I have a few versions of affinity I want to try, not sure which version seems the strongest. What do people think? I need to try and figure out what version I want to play so I can buy some of the cards.
I definitely like Goblin Bushwhacker here. A good player will counter glimpse of nature, even game 1, and if not then surely in game 2 it is to be expected. The way around that isnt to pack counter backup that clogs up the combo flow, it;s to program in other maindeck win conditions that go with the flow of the combo. Bushwhacker, haze of rage, maybe even trumpet blast, they all win on turn 2 without glimpse and turn 1 with it. Why even splash U? There is pleny of mana to play red counters if they are needed out of the board. The Tutor is nice, but there are other ways of drawing glimpse that are less conspicuos, personal tutor gets dazed all day. Maybe gamble? Or manamorphose and night's whisper? Black gives you thoughtsieze/duress, a more proactive way to stop the counter then praying for a FoW and another U card to pitch, or risking losing the game to a pact.
I think this deck needs Empty the Warrens and Goblin Bushwhacker. You can never have too much toolbox in storm if they are mostly creatures tools for options as they dont clog the flow of spewing out guys. I like the 1 of banefire, and the aforementioned 1 of Emrakul. This thing has potential, and can be more creative than tendrils to be sure.
I don't know if poisonous and Infect deal the same amount of poison counter.
For poisonous it says: Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player gets a poison counter(s). A player with ten or more poison counters loses the game.
For infect it says: This creature deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters.
Can somebody illuminate me?
slivers will do damage, then the damaged player will get 1 poison counter for each sliver that dealt damage, not for each damage dealt. So no sliver isnt good.
So if I were to lets say Doom Blade an opponents Gideon Jura that has been made into a creature by activating its 0 ability, and I control a Mimic Vat , can I imprint the Gideon? Its a creature when it dies, and the Oracle text says:
"Imprint - Whenever a nontoken creature is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, you may exile that card. If you do, return each other card exiled with Mimic Vat to its owner's graveyard.
{3}, {T}: Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of the exiled card. It gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step."
Notice it says "the exiled card," as though it is expressly stating it only has to be a creature when it dies not when the token is put onto the battlefield.
So I think I should be able to have a fresh Gideon every turn, with the option of making him a 6/6 haste or royal assassining someones dudes.
Can I imprint a general who is being sent to the graveyard on my mimic vat? Someone told me that since once exiled the general would be placed into the command zone the mimic vat would no longer be able to be imprinted as its imprint is no longer in the Exile Zone. I told him that isnt how imprint works, but that I would come on here and ask.
If you can imprint your own general on Mimic Vat it has HUGE implications for the EDH format. I play Akroma as a morph, it dies, I imprint Akroma on Vat and swing for 6 haste every turn from now on. Or Sharuum, or Vendilion clique, or venser, its retardedly good.
You need card tags in future posts. Read the Forum Guidelines. -Carsten
Using counters so you can proliferate onto it and use the mana to go crazy with engines and keys isn't nothing. I admit I havn't played the deck, but chalice seems like a staple (atleast if you run clasps and even better if you run engines and wurmcoils)
If you are using both Engines (Wurm and Contagion) than chalice is very good. If you are only playing wurmcoil than you are looking at only playing the chalice for 1, as you aren't going to tap out holding a counter. Then it's only worth it if you are playing Thrummingbird to proliferate the chalice, but Thrummingbird is a subpar card for the deck. So my overall point is that as good as Chalice seems to be, it is only good if you play it in a worse deck. It doesn't cast Wurmcoil as fast as 2 other decks that run him. It doesn't ramp for 2 in this deck like the other decks that run chalice. I could see running 1 as a trinket mage target to get u out of mana screw trouble, but no more.
If your goal is to get out lux cannon as fast as possible you are going to lose to things like koth being cast while you are tapped out and looking at a counter or tapped islands that could have cast a counter had you been playing it and slow played a little better.
Remember Cannon on turn 3 is not all that great against aggro, unless you already have elixir and keys online.
Why are you running lands that cost you 1 life to fetch islands in a Mono-Blue deck? Wouldn't it be better to just use islands instead? Tectonic edge is the only land that looks ok in there, imo.
Yeah, that may be good for tricking an opponent game 1 into thinking you are playing multiple colors. And it thins so that it increases your odds of topdecking action later when it counts. I don't know that it's worth it, and I haven't test it, but it's worth looking into.
Playing T1 misty, fetch, cosi's trickster says a very different thing than Island Trickster. Island weenie go, says I'm playing monoblue or u/w essentially. Misty weenie go says, I could be playing bant or u/g etc.
I am getting amazing results with this very aggressive Fish build, and honestly Merfolk Spy is an amzing card being overlooked in this archetype! I win games from his islandwalk, and I win games from his second ability as well. People show you counters and you know how to play around them, people show you summoning trap and their face hits their palms.
The SB is for on the draw game 2, as it almost always wins game 1. They board in the obvious anti-aggro stuff against you, and you slow roll them island go style and wreck their tempo. Countering 3 ramp spells in a row starting with spell pierce shuts down all of the ramp decks and you are free to start dropping lords and wurmcoils. Turn 3 Wurmcoil turn 4 Monument wins every time on the play.
Monument is Amazing in this deck. Monoblue aggro is a funny thing, people play game 1 around counters you aren't holding, then game 2 they walk right into the counters you have just boarded in.
I made a u/w version of this deck that is getting great results. I really like having access to wall of omens and SB removal options. Also I play one Elixir in the maindeck as it gets u out of bad game 1 scenarios very often against aggro without clunking up the main.
One thing everyone playing this deck needs to know: You can get 2 activations out of 1 elixir of immortality before shuffling it by untapping it with key in response to the first activation. 10 life for 5 mana means the difference between losing on turn 5 and getting lux cannon online for a win against aggro.
I also play 4 Jace and 2 Venser in my deck. Jace is a house as always, and venser blinks trinket mage and wall of omens for card advantage. I know most people think Venser sucks, but honestly his ultimate emblem is so brutal he draws attacks and burn spells as though he were copy 5 and 6 of Jace the Mind Sculptor. He blinks key for a second key activation for lux cannon in 1 turn. He blinks cannon after it goes off to accelerate by 1 charge when your are keyless.
Thrummingbird is unreliably sensitive in my experience. Everflowing chalice is a waste of time, this deck isnt racing, its slowrolling into stabilization and then taking over via card advantage generated by recurring effects. If you want to build a ramping lux cannon deck you should use Grand Architect, its a turn quicker and actually does stuff.
"EDH is played with vintage legal cards, with two exceptions:
- cards are legal as of their set's prerelease
- Shahrazad is legal for play in EDH"
From the website.
Ante cards are not legal in EDH.
So the Banned list is not comprehensive then? It's actually the "Additionally Banned" list? I saw this statement, but then didn't see the cards on the list and thought it was some kind of oversite. Perhaps it would be more clear to All if the "Banned List" included all cards banned in the format, like it does for every other format.
So I told a guy on MWS to go fly a kite last night when he cast Contract from Below in his Heir to Blackblade monoblack deck. I told him it was banned from all formats, to which he said it was not banned in EDH, and then he quit.
Now obviously you cannot play any of the Ante cards in any game that isn't being played for Ante, as per the rule instituted on the cards themselves, which states that you remove them from your deck before playing if not playing for ante.
I have been playing since Ante, and indeed I even played for ante as a kid, and my recollection of the Ante rules in regards to starting a game are as such:
1. Deck Presentation
2. Decide whether playing for Ante, if yes move to deciding who goes first, if not remove Ante cards from deck.
3. Decide who plays first.
4. Cut, Ante if playing for Ante, draw, mulligans.
5. Turn 1 begins.
Now when we were playing for Ante we didn't replace the Ante cards with other cards, meaning we presented 60 card decks, but often played slightly fewer when someone wasnt down to ante up. This is, as I recall, the reason that Ante cards were originally banned from sanctioned constructed play, that they were a degenerate means to circumvent the 60 card deck rule. And that is why all 9 of them are specifically listed on the banned list of every sanctioned format, not because of any confusion around playing for Ante, but because the printed text of any card can break the Magic game Rules and in this case Ante cards break the minimum size rules the same way relentless rats breaks the number of copies in a deck rule. Recently it was decided that it is essential to the game that this be the ultimate source of ruling for the game, the printed text of cards, over any printed game rules, and this was extended to include format imposed rules such as the ones we have in EDH. Specifically this means that the Oracle ruling on Relentless Rats was changed to state that its wording does indeed allow it to be played in multiples in EDH despite the formats singleton nature.
So, if Ante cards aren't on the EDH banned list, and No ruling (to my knowledge) has ever errattaed them to force their replacement pre-play (not pre-game), only their removal, then what stops me from having Ante cards in my generals colors in my 100 card EDH list? I argue that as the rules stand I could have Ante cards in my 100, and simply remove them at the beginning of the game after sideboarding. This has crazy potential to be a degenerate thing for the format (think 97 card monoblue, or 92 card r/b goblins, or even 96 card Rafiq) so it should be adressed. Hell, a Jund colored deck could run all 9 and cut to 91!
PS, While I'm on here I want to cast my vote for the unbanning of Metalworker! He is not as degenerate without tolarian acadamy! We should have him back!
This is a hybrid Turboland/Polymorph build that is amazinglys consistant. If it morphs into Titan it can almost always hardcast Emrakul for the win within 1-2 turns. I only lost 2 games in 5 rounds and both were against perfect hands (1 RDW and 1 in the final against an amazing Naya player who played bird, cobra cobra, realmrazor on 3!) that I could do nothing about. I boarded out polymorphs for Obstinates and hosed the RDW player who was burning tokens game 2 instead of me!
I have to interject here and say that white is totally unnecessary. I'm starting to think even Blue is. The 3 very best magic cards to deal with RDW are monogreen my friends. I tested my newest monogreen last night against the legitest of RDW decks and did very well, winning 2 preboard games and 4 post board out of 8 total games. The secret is 2/2 baloths main/sb and 1/1 pelakka wurm. These 2 cards alone drastically improve the decks overall consistancy and viability in an evolvijg meta with such legitimate aggro threats as we now have on our hands.
I even tested 2 Grazing Gladeheart SB and they were great, even when they only gained me 2 and ate a bolt they gained me 5 which was always the 1 extra turn I needed to stabalize.
The other thing I cannot reiterate enough: Eldrazi are better than Avenger! If they O-ring baloth or Pelakka you cast Ulamog and gain the life again and they scoop! Go look in the deck list thread and take a look at the 3rd place Nationals deck from last weekend people!
He can't be cast consistently turn 3, and certainly not while evading bolt. The only way to hit him turn 3 is if you go turn 2 cobra, turn 3 fetch+ob, which requires a cobra, a fetch, and no opposing removal, which is much less consistent than dropping a 4 drop on turn 3 thanks to cobra/explore/rampant redundancy.
he doesn't have evasion, so being big doesn't matter when he can be chumped by a plant token.
Avenger can win without condemn mattering, and is always big enough to win in one attack.
Ob Nix is good, he's just not good enough. Overall this notion seems to be what people have a hard time with in Turboland. It isn't that there aren't tons of great cards with synergy for the deck, its just that most aren't as good as another option.
Ob is better in a scapeshift/warp world situation where many landdrops happen all at once. In the time it takes for him to do lethal between pumping and swinging without blockers, , an avenger can have a lethal army built and swinging.
I play Birds, Cobra, Explore, Rampant Growth, Cultivate. I cast him on turn 3 very often, a lot more often than Avenger on 4. And in my experience with playing against Naya Vine and Bant Conscripted, if you don't play Avenger by 4-5 it is usually too late. That being said, I'd also have to contend with what you say about Avenger winning in one turn, he simply doesn't. He can Sometimes win the next turn after you cast him, but he more often gets removed and you are left with a bunch of chump 1/2 tokens. The most significantly better aspect of Ob is that he can cause loss of life the turn he is played. Played turn 4-5 the Avenger is threatening to kill them with creature damage somewhere between 6-7. Played on 4-5 Ob Nixilis can do cause 9 life loss easily before passing the turn.
That all being said I really don't think Avenger is as good as the Eldrazi package either. Oracle/Time Warp is not that impressive to me either. I would take Summoning Trap and Emrakul over them any day.
This thread is called "Ravager Affinity," maybe I missed something, but isn't Arcbound Ravager the reason this Archetype even exists?
I think this deck needs Empty the Warrens and Goblin Bushwhacker. You can never have too much toolbox in storm if they are mostly creatures tools for options as they dont clog the flow of spewing out guys. I like the 1 of banefire, and the aforementioned 1 of Emrakul. This thing has potential, and can be more creative than tendrils to be sure.
slivers will do damage, then the damaged player will get 1 poison counter for each sliver that dealt damage, not for each damage dealt. So no sliver isnt good.
"Imprint - Whenever a nontoken creature is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, you may exile that card. If you do, return each other card exiled with Mimic Vat to its owner's graveyard.
{3}, {T}: Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of the exiled card. It gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step."
Notice it says "the exiled card," as though it is expressly stating it only has to be a creature when it dies not when the token is put onto the battlefield.
So I think I should be able to have a fresh Gideon every turn, with the option of making him a 6/6 haste or royal assassining someones dudes.
What say ye judges?
If you can imprint your own general on Mimic Vat it has HUGE implications for the EDH format. I play Akroma as a morph, it dies, I imprint Akroma on Vat and swing for 6 haste every turn from now on. Or Sharuum, or Vendilion clique, or venser, its retardedly good.
You need card tags in future posts. Read the Forum Guidelines. -Carsten
If you are using both Engines (Wurm and Contagion) than chalice is very good. If you are only playing wurmcoil than you are looking at only playing the chalice for 1, as you aren't going to tap out holding a counter. Then it's only worth it if you are playing Thrummingbird to proliferate the chalice, but Thrummingbird is a subpar card for the deck. So my overall point is that as good as Chalice seems to be, it is only good if you play it in a worse deck. It doesn't cast Wurmcoil as fast as 2 other decks that run him. It doesn't ramp for 2 in this deck like the other decks that run chalice. I could see running 1 as a trinket mage target to get u out of mana screw trouble, but no more.
If your goal is to get out lux cannon as fast as possible you are going to lose to things like koth being cast while you are tapped out and looking at a counter or tapped islands that could have cast a counter had you been playing it and slow played a little better.
Remember Cannon on turn 3 is not all that great against aggro, unless you already have elixir and keys online.
Yeah, that may be good for tricking an opponent game 1 into thinking you are playing multiple colors. And it thins so that it increases your odds of topdecking action later when it counts. I don't know that it's worth it, and I haven't test it, but it's worth looking into.
Playing T1 misty, fetch, cosi's trickster says a very different thing than Island Trickster. Island weenie go, says I'm playing monoblue or u/w essentially. Misty weenie go says, I could be playing bant or u/g etc.
4 Cosi's Trickster
3 Skywatcher Adept
4 Spreading Seas (turns on islandwalk)
4 Coralhelm Commander
4 Merfolk Sovereign
4 Grand Architect
4 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Thada Adel
3 Eldrazi Monument
4 Tectonic Edge
19 island
2 Mana Leak
2 Negate
4 Flashfreeze
4 Spell pierce
3 unsummon
The SB is for on the draw game 2, as it almost always wins game 1. They board in the obvious anti-aggro stuff against you, and you slow roll them island go style and wreck their tempo. Countering 3 ramp spells in a row starting with spell pierce shuts down all of the ramp decks and you are free to start dropping lords and wurmcoils. Turn 3 Wurmcoil turn 4 Monument wins every time on the play.
Monument is Amazing in this deck. Monoblue aggro is a funny thing, people play game 1 around counters you aren't holding, then game 2 they walk right into the counters you have just boarded in.
One thing everyone playing this deck needs to know: You can get 2 activations out of 1 elixir of immortality before shuffling it by untapping it with key in response to the first activation. 10 life for 5 mana means the difference between losing on turn 5 and getting lux cannon online for a win against aggro.
I also play 4 Jace and 2 Venser in my deck. Jace is a house as always, and venser blinks trinket mage and wall of omens for card advantage. I know most people think Venser sucks, but honestly his ultimate emblem is so brutal he draws attacks and burn spells as though he were copy 5 and 6 of Jace the Mind Sculptor. He blinks key for a second key activation for lux cannon in 1 turn. He blinks cannon after it goes off to accelerate by 1 charge when your are keyless.
Thrummingbird is unreliably sensitive in my experience. Everflowing chalice is a waste of time, this deck isnt racing, its slowrolling into stabilization and then taking over via card advantage generated by recurring effects. If you want to build a ramping lux cannon deck you should use Grand Architect, its a turn quicker and actually does stuff.
So the Banned list is not comprehensive then? It's actually the "Additionally Banned" list? I saw this statement, but then didn't see the cards on the list and thought it was some kind of oversite. Perhaps it would be more clear to All if the "Banned List" included all cards banned in the format, like it does for every other format.
Now obviously you cannot play any of the Ante cards in any game that isn't being played for Ante, as per the rule instituted on the cards themselves, which states that you remove them from your deck before playing if not playing for ante.
I have been playing since Ante, and indeed I even played for ante as a kid, and my recollection of the Ante rules in regards to starting a game are as such:
1. Deck Presentation
2. Decide whether playing for Ante, if yes move to deciding who goes first, if not remove Ante cards from deck.
3. Decide who plays first.
4. Cut, Ante if playing for Ante, draw, mulligans.
5. Turn 1 begins.
Now when we were playing for Ante we didn't replace the Ante cards with other cards, meaning we presented 60 card decks, but often played slightly fewer when someone wasnt down to ante up. This is, as I recall, the reason that Ante cards were originally banned from sanctioned constructed play, that they were a degenerate means to circumvent the 60 card deck rule. And that is why all 9 of them are specifically listed on the banned list of every sanctioned format, not because of any confusion around playing for Ante, but because the printed text of any card can break the Magic game Rules and in this case Ante cards break the minimum size rules the same way relentless rats breaks the number of copies in a deck rule. Recently it was decided that it is essential to the game that this be the ultimate source of ruling for the game, the printed text of cards, over any printed game rules, and this was extended to include format imposed rules such as the ones we have in EDH. Specifically this means that the Oracle ruling on Relentless Rats was changed to state that its wording does indeed allow it to be played in multiples in EDH despite the formats singleton nature.
So, if Ante cards aren't on the EDH banned list, and No ruling (to my knowledge) has ever errattaed them to force their replacement pre-play (not pre-game), only their removal, then what stops me from having Ante cards in my generals colors in my 100 card EDH list? I argue that as the rules stand I could have Ante cards in my 100, and simply remove them at the beginning of the game after sideboarding. This has crazy potential to be a degenerate thing for the format (think 97 card monoblue, or 92 card r/b goblins, or even 96 card Rafiq) so it should be adressed. Hell, a Jund colored deck could run all 9 and cut to 91!
Hopefully I am missing something here! Do tell.
The EDH banned list: http://www.dragonhighlander.net/rules.php
PS, While I'm on here I want to cast my vote for the unbanning of Metalworker! He is not as degenerate without tolarian acadamy! We should have him back!
4 Primeval Titan
4 Explore
3 Cultivate
4 Growth Spasm
4 Garruck Wildspeaker
2 Jace, the Mindsculptor
4 Mana Leak
4 Polymorph
2 Summoning Trap
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 Eye of Ugin
2 Halimar depths
4 Misty Rainforest
6 forest
5 island
This is a hybrid Turboland/Polymorph build that is amazinglys consistant. If it morphs into Titan it can almost always hardcast Emrakul for the win within 1-2 turns. I only lost 2 games in 5 rounds and both were against perfect hands (1 RDW and 1 in the final against an amazing Naya player who played bird, cobra cobra, realmrazor on 3!) that I could do nothing about. I boarded out polymorphs for Obstinates and hosed the RDW player who was burning tokens game 2 instead of me!
I even tested 2 Grazing Gladeheart SB and they were great, even when they only gained me 2 and ate a bolt they gained me 5 which was always the 1 extra turn I needed to stabalize.
The other thing I cannot reiterate enough: Eldrazi are better than Avenger! If they O-ring baloth or Pelakka you cast Ulamog and gain the life again and they scoop! Go look in the deck list thread and take a look at the 3rd place Nationals deck from last weekend people!
Top 8 - 2010 U.S. National Championships 3rd Place Finish!
Main Deck
60 cards
2 Eye of Ugin
13 Forest
4 Khalni Garden
1 Mystifying Maze
3 Tectonic Edge
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 Primeval Titan
1 Terastodon
2 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Ancient Stirrings
4 Cultivate
4 Everflowing Chalice
4 Explore
2 Rampant Growth
4 Summoning Trap
2 Autumn's Veil
1 Back to Nature
1 Fog
3 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Nature's Claim
3 Obstinate Baloth
1 Pelakka Wurm
3 Relic of Progenitus
I play Birds, Cobra, Explore, Rampant Growth, Cultivate. I cast him on turn 3 very often, a lot more often than Avenger on 4. And in my experience with playing against Naya Vine and Bant Conscripted, if you don't play Avenger by 4-5 it is usually too late. That being said, I'd also have to contend with what you say about Avenger winning in one turn, he simply doesn't. He can Sometimes win the next turn after you cast him, but he more often gets removed and you are left with a bunch of chump 1/2 tokens. The most significantly better aspect of Ob is that he can cause loss of life the turn he is played. Played turn 4-5 the Avenger is threatening to kill them with creature damage somewhere between 6-7. Played on 4-5 Ob Nixilis can do cause 9 life loss easily before passing the turn.
That all being said I really don't think Avenger is as good as the Eldrazi package either. Oracle/Time Warp is not that impressive to me either. I would take Summoning Trap and Emrakul over them any day.