All my decks are either casual or semi-competitive. I want one deck that is just ruthless, brutal, something when I just want to win in a tournament setting or whatever. BONUS if it's on the "cheaper" end like under $2000.
So I've decided if I go Control/Combo, Azami, Lady of Scrolls is a good choice. For Wombo Combo, I was thinking Moxnix's Grixis Doomsday list. For "Voltron" where I don't need to think too hard (in a good way), Narset, Enlightened Master. But now I want to consider the final option, Stax.
Imagine you're in an EDH tournament and you're playing at a cutthroat, no BS table: Azami, Sharuum, Animar, that sort of thing. What Stax deck would you bring to the table and why? Derevi? Brago? Nath? Teferi? Please teach me the ways, Stax players!
I have a Quarantine Field in play exiling my opponent's Angelic Gift. The only creature in play is my Blisterpod. The Field is destroyed. Does my opponent have to attach Gift on my Blisterpod?
So most of the pieces can carry over to an Azami list. But I just don't see how she's better. Yeah, she draws you an extra card once per turn, that's nice. She can draw you multiple cards if you've got wizards on the field, but I can only name 5 or so wizards I'd actually want to run in my deck and even that's a stretch. Like really, do you want to be running junk like Stonybrook Banneret just so you can draw a card off Azami?
Azami also combos with Mind Over Matter, but has no good way of tutoring for that outside of Long-Term Plans. Is there any other combo she enables?
It just seems so.. knee-jerk. "She's just better!" Ugh. I don't get it. Please convince me!
Those 3 Black cards sound about right. I'll be most sad cutting Emissary; I love it, but you're right, when it comes to assembling the deck it does get left out often.
There's also Rakshasa Gravecaller and Okiba-Gang Shinobi, both untested. Gravecrawler is best in Tokens (supported) and Sacrifice (not really supported unfortunately) but I have a feeling cashing in any random 2-3cmc creature will do just fine. It was a house in DTK draft but that has a high concentration of "kill me" cards like Youthful Scholar. Shinobi was a favorite of mine when I played Pauper, it's a friggin' NINJA, and it's cool in the evasive / ETB archetype my MU is looking like.
Definitely keeping the two proliferate cards though. Two pet cards I cannot do without. I know pet cards can be a bad thing -- I'm looking at you, Vampire Tribal in all the damn MTGO Cubes!!! -- but it's only two of them and they actually see a decent amount of play. Contagion Clasp and Withdraw are the two cards that have permanent slots in my cube no matter what.
Miscalculation ---> Eldrazi Skyspawner. I wanted to add another creature to Blue, Skyspawner is possibly the best common in BfZ limited and possibly good enough in cube. I also wanted to cut down on the counters a bit, and Miscalculation looked like the worst of the bunch, the others being Mana Leak, Counterspell, Remand, Condescend, Daze, Memory Lapse, Exclude, Dismiss, Forbid.. I run a lot of counters.
Beast Attack ---> Plated Crusher. BA is a sweet card, no doubt, but forum consensus is that GGG cost is demanding enough that it must be reserved for only the very best. Will the Crusher live up to its hype? We'll see.
So close to my goal of 390 cards! Need to just cut 3 more Black and 1 more Colorless/Land!
I also made a Sideboard list, where cards that I still enjoy and cards that I haven't gotten around to testing go as potential maybes if I want to push a certain design goal.
Merfolk is a solid card. In UW it's a better Knight of Meadowgrain as it's easier to cast in a split manabase. Like the Knight, it's better on the defensive, though it does get outclassed unless you picked up some equipment for your deck. The lifelink is overlooked but highly useful. The problem is, as a UW card (it's not worth a slot in just U), there are simply much better options.
Familiar isn't good. It wasn't good enough for RTR limited, it's certainly not good enough for cube. Evasion is nice but 1 damage is insignificant.
Roc is very solid. Good size, evasion, a nightmare to race. It was a very high pick in RTR limited but I never tried it in cube. I should though.
Ran it for a long time. It was treated mostly as filler by my group -- a card you'd put in if you were severely cut from what you wanted to do and needed more playables. It's a 3/3 for 3 in any deck, not fancy, but gets the job done. "Tapping out" to activate it wasn't hard for the decks running it, but it does allow your opponent to play freely. Dodging sorcery-speed removal wasn't too relevant. It was a big nostalgia card for me because Prophecy was the first time I'd seriously look at constructed play, even won an FNM with a crappy Blue Skies deck with Ribbon Snake and Withdraw.
On Orzhov cards:
Mortify is solid but boring. I do like that it adds another enchantment destruction that is perfectly playable in any deck. I'd be more interested in Pillory of the Sleepless (so iconic!) or Zealous Persecution (sweet). Eh, I think I'll keep my WB section as-is.
I had some serious fun testing this deck for the first time. I probably want to cut Consecrated Sphinx and switch out the non-Islands into Islands, as High Tide is the nuts. You Storm off, bounce all the opposing permanents, and then win with an army of drakes. Awesome.
I really want another wheel. I'm going to test out Day's Undoing.
1) Thoughts on Su-Chi? I want to try it out, as a 4/4 for 4 is large in my cube, and I already run Cathodion. The flipside is that draft decks already have so many playables and often my group see these cards as unnecessary "filler" that don't make the cut too often. If it goes in, Juggernaut, Galvanic Juggernaut, or Pierce Strider comes out.
2) What's the best green card with the Fight mechanic? Prey Upon, Epic Confrontation, etc. I want to throw one in to diversify my Green's pool a bit -- right now it's too much "cast big creature, smash," and I know there's times you just want a removal spell.
3) The more I look at Drana's Emissary, the more I'm unconvinced. Blind Hunter costs 1 more mana which is a huge difference to be sure, but Hunter drains for 2 immediately while Emissary requires being on the board for 3 turns before she drains 2. I don't know. And I'd also need to cut Unburial Rites for her, which always seemed to do nice things in my cube, providing card advantage at the very least or being a splashable engine for the BG Reanimator deck.
1) X= cards? Epic Experiment
2) Overload costs? Cyclonic Rift
3) Kicker costs? Urza's Rage
4) Buyback costs? Capsize
I think the answer is "yes" to 1 and 2, and "no" to 3 and 4, but honestly I have no idea how the rules work here.
From what I understand, if you want a cream of the crop competitive deck it's either Combo, slower Combo with more Control, or Resource Denial.
So I've decided if I go Control/Combo, Azami, Lady of Scrolls is a good choice. For Wombo Combo, I was thinking Moxnix's Grixis Doomsday list. For "Voltron" where I don't need to think too hard (in a good way), Narset, Enlightened Master. But now I want to consider the final option, Stax.
Imagine you're in an EDH tournament and you're playing at a cutthroat, no BS table: Azami, Sharuum, Animar, that sort of thing. What Stax deck would you bring to the table and why? Derevi? Brago? Nath? Teferi? Please teach me the ways, Stax players!
I've built a Talrand Storm deck that plays all the typical fast mana + wheels and wins off Temporal Fissure, a Polymorph or Proteus Staff on a drake into Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur or Tidespout Tyrant. Or I just murder everyone with my drake army.
So most of the pieces can carry over to an Azami list. But I just don't see how she's better. Yeah, she draws you an extra card once per turn, that's nice. She can draw you multiple cards if you've got wizards on the field, but I can only name 5 or so wizards I'd actually want to run in my deck and even that's a stretch. Like really, do you want to be running junk like Stonybrook Banneret just so you can draw a card off Azami?
Azami also combos with Mind Over Matter, but has no good way of tutoring for that outside of Long-Term Plans. Is there any other combo she enables?
It just seems so.. knee-jerk. "She's just better!" Ugh. I don't get it. Please convince me!
I agree with those ratings.
There's also Rakshasa Gravecaller and Okiba-Gang Shinobi, both untested. Gravecrawler is best in Tokens (supported) and Sacrifice (not really supported unfortunately) but I have a feeling cashing in any random 2-3cmc creature will do just fine. It was a house in DTK draft but that has a high concentration of "kill me" cards like Youthful Scholar. Shinobi was a favorite of mine when I played Pauper, it's a friggin' NINJA, and it's cool in the evasive / ETB archetype my MU is looking like.
Definitely keeping the two proliferate cards though. Two pet cards I cannot do without. I know pet cards can be a bad thing -- I'm looking at you, Vampire Tribal in all the damn MTGO Cubes!!! -- but it's only two of them and they actually see a decent amount of play. Contagion Clasp and Withdraw are the two cards that have permanent slots in my cube no matter what.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Miscalculation ---> Eldrazi Skyspawner. I wanted to add another creature to Blue, Skyspawner is possibly the best common in BfZ limited and possibly good enough in cube. I also wanted to cut down on the counters a bit, and Miscalculation looked like the worst of the bunch, the others being Mana Leak, Counterspell, Remand, Condescend, Daze, Memory Lapse, Exclude, Dismiss, Forbid.. I run a lot of counters.
Beast Attack ---> Plated Crusher. BA is a sweet card, no doubt, but forum consensus is that GGG cost is demanding enough that it must be reserved for only the very best. Will the Crusher live up to its hype? We'll see.
I also removed:
So close to my goal of 390 cards! Need to just cut 3 more Black and 1 more Colorless/Land!
I also made a Sideboard list, where cards that I still enjoy and cards that I haven't gotten around to testing go as potential maybes if I want to push a certain design goal.
Merfolk is a solid card. In UW it's a better Knight of Meadowgrain as it's easier to cast in a split manabase. Like the Knight, it's better on the defensive, though it does get outclassed unless you picked up some equipment for your deck. The lifelink is overlooked but highly useful. The problem is, as a UW card (it's not worth a slot in just U), there are simply much better options.
Familiar isn't good. It wasn't good enough for RTR limited, it's certainly not good enough for cube. Evasion is nice but 1 damage is insignificant.
Roc is very solid. Good size, evasion, a nightmare to race. It was a very high pick in RTR limited but I never tried it in cube. I should though.
On Chimeric Idol:
Ran it for a long time. It was treated mostly as filler by my group -- a card you'd put in if you were severely cut from what you wanted to do and needed more playables. It's a 3/3 for 3 in any deck, not fancy, but gets the job done. "Tapping out" to activate it wasn't hard for the decks running it, but it does allow your opponent to play freely. Dodging sorcery-speed removal wasn't too relevant. It was a big nostalgia card for me because Prophecy was the first time I'd seriously look at constructed play, even won an FNM with a crappy Blue Skies deck with Ribbon Snake and Withdraw.
On Orzhov cards:
Mortify is solid but boring. I do like that it adds another enchantment destruction that is perfectly playable in any deck. I'd be more interested in Pillory of the Sleepless (so iconic!) or Zealous Persecution (sweet). Eh, I think I'll keep my WB section as-is.
I really want another wheel. I'm going to test out Day's Undoing.
1) Thoughts on Su-Chi? I want to try it out, as a 4/4 for 4 is large in my cube, and I already run Cathodion. The flipside is that draft decks already have so many playables and often my group see these cards as unnecessary "filler" that don't make the cut too often. If it goes in, Juggernaut, Galvanic Juggernaut, or Pierce Strider comes out.
2) What's the best green card with the Fight mechanic? Prey Upon, Epic Confrontation, etc. I want to throw one in to diversify my Green's pool a bit -- right now it's too much "cast big creature, smash," and I know there's times you just want a removal spell.
3) The more I look at Drana's Emissary, the more I'm unconvinced. Blind Hunter costs 1 more mana which is a huge difference to be sure, but Hunter drains for 2 immediately while Emissary requires being on the board for 3 turns before she drains 2. I don't know. And I'd also need to cut Unburial Rites for her, which always seemed to do nice things in my cube, providing card advantage at the very least or being a splashable engine for the BG Reanimator deck.