For those unfamiliar, Grand Melee is a format with a large group of players where everyone sits in a circle and every 4th (or so) player is taking a turn at the same time. You can only attack or otherwise interact with players to your immediate left or right. When a player dies, the circle shrinks at the end of the turn (so you can't kill the guy to your left, then kill the next guy to your left and so on in the same turn because the second player over is invisible to you until the following turn). Typically infinite combo is banned or severely limited and extra turns / extra combats are forbidden.
So who's the best commander in a format like this?
I think it is something like Purphoros who is hard to remove, can take out the players to your left AND right in one shot and if you've got repeatable token production (hello Krenko) you can do it again after the circle shrinks.
Anyone got any suggestions on dealing with Omnath, Locus of Rage? I'd say my Marchesa deck used to be the best aggro deck in my shop, but I think I've been overtaken by Omnath. Getting 5/5's for playing lands which a G deck is going to do a bunch of anyway is a real nice ROI.
Whelp, glad I hadn't pre-ordered a foil Matter Reshaper for my deck as this change renders my already limited ability to cast the card just way too unreliable. I'm not about to cut ABU duals for pain lands or filter lands and I for one am I firm believer in running large quantities of basics (I run 5/6/5) because Blood Moon, Back to Basics, and Price of Progress are the devil.
It has to happen twice just to get ahead, otherwise it's just a cantrip. I'd probably also want to add a Top to my deck for better control. (Don't have one ATM because to this point I haven't wanted to shell out for a foil one.)
But to go along w/ what CentralCommand is saying, maybe just a Waste would do it since Hart and Solemn can search it up. That'd up my list to 15 (tentative) sources though I'd want to see some percentages on it first.
The ability seems okay, but it's more or less an Arena on legs, but at least to me, I don't think it's all that castable (insane for a three drop). It's probably slightly better than Arena in that I have 24 non-lands w/ CMC 3 or less. With 38 lands in that deck that's 62 cards it can dump into play, but it's also much more fragile, even with Marchesa.
Looking over my list, I have:
Ashnod's Altar
Mana Crypt
Phyrexian Altar
Sol Ring
Talisman of Dominance
Talisman of Indulgence
City of Brass (for now)
Mana Confluence (for now)
Opal Palace
Phyrexian Tower
Tarnished Citadel
Volrath's Stronghold
Doesn't really seem like enough to me to want to have a card that is actually fairly low power IMHO languishing in hand. I think I'd rather just have Painful Truths or one of it's ilk. (WotC, I am still waiting for my 1BB 2/1 that says "When ~ enters the battlefield draw 2 cards and lose 2 life.")
I wouldn't mind being proven wrong, but I won't be grabbing one until that time.
I don't think that works. The tokens are sacrificed at the end of combat, so they don't get to attack during the second combat. And a creature that's put in tapped and attacking doesn't trigger "whenever X attacks" triggers, so you won't get multiple extra combat triggers from the first batch of tokens.
I think my list has a pretty fair number of creatures it's good with (Mulldrifter, Fulminator, etc, etc, etc) but probably won't be making room for it in my "main" list none the less. Possibly in my "other 99" though, as I've amassed so many cards I'd like to play w/ Marchesa that I think I can build a second deck that's only a little less powerful (and even then mostly because I won't be adding all the mana rocks to such a build).
I wouldn't sweat it unless something we want with a <> cost is spoiled. For the most part what I imagine will be happening is that things which tap for colorless will be updated to produce <> but costs won't be changing since that would represent a breaking change (e.g. Sol Ring will remain with a CC of 1, but will produce <><>). I think Oath is likely to be the only place (for the foreseeable future) where <> is used as a cost since the "colorlessness" theme is tied to Eldrazi. Maybe we see it again as a cost in supplementary products down the line (Commander, Conspiracy, etc) but that's a ways off.
The whole thing is really just making explicit something that has always been the case. I'd wager they've wanted to for a while and were just waiting for the right block to do it.
I'm still trying to decide if i should just buy the set. I came up with a list of about 40 cards I'd like but buying comes out to $80. Or I can buy them all for $125 and get a ton more stuff including extra Lightning Greaves, Sol Rings, and Command Towers. Right now I'm thinking I'll wait to see if any of my local shops will discount the set on Black Friday.
3/3 for 3 is way better, no argument there. And you're right I'm probably being too conservative, I just hate giving cards to my opponents. And yea, obviously the thought of sneaking in this sucker definitely made a bit giddy too but I wanted to be sure he stood alone before I let my inner johnny run wild.
I think I'd honestly rather have the 2/2. Why? Recruiter.
Is he really that great? Seems like he needs a lot of help. Best case scenario you've got a haste enabler AND Sage of Fables or Unspeakable Symbol out. More likely though, you've only got one of those things in which case you have to make it around a turn in order to get any value off him and be able to recur. Worst case, you've got none and it takes 2 turns to use him optimally (one turn to attack and get a counter, another turn to activate his ability). Repeatable wheels seems pretty good, but not sure he's really all that. I do want to play it in any deck with Feldon though
Nah not running Zealous, sure it's a nice wombo combo with Kiki-Jiki, but I generally don't use those sorts of wincons.
A quick wincon I've found is to Buried Alive targetting Sage of Hours, Grimgrin and Kiki-Jiki, then putting Necrotic Ooze into play, hopefully with a glen elendra archmage in play to counter any spells, and then go infinite from there.
Huh? This one infinite combo is bad to do but this other one isn't?
I am now running Zealous/Kiki, but that's because my playgroup lately has been playing way too many 6+ player games and when you start at midnight then they end at like 3:00 AM and I want a way to immediately end a game at a reasonable hour. When we fall back out of that habit I'll probably cut the combo again.
So who's the best commander in a format like this?
I think it is something like Purphoros who is hard to remove, can take out the players to your left AND right in one shot and if you've got repeatable token production (hello Krenko) you can do it again after the circle shrinks.
But to go along w/ what CentralCommand is saying, maybe just a Waste would do it since Hart and Solemn can search it up. That'd up my list to 15 (tentative) sources though I'd want to see some percentages on it first.
Looking over my list, I have:
Ashnod's Altar
Mana Crypt
Phyrexian Altar
Sol Ring
Talisman of Dominance
Talisman of Indulgence
City of Brass (for now)
Mana Confluence (for now)
Opal Palace
Phyrexian Tower
Tarnished Citadel
Volrath's Stronghold
Doesn't really seem like enough to me to want to have a card that is actually fairly low power IMHO languishing in hand. I think I'd rather just have Painful Truths or one of it's ilk. (WotC, I am still waiting for my 1BB 2/1 that says "When ~ enters the battlefield draw 2 cards and lose 2 life.")
I wouldn't mind being proven wrong, but I won't be grabbing one until that time.
I think my list has a pretty fair number of creatures it's good with (Mulldrifter, Fulminator, etc, etc, etc) but probably won't be making room for it in my "main" list none the less. Possibly in my "other 99" though, as I've amassed so many cards I'd like to play w/ Marchesa that I think I can build a second deck that's only a little less powerful (and even then mostly because I won't be adding all the mana rocks to such a build).
The whole thing is really just making explicit something that has always been the case. I'd wager they've wanted to for a while and were just waiting for the right block to do it.
I think I'd honestly rather have the 2/2. Why? Recruiter.
Huh? This one infinite combo is bad to do but this other one isn't?
I am now running Zealous/Kiki, but that's because my playgroup lately has been playing way too many 6+ player games and when you start at midnight then they end at like 3:00 AM and I want a way to immediately end a game at a reasonable hour. When we fall back out of that habit I'll probably cut the combo again.