i play a decidedly non-budget version of Rack Pox. my thoughts:
agree on cutting raven's crime to a one-of. i run dakmor salvage as a singleton as well. 2 seems like too many.
also agree that you need wide removal. try Drown In Sorrow in place of the bile blights. great against legacy's weenies and gives you deck manipulation. i would even maindeck. Disfigure is also worth a look. the one mana difference between it and Bile Blight is very relevant.
at the moment you're creatureless. where's Nether Spirit?
Bottomless Pit could be additional copies of Big Pox.
i find that Rack Pox has a very different game plan from Prison Pox. your rack effects are basically burn spells that depend on disruption. this encourages a tempo style of play where you spend the first three or four turns ruining the gamestate and then try and drop threats and win off them. i love Tombstalker in my list. not like, love. so many legacy decks just don't have a way of dealing with him. if yr budget allows it, try em out.
in the sideboard, this is of course the most meta-dependant area, but i'd swap the Nihil Spellbombs out for Tormod's Crypt. getting to cast it a turn earlier is really relevant. Faerie Macabre is worth looking into as well because it's not afraid of Chancellor in BR Reanimator. Engineered Plague is good, i'd also look at Massacre if you face a lot of DnT and Perish against Elves, Shardless, and general BUG nonsense.
best of luck. there's nothing like beating someone who make fun of you for running Shrieking Affliction after they had to read it.
i mean that in the sense that it seems to depend on consistency and a quick lock clock to work well. i don't mean to imply that it's a finished project or anything (i can see you're still posting revisions)
Ahh well, yes tutors do help improve the consistency. With a stax/combo deck, they're damn near essential if you want to win since you dont have five or six functional reprints of combo pieces. If tutors are out of your budget, I'd check out some other topics for a more midrange Brago. Simply drawing cards can get you gas, but it doesnt help you combo, just find more threats/answers. Right now, Enlightened and Mystical Tutors are at some of their lowest points in years due to the huge influx of Eternal Masters product to the market. Regardless of where you take the deck, including both cards should be a high priority. E tutor is about 10.5$ and Mystical is at 5.5$.
Revisions are mainly trying to aim for consistency as any combo/stax deck tries to do. For me, I struggle mostly with early gas (mana rocks and hitting land drops). This is mostly due to the changes to the mulligan rules which hit stax and combo decks pretty hard since they cant sculpt a crazy hand anymore, so for me, adding more tutors/mana rocks/draw pieces was the solution. Lately I've won about two thirds of my games with Brago just due to changes and some smart mulligans, and this is after a long string of losses and really discouraging games. I'm pretty happy where the deck has ended up, but I still have some work to do on it. I have some pet cards like Treachery which honestly dont need to be in here, but do make for some memorable/funny games.
didn’t realize that mystical was so cheap now. thanks for pointing that out. i’m building this deck to compete with a casual playgroup that has recently gotten more competitive in response to one person thinking yidris storm combo would be cute. it doesn’t have to compete in a “competitive” edh meta. so perhaps doing a budget version would be mean enough.
i mean that in the sense that it seems to depend on consistency and a quick lock clock to work well. i don't mean to imply that it's a finished project or anything (i can see you're still posting revisions)
can this deck function adequately without some of the tutors? it seems really dialed in so i'm wondering if it just falls apart without the extra consistency. i'm thinking about building it on a budget, hence no enlightened or mystical tutors.
also, have you tried archaeomancer? armageddon/cyclonic rift lock seems fun.
I have over 60 commander decks, and the decks I'd rank as my alpha decks are Nin, the Pain Artist and Zur the Enchanter. However they are very expensive decks.
I believe the best decks for price are Edric, Spymaster of Trest weenie. Azami, Lady of Scrolls wizard draw. I know you said Zur paints a target, but actually a voltron style Zur the Enchanter that has a lot of cheap cards in it. I've actually made a pauper version of Zur (all commons except for Zur himself) that is straight up competitive.
Brago is very good. Definitely in my top 5 EDH decks and one of the cheaper options.
Obviously one of the biggest considerations is the price of mana bases. So going into 3 colors just means that without being able to spend the big bucks, you will potentially get awkward games where you can't cast stuff, too slow for your meta.
So realistically stick to 2 colors imo.
But blue is the most powerful color in commander (lets face it magic in general) and gives you access to counterspells, which are the best form of disruption. So the downside of your commanders that listed not in blue do suffer from not being able to potentially stop what opponents are doing.
Let us know which direction you want to take, and we can build you the best deck possible for price.
i guess i should clarify that i'm looking to play a specific style of deck, not just find the spikiest one. specifically i want to play some kind of stax strategy, or failing that a mix of that and hard control. also, i relish deckbuilding, so i'm looking for info on how certain generals play out rather than decklists. but i would love to see some example lists or discuss key card interactions. at this point i'm between a brago/hanna lockdown strategy and a black-centric sacrifice attrition one.
i too would like to play stasis. seems like brago does it better, though
I rank Hanna higher for pillowfort and control IMO. She's a more powerful commander than she seems at first (which also makes you less of a target to unfamiliar players). She doesn't need to attack which makes her a little more versatile though you do have to run at least a couple of sac outlets to take full advantage of her. She also lets you do things like Mindslaver lock in 1v1.
yeah i struggled in evaluating how good hanna would be. got a list?
from the moment i started playing edh, i’ve always wanted to build an absolutely brutal deck. i’ve been holding myself back, since i play in a fairly casual playgroup and, frankly, if i want to be evil i can play pox in legacy.
this week, everything changed. i showed up to play with my friends after a months-long absence and discovered one of them built a yidris deck that goes off consistently on turn 4. the rest of the group built way more competitive decks to counter it and the result is an arms race. now the floodgates are open and i feel no qualms about building something truly nasty.
i’m looking for feedback on the specific generals below, as well as suggestions for others.
ABOUT THE META: i play exclusively with a single playgroup. however, i don’t want to limit my options should i one day feel like sitting down at a table with 3 strangers, so i’d like to avoid generals like sharuum or zur that say “kill me now.”
ABOUT MY PLAYSTYLE: very comfortable in the control space. resource denial a plus. would play $t4ks in eternal formats if i had four grand to burn and looking to play what the edh internet now considers to be stax strategies. favorite color: black.
ABOUT MY BUDGET: no more than $7 per card, and that’s pushing it. looking to keep the list reasonably budget but may make exceptions for edh/legacy staples.
GENERALS I’M CONSIDERING:
BRAGO: unique strategy, flies under the radar compared to, say, GAAIV, could pivot to a fun blink deck if i decide i’ve proved my point. this is the one i’m leaning towards.
GAAIV: super powerful, paints a huge target on my head
NATH: great synergy, opens up black and all it’s glorious sac effects, the idea of casting death cloud with nath in play fills me with joy
GLISSA: i brewed a list w her a long time ago but seems less powerful than nath
KUON: pretty on the nose and seems like work to set up
ENDREK SAHR: think i have a cute list typed up somewhere. but maybe not as oppressive as this deck needs to be
OLORO: opens up esper colors, card advantage, expensive to cast, beginners often target players with the highest life
MERIEKE: love the idea of masquerading as a cute steally deck. inexpensive to cast. could actually become a cute steally deck in the future.
another weekly tourney report. one day i’ll break the 2-2 glass ceiling….
M1: Death and Taxes (0-2)
same player and deck i lost to last time. that one felt close. this one really didn’t. game 1 i got overwhelmed with creatures and was underwhelmed by my draws. not enough removal. game 2 he landed an early vial. i stemmed the beats with an early ensnaring bridge. he managed to flickerwisp it on two consecutive turns for the win.
M2: Miracles (2-1)
my opponent was a salty fella who was clearly still reeling from his m1 loss to whatever. g1 i managed to keep his hand low and beat him down with bloodghasts. he tried attacking into liliana with a snapcaster mage, then got tilted hard (to the pojnt of nervously knocking over his library) when i animated a factory to block. that likely lost him the game and the tilt continued. game 2 i wasn’t able to beat two entreated angels. game 3 was white-knuckle. i led with a pretty punishing thoughtseize-hymn-hymn and kept his hand low, but he put up a fight. stuck a rack early. had both my tombstalkers removed but got there with factories. factory is superb in this matchup.
M3: Shardless BUG (2-1)
game 1 i mulled to five and was sure i was going to lose, but ripped a drown in sorrow just in time to take out two drs and a strix. ground out a win with racks. game two he suspended visions on t1 and 2, which proved to be too much to deal with. game 3 i attacked his hand early and a resolved tombstalker got there.
M4: Grixis Delver (0-2)
suffered from bad draws on this one. g1 he just went right over me with delvers and bolts. g2 i stabilized with an e bridge, removed his drs with disfigure, and waited on drawing into drown in sorrow so i could kill his legions of pyro tokens, get my hand to 2, and alpha strike with my entire playset of factories. played a bunch of racks but he wisely kept his hand outside of hymn range. after about 15 turns his last bolt left me at two. a few turns later he dropped his out in the form of drs and i topdecked a land.
i’ll post a revised decklist ahead of my next tourney. planning on adding some spice.
notable deck changes: +1 pox, targeted discard suite is now 2iok/2thoughtseize, i'm maindecking ensnaring bridge.
possible future changes: i have some proxy slots freed up so i may play around with entomb and top.
MATCHES:
Mono U Draw-Go Faeries Brew
counterspells are awful against us. after whittling his hand away i blew him out with tombstalker g1 and gradually beat him up with bloodghasts g2.
Death and Taxes
this went to three games and was close. i had a couple mulligans and he opened with vial both times he was on the draw, which is really hard to beat. i think with a little better luck and some tighter play i could have had this one. maindeck ensnaring bridge was relevant here.
Lands
the usual horrorshow.
BRUG Midrange Brew
notable cards of his were dack fayden and leovold, emissary of trest. it played out like a typical midrange matchup, ie easy prey. i won 2-0 largely because of a loose keep against me g2 (he kept a 1 lander with 2x drs, brainstorm, and some other stuff and got smallpoxed).
tonight i went 2-2, beating eldrazi stompy and maverick and losing to lands and a pyromancer/reanimator hybrid.
i just added the tombstalkers and they're amazing. sometimes you just need a 5/5 flyer. the deck was having problems closing the game before but boy do these guys solve that. sadly i never drew into the abyss, which i also just added.
funeral charm is super underwhelming. looks better on paper than it actually is. instant speed discard can be cute but it doesn't come up a whole lot. the card doesn't do enough as removal given the amount of DRS, stoneforge, and delver in my meta, and getting in 2 extra damage via pump or swampwalk is too much of a corner case.
i have a feeling that more pox would be better but i'm unsure what to cut.
looking for feedback on this list. took it to my first ever legacy tournament and got walloped, mostly due to not knowing the format super well and because the deck’s not tuned right (see below). lost to esper stoneblade and two shardless BUG decks.
there’s more aggro in my meta than i thought, so i’m going to swap 1x funeral charm and 2x raven’s crime for 2x drown in sorrow and 1x spinning darkness.
2. i’ll be playing in a weekly tournament series that allows ten proxies. my current proxies are the lilianas, the urborgs, and three of the bloodghasts, which should give you a general idea of what my budget is. however, i just got a deal on some bloodghasts, so i’ll have 3 proxy slots opening up. this gives me some room to play around with expensive cards.
3. how many urborgs are optimal? right now three seems like one too many, and i could use the proxy slot.
4. how about lands? 24 seems right on paper and i see most of these lists have 24, but i consistently drew too many lands over the course of three matches the other day.
5. sideboard advice? other than what i faced the other day, the meta has at least one reanimator deck, one or two lands decks, and allegedly some miracles, dnt, storm combo, and delver variants.
agree on cutting raven's crime to a one-of. i run dakmor salvage as a singleton as well. 2 seems like too many.
also agree that you need wide removal. try Drown In Sorrow in place of the bile blights. great against legacy's weenies and gives you deck manipulation. i would even maindeck. Disfigure is also worth a look. the one mana difference between it and Bile Blight is very relevant.
at the moment you're creatureless. where's Nether Spirit?
Bottomless Pit could be additional copies of Big Pox.
i find that Rack Pox has a very different game plan from Prison Pox. your rack effects are basically burn spells that depend on disruption. this encourages a tempo style of play where you spend the first three or four turns ruining the gamestate and then try and drop threats and win off them. i love Tombstalker in my list. not like, love. so many legacy decks just don't have a way of dealing with him. if yr budget allows it, try em out.
in the sideboard, this is of course the most meta-dependant area, but i'd swap the Nihil Spellbombs out for Tormod's Crypt. getting to cast it a turn earlier is really relevant. Faerie Macabre is worth looking into as well because it's not afraid of Chancellor in BR Reanimator. Engineered Plague is good, i'd also look at Massacre if you face a lot of DnT and Perish against Elves, Shardless, and general BUG nonsense.
best of luck. there's nothing like beating someone who make fun of you for running Shrieking Affliction after they had to read it.
didn’t realize that mystical was so cheap now. thanks for pointing that out. i’m building this deck to compete with a casual playgroup that has recently gotten more competitive in response to one person thinking yidris storm combo would be cute. it doesn’t have to compete in a “competitive” edh meta. so perhaps doing a budget version would be mean enough.
also, have you tried archaeomancer? armageddon/cyclonic rift lock seems fun.
i guess i should clarify that i'm looking to play a specific style of deck, not just find the spikiest one. specifically i want to play some kind of stax strategy, or failing that a mix of that and hard control. also, i relish deckbuilding, so i'm looking for info on how certain generals play out rather than decklists. but i would love to see some example lists or discuss key card interactions. at this point i'm between a brago/hanna lockdown strategy and a black-centric sacrifice attrition one.
yeah i struggled in evaluating how good hanna would be. got a list?
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/767061-iso-maximum-oppression
this week, everything changed. i showed up to play with my friends after a months-long absence and discovered one of them built a yidris deck that goes off consistently on turn 4. the rest of the group built way more competitive decks to counter it and the result is an arms race. now the floodgates are open and i feel no qualms about building something truly nasty.
i’m looking for feedback on the specific generals below, as well as suggestions for others.
ABOUT THE META: i play exclusively with a single playgroup. however, i don’t want to limit my options should i one day feel like sitting down at a table with 3 strangers, so i’d like to avoid generals like sharuum or zur that say “kill me now.”
ABOUT MY PLAYSTYLE: very comfortable in the control space. resource denial a plus. would play $t4ks in eternal formats if i had four grand to burn and looking to play what the edh internet now considers to be stax strategies. favorite color: black.
ABOUT MY BUDGET: no more than $7 per card, and that’s pushing it. looking to keep the list reasonably budget but may make exceptions for edh/legacy staples.
GENERALS I’M CONSIDERING:
BRAGO: unique strategy, flies under the radar compared to, say, GAAIV, could pivot to a fun blink deck if i decide i’ve proved my point. this is the one i’m leaning towards.
GAAIV: super powerful, paints a huge target on my head
NATH: great synergy, opens up black and all it’s glorious sac effects, the idea of casting death cloud with nath in play fills me with joy
GLISSA: i brewed a list w her a long time ago but seems less powerful than nath
KUON: pretty on the nose and seems like work to set up
ENDREK SAHR: think i have a cute list typed up somewhere. but maybe not as oppressive as this deck needs to be
OLORO: opens up esper colors, card advantage, expensive to cast, beginners often target players with the highest life
MERIEKE: love the idea of masquerading as a cute steally deck. inexpensive to cast. could actually become a cute steally deck in the future.
another weekly tourney report. one day i’ll break the 2-2 glass ceiling….
M1: Death and Taxes (0-2)
same player and deck i lost to last time. that one felt close. this one really didn’t. game 1 i got overwhelmed with creatures and was underwhelmed by my draws. not enough removal. game 2 he landed an early vial. i stemmed the beats with an early ensnaring bridge. he managed to flickerwisp it on two consecutive turns for the win.
M2: Miracles (2-1)
my opponent was a salty fella who was clearly still reeling from his m1 loss to whatever. g1 i managed to keep his hand low and beat him down with bloodghasts. he tried attacking into liliana with a snapcaster mage, then got tilted hard (to the pojnt of nervously knocking over his library) when i animated a factory to block. that likely lost him the game and the tilt continued. game 2 i wasn’t able to beat two entreated angels. game 3 was white-knuckle. i led with a pretty punishing thoughtseize-hymn-hymn and kept his hand low, but he put up a fight. stuck a rack early. had both my tombstalkers removed but got there with factories. factory is superb in this matchup.
M3: Shardless BUG (2-1)
game 1 i mulled to five and was sure i was going to lose, but ripped a drown in sorrow just in time to take out two drs and a strix. ground out a win with racks. game two he suspended visions on t1 and 2, which proved to be too much to deal with. game 3 i attacked his hand early and a resolved tombstalker got there.
M4: Grixis Delver (0-2)
suffered from bad draws on this one. g1 he just went right over me with delvers and bolts. g2 i stabilized with an e bridge, removed his drs with disfigure, and waited on drawing into drown in sorrow so i could kill his legions of pyro tokens, get my hand to 2, and alpha strike with my entire playset of factories. played a bunch of racks but he wisely kept his hand outside of hymn range. after about 15 turns his last bolt left me at two. a few turns later he dropped his out in the form of drs and i topdecked a land.
i’ll post a revised decklist ahead of my next tourney. planning on adding some spice.
notable deck changes: +1 pox, targeted discard suite is now 2iok/2thoughtseize, i'm maindecking ensnaring bridge.
possible future changes: i have some proxy slots freed up so i may play around with entomb and top.
MATCHES:
Mono U Draw-Go Faeries Brew
counterspells are awful against us. after whittling his hand away i blew him out with tombstalker g1 and gradually beat him up with bloodghasts g2.
Death and Taxes
this went to three games and was close. i had a couple mulligans and he opened with vial both times he was on the draw, which is really hard to beat. i think with a little better luck and some tighter play i could have had this one. maindeck ensnaring bridge was relevant here.
Lands
the usual horrorshow.
BRUG Midrange Brew
notable cards of his were dack fayden and leovold, emissary of trest. it played out like a typical midrange matchup, ie easy prey. i won 2-0 largely because of a loose keep against me g2 (he kept a 1 lander with 2x drs, brainstorm, and some other stuff and got smallpoxed).
the lands match was actually really close! was a turn away from winning g3 but he gripped my needle naming stage eot and made a monster.
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Dakmor Salvage
4 Bloodghast
2 Tombstalker
2 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Innocent Blood
2 Disfigure
1 Raven's Crime
3 The Rack
2 Shrieking Affliction
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox
1 Pox
1 Drown in Sorrow
1 The Abyss
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Pithing Needle
2 Perish
2 Massacre
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Raven's Crime
tonight i went 2-2, beating eldrazi stompy and maverick and losing to lands and a pyromancer/reanimator hybrid.
i just added the tombstalkers and they're amazing. sometimes you just need a 5/5 flyer. the deck was having problems closing the game before but boy do these guys solve that. sadly i never drew into the abyss, which i also just added.
funeral charm is super underwhelming. looks better on paper than it actually is. instant speed discard can be cute but it doesn't come up a whole lot. the card doesn't do enough as removal given the amount of DRS, stoneforge, and delver in my meta, and getting in 2 extra damage via pump or swampwalk is too much of a corner case.
i have a feeling that more pox would be better but i'm unsure what to cut.
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Dakmor Salvage
4 Bloodghast
1 Nether Spirit
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Innocent Blood
3 Funeral Charm
2 Raven's Crime
4 The Rack
2 Shrieking Affliction
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox
1 Pox
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Pithing Needle
2 Perish
2 Massacre
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Raven's Crime
things to keep in mind:
there’s more aggro in my meta than i thought, so i’m going to swap 1x funeral charm and 2x raven’s crime for 2x drown in sorrow and 1x spinning darkness.
2. i’ll be playing in a weekly tournament series that allows ten proxies. my current proxies are the lilianas, the urborgs, and three of the bloodghasts, which should give you a general idea of what my budget is. however, i just got a deal on some bloodghasts, so i’ll have 3 proxy slots opening up. this gives me some room to play around with expensive cards.
3. how many urborgs are optimal? right now three seems like one too many, and i could use the proxy slot.
4. how about lands? 24 seems right on paper and i see most of these lists have 24, but i consistently drew too many lands over the course of three matches the other day.
5. sideboard advice? other than what i faced the other day, the meta has at least one reanimator deck, one or two lands decks, and allegedly some miracles, dnt, storm combo, and delver variants.