Many of the card choices you guys have presented do make sense, so I'm not going to answer each one individually, but I am going to question the attitude of 'What does it do? It's going in a million directions? Its slow and unfocused'
It plays guys at every point on the curve (pretty much) and they're all white legends. Yes, there's a bunch of wraths. No, I don't have to windmill slam a wrath as soon as I draw it. How can I have a more defined strategy than that when I can't depend on any given commander being in the command zone? And yes, it does play differently depending who's in the zone. For example, if I got Thalia I'm probably looking to go wide whereas Akroma is aiming for the commander damage kill. People also react to the deck differently depending on who I put down. Nobody is that scared by Cho-Manno, but Elesh Norn is a different matter entirely, even though they know it's the exact same deck in both games.
For me, the part that makes it feel unfocused is that you have several cards that don't mesh with your stated goal for the deck and you don't have the draw power to pull off multiple game plans simultaneously. At its core, this is a white beatdown deck. You're more likely to have a general that promotes winning via continually applying pressure to you opponents' life totals than you are to have a controlling one that wants to win through inevitability. Because you still have a number of cards that fit the inevitability plan better than the aggressive plan, you're going to end up with a lot of fluff in your deck no matter which general you have. Konda, Lord of Eiganjo, Yomiji, Who Bars the Way, Sensei Golden-Tail, Masako the Humorless (debatable), Iona, Shield of Emeria (debatable), Cho-Manno, Revolutionary, Takeno, Samurai General, Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo, and Mangara of Corondor are all relatively inefficient attackers who don't do a good job of assisting your more effective beaters. Reverse the Sands is mostly cute, and doesn't really contribute to what you're trying to do. The wrath count supports the walker count and most of the walkers are combat focused, so they can coexist to some degree. I'd still shave those by one or two so you're not shooting yourself in the foot. A number of these cards are also at the top of your curve. Having a curve that goes to 9 CMC, including 10 cards with 7+ CMC, in a deck with almost no draw or ramp is a recipe for having things stuck in hand.
If you trade out the defensive cards for [lower CMC] aggressive ones, you're still going to have a lot of variety in your games. Some games you'll play a few little guys and buff them up, some games you'll see more token production and swarm even more, some games will be voltron, some games will be walker heavy. The games you'll be reducing are the ones where you have a general that wants to sit back on defense while you draw a bunch of anthems, or the games where you start with a reasonable hand of a few lands and a few spells then draw half a dozen high CMC bombs in a row.
I'd still put Chord of Calling above Finale of Devastation but it's close. Having a built in recursion option is a significant upgrade for the long game. Realistically, most of the time I'd want one I'd probably want both.
That's fair. You also don't have a lot of token production, which is where the vanilla banding would be better than "bands with other."
Do you find that you have enough ways to give trample/other evasion? I'm seeing Nylea and Surrak, which seems a little light even with the tutors. Mina and Denn, Wildborn could be a good fit, both for that and as a way to play nicely with the bouncelands you're running. There's also manabase options like Kessig Wolf Run and Skarrg, the Rage Pits. I could see Odric, Lunarch Marshal as a way to keep flying bands from being blocked on the ground, if that's something you run into frequently.
How has Razia, Boros Archangel been working? That's one of many cards I like a lot on the board and hate having in hand. Is the ramp suite and pod effects enough to not feel the cost too much?
Way back when, there was one player who ran a mindslaver - no lock, no recursion or anything. Just a literal one shot effect to mess with a boardstate. Coincidentally, 3 times in a row that he aimed it at my Nemata deck, I had a Chain of Acid in hand. He was kind enough to leave me my lands, but that was it.
I've had the opposite happen to me. I used to run Glacial Crevasses in Jaya and had it in hand two games where I was hit with a value Mindslaver before I cut it.
My most memorable game was also using Jaya, far enough back that I don't remember all of the specifics. I know someone played a Static Orb that more or less shut down everyone else at the table. I was able to play around it with a Coalition Relic and a Goblin Welder. I think ended up winning that game by decking the Orb player with repeated Memory Jar activations and a couple wheels while his own Orb kept him from doing anything meaningful with the cards he was seeing.
With how heavily you're playing around banding, did you give any thought to Baton of Morale or Helm of Chatzuk? I'm guessing there are occasional games where you don't find one of the lands for a while or find one that doesn't work with the legends you've drawn.
Hi! I'm Dragonlover. I posted here years ago but my account got eaten by the Twitch merge and nothing of value was lost.
I've been playing Magic since 2000, took a break from Kamigawa to M11 and have pretty much exclusively played EDH since my return. I've not slung much cardboard the last couple of years due to work, but my schedule just changed so I can finally get down to my local on their Commander night. I'm also taking the time to actually put decklists up, as where I've not paid attention to Magic beyond selling it to people the last few years there's plenty of cards I've forgotten about/didn't notice came out.
Dragonlover
Welcome. I was also looking at the mono-W legendary list yesterday, so I threw some feedback into your thread. I've considered similar decks in the past, just with more colors to open up the options a little.
I agree with Serberus and ISB on potential adds, though I might pass on Mox Amber.
Takeno, Samurai General is not a good card here. You have a grand total of three creatures for it to buff and one of them can't attack. Playing well with Konda and Golden-Tail isn't going to come up most games. I'm a little skeptical of Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo as well. Konda isn't really a good card but it's a least a fun one, so it gets a pass.
You're missing a number of the legendary creatures I would have started this concept with, especially because you describe it as white weenie, like Thalia, Heretic Cathar, Odric, Lunarch Marshal, Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, and Pianna, Nomad Captain - efficiently costed creatures with relevant abilities. The small double strikers and keyword soup legends also play nicely with the anthem effects, so cards like Danitha Capashen, Paragon, Kwende, Pride of Femeref, or Sylvia Brightspear (2/2 double strike for 3 CMC isn't a terrible rate, even without the partner). I'd consider Hero's Blade as well. It's not legendary, but it's still very much on theme and a 3 power buff is enough to make voltron kills much more feasible regardless of the general at the time.
Right now this feels torn between going for inevitability and a lower curve, more aggressive list. Cards like Yomiji, Who Bars the Way and Akroma, Angel of Wrath suggest the first one, while cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit fit the second. Focusing on what you want to be doing with the deck will make it feel more cohesive and lead to fewer games with awkward draws, and there's a deep enough pool of legends in mono-W that you can do it without sacrificing the theme.
I wouldn't worry even if the value isn't there now. There's a lot of stuff that feels like it's modern/legacy playable and a lot of obvious EDH stuff. It's all going to be cheap for a while while the set is opened like mad, especially considering that the set hasn't even released yet. Look at it again after the set has been out of print for a couple years and it's probably a different story. I'm expecting a lot of these cards to have moderate demand well after it's out of standard.
I keep waffling on that one. There are clearly enough noncreature spells to trigger it reliably and a 3/2 for 3 CMC is a fine rate. The thing holding me back on it is the high cost of the walkers and limited other counter interactions. If I'm mostly including it to support various flavors of Bolas that's a lot of mana to cast/flip the walker and then cast a spell, plus there's a pretty good chance I'll have burned a large part of spells in hand before they come down. I do really like the As Foretold interaction and I overlooked Primal Amulet before, which are both reasons to revisit. There's also a chance this skews more towards superfriends when WAR drops and I want to play with new cards so it might be a better fit then. Thanks for taking a look!
I'm still waiting on a couple cards to come in (including the general), so I'll probably pull this together over the weekend and try it out next week sometime. There are a few slots I'm a little iffy on right off the bat, so I'm hoping I get to see how those work out. The most suspect is Ancestral Vision. That's a really rough late game topdeck and it's very slow when played as intended. I have a few ways to cheat the wait already and I'll include Finale of Promise when WAR drops, which should help. It may still be too cute. The other borderline stuff is mostly things like the Kenrith twins and the reanimation, where I like the cards for the format but may not have enough support for them in place in this particular deck.
edit: I realized I forgot Toxic Deluge in the first draft, which was an oversight. Replacing Animate Dead so I can keep the appropriate balance of overly cute interactions to actual cards.
I think this could be an interesting experiment to try out for a while. Don't know how I'd feel about a permanent thing... but... I'd be willing to try.
My group has been floating the idea of allowing walkers as generals. We have a couple people interested in trying them out. Probably not an interesting data point for the wider format because I don't think anyone would be actively trying to break them, but we'll see.
This still feels a little fractured because I haven't played it at all and I think there's some internal tension here. The deck isn't really focused on either a more tapout style, which the high CMC walkers are pushing, or a more traditional draw-go list. I like the number of mana sources, given that it's curving out to 8 and there's a benefit to being able to play and flip the general in a single turn cycle, whether that's to get an immediate walker activation or to play around removal more effectively. I also think there should probably be another couple X-cost spells to take advantage of it, probably a draw spell like Stroke of Genius or Pull from Tomorrow and maybe a burn spell. Reanimation spells are possible cuts to fit those because they're largely relying on opponents. I don't have a lot of targets here.
Fast mana, tutors, Cyclonic Rift, Exsanguinate, and Torment of Hailfire are all intentional omissions. I know they're good cards, my group has chosen to omit those because we all got tired of seeing the same things every game. Combo is also relatively rare, so I'm not too worried about passing on the cheap/free counters.
I wouldn't read too much into how many of the new generals have been built before we even hit the prerelease. I'd guess that people are more likely to build around a card they have in hand, whether that's because they opened it or ordered it.
There are a couple other factors as well. Most of the legends in the set are also mono colored, which are typically less popular. Of the multicolored ones, Roalesk plays awkwardly with the command zone because of the dies trigger and Storrev has competition like Meren and Karador playing in a similar area. Niv is powerful, but 5C manabases put off a lot of people and it doesn't offer a lot of direction. Feather is in the sweet spot in terms of number of colors and providing something new to the color combo, so it's bound to be the most popular. I also get the sense that there's some lore appeal. I saw a lot of complaints that Feather wasn't getting a card during both the GRN and GCT spoiler seasons. The other multicolored options all seem like minor characters from a few seconds of wiki investigation and I don't think I've ever seen them mentioned when people discuss which characters need cards. Niv is a popular character, so I suspect that's being held down by being the fourth version of the character printed and a big departure from what the character has traditionally been about.
Mono white is fun times. Mono colored decks in general are usually pretty entertaining, if for no other reason than making you a little more likely to play things you might not find room for in a list with more options.
If you trade out the defensive cards for [lower CMC] aggressive ones, you're still going to have a lot of variety in your games. Some games you'll play a few little guys and buff them up, some games you'll see more token production and swarm even more, some games will be voltron, some games will be walker heavy. The games you'll be reducing are the ones where you have a general that wants to sit back on defense while you draw a bunch of anthems, or the games where you start with a reasonable hand of a few lands and a few spells then draw half a dozen high CMC bombs in a row.
Do you find that you have enough ways to give trample/other evasion? I'm seeing Nylea and Surrak, which seems a little light even with the tutors. Mina and Denn, Wildborn could be a good fit, both for that and as a way to play nicely with the bouncelands you're running. There's also manabase options like Kessig Wolf Run and Skarrg, the Rage Pits. I could see Odric, Lunarch Marshal as a way to keep flying bands from being blocked on the ground, if that's something you run into frequently.
How has Razia, Boros Archangel been working? That's one of many cards I like a lot on the board and hate having in hand. Is the ramp suite and pod effects enough to not feel the cost too much?
My most memorable game was also using Jaya, far enough back that I don't remember all of the specifics. I know someone played a Static Orb that more or less shut down everyone else at the table. I was able to play around it with a Coalition Relic and a Goblin Welder. I think ended up winning that game by decking the Orb player with repeated Memory Jar activations and a couple wheels while his own Orb kept him from doing anything meaningful with the cards he was seeing.
Takeno, Samurai General is not a good card here. You have a grand total of three creatures for it to buff and one of them can't attack. Playing well with Konda and Golden-Tail isn't going to come up most games. I'm a little skeptical of Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo as well. Konda isn't really a good card but it's a least a fun one, so it gets a pass.
You're missing a number of the legendary creatures I would have started this concept with, especially because you describe it as white weenie, like Thalia, Heretic Cathar, Odric, Lunarch Marshal, Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, and Pianna, Nomad Captain - efficiently costed creatures with relevant abilities. The small double strikers and keyword soup legends also play nicely with the anthem effects, so cards like Danitha Capashen, Paragon, Kwende, Pride of Femeref, or Sylvia Brightspear (2/2 double strike for 3 CMC isn't a terrible rate, even without the partner). I'd consider Hero's Blade as well. It's not legendary, but it's still very much on theme and a 3 power buff is enough to make voltron kills much more feasible regardless of the general at the time.
Right now this feels torn between going for inevitability and a lower curve, more aggressive list. Cards like Yomiji, Who Bars the Way and Akroma, Angel of Wrath suggest the first one, while cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit fit the second. Focusing on what you want to be doing with the deck will make it feel more cohesive and lead to fewer games with awkward draws, and there's a deep enough pool of legends in mono-W that you can do it without sacrificing the theme.
I'm still waiting on a couple cards to come in (including the general), so I'll probably pull this together over the weekend and try it out next week sometime. There are a few slots I'm a little iffy on right off the bat, so I'm hoping I get to see how those work out. The most suspect is Ancestral Vision. That's a really rough late game topdeck and it's very slow when played as intended. I have a few ways to cheat the wait already and I'll include Finale of Promise when WAR drops, which should help. It may still be too cute. The other borderline stuff is mostly things like the Kenrith twins and the reanimation, where I like the cards for the format but may not have enough support for them in place in this particular deck.
edit: I realized I forgot Toxic Deluge in the first draft, which was an oversight. Replacing Animate Dead so I can keep the appropriate balance of overly cute interactions to actual cards.
1 Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
//Creature
1 Archaeomancer
1 Baleful Strix
1 Kess, Dissident Mage
1 Ophiomancer
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 The Scarab God
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Wrexial, the Risen Deep
1 Young Pyromancer
//Artifact
1 Coalition Relic
1 Commander's Sphere
1 Dimir Signet
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Izzet Signet
1 Mind Stone
1 Primal Amulet
1 Rakdos Signet
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Talisman of Indulgence
1 Thaumatic Compass
1 Thought Vessel
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Worn Powerstone
//Enchantment
1 As Foretold
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Necromancy
1 Search for Azcanta
1 Sunbird's Invocation
1 Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
1 Rowan Kenrith
1 Will Kenrith
//Instant
1 Bedevil
1 Chaos Warp
1 Counterspell
1 Cryptic Command
1 Dig Through Time
1 Disallow
1 Electrodominance
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Frantic Search
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Impulse
1 Mission Briefing
1 Mystic Confluence
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Snuff Out
1 Terminate
//Sorcery
1 Ancestral Vision
1 Baral's Expertise
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Damnation
1 Discovery // Dispersal
1 Painful Truths
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Reanimate
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Vandalblast
1 Badlands
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Command Tower
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Graven Cairns
6 Island
5 Mountain
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Strip Mine
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Sunken Ruins
6 Swamp
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wasteland
1 Watery Grave
This still feels a little fractured because I haven't played it at all and I think there's some internal tension here. The deck isn't really focused on either a more tapout style, which the high CMC walkers are pushing, or a more traditional draw-go list. I like the number of mana sources, given that it's curving out to 8 and there's a benefit to being able to play and flip the general in a single turn cycle, whether that's to get an immediate walker activation or to play around removal more effectively. I also think there should probably be another couple X-cost spells to take advantage of it, probably a draw spell like Stroke of Genius or Pull from Tomorrow and maybe a burn spell. Reanimation spells are possible cuts to fit those because they're largely relying on opponents. I don't have a lot of targets here.
Fast mana, tutors, Cyclonic Rift, Exsanguinate, and Torment of Hailfire are all intentional omissions. I know they're good cards, my group has chosen to omit those because we all got tired of seeing the same things every game. Combo is also relatively rare, so I'm not too worried about passing on the cheap/free counters.
There are a couple other factors as well. Most of the legends in the set are also mono colored, which are typically less popular. Of the multicolored ones, Roalesk plays awkwardly with the command zone because of the dies trigger and Storrev has competition like Meren and Karador playing in a similar area. Niv is powerful, but 5C manabases put off a lot of people and it doesn't offer a lot of direction. Feather is in the sweet spot in terms of number of colors and providing something new to the color combo, so it's bound to be the most popular. I also get the sense that there's some lore appeal. I saw a lot of complaints that Feather wasn't getting a card during both the GRN and GCT spoiler seasons. The other multicolored options all seem like minor characters from a few seconds of wiki investigation and I don't think I've ever seen them mentioned when people discuss which characters need cards. Niv is a popular character, so I suspect that's being held down by being the fourth version of the character printed and a big departure from what the character has traditionally been about.