Its a very strong card, even if its turn 3 discard 2 at random. So if that mono-green azusa player is running away with super early ramp, chuck a mind twist at her and watch the top decking begin.
In general, card discard is a good counter to greedy ramp strategies and an alternative to straight/mass LD.
perplex, houseguard, brainspoil, muddle are my picks as they serve strong functions outside of the transmute ability.
perplex: counter / grave oriented decks like the discard
houseguard: free sac outlet, useful with ooze
brainspoil: almost a straight removal card
muddle: cheap counter
Mimeoplasm: Right after it got spoiled, I preordered the precon as I knew this baller had everything going for him. He's grave hate, body double x1.5, and general damage at a low price of 5cc rolled up in one sausage burrito. The deck is sort of an amalgamation of all the Geth/Wrexial/Oona/Nath/Glissa/Sakashima builds that I had in the past.
Horde of Notions: Needed a General to fit the dream halls deck which was originally inspired by the movie Inception. Horde was good because it opened up the elemental theme (including mana-lands) as the ground work or normal basis for operations that the deck could mask as.
Maga the Traitor: This one was easy. The renaments of all the mono-black super ramp cards paved way for Maga to reign on top.
Riku of two reflections: Pauper deck came from a pauper cube draft deck sporting recurring Rolling Thunder theme. Extending this to Riku + token/bounce theme was naturally in the colors.
Child of Alara: An amalgamation of all the voltron/stack shennegains along with pure recursion builds I had in the past. Elements from my old Brion stoutarm voltron deck merged with heavy recursion themes to form this 5 color nephilim idea.
Yavimaya Hollow will let glissa survive her own disk/oblivion stone.
Ashnod’s Altar, Spine lack relevance. I'd consider Voyager Staff for recurrable shenanigans. Mindstone and Dreamstone hedron are good ramp. Looks like you have a token theme going on. I'd suggest Gaea's Cradle if budget isn't an issue.
Overall, the curve of the deck looks way too high (also inflated even more by mana sinks like Geth, graverobber, exsanguinate, ant queen, genesis wave) without sufficient ramp. I'd board in the standard ramp like cultivate/kadoma's reach over the clunky Pharaoh and tormord's crypt. Also, 36 lands (effectively 35 given coffers) is way too low for what you're trying to do.
The Bramble Elemental theme seems a little shaky without a way to reliably find it, but I'm not a pauper guy so I can't say if that's a problem. Frenzied Tilling and Rushing River are both solid disruption cards that fit with your existing things. I'd probably lose the other counters, too. Non-pauper Riku tends to tap out a lot in my experience, which isn't really conducive to counters.
Like I say, I don't play pauper so I could be way off on all of this. List looks like a good one, though.
Frenzied Tilling is good, like Mwonvuli Acid-Moss and Reap and Sow. Rushing River may be too limited, especially in multiplayer where tempo is mitigated.
From playtesting pauper, I find it as an even more "gridier" version of attrition EDH. That is, the games are much slower, fewer infinite combo shennegains, explosive plays/chains begin much later in the game, a reliance on some form of combat damage for once. As you suggested, I will probably lose the higher cc counters like Exclude because of how mana hungry the deck is.
On Bramble elemental. The auras of this deck can hold themselves on their own. The worse case would be drawing him without any auras at hand and paying 5 mana for a vanilla 4/4 (not too bad for pauper, but certainly could be better).
Updated list:
-Added a mini aura sub-theme centering on Bramble Elemental.
-Tuned the disruption, cutting boring counterspell and faerie trickery for more creature oriented stuff.
I rate real "answer" cards by a number of attributes:
+Exile
+Instant Speed
+Mana cost <= 3
Target on stack vs non-stack
Both extremes of the threat-answer ratio are viable. Decks that get lumped into "the best answer is a greater threat" group are either super aggro or combo decks. The ones running most answers are the heavy control ones like mono-blue counters, mono-black discard, mono-white wrath decks.
I personally prefer the former because its creates more dynamic board states than having nothing resolve/stick to the board table for long.
After a short-long hiatus from magic, I'm back and with a new idea for a my first pauper build.
Short history:
While common-cube drafting a few months back, I saw a build in UGR colors that relied on packing big ramp and recurring sorcery speed fireball effects while stalling the board with utility creatures. Here, I'm expanding that deck/strategy with several more themes to fit the 100 card singleton EDH domain. I'm picking Riku of two reflections as my General because he synergies with big mana and copying large effects/fatties.
Themes
Big ramp +landfall + Fireball Effects + sorcery recursion : We're packing most of the land ramp utility dorks and 2 for 1's available in the common/color slot. Copying/recurring fireball effects will be the major win-con. We use Anarchist, Izzet Chronarch, and Mnemonic Wall to repeatedly burn players out. Windrider Eel and the trinket mage fetchable Adventuring Gear provide landfall trigger enabled aggro.
Bounce Effects: A large portion of our disruption/utility is dedicated to bounce effects. We can remove most nasty permanents from the board while providing a tempo swing in our favor. This also opens up the option for recurring our own utility creatures (see sorcery recursion guys above) along with other utility removal dorks. Wizard Mentor is a hilarious piece with enough mana and Riku making the rounds.
Tokens: Another way to gum up the board via Eldrazi spawns, Sparoling, and Riku shenanigans. Creatures that bring friends like Eldrazi drones are good as they can be tokenized. Evoke mechanic creatures can be cheated into play at a lower cost and tokenized. Sprout Storm is another recurrable win-con on its own.
Haven't updated this deck in a while due to work but I'll address some posts:
@trzosoo
1. Three quality artifacts is plenty considering that solring, clamp, top provide mana, carddraw, and digging.
2. Cheap carddraw is good. 3cc early game or 5cc later as a chump blocker is fine by me. Plus, creature recursion makes this a lot better than on paper.
3. Snake is recurrable. Synergies with instant speed recursion make it better over crumble and other tuck effects.
4. $$$ heh. My one copy belongs to 5color.
@Thanos33
-synergetic counterspells: most of those listed are not. Synergistic ones are usually creature based, recurrable.
-Capsize: Overrated outside muc
-Yawgwill: overrated unless running super low curve or super mana ramp builds
-Other cards listed: different build, opportunity cost/synergy reasons. Goal isn't to pick cards that are just powerful in a vacuum, but ones that work well both by themselves and with others.
@Uber_Kat
-Combo is win, and the draws can be brutal.
-Hydra Omnivore has to connect, so it warrants additional cards with trample/evasion (may be too much work)
-Grafted Exo: Not the right build. This guy does more voltron decks that reliably tutors for this like Godo.
@Steelhawks
- I considered this guy initially but found that he junked up my topdecking and didn't impact the board when he landed. Hes good vs voltron decks but for the most part does nothing vs token/aggro/combo/control.
funnyshady stuff with oracle/azusa out in play. Otherwise, its blue pseudo-Armageddon.In general, card discard is a good counter to greedy ramp strategies and an alternative to straight/mass LD.
perplex: counter / grave oriented decks like the discard
houseguard: free sac outlet, useful with ooze
brainspoil: almost a straight removal card
muddle: cheap counter
Horde of Notions: Needed a General to fit the dream halls deck which was originally inspired by the movie Inception. Horde was good because it opened up the elemental theme (including mana-lands) as the ground work or normal basis for operations that the deck could mask as.
Maga the Traitor: This one was easy. The renaments of all the mono-black super ramp cards paved way for Maga to reign on top.
Riku of two reflections: Pauper deck came from a pauper cube draft deck sporting recurring Rolling Thunder theme. Extending this to Riku + token/bounce theme was naturally in the colors.
Child of Alara: An amalgamation of all the voltron/stack shennegains along with pure recursion builds I had in the past. Elements from my old Brion stoutarm voltron deck merged with heavy recursion themes to form this 5 color nephilim idea.
Ashnod’s Altar, Spine lack relevance. I'd consider Voyager Staff for recurrable shenanigans. Mindstone and Dreamstone hedron are good ramp. Looks like you have a token theme going on. I'd suggest Gaea's Cradle if budget isn't an issue.
Overall, the curve of the deck looks way too high (also inflated even more by mana sinks like Geth, graverobber, exsanguinate, ant queen, genesis wave) without sufficient ramp. I'd board in the standard ramp like cultivate/kadoma's reach over the clunky Pharaoh and tormord's crypt. Also, 36 lands (effectively 35 given coffers) is way too low for what you're trying to do.
Frenzied Tilling is good, like Mwonvuli Acid-Moss and Reap and Sow. Rushing River may be too limited, especially in multiplayer where tempo is mitigated.
From playtesting pauper, I find it as an even more "gridier" version of attrition EDH. That is, the games are much slower, fewer infinite combo shennegains, explosive plays/chains begin much later in the game, a reliance on some form of combat damage for once. As you suggested, I will probably lose the higher cc counters like Exclude because of how mana hungry the deck is.
On Bramble elemental. The auras of this deck can hold themselves on their own. The worse case would be drawing him without any auras at hand and paying 5 mana for a vanilla 4/4 (not too bad for pauper, but certainly could be better).
-Added a mini aura sub-theme centering on Bramble Elemental.
-Tuned the disruption, cutting boring counterspell and faerie trickery for more creature oriented stuff.
+Exile
+Instant Speed
+Mana cost <= 3
Target on stack vs non-stack
Both extremes of the threat-answer ratio are viable. Decks that get lumped into "the best answer is a greater threat" group are either super aggro or combo decks. The ones running most answers are the heavy control ones like mono-blue counters, mono-black discard, mono-white wrath decks.
I personally prefer the former because its creates more dynamic board states than having nothing resolve/stick to the board table for long.
Short history:
While common-cube drafting a few months back, I saw a build in UGR colors that relied on packing big ramp and recurring sorcery speed fireball effects while stalling the board with utility creatures. Here, I'm expanding that deck/strategy with several more themes to fit the 100 card singleton EDH domain. I'm picking Riku of two reflections as my General because he synergies with big mana and copying large effects/fatties.
Themes
Tips, suggestions, comments are always welcome!
8 Forest
5 Mountain
7 Island
1 Tree of Tales
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Great Furnace
1 Bant Panorama
1 Naya Panorama
1 Jund Panorama
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Gruul Turf
1 Rupture Spire
1 Command Tower
1 Halimar Depths
1 Soaring Seacliff
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Lonely Sandbar
Broken Copy Machine
1 Riku of Two Reflections
Utility / others
1 Adventuring Gear
1 Rancor
1 Sprout Storm
1 Wizard Mentor
Disruption
1 Ingot Chewer
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Night Soil
1 Into the Roil
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Arcane Denial
1 Man-o'-War
1 Aether Adept
1 Capsize
1 Winged Coatl
1 Spiketail Drakeling
1 Aethersnipe
1 Sundering Vitae
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Aftershock
1 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
1 Reap and Sow
1 Mold Shambler
1 Frenzied Tilling
1 Relic Crush
1 Fissure
1 Disintegrate
1 Kaervek's Torch
1 Fireball
1 Rolling Thunder
1 Windrider Eel
1 Morselhoarder
1 Ulamog's Crusher
Tutoring
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Fierce Empath
1 Trinket Mage
Ramp/fixing
1 Evolution Charm
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Coiling Oracle
1 Tilling Treefolk
1 Cultivate
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Wood Elves
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Krosan Tusker
1 Ondu Giant
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Kozilek's Predator
1 Emrakul's Hatcher
Draw
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystic Remora
1 Ninja of the Deep Hours
1 Frantic Search
1 Mulldrifter
1 Compulsive Research
1 Rhystic Study
1 Deep Analysis
1 Foresee
1 Anarchist
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Izzet Chronarch
@trzosoo
1. Three quality artifacts is plenty considering that solring, clamp, top provide mana, carddraw, and digging.
2. Cheap carddraw is good. 3cc early game or 5cc later as a chump blocker is fine by me. Plus, creature recursion makes this a lot better than on paper.
3. Snake is recurrable. Synergies with instant speed recursion make it better over crumble and other tuck effects.
4. $$$ heh. My one copy belongs to 5color.
@Thanos33
-synergetic counterspells: most of those listed are not. Synergistic ones are usually creature based, recurrable.
-Capsize: Overrated outside muc
-Yawgwill: overrated unless running super low curve or super mana ramp builds
-Other cards listed: different build, opportunity cost/synergy reasons. Goal isn't to pick cards that are just powerful in a vacuum, but ones that work well both by themselves and with others.
@Uber_Kat
-Combo is win, and the draws can be brutal.
-Hydra Omnivore has to connect, so it warrants additional cards with trample/evasion (may be too much work)
-Grafted Exo: Not the right build. This guy does more voltron decks that reliably tutors for this like Godo.
@Steelhawks
- I considered this guy initially but found that he junked up my topdecking and didn't impact the board when he landed. Hes good vs voltron decks but for the most part does nothing vs token/aggro/combo/control.