this deck might have is in creating such a creature-hostile environment, you might just be giving the game to that one guy who sits behind multiple Propaganda effects twiddling his artifacts all game long. I'd hate to rely on color-staples for this purpose, but surely there might be some thematically-appropriate cards that can deal with noncreatures and hands?
Kamahl, Fist of Krosa - run all the mana-doublers, untap with all the mana, then kill people with 1/1s buffed to be 16/16 tramples. Since you can literally win with Kamahl and a bunch of mana, the rest of the deck can be filled with whatever else you want.
I also have a Reki, The History of Kamigawa deck that, while at first it started out as a legendary creature-heavy deck, has filled up with a whole bunch of artifacts and even an enchantment or two. It's kind of evolved a bit past the "vomit your deck onto the table" strategy it used to have.
If you decide to go five color, Horde of Notions is a great commander for this strategy simply because it works really well with Maelstrom Wanderer. I've seen this sort of deck in action, and if the engine isn't disrupted quickly, it begins to become more valuable to chain casts and sacrifices than to actually play out your hand.
Ruination is in for sure, Back to Basics depends on whether I have one in my stash or not or not, since I want this to be a sorta-budget list and want to limit how much money I spend on making the deck. I know for sure I don't have any blood moons or magi.
Basically my plan is to play a lot of generic good draw and removal spells like allied strategies and cabal conditioning while trying to stay away from double-color costs unless the manacost is 7+, use a lot of the Tarkir-block dragons for the 4, 5, and 6-drop slot, and run a few game-changing enchantments that I can drop off the commander's ability or just cast, like mind's dilation or grave betrayal.
- People who insist that their deck isn't a combo deck, proceed to play nothing but lands and defensive cards like Propaganda and evacuation, then when everybody's tapped out draw their entire deck and win the game on the spot.
- People who insist that combo wins aren't the focus of the deck and it's not really all that strong of a combo deck, then proceed to chain three tutors together to win by turn six (again, once everybody's tapped out)
- People who say "this is my pet deck, it's not that strong but I really like it", then proceed to start off with the trifecta of turn one mana rocks and wipe the table before anybody else makes their fourth land drop.
Our playgroup tends to be low-powered because people prefer it like that. Having an environment where new players can join and be relevant, people without the time or energy to build their own decks can simply buy precons, and where everybody can feel like they're contributing to the game, even if they start off with a *****ty hand, it's what attracts people to our playgroup. Quite often however, outsiders tend to either miss the intended power level target, or intentionally misunderstand it, and create problems. Usually with combo.
Stuff like Ruination sounds good, but Global Ruin is probably a little too "MLD-like" for my tastes.
Any other ideas?
On my phone so sorry for the lack of card tags.
Conspiracy is a good analogy here. There are a large number of cards in Conspiracy that are completely useless in all formats except cube (which isn't a significant factor because there are way fewer cubes per player than there are EDH decks per player). In fact pretty much the only thing that propped up CNS prices were chase reprints and a couple lucky Legacy chase cards like Leovold.
Assuming they're not going to just have Steamflogger Boss and basic lands for black-bordered cards, I think having a good 10-15 black-bordered cards that are Legacy and Commander-legal would be a good solution.
Another possibility would be to have the whole set be commander-legal and simply design the cards to not be annoying as hell to play against like Unhinged was like (it should be noted that Sword of Dungeons and Dragons is the only known card from this set so far; all the other silver-bordered cards were Hascon promos).
A third option would be to have a small 10-card whitelist of UN-cards. There are a few of them such as The Cheese Stands Alone or Blast from the Past which are perfectly serviceable in normal Magic, though without some way to elegantly signify the whitelist (like black borders mentioned above) tacking this on the banlist section of the Commander rules is a tad unwieldy.
- You can ask your local store if you could just buy the deck you want minus the expensive card. I did that with the Jevala deck when it came out, got the whole thing minus True-Name Nemesis for like $10.
- You could buy a case of all four for MSRP. You get the most cards from this but obviously not everybody wants to spend so much money at once. Still, it's an option if you insist on getting the decks for MSRP and you can't find them individually.
In general, I'd agree, but I'd say the people most likely to copy/re-animate/steal Raz are those who are able to best benefit from it. e.g. the token deck, instead of tutoring for an anthem effect, tutors for a reanimate effect, exclusively because if he gets that guy on his side, You're Going To Have A Bad Time.
Back to the topic at hand, my thoughts is that Raz is definitely a good option if you can pump out buckets of mana really quickly. He makes an excellent turn six threat (since he can basically win in combat against most other turn sixers), and late-game if you've got 12+ mana you can cast a creature-producing card then follow up with Raz, then tutor for an even better token producing card for next turn. In other words, if the extra mana cost involved isn't that big of a deal, he basically turns into a must-answer threat because any deck that includes him can simply include an easy token producing creature to chain 5+ tutors from.
I also have a Reki, The History of Kamigawa deck that, while at first it started out as a legendary creature-heavy deck, has filled up with a whole bunch of artifacts and even an enchantment or two. It's kind of evolved a bit past the "vomit your deck onto the table" strategy it used to have.