Honestly, I'm not too surprised. Spurnmage and Nullmage were excellent value pieces in my Shalai deck, but that's because half the point of the deck was protecting fragile value pieces like that (Intrepid Hero and Tendershoot Dryad were the original inspiring pieces). Spurnmage pulled a lot of weight - I'm not sure I ever activated it more than once, but its presence on the board, with hexproof from Shalai and other protection, was a fantastic deterrent.
Phelddagrif seems like a natural fit for flexible, aid-and-punish effects like that. But you're absolutely right about Virtual Card Advantage, and I can definitely agree it's a poor fit for this deck. I might make my own, less-competitive Phelddagrif deck, loading up on asymmetrical hugs like that. But I think I'd learn a lot by playing your version a few times.
Thus far, my EDH decks (Freyalise and Shalai) tend to draw "Archenemy" status quite early, until the table gangs up on me and someone else wins. I love Phelddagrif, I love his colours, I love his targetted hugs, and I want to try and learn this playstyle, ease myself down everyone else's threat assessment and maybe actually do a bit better.
The best thing that came out of my Shalai experiences was my discovery of the Advocate cycle, and I love them almost as much as I love Phelddagrif. I see you made a couple offhand references to them back in 2017 when this thread first came out, and you seemed to be considering them at the time but moved on. With your experience since then, do you think they're a defensible choice in this deck? It seems like Spurnmage Advocate might be a good way to discourage aggression and protect (and benefit) allies, and Nullmage Advocate is good value too, keeping the board in check and equalized.
If you were going to include them, what would you cut? And is there anything else you'd include with them?
Honestly, I'm not too surprised. Spurnmage and Nullmage were excellent value pieces in my Shalai deck, but that's because half the point of the deck was protecting fragile value pieces like that (Intrepid Hero and Tendershoot Dryad were the original inspiring pieces). Spurnmage pulled a lot of weight - I'm not sure I ever activated it more than once, but its presence on the board, with hexproof from Shalai and other protection, was a fantastic deterrent.
Phelddagrif seems like a natural fit for flexible, aid-and-punish effects like that. But you're absolutely right about Virtual Card Advantage, and I can definitely agree it's a poor fit for this deck. I might make my own, less-competitive Phelddagrif deck, loading up on asymmetrical hugs like that. But I think I'd learn a lot by playing your version a few times.
Thus far, my EDH decks (Freyalise and Shalai) tend to draw "Archenemy" status quite early, until the table gangs up on me and someone else wins. I love Phelddagrif, I love his colours, I love his targetted hugs, and I want to try and learn this playstyle, ease myself down everyone else's threat assessment and maybe actually do a bit better.
The best thing that came out of my Shalai experiences was my discovery of the Advocate cycle, and I love them almost as much as I love Phelddagrif. I see you made a couple offhand references to them back in 2017 when this thread first came out, and you seemed to be considering them at the time but moved on. With your experience since then, do you think they're a defensible choice in this deck? It seems like Spurnmage Advocate might be a good way to discourage aggression and protect (and benefit) allies, and Nullmage Advocate is good value too, keeping the board in check and equalized.
If you were going to include them, what would you cut? And is there anything else you'd include with them?