MTG Salvation

I'm sorry no one replied sooner, it looks like a good list although I am very concerned about your lack of mana ramp, a lot of your spells aren't cheap and mana doublers take a while to get out there. I would also investigate cutting some of worse zombies for some spot removal and a tutor or 2.

Quote from bobsbarricades »

As someone who is looking forward to the blue deck, can you help me understand why it's so bad if one were to try and use it for making monster giant blu fatties? Why would it be such a hard feat?

It is purely my opinion that it is terrible, but with that in mind, I got all 5, but so far have started work on Titania in green, more or less scrapping 90% of precon in process and Gisa in black, scrapping less, so probably 70%, I do not rate these precons as overly focused.

The blue deck is based on blue fatties, but green is the best colour for getting fatties out there. Blue is better at complex interactions and control than merely casting leviathans. To play such a deck you have to deliberately disregard certain controlling elements that characterise blue and attempt to play an aggro game without the value other colours have. It's not impossible, but the deck is inherently not optimal and requires a substantial artifact bent, unless you wish to push the Quest for Ula's Temple hard. However, even if playing fatties, a savvy group may be cautious and the deck will be treated as if it had infinite artifact combos and not the collection of large creatures.

A way of looking at it is that blue is on somewhat more fair terms if you wish to win by attacking with expensive creatures, as it has less advantages than black or red to cheat them in, but numerous infinite mana combos to mitigate it, which not everyone likes. This is excluding artifacts which everyone can use ie. Quicksilver Amulet and Belbe's Portal.

I was assessing your list as it seems the most non-zombie themed. If you don't mind my asking some questions (this time about your mana base), is Wasteland a preference over Strip Mine? As frankly both seem good to me or if just one, Strip Mine. Why run Blinkmoth Nexus? Is there a specific reason not to run Shizo, Death's Storehouse, which can be very useful, is life too much of an issue, that Ancient Tomb is problematic and it's also curious no Thespian's Stage, unless your curve is quite tight and you dislike ETB tapped lands or colourless.

The terrible blue C14 deck has a few good ones too, really that would be the backbone of the deck, with ways to mitigate the harsh costs, making it work and be competitive would be quite an achievement though if done so that you kill with creatures and not purely blue combo.

I agree, Khans may yet help.

Have you found Feldon useful? In theory he provides resilience and a way to recur tokens, but as with a lot of cases, you would likely need to give say Myrs or goblins haste unless timed for EOT.

Both are slow, but I feel Hordeling Outburst offers little too few tokens to make a good swing, whereas 4 tokens can at least half kill someone. I recognise Beetleback Chief also offers the same and at one more, but as a permanent it has a more significant role in being tutorable, searchable and lingering if you use Warp World. I havent tried HO of course, so this is hardly authoritative, but this is the rationale I use for now, I could try it in future when I get an opportunity by keeping a copy on hand.

EDIT- to answer question, I have liked Rally, for above reasons it create a small army, although is far from best way to get sufficient tokens for a killing strike.

Since I havent posted in more than a year, its time to update. My list has undergone changes, just not too big, main changes are I now use Tormenting Voice, Crystal Vein, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Most notable omission is that I now see Orochi Hatchery as being far too expensive to be used.

What makes this version preferable to the stax version in your opinion?

Quote from gunnar »

Between your Prossh deck and other commander deck (Agrus, Diaochan, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht Volrath, Kaervek) which is very strong (competitive)?

Prossh is my most competitive, it has the most spent on it (money does equal success when you have black) and the greatest combo capacity.

Diaochan hasn't been used in newest version, but is meant to deal with creature heavy decks and is successful at that, but one is aware when they play it you have to work harder to make Diaochan work as a control deck, since there are better black aggro and combo generals. This deck is meant to be a challenge to play.

Agrus has become Iroas, which I need to update soon, but it's strong, although I believe some politics can be needed for it, but undeniably more resilient.

Marton is a pretty good deck imo, I don't play it enough that it has same issues ISBPathfinder does and it can wreck one or 2 players quickly unless someone meddles. That is the main issue, if someone plays politics it can hard, but it has a generally low curve is surprisingly resilient. So its generally my second favourite deck.

Volrath is one of my oldest decks, it can play a good control game and has the all the benefits of black, but MBC is a bit dull for most people. It has a fun general kill though and is good if you like Nemesis storyline.

Ulasht is a good combo general, it has a lot of the tricks that Prossh runs in some builds, but without the black you have to get them more fairly and tokens are necessary. The forced requirement can make people underestimate it, this used to be my favourite deck until I made Prossh (which also cannibalised a lot of the expensive parts).

Kaalia is quite strong, but she is quite a target, so often Kaalia gets savagely targeted. I believe the deck is strong, but you need to move quick which I sometimes dislike, so this makes the deck weaker than it should be.

Kaervek is a group slug deck, so its not meant to win, but I suppose make it hard for people, if it does win, which it can it is pure bonus. I find this fun, as it uses a lot of offbeat black combos and is a bit like breaking everyone down down at the same time.

In ranking:
1. Prossh
2. Marton
3. Kaalia
4. Ulasht
5. Volrath
6. Iroas
7. Kaervek
8. Diaochan

I'm working on a Titania deck now too, which I would say is probably second now. So top 3 are most competitive, but 4 and 5 can be competitive, while others are more challenging to win with if they want to at all.

@Batdown - I kinda like the lowcost, but you have a point on double strike. I didn't want to just make a Food Chain deck, as who will want to play that more than once, although I now see I have a few options, including Psychotic Fury.

Blue has the best card draw in the game, so better card quality to accelerate it, which would be at odds with focusing on Titania potentially, but who knows, the deck need not go off right away, I'm glad you'll consider junk colours though.

This is borderline necroing, but I wished to raise the issue with the consideration of modifying these decks. Any substantial change and its a different deck entirely, meaning that should not be considered too deeply.

The blue deck if you remove the leviathan theme (yes, I believe it has a leviathan theme) is a completely different deck and more than just modified. Likewise, if you make either Titania or Freyalise as a non-elf tribal, it's a totally different deck. For all the talk of the strength of these decks, they had somewhat coherent yet inefficient themes, including a forced tribal theme (which Kaalia players will adore). Daretti and Nahiri work better, but even then once you begin to change them, the deck needs to be streamlined a lot until only the best cards remain.

Compared to previous years C14 was meant to push the contents of the deck almost more than the Commanders, ie. Red deck has great synergy even without Daretti, yet it was also required to have dragons so Feldon had better targets? Seriously, this contradiction is in all the decks, except the black one where it works due to their mechanics and is offset by a weak planeswalker commander. This is just my opinion, but it's worth considering when comparing the decks.

What is your budget? Prossh has so many options for improvement into an efficient engine that comes out before he rightfully should. My biggest concern with your list is the artifacts most should be cut unless they assist your strategy at a competitive mana cost.

I would advise against removing Myr Incubator over time, its worked quite well and it is among the better welder targets in my opinion, it is one of the cards that is most capable of stealing the game. I suspect your deck may be too diluted of artifacts at the time it did not succeed or more are needed. It's surprising it took this long for Snake Basket to enter the deck too.

Commander 2014 was a bit of a dud for this style of deck, although the artifact living death may have some role, as could the haste elemental land, but I'm unsure it will be whole necessary without a set up for field haste, unless the kill turn is staggered to 2 parts, which can be risky.

I was thinking Mirri's Guile should probably be in here to assist with Consistency and that Encroaching Wastes is probably too bad to be played, what are your experiences with EW?

I did not know Rush of Blood existed, that's pretty sweet as a better Fatal Frenzy or a fourth option. I'll get one tomorrow and see about what should be done with the deck. That allows a legit one hit KO more regularly and without tutors. Thank you for the idea!