Thanks for your replies - though in my opinion, even a complete lack of Modern testing leaves a Dredge-hating Wizards something of an oddity due to Cathartic Reunion. Just knowing the format superficially you can see how the card is worded to slot perfectly into dredge and in the same source where Stoddard says this:
People ask me, sometimes, how much of our playtesting do we spend testing Modern. The answer is…well, none
He also says this:
because all of our Modern cards have to go through Standard, we have a pretty good picture of how good they will be in Modern.
I just have a difficult time believing that Cathartic Reunion was not a deliberate design with Dredge at least partially in mind, meaning that if Wizards targets Dredge with bans, they don't have issues printing good cards for decks they deem oppressive.
Unless there's some serious foresight going on with them planning Dredge-bannings for a while and printing reunion to not completely kill the deck once the bannings occur.
I am very new to paper Modern, though I have played Magic for 20 years and have watched coverage for the last 6 or 7, playing some Modern Jund, 8-rack and recently Dredge online. I've read the last many pages of the thread and am generally impressed with the reasoning of most posters, but I do have a question:
Most of you seem to agree that Dredge-bans are 1) likely, and 2) warranted, for somewhat different reasons. Now, I just invested in my first Modern deck - Dredge - and so am obviously completely biased. But it seems to me that banning Dredge-pieces after just spending a year printing constant improvements to the deck, getting so many players investing in cards from those new sets because of it, seems hazardous from a marketing perspective?
In addition, why print cards like Cathartic Reunion that are so perfectly worded to support Dredge if your Modern R&Ders think the deck unhealthy? You could argue that Wizards have no problems targeting decks that arise from new sets as was the case with Eldrazi, but that deck arose as a consequence of a single set-release and can be regarded as a mistake. Dredge has been gradually improving over the year due to constant releases. If your data crunchers and playtesters think the deck should be nerfed, isn't it completely illogical to keep printing obvious improvements?
Like I said, I am sort of a noob when it comes to actual, Modern play-experience and have been swayed by many of the arguments of the last couple of pages. But those have pretty much all been rooted in "health of the format"-concerns or the ever-present idea that "most players hate dredge." Wizards knew those arguments while designing the last couple of sets - at least they certainly did when making Kaladesh. Won't there be a concern that banning something they have just popularized with constant, fresh additions over the last year will be taken as a sign that investing in Modern is a very risky endeavour?
Anyways, like I said, I am obviously biased since Dredge-bans will have a direct economic impact on me and will probably bar me from playing Paper Modern after just deciding to invest in it, but still, I'd like to see some of you with more Modern-experience than me answer those questions.
For Angus Mackenzie, I found an Italian version for $35. You can get a Spike Weaver much cheaper (I got mine for $8,50 at magiccardmarket.eu), and it's actually better than Angus in some ways. Though of course, it's already in the list.
Aurification is on the bench though - it fills the same sort of role as Angus though and isn't bad at all. In fact, Angus isn't perfect at all since he doesn't work when you play global "must attack" effects since then he has to attack as well. He might very well end up on the bench if we find find better sticks/carrots. You can also include extra Propaganda-effects: Propaganda itself and/or Ghostly Prison.
For Academy Rector, any sort of enchantment-search will work! Idyllic Tutor would be a good substitute if it wasn't so expensive, but Please for Guidance is pretty good in the deck and costs almost nothing! It gives us some much needed card advantage and can find the crucial combination of "force attack"-enchantment + Assault Formation. It's a little expensive which is why I ultimately took it out - even though we don't have much raw card draw our velocity is actually OK due to the draw Walls. The main reason I chose Rector over it is that it is a tutor and a carrot/stick combined, but I don't think Plea for Guidance is that much worse.
You might find Lightmine Field to be a win condition once you run the living plane effects, especially with some of the other effects in the deck. Then again, you did just cut trumpet, which is proving to be one of the more effective cards in that kind of board-state. Certainly worth keeping on the bench.
It most assuredly is. Will add it now. I think a friend has a copy I can borrow.
Wargate is great. Tutoring any land for 3 its pretty awesome, I've done it a few times
Good point, even tutoring for Minamo seems p. decent
Also still want to make room for Shardless Agent, but as a pure value-play it might not make the cut. Nearly all other pieces have some justification to the theme or can tutor for an interaction.
EDIT:
Regarding Sphere of Safety, I didn't even count enchantments before suggesting it. Guess there's not really enough here to support it.
Missed this since we posted concurrently. I'm gonna try it out just to see how often we have enchantments to support it. But it's probably going out in favor of Propaganda or Ghostly Prison at some point.
The more I think on it, the more I lean towards exactly what you suggest: just the inclusion of Titania's Song and Opalescence for messing with their permanents. (By the way, Titania's Song's last clause is surprisingly useful - means they can't remove it at Sorcery-speed to dodge an awkward attack step).
Collective Restraint is awesome - definetely replacing Propaganda. Are you sure about Sphere of Safety though? It's 2 mana more and it seems like we're mostly gonna get 2-3, sometimes the catastrophic 1.
HEY WIZARDS OF THE COAST, if you're listening, a version of Nature's Revolt that also says: "Lands have vigilance, and can only be tapped for mana after the declare attackers phase each turn" would be SICK
EDIT:
A couple of other thoughts:
- We should probably cut Aurification, since like ourselves, our opponents might actually prefer for some of their creatures to turn into walls.
- Is it just me, or does Wargate seem more and alluring? Our deck consists nearly entirely of permanents. The card is pretty much a Demonic Tutor that puts the card into play for just one additional mana!
- In testing so far, Shardless Agent has been surprisingly good. Yeah, it can often just flip a Wall of some kind giving os an 0/4 and a draw. But that's not... bad, actually. And best case it gets something like Assault Formation.
Big changes: Changed the OP completely - it now looks more like a primer, since we have gotten a good idea of where the deck is going. Also took out a bunch of cards and put in a bunch new ones. We're nearing something that could look like a final version.
The only really big question left is what to do with the excellent of idea of turning the permanents of opponents into creatures. Currently, as you can see I've put in Nature's Revolt and Living Plane since, well, everybody has lands, right? However, don't we have a problem with that package in that they can just tap their lands for mana and thus avoid having to attack?
One current card that shuts down that backdoor is Linvala, and that combo seems so insane it's almost too much for a chill kitchen table deck like this! Blowing up everyone's lands probably won't win us any popularity contests
At least Ixidron also blows up our own, which makes that play pretty lulzy/cool.
The alternative: March of the Machines + Opalescence + Titania's Song seems much less vulnerable since with the last two, you can't just tap stuff to avoid attacking and playing March + Linvala seems more fair. The flip side is that we can be sure our opponents have lands - they might not have enchantments and artifacts, and even if they do, they might only have 1 or 2.
So yeah. A bit miffed on where to go with those cards.
To touch on something entirely different, now that we have a lot of cards that give our opponents lots of smaller creatures (Goblin Spymaster, Seed the Land, Living Plane, Nature's Revolt, Forbidden Orchard etc.), we are definetely going to include Propaganda and Ghostly Prison since we were already considering them. I also took out Genesis Chamber since it seems to me we can spare it now, however it will go straight back in if I feel we need it.
Also I'm very sorry Welgo, I don't know how I didn't notice this until now:
I don't like Lightmine Field that much because the deck is trying to make our opponents kill each other. Lightmine Field stops the action, which is sort of the opposite of the deck's intended goal.
Last but not least, many apologies to Viroid: I missed your suggestions of the excellent Goblin Spymaster. As you can see, it is definetely in.
My only issue with this card is that each player gets a whole turn cycle
While this is completely true and I hadn't thought of it, I still think it can replace something like Antagonism and Impatience. While I like the idea of them (especially Impatience, since it "forces the issue" without just forcing attacks), they were simply too slow and their effects too marginal.
Re: Dormant Sliver. Hmmmm. I'm actually considering it. It really felt good casting those walls on saturday, but then again the decks I played were not exactly top tier and a sample size of 5-6 games isn't exactly huge. Big difference between 2 and 4 mana, too.
Well, this thread continues being gold: turning their permanents into creatures is a sweet, sweet idea. Really does something for both theme and efficiency. Living plane is kindda affordable in Italian on Troll & Toad, though unfortunately they're out of stock. However March of the Machines and Opalescence are interesting ideas, and Nature's Revolt is Capital N: iN. Definetely continuing down that route.
I played 5-6 matches in some 4-man commander with the deck so far this week. It is really, really fun. As far as functionality it has mixed success. Against a pretty high tier Rhys deck it was fairly good and very annoying, against less tuned decks it was hilarious, but I lost nearly every game. It is vulnerable to board clear, and though it always affects the game, it takes some work to set up a winning board state. One consistent thing I did notice was that games ended way, waaay sooner than they would have if I had been playing another deck. The deck throws a wrench into normal Commander politics and it almost succeed in forcing players to be proactive. Even if you die first, by that time you've done so much damage that life totals are low. I never lost without all of my opponents being reduced to less than 20 life.
So mission accomplished in that regard.
As far as cards/interactions:
- Angel's Trumpet is out. It taps our own walls... yeah. It's a really fun card with a unique effect that I'd like to keep, but it ruins any kind of hope of the deck being tuned for defence. Also, giving our opponents vigilance is surprisingly annoying. It is even worse considering:
- Players are often incentivized to attack us instead of each other. Some of you saw it coming. I suspect this will get much, much better once Angus and Spike Weaver get in there, but the deck could definetely use more sticks and carrots. Having Crawlspace out feels good, unsurprisingly, as does Gisela and Isperia. Regarding the sphinx, man would it be better if it was 4/6 rather than 6/4. But still, I found myself tutoring for Isperia almost every time I cast Eladamri's Call. She is not a lightning rod like Gisela and as far as defending us, does almost an equal amount of work.
- Defenders worked better than I would have thought. Having those replaces-it-self defenders really smoothes out the early game early-mid game, and they sit there waiting for assault formation for later. If you've got out three walls of varying functionality + something that forces attack, the deck is pretty much where it wants to be. As such I don't think I'll reduce that theme to the extent Welgo suggests, though I do thinking making it a Plan B win con with Assault Formation rather than a central strategy is what I'll be going for. Except for Wall of Denial, I think the vanilla walls like Aether Membrane will be out.
- Just want to reiterate: how did we miss Goblin Spymaster? One of the players lend it to me when we played. It really does do it all. Forces them to attack, gives them creatures to do it with - it even adds multiple permanents that forces them to attack, so they can't just remove our 1 enchantment or whatever.
I will be playing my first live matches with the deck tonight. Missing a few of the cards which are on their way in the mail, but we should still get somewhat of a picture of whether the deck can actually work at all.
Thank you for your continued phenomenal suggestions, Hunding.
- Minamo is definetely great. Can we afford to cut something like Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds maybe? Another potential land cut is Miren, the Moaning Well.
- Myriad and Blighted seem great in theory, we're just running so few basics that even running Kodama's, Cultivate and Wild-Field Scarecrow seems like enough of a stretch.
- I actually ran Wall of Nets in the original permutation, but cut it since all other Walls do more than just being walls, except for Denial, which is obviously fantastic, and Aether, which potentially is better. What could we cut for nets?
Let say you friend is playing marchesa, he then plays dictate of erebos, he is now forced to attack, but as it not convenient he sacrifices those creatures to goblin bombardment since they already have counters on them.
I have no solution to this board state, but is there one that doesn't take away the theme of the deck? As I told Viroid, the idea here is definetely not to be "competitive", but to make this particular theme function as well as it can.
you friend is playing tasigur, he almost dosen't have any board, only mesmeric orb and maybe 1-2 other permanents. He plays control.
Seed the Land + Forbidden Orchard, baby! We can fetch the first one in a couple of ways, and can even upgrade the 1/1s to 2/2s with Ixidron.
your friend plays Hanna, she is using a lot of taxing enchantments and artifacts, none of them creatures. Spells now are more difficult to play and the board has many artifacts in play making synergies together.
Sweeper + the above.
But I mean, there is no question that running into a competitive combo-deck that plays Eldrazi or whatever, we are dead. Fortunately, I think the playgroup's decks are even less optimized than this thing. Some of them run barely edited copies of the Commander set decks I believe.
Spike Weaver is out since I have not been able to find a copy anywhere. It will probably get back in once that happens, and until then, Angus will have to make do.
If I do that, I have another slot. I also still have seventeen defenders in there, including non-optimal stuff like Soulsworn Jury. I might cut even more defenders after testing.
As for the remaining open slot, what do you think about putting Akroma's Vengeance back in, just to have *some* sweeping-power? It can always be cycled. Another option is to take in another removal option - maybe one of the ones suggested by Viroid?
I would also like to find room in the manabase for another basic Island - there deck has become a bit more blue.
I personally think you could cut a defender or two to just push what the deck can do. Some of the blockers are pretty vanilla, I'd honestly cut them just because this theme has been a ton for me and I'm usually looking for something new and interesting to topdeck, idk how important the redundancy is, but personally I get pretty far just with cards like Edric and
You're probably right, maybe I can make do with all the replaces-itself-walls and a few of the key ones like Vent Sentinel. We'll see come testing - I have plenty of cards to supplant walls with if the deck turns out to run fine with less defenders.
Shifting gears, Reliquary Tower is a great EDH card and even the four color decks can support a few colorless utility lands, but do you actually have routine problems with discarding to hand size?
I figured it was "free" to run considering my mana base is decent, and when I resolve a good Recurring Insight it might come in handy.
Finally, Academy Rector is a tremendous rattlesnake and this deck has a bunch of nice things for it to find.
I had it in the deck, at the start, but took it out due to this advice:
Academy rector: she only finds Assault Formation? Is this not better as Enlightened Tutor or Idyllic Tutor?
The main reason was that I didn't have any ways to kill the rector myself, but I do run Reveillark and I do force combat, meaning the rector could block/discourage attacks at me... damn, I dunno.
On the subject of Angus Mackenzie being ninety freaking dollars, Imperial Recruiter has a lot of great targets in this list, too. Probably not worth the price tag in this instance, but options are options.
Actually, I found out the Italian MacKenzie was available for just 35 USD, so one is one its way! Recruiter... now THAT'S outside of my budget
I had already ordered when you guys, wrote, but both Seed the Land, Genesis Chamber and Muddle the Mixture are excellent suggestions. Will order them first chance I get. Any suggestions as to what to take out?
One observation: I think I might remove Angus Mackenzie and Spike Weaver for a the full Collective Restraints + Sphere of Safety + Propaganda + Ghostly Prison package. Enchantments don't fall pray to force-attack effects, and the cards synergize.
EDIT: also, Titania's Song and Opalescence are awesome
He also says this:
I just have a difficult time believing that Cathartic Reunion was not a deliberate design with Dredge at least partially in mind, meaning that if Wizards targets Dredge with bans, they don't have issues printing good cards for decks they deem oppressive.
Unless there's some serious foresight going on with them planning Dredge-bannings for a while and printing reunion to not completely kill the deck once the bannings occur.
Most of you seem to agree that Dredge-bans are 1) likely, and 2) warranted, for somewhat different reasons. Now, I just invested in my first Modern deck - Dredge - and so am obviously completely biased. But it seems to me that banning Dredge-pieces after just spending a year printing constant improvements to the deck, getting so many players investing in cards from those new sets because of it, seems hazardous from a marketing perspective?
In addition, why print cards like Cathartic Reunion that are so perfectly worded to support Dredge if your Modern R&Ders think the deck unhealthy? You could argue that Wizards have no problems targeting decks that arise from new sets as was the case with Eldrazi, but that deck arose as a consequence of a single set-release and can be regarded as a mistake. Dredge has been gradually improving over the year due to constant releases. If your data crunchers and playtesters think the deck should be nerfed, isn't it completely illogical to keep printing obvious improvements?
Like I said, I am sort of a noob when it comes to actual, Modern play-experience and have been swayed by many of the arguments of the last couple of pages. But those have pretty much all been rooted in "health of the format"-concerns or the ever-present idea that "most players hate dredge." Wizards knew those arguments while designing the last couple of sets - at least they certainly did when making Kaladesh. Won't there be a concern that banning something they have just popularized with constant, fresh additions over the last year will be taken as a sign that investing in Modern is a very risky endeavour?
Anyways, like I said, I am obviously biased since Dredge-bans will have a direct economic impact on me and will probably bar me from playing Paper Modern after just deciding to invest in it, but still, I'd like to see some of you with more Modern-experience than me answer those questions.
For Angus Mackenzie, I found an Italian version for $35. You can get a Spike Weaver much cheaper (I got mine for $8,50 at magiccardmarket.eu), and it's actually better than Angus in some ways. Though of course, it's already in the list.
Aurification is on the bench though - it fills the same sort of role as Angus though and isn't bad at all. In fact, Angus isn't perfect at all since he doesn't work when you play global "must attack" effects since then he has to attack as well. He might very well end up on the bench if we find find better sticks/carrots. You can also include extra Propaganda-effects: Propaganda itself and/or Ghostly Prison.
For Academy Rector, any sort of enchantment-search will work! Idyllic Tutor would be a good substitute if it wasn't so expensive, but Please for Guidance is pretty good in the deck and costs almost nothing! It gives us some much needed card advantage and can find the crucial combination of "force attack"-enchantment + Assault Formation. It's a little expensive which is why I ultimately took it out - even though we don't have much raw card draw our velocity is actually OK due to the draw Walls. The main reason I chose Rector over it is that it is a tutor and a carrot/stick combined, but I don't think Plea for Guidance is that much worse.
It most assuredly is. Will add it now. I think a friend has a copy I can borrow.
Good point, even tutoring for Minamo seems p. decent
Changes:
-Aurification
-Ghostly Prison
-Living Plane
-Nature's Revolt
-Propaganda
+Collective Restraint
+Opalescence
+Sphere of Safety
+Titania's Song
+Wargate
I'm still on the fence regarding Sphere of Safety vs. Ghostly Prison. Will start testing with Sphere of Safety and report back on the final decision.
Also still want to make room for Shardless Agent, but as a pure value-play it might not make the cut. Nearly all other pieces have some justification to the theme or can tutor for an interaction.
EDIT: Missed this since we posted concurrently. I'm gonna try it out just to see how often we have enchantments to support it. But it's probably going out in favor of Propaganda or Ghostly Prison at some point.
Collective Restraint is awesome - definetely replacing Propaganda. Are you sure about Sphere of Safety though? It's 2 mana more and it seems like we're mostly gonna get 2-3, sometimes the catastrophic 1.
HEY WIZARDS OF THE COAST, if you're listening, a version of Nature's Revolt that also says: "Lands have vigilance, and can only be tapped for mana after the declare attackers phase each turn" would be SICK
EDIT:
A couple of other thoughts:
- We should probably cut Aurification, since like ourselves, our opponents might actually prefer for some of their creatures to turn into walls.
- Is it just me, or does Wargate seem more and alluring? Our deck consists nearly entirely of permanents. The card is pretty much a Demonic Tutor that puts the card into play for just one additional mana!
- In testing so far, Shardless Agent has been surprisingly good. Yeah, it can often just flip a Wall of some kind giving os an 0/4 and a draw. But that's not... bad, actually. And best case it gets something like Assault Formation.
The only really big question left is what to do with the excellent of idea of turning the permanents of opponents into creatures. Currently, as you can see I've put in Nature's Revolt and Living Plane since, well, everybody has lands, right? However, don't we have a problem with that package in that they can just tap their lands for mana and thus avoid having to attack?
One current card that shuts down that backdoor is Linvala, and that combo seems so insane it's almost too much for a chill kitchen table deck like this! Blowing up everyone's lands probably won't win us any popularity contests
At least Ixidron also blows up our own, which makes that play pretty lulzy/cool.
The alternative: March of the Machines + Opalescence + Titania's Song seems much less vulnerable since with the last two, you can't just tap stuff to avoid attacking and playing March + Linvala seems more fair. The flip side is that we can be sure our opponents have lands - they might not have enchantments and artifacts, and even if they do, they might only have 1 or 2.
So yeah. A bit miffed on where to go with those cards.
To touch on something entirely different, now that we have a lot of cards that give our opponents lots of smaller creatures (Goblin Spymaster, Seed the Land, Living Plane, Nature's Revolt, Forbidden Orchard etc.), we are definetely going to include Propaganda and Ghostly Prison since we were already considering them. I also took out Genesis Chamber since it seems to me we can spare it now, however it will go straight back in if I feel we need it.
Also I'm very sorry Welgo, I don't know how I didn't notice this until now:
I don't like Lightmine Field that much because the deck is trying to make our opponents kill each other. Lightmine Field stops the action, which is sort of the opposite of the deck's intended goal.
Last but not least, many apologies to Viroid: I missed your suggestions of the excellent Goblin Spymaster. As you can see, it is definetely in.
The specific changes I made to the deck are:
+Academy Rector
+Angus MacKenzie
+Ghostly Prison
+Goblin Spymaster
+Living Plane
+Minamo, School at Water's Edge
+Nature's Revolt
+Propaganda
+Spike Weaver
-Æther Membrane
-Angel's Trumpet
-Antagonism
-Evolving Wilds
-Genesis Chamber
-Heckling Fiends
-Impatience
-Jeskai Barricade
-Psychic Membrane
While this is completely true and I hadn't thought of it, I still think it can replace something like Antagonism and Impatience. While I like the idea of them (especially Impatience, since it "forces the issue" without just forcing attacks), they were simply too slow and their effects too marginal.
Re: Dormant Sliver. Hmmmm. I'm actually considering it. It really felt good casting those walls on saturday, but then again the decks I played were not exactly top tier and a sample size of 5-6 games isn't exactly huge. Big difference between 2 and 4 mana, too.
EDIT: Wombo combo!
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Living Lands + Magical Hack
...OK, maybe not
I played 5-6 matches in some 4-man commander with the deck so far this week. It is really, really fun. As far as functionality it has mixed success. Against a pretty high tier Rhys deck it was fairly good and very annoying, against less tuned decks it was hilarious, but I lost nearly every game. It is vulnerable to board clear, and though it always affects the game, it takes some work to set up a winning board state. One consistent thing I did notice was that games ended way, waaay sooner than they would have if I had been playing another deck. The deck throws a wrench into normal Commander politics and it almost succeed in forcing players to be proactive. Even if you die first, by that time you've done so much damage that life totals are low. I never lost without all of my opponents being reduced to less than 20 life.
So mission accomplished in that regard.
As far as cards/interactions:
- Angel's Trumpet is out. It taps our own walls... yeah. It's a really fun card with a unique effect that I'd like to keep, but it ruins any kind of hope of the deck being tuned for defence. Also, giving our opponents vigilance is surprisingly annoying. It is even worse considering:
- Players are often incentivized to attack us instead of each other. Some of you saw it coming. I suspect this will get much, much better once Angus and Spike Weaver get in there, but the deck could definetely use more sticks and carrots. Having Crawlspace out feels good, unsurprisingly, as does Gisela and Isperia. Regarding the sphinx, man would it be better if it was 4/6 rather than 6/4. But still, I found myself tutoring for Isperia almost every time I cast Eladamri's Call. She is not a lightning rod like Gisela and as far as defending us, does almost an equal amount of work.
- Defenders worked better than I would have thought. Having those replaces-it-self defenders really smoothes out the early game early-mid game, and they sit there waiting for assault formation for later. If you've got out three walls of varying functionality + something that forces attack, the deck is pretty much where it wants to be. As such I don't think I'll reduce that theme to the extent Welgo suggests, though I do thinking making it a Plan B win con with Assault Formation rather than a central strategy is what I'll be going for. Except for Wall of Denial, I think the vanilla walls like Aether Membrane will be out.
- Just want to reiterate: how did we miss Goblin Spymaster? One of the players lend it to me when we played. It really does do it all. Forces them to attack, gives them creatures to do it with - it even adds multiple permanents that forces them to attack, so they can't just remove our 1 enchantment or whatever.
EDIT: DOH, Viroid already suggested it! Thanks mate, dunno how I missed that.
Thank you for your continued phenomenal suggestions, Hunding.
- Minamo is definetely great. Can we afford to cut something like Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds maybe? Another potential land cut is Miren, the Moaning Well.
- Myriad and Blighted seem great in theory, we're just running so few basics that even running Kodama's, Cultivate and Wild-Field Scarecrow seems like enough of a stretch.
- I actually ran Wall of Nets in the original permutation, but cut it since all other Walls do more than just being walls, except for Denial, which is obviously fantastic, and Aether, which potentially is better. What could we cut for nets?
I have no solution to this board state, but is there one that doesn't take away the theme of the deck? As I told Viroid, the idea here is definetely not to be "competitive", but to make this particular theme function as well as it can.
Seed the Land + Forbidden Orchard, baby! We can fetch the first one in a couple of ways, and can even upgrade the 1/1s to 2/2s with Ixidron.
Sweeper + the above.
But I mean, there is no question that running into a competitive combo-deck that plays Eldrazi or whatever, we are dead. Fortunately, I think the playgroup's decks are even less optimized than this thing. Some of them run barely edited copies of the Commander set decks I believe.
+Linvala
+Angus MacKenzie
+Academy Rector
+Evolving Wilds
-Jeskai Barricade
-Spike Weaver
-Reliquary Tower
-Heckling Fiends
-Psychic Membrane
Spike Weaver is out since I have not been able to find a copy anywhere. It will probably get back in once that happens, and until then, Angus will have to make do.
If I do that, I have another slot. I also still have seventeen defenders in there, including non-optimal stuff like Soulsworn Jury. I might cut even more defenders after testing.
As for the remaining open slot, what do you think about putting Akroma's Vengeance back in, just to have *some* sweeping-power? It can always be cycled. Another option is to take in another removal option - maybe one of the ones suggested by Viroid?
I would also like to find room in the manabase for another basic Island - there deck has become a bit more blue.
You're probably right, maybe I can make do with all the replaces-itself-walls and a few of the key ones like Vent Sentinel. We'll see come testing - I have plenty of cards to supplant walls with if the deck turns out to run fine with less defenders.
I figured it was "free" to run considering my mana base is decent, and when I resolve a good Recurring Insight it might come in handy.
I had it in the deck, at the start, but took it out due to this advice:
The main reason was that I didn't have any ways to kill the rector myself, but I do run Reveillark and I do force combat, meaning the rector could block/discourage attacks at me... damn, I dunno.
Actually, I found out the Italian MacKenzie was available for just 35 USD, so one is one its way! Recruiter... now THAT'S outside of my budget