I hope I'm not the only person excited about Gruul Ragebeast. This card is actually insane.
Mayael is one of my generals... and in my testing, this card just wrecks face. My creatures are generally bigger than most others so around 85% of the fighting is favorable for me and another 5-10% ends up in both of us losing a creature... which is still fine in a lot of cases.
A fair amount of SUPER problamatic generals are low P/T as well (Sisay, Kalia, Edric, Kiki-Jiki just to name a few) so casting your general afterwards with her 3 points in the @$$ can do work.
I've been playing Mayael as one of my EDH Generals for 2+ years. The cards we gain from this set to me feel like we received a large gift. I felt the same way with Avacyn Restored. The cards we gained from that set were huge additions for us.
I've been testing the Ragebeast and the 3 Primordials in the deck for the past week. These cards are nuts.
In my testing, Gruul Ragebeast has been killed almost immediately on sight. People are too afraid of it. With all the ways you have to cheat creatures out, it can lock certain decks out of the game once in play. Recurrable removal is nothing to scoff at.
I replaced Duplicant with Luminate Primordial. The life gain and extra 1 is hardly relevant compared to the upside of hitting multiple creatures and Kiki-Jiki abuse.
The same ideology was utilized in replacing Conquering Manticore with Molten Primordial. I do miss the flying with the Manticore... but to be able to cast Eureka and drop Molten Primordial and Kiki-Jiki is usually a game ender.
Moldgraf Monstrosity got the boot for Sylvan Primordial. I am not going to say too much about it as people have posted in great detail their feelings on this card. It's green, it's power greater than 5, and it's ETB effect is bananas. It will get played in this deck until it is not legal in the format.
A lot of good information and it makes me want to play Karador for sure. The Karmic Guide/Resto Angel combo wouldn't work though. Karmic Guide is an Angel Spirit via oracle and Resto's effect will only work on a non angel.
You are correct sir. Thank you for pointing that out for me ;D Appreciate it, I will edit my comment to reflect the change.
Looks like you want to play the Super Combo Karador deck. Lucky for you, I've been playing this for awhile and would like to share my findings.
So your deck's primary wincon utilizes a egg-basket type strategy where you literally go balls-out to try to go off. I've tried this approach in a similar manner (I used Hermit Druid as well as a Iname, Death Aspect package) and the results are not good. My EDH meta environment is pretty competitive and people run all sorts of tech to deal with this type of strategy that they can do DURING your turn (Crop rotation at instant speed for Bojuka Bog, Gather Specimens, etc).
I feel that the most important part of playing a Karador Combo deck is making sure you do not OVER-EXTEND your graveyard. Your density of threats needs to be so high that just a little self mill goes a long way.
My approach to the deck is to literally have a TON of different combos that share pieces with each other and interact in similar ways.
Reveillark + Saffi Eriksdotter: Saffi goes infinite with Lark and a Sac-Outlet. Sac Saffi targeting Lark, Sac Lark, Lark's LTB triggers bringing back Saffi and another <=2 power creature, Saffi's ability resolves bringing Lark back. Infinite. When used WITH Karmic Guide as that other 2 power creature, you then get any other creature from your graveyard back infinitely as well.
Sun Titan + Fiend Hunter: Fiend Hunter ETB removes Sun Titan, Sac Fiend Hunter, Sun Titan's ETB returns Fiend Hunter, Fiend Hunter again targets Sun Titan. Infinite.
Sun Titan + Restoration Angel + Necromancy/Animate Dead: Sun Titan ETB targets Enchantment, Enchantment ETB targets Angel, Angel ETB *targets* Sun Titan --- IN RESPONSE to the targeting Sac Angel, Enchantment falls off and goes to yard, resolve the blinking of Sun Titan, Sun Titan ETB targets Enchantment. Infinite.
NEW!Sun Titan + Karmic Guide + Necromancy/Animate Dead: Sun Titan ETB targets Enchantment, Enchantment ETB *targets* Guide --- IN RESPONSE Sac Sun Titan, Guide ETB --- Guide's ETB trigger is placed on the stack but FIRST the Enchantment falls off due to state based effects which also puts Guide in the yard (Karmic Guide is pro-black), resolve Guide's ETB trigger targetting Sun Titan, Sun Titan ETB targets Enchantment. Infinite.
So with those combination of 2-3 card with a sac-outlet I get the following effects:
Altar of Dementia: The best one in my opinion. It's main purpose allows me to infinitely mill my opponents, no matter what creature engine I use. If they have Eldrazi, then that's fine... there's another facet to this plan: you mill yourself. I usually like to leave around 20 cards in my deck, just to be safe. You mill until Reveillark, Acidic Slime, and Duplicant are in your yard. You then proceed to infinitely remove all their creatures and blow up their artifacts, enchantments, and lands. It also allows you to one shot people with Lord of Extinction if he's big enough while not comboing.
Blasting Station: Second best sac-outlet and the only other one that can instantly win the game despite the creature engine you use. It literally just PEW-PEWS infinitely for the win.
Phyrexian Altar: Third best sac-outlet. This one is a bit different for two reasons. 1.) Depending on which creature engine you use, it may no instantly win you the game (Example: Sun Titan + Saffi). You make infinite mana... but if you have no cards in hand then you are limited to casting Karador infinitely and repeating an ETB of another creature that hopefully gets you there. 2.) Inversely, Phyrexian Altar opens up another combo win condition exclusive to it:
Phyrexian Altar + Eternal Witness + 4 other creatures + Living Death: Sac all the creatures to produce BBBBB, Cast Living Death, Return all the creatures in your yard to the battlefield, Witness ETB returns Living Death back to hand. Infinite.
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter: This one works but it's a bit tricky. You can engine with him to kill all of your opponents creatures (including indestructible ones as you will put infinite -1/-1 instances on all those creatures). This also allows you to make Vish-Kal arbitarily large which can also help you win the game.
Mirror Entity: This one is a bit different as it's exclusively used with Reveillark: Evoke Lark, return Guide and Mirror Entity to play, Guide ETB targets Lark. Once all 3 are in play, place 20 instances of Mirror Entities activated ability on the stack with a value of 0. Resolve the first instance, all creatures you control die, return Guide + another <=2 power creature of your choice to the battlefield, Guide ETB returns Lark to battlefield, resolve 2nd instance, ..., repeat, ... on the LAST instance ENSURE that you return Mirror Entity. You can do this as many times as you like. Creatures like Acidic Slime ensure to make this game breaking.
This card has a secondary use in just being a very dangerous mana sink. With Cabal Coffers + Urborg, you can produce scary amounts of mana. You could just aggro your opponent out by making all your creatures 15/15's. Just another option.
---Lark Combo Targets---
Eternal Witness: Allows you to infinitely retrieve cards from your yard. Very important as it makes your Phyrexian Altar sac outlet much more potent: while producing infinite mana, any Instant/Sorcery in your yard goes infinite. Demonic Tutor or any other tutor essentially will allow you to cast any spell in your deck infinite times.
Duplicant: Allows you to exile any creature on the battlefield
Qasali Pridemage: This card great and I feel it edges out Harmonic Sliver for 2 reasons. 1.) It sacs itself which is important for interaction with Karador. 2.) It's CMC 2 allows it to sac to Birthing Pod to get a 3 CMC creature. It may not sound like much but the down side of having to spend the mana for it's effect each time (which shouldn't make a difference as Harmonic Sliver costs 3 CMC anyways) does not outweigh the benefit of the above factors.
Disciple of Bolas: This little gem allows you to gain infinite life and draw infinite cards at the cost of having to be spot on with the timing of your triggers. Lark LTB triggers resolves returning Guide and Disciple, place Guide's ETB on the stack first then Disciple's ETB afterwards so that the Disciple's ETB RESOLVES first saccing the Karmic Guide (NOT SURE IF THIS WORKS --- CAN SOMEONE CHECK AS KARMIC GUIDE IS PRO-BLACK. Disciple's ability states "another creature" which makes me think it doesn't target) , Sac Bolas before Lark ETB. Infinite.
Yosei, the Falling Star: Allows you to lock players out of the game. Karador allows you to cast him each turn, you just need a sac-outlet to ensure this consistently happens. The Living Death + Witness combo package allows you to essentially end the game with the inclusion of Yosei.
Mesmeric Orb: Helps fill your yard, puts a lot of opponents on tilt and a lot of decks just can't deal with that type of disruption.
---
Lastly, 47 lands is just insane. Way too many. I'd cut down to 38. I am greedy and play 36 and have a ton of wins under my belt.
Hope this post was informative! Let me know what you all think ;D
I ran Nath for a long time. I would suggest Ill-Gotten Gains. Also I would focus the deck as more of a STAX type deck. Nath loves Braids effects so Smokestack and Sheoldred, Whispering One fit in quite nicely.
If you can get your hands on a Gaea's Cradle, I would do it. This deck loves it ;D
My list in my signature is quite old. Garruk, the Veil-Cursed might have a place in this deck as well.
I know I am about to walk into the maws of hell for even mentioning this...
... but it's known that our matchup against RDW is horrible and that could be said for any quick aggro deck.
So I've been trying to think of why we lose to this matchup, and also how I've won any games against those decks. What I came up was the fact that if we didn't take so much damage in the early game, that we would have enough time to take control of the game with our big spells... which is exactly what happened in the games I did end up winning in playtesting.
So I've been testing Wall of Tanglecord to slow those decks down JUST enough to take advantage and it's actually helped swing the aggro matchup quite significantly.
-As a turn 2 drop, it is perfectly setup to block everything RDW and the White aggro decks play early game.
-Can only be Dismembered once blocked, and they still pay the price for that in life and a card in hand.
-Able to block Mirran Crusader
-Able to be recurred with Sun Titan if necessary
-Able to be pitched to Liliana if necessary
Have Spine, Ironworks, and a reduction effect in play, cast Sculpting Steel for 2 targeting Spine, resolve ETB trigger, sacrifice Sculpting Steel to Ironworks to produce 2, resolve the copied Spines graveyard trigger to return the Sculpting Steel to your hand. Loop.
My friend "went off" with Cycling lands, Life from the Loam, Worm Harvest and Phyrexian Altar once to draw his deck.
This was actually the combo I was going to post as I coincidentally happened upon it while piloting Karador. It was literally the sickest turn I've ever had in EDH and was so excited to share it... ... until I read this post Kudos to you good sir for experiencing this as well LOL.
While I was going off, I ended up with an absurd amount of tokens which I could sac for tons of mana. I also dumped a good majority of my deck into my graveyard which is exactly what Karador wants. I played Karador, revived E-Wit to get Living Death, sacced all my tokens and the E-Wit for mana, cast Living Death resurrecting my entire yard, E-Wit trigger targeting Living Death. I went infinite from there.
Mayael is one of my generals... and in my testing, this card just wrecks face. My creatures are generally bigger than most others so around 85% of the fighting is favorable for me and another 5-10% ends up in both of us losing a creature... which is still fine in a lot of cases.
A fair amount of SUPER problamatic generals are low P/T as well (Sisay, Kalia, Edric, Kiki-Jiki just to name a few) so casting your general afterwards with her 3 points in the @$$ can do work.
I've been testing the Ragebeast and the 3 Primordials in the deck for the past week. These cards are nuts.
In my testing, Gruul Ragebeast has been killed almost immediately on sight. People are too afraid of it. With all the ways you have to cheat creatures out, it can lock certain decks out of the game once in play. Recurrable removal is nothing to scoff at.
I replaced Duplicant with Luminate Primordial. The life gain and extra 1 is hardly relevant compared to the upside of hitting multiple creatures and Kiki-Jiki abuse.
The same ideology was utilized in replacing Conquering Manticore with Molten Primordial. I do miss the flying with the Manticore... but to be able to cast Eureka and drop Molten Primordial and Kiki-Jiki is usually a game ender.
Moldgraf Monstrosity got the boot for Sylvan Primordial. I am not going to say too much about it as people have posted in great detail their feelings on this card. It's green, it's power greater than 5, and it's ETB effect is bananas. It will get played in this deck until it is not legal in the format.
You are correct sir. Thank you for pointing that out for me ;D Appreciate it, I will edit my comment to reflect the change.
So your deck's primary wincon utilizes a egg-basket type strategy where you literally go balls-out to try to go off. I've tried this approach in a similar manner (I used Hermit Druid as well as a Iname, Death Aspect package) and the results are not good. My EDH meta environment is pretty competitive and people run all sorts of tech to deal with this type of strategy that they can do DURING your turn (Crop rotation at instant speed for Bojuka Bog, Gather Specimens, etc).
I feel that the most important part of playing a Karador Combo deck is making sure you do not OVER-EXTEND your graveyard. Your density of threats needs to be so high that just a little self mill goes a long way.
My approach to the deck is to literally have a TON of different combos that share pieces with each other and interact in similar ways.
---Creature Engine---
My preferred sac-outlets: Altar of Dementia, Phyrexian Altar, Blasting Station, Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter, and Mirror Entity.
I run all of those in my deck as they all can win me the game with a multitude of creature combinations. For example:
Reveillark + Karmic Guide: Known combo. Infinite.
Reveillark + Saffi Eriksdotter: Saffi goes infinite with Lark and a Sac-Outlet. Sac Saffi targeting Lark, Sac Lark, Lark's LTB triggers bringing back Saffi and another <=2 power creature, Saffi's ability resolves bringing Lark back. Infinite. When used WITH Karmic Guide as that other 2 power creature, you then get any other creature from your graveyard back infinitely as well.
Sun Titan + Saffi Eriksdotter: Same as above with Karmic Guide.
Sun Titan + Fiend Hunter: Fiend Hunter ETB removes Sun Titan, Sac Fiend Hunter, Sun Titan's ETB returns Fiend Hunter, Fiend Hunter again targets Sun Titan. Infinite.
Sun Titan + Restoration Angel + Necromancy/Animate Dead: Sun Titan ETB targets Enchantment, Enchantment ETB targets Angel, Angel ETB *targets* Sun Titan --- IN RESPONSE to the targeting Sac Angel, Enchantment falls off and goes to yard, resolve the blinking of Sun Titan, Sun Titan ETB targets Enchantment. Infinite.
NEW! Sun Titan + Karmic Guide + Necromancy/Animate Dead: Sun Titan ETB targets Enchantment, Enchantment ETB *targets* Guide --- IN RESPONSE Sac Sun Titan, Guide ETB --- Guide's ETB trigger is placed on the stack but FIRST the Enchantment falls off due to state based effects which also puts Guide in the yard (Karmic Guide is pro-black), resolve Guide's ETB trigger targetting Sun Titan, Sun Titan ETB targets Enchantment. Infinite.
Karmic Guide + Saffi Eriksdotter: Sac Saffi targeting Guide, Sac Guide, Saffi's ability resolves bringing Guide back, Guide's ETB brings back Saffi. Infinite.
Karmic Guide + Fiend Hunter: Same as Sun Titan + Fiend Hunter listed above.
---Sac-Outlets---
So with those combination of 2-3 card with a sac-outlet I get the following effects:
Altar of Dementia: The best one in my opinion. It's main purpose allows me to infinitely mill my opponents, no matter what creature engine I use. If they have Eldrazi, then that's fine... there's another facet to this plan: you mill yourself. I usually like to leave around 20 cards in my deck, just to be safe. You mill until Reveillark, Acidic Slime, and Duplicant are in your yard. You then proceed to infinitely remove all their creatures and blow up their artifacts, enchantments, and lands. It also allows you to one shot people with Lord of Extinction if he's big enough while not comboing.
Blasting Station: Second best sac-outlet and the only other one that can instantly win the game despite the creature engine you use. It literally just PEW-PEWS infinitely for the win.
Phyrexian Altar: Third best sac-outlet. This one is a bit different for two reasons. 1.) Depending on which creature engine you use, it may no instantly win you the game (Example: Sun Titan + Saffi). You make infinite mana... but if you have no cards in hand then you are limited to casting Karador infinitely and repeating an ETB of another creature that hopefully gets you there. 2.) Inversely, Phyrexian Altar opens up another combo win condition exclusive to it:
Phyrexian Altar + Eternal Witness + 4 other creatures + Living Death: Sac all the creatures to produce BBBBB, Cast Living Death, Return all the creatures in your yard to the battlefield, Witness ETB returns Living Death back to hand. Infinite.
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter: This one works but it's a bit tricky. You can engine with him to kill all of your opponents creatures (including indestructible ones as you will put infinite -1/-1 instances on all those creatures). This also allows you to make Vish-Kal arbitarily large which can also help you win the game.
Mirror Entity: This one is a bit different as it's exclusively used with Reveillark: Evoke Lark, return Guide and Mirror Entity to play, Guide ETB targets Lark. Once all 3 are in play, place 20 instances of Mirror Entities activated ability on the stack with a value of 0. Resolve the first instance, all creatures you control die, return Guide + another <=2 power creature of your choice to the battlefield, Guide ETB returns Lark to battlefield, resolve 2nd instance, ..., repeat, ... on the LAST instance ENSURE that you return Mirror Entity. You can do this as many times as you like. Creatures like Acidic Slime ensure to make this game breaking.
This card has a secondary use in just being a very dangerous mana sink. With Cabal Coffers + Urborg, you can produce scary amounts of mana. You could just aggro your opponent out by making all your creatures 15/15's. Just another option.
---Lark Combo Targets---
Eternal Witness: Allows you to infinitely retrieve cards from your yard. Very important as it makes your Phyrexian Altar sac outlet much more potent: while producing infinite mana, any Instant/Sorcery in your yard goes infinite. Demonic Tutor or any other tutor essentially will allow you to cast any spell in your deck infinite times.
Duplicant: Allows you to exile any creature on the battlefield
Qasali Pridemage: This card great and I feel it edges out Harmonic Sliver for 2 reasons. 1.) It sacs itself which is important for interaction with Karador. 2.) It's CMC 2 allows it to sac to Birthing Pod to get a 3 CMC creature. It may not sound like much but the down side of having to spend the mana for it's effect each time (which shouldn't make a difference as Harmonic Sliver costs 3 CMC anyways) does not outweigh the benefit of the above factors.
Disciple of Bolas: This little gem allows you to gain infinite life and draw infinite cards at the cost of having to be spot on with the timing of your triggers. Lark LTB triggers resolves returning Guide and Disciple, place Guide's ETB on the stack first then Disciple's ETB afterwards so that the Disciple's ETB RESOLVES first saccing the Karmic Guide (NOT SURE IF THIS WORKS --- CAN SOMEONE CHECK AS KARMIC GUIDE IS PRO-BLACK. Disciple's ability states "another creature" which makes me think it doesn't target)
, Sac Bolas before Lark ETB. Infinite.
---Noteworthy Cards---
Birthing Pod: Game winning Pod chains (One of the main sac-outlets needs to be in play)
Mirror Entity -> Solemn Simulacrum -> Karmic Guide (bring back Solemn) -> Pod Solemn Again to get Reveillark -> Pod Lark (combo begins)
Fiend Hunter -> Solemn Simulacrum -> Karmic Guide (target doesn't matter) -> Sun Titan (combo begins)
Yosei, the Falling Star: Allows you to lock players out of the game. Karador allows you to cast him each turn, you just need a sac-outlet to ensure this consistently happens. The Living Death + Witness combo package allows you to essentially end the game with the inclusion of Yosei.
Mesmeric Orb: Helps fill your yard, puts a lot of opponents on tilt and a lot of decks just can't deal with that type of disruption.
---
Lastly, 47 lands is just insane. Way too many. I'd cut down to 38. I am greedy and play 36 and have a ton of wins under my belt.
Hope this post was informative! Let me know what you all think ;D
Vela + Gravecrawler + Phyrexian Altar + 1 other zombie in play = Win
If you can get your hands on a Gaea's Cradle, I would do it. This deck loves it ;D
My list in my signature is quite old. Garruk, the Veil-Cursed might have a place in this deck as well.
... but it's known that our matchup against RDW is horrible and that could be said for any quick aggro deck.
So I've been trying to think of why we lose to this matchup, and also how I've won any games against those decks. What I came up was the fact that if we didn't take so much damage in the early game, that we would have enough time to take control of the game with our big spells... which is exactly what happened in the games I did end up winning in playtesting.
So I've been testing Wall of Tanglecord to slow those decks down JUST enough to take advantage and it's actually helped swing the aggro matchup quite significantly.
-As a turn 2 drop, it is perfectly setup to block everything RDW and the White aggro decks play early game.
-Can only be Dismembered once blocked, and they still pay the price for that in life and a card in hand.
-Able to block Mirran Crusader
-Able to be recurred with Sun Titan if necessary
-Able to be pitched to Liliana if necessary
Have Spine, Ironworks, and a reduction effect in play, cast Sculpting Steel for 2 targeting Spine, resolve ETB trigger, sacrifice Sculpting Steel to Ironworks to produce 2, resolve the copied Spines graveyard trigger to return the Sculpting Steel to your hand. Loop.
This was actually the combo I was going to post as I coincidentally happened upon it while piloting Karador. It was literally the sickest turn I've ever had in EDH and was so excited to share it... ... until I read this post
While I was going off, I ended up with an absurd amount of tokens which I could sac for tons of mana. I also dumped a good majority of my deck into my graveyard which is exactly what Karador wants. I played Karador, revived E-Wit to get Living Death, sacced all my tokens and the E-Wit for mana, cast Living Death resurrecting my entire yard, E-Wit trigger targeting Living Death. I went infinite from there.
If you're willing to drop down some of your basic land count, Hermit Druid can be pretty strong here.
Mesmeric Orb as well.
Also if you can scrounge up the cash, this deck loves Survival of The Fittest
Greater Good?
Pay R, sneak creature into play, it has haste and beats face, sac it draw tons of cards.
Add Stalking Vengeance/Warstorm Surge for massive damage.
4x Temple Garden
2x Verdant Catacombs
2x Marsh Flats
2x Plains
10x Forest
Creatures
4x Llanowar Elf
4x Arbor Elf
4x Heritage Druid
4x Nettle Sentinel
3x Elvish Visionary
4x Elvish Archdruid
3x Mirror Entity
2x Ezuri, Renegade Leader
2x Regal Force
1x Harmonic Sliver
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Eternal Witness
4x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Path to Exile
Not sure if GSZ or Lead the Stampede is better for this deck.
Hymn of Rebirth