Well thank you. It's taken a long to build and taken a lot of care to get the little kinks out. I love that this deck is a control deck that can beat almost any deck. It also has the cards to adapt to any meta.
Your deck has been a pleasure to run, and I appreciate your support. I can tell you put care into your deck, which is important.
About your changes I would really swap out that Swiftfoot for Snapcaster. Damia doesn't need the shroud to win. She doesn't even need to attack. She wins if you get to your upkeep again. You drown them in CA. Not to mention that 3 of our creatures already have pseudo Haste in the form of flash. And the rest of our creatures don't NEED to attack out of the gates for minimal amounts of damage.
I can see what you mean, but let me explain why I made the changes. I'm not sure if I like all the changes I made - however there was a reasoning behind it all.
I doubled up on Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves because of Dralnu. When he hits, it's obviously important to protect him from burn AND giving him haste is amazing late game. If he was cut, I'd cut both Greaves and Boots. I'm not fully convinced that cutting him is a good idea, though. The low CMC of your spells, combined with the ramp of green, theoretically and practically works very well with Dralnu.
It may not be the BEST deck for Dralnu, but Dralnu makes the deck better. I think, anyway. I'll keep testing.
Ulamog is really there simply for the Anti mill plan. If that isn't in your meta then you don't need it. But if you do cut him I would recommend cutting T&N for Chord of Calling. because the T&N for Ulamog P Titan isn't good with only 1 target. And CoC cost the same for an instant P Titan.
In my meta I have yet to see a mill deck, which explains my perspective. If there were mill decks in my meta I'd certainly wouldn't cut Ulamog. =)
Cord of Calling seems great, thanks for the suggestion.
And Liliana is so great against other control decks. She destroys their hand while making our "discard" just a loot since we gain that card when we get to our upkeep. She is also one of of few win cons so I would try to fit her back in.
I didn't really think of that. I'll add her again. Thanks =D
And for Havengul I just haven't been impressed with him in my meta. He feels so clunky to me.
Havengul is one of my pet cards. I agree with you - Havengul is "clunky" in that he requires a lot of mana. Therefore, you should think of him as an Eldrazi or a Time Stretch: you only want to see him late, late game.
But when you have 5 creatures in the graveyard and 22 available mana, you'll be so happy to topdeck him. Believe me, being able to play all your creatures again from the graveyard, have then get wrathed again, then Volraths/Unholy grotto him back to the top and do it again, is AMAZING - especially when you're recurring beasts like Eternal Witness, Scavenging and Venser.
I think people tend to try to use Havengul mid game, and get lackluster results because when you have say, 7 mana available, he doesn't do much. He works best with a lot of mana. A lot of mana. But when you do he'll win games.
My suggestion would be to toss him with Lilianna or some other discard. Then when you need him late game, you just pop him to the top of the library and go to town.
Like Dralnu, he's a late game workhorse. But he'll recur your creatures literally forever, adding a superb late game.
As for Draulnu he is a BEAST! So I like that card in the list but I won't run him because I feel he needs a deck all to himself.
I'm not ashamed to say I have 6 decks with Dralnu as commander, and I have yet to be disappointed. He's pure CA, probably the second most of any card after Havengul and maybe an out-of-control Rhystic Study.
So if you do continue I would say -Swiftfoot + Snappy -Havengul +Liliana. barring that you can get these of course.
Lilianna and Havengul have strong synergy together, as does Snapcaster and Lilianna and Snapcaster and Havengul.
Swiftfoot Boots have poor synergy with all three cards.
Would you consider it a good idea to
- Swiftfoot Boots
- Dralnu, Lich Lord
- Lightning Greaves
- Ulamog
- Tooth and Nail
- Sol Ring
+ Lilianna
+ Snapcaster
+ Chord of Calling
+ Regrowth
That frees up two slots. Adding Snapcaster replaces Dralnu, which also takes the need for Boots and Greaves away. Lilianna has obvious synergy with both Snapcaster and Havengul, since you can pitch either and easily see them again. Havengul allows all your creatures to recur indefinitely late game, and puts them directly into play unlike Seedborn Muse + Volrath's, allows for multiple recursions in a single turn, is less mana hungry, does not cost your draw step, nails your opponents creatures, and only costs one card with a decent 4/4 body for 5.
(I can really sell him, can't I? But in all seriousness, he's worth keeping for late game I think)
I copied your deck, modified it slightly, and run it online on LackeyCCG.
This is definitely one of my favorite decks. You did a great job. The low CMC allows you to play your hand.
A couple things I added really put it over the top. Havengul Lich and Dralnu, Lich Lord are two cards I added that I would never cut. They add so much late-game firepower.
Psychotog and Snapcaster became Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots.
Dream Halls has two very unappealing features to it.
1) It exiles a card from your hand for every card you play for free. The toll can really add up.
2) The effect is global, so your opponents benefit - in theory - just as much as you do.
Despite the downsides, Dream Halls is still incredibly powerful. This should speak volumes for how powerful Omniscience will be, should it hit the field.
Omniscience removes both the downside, but is twice as expensive. I'm willing to argue that for multiplayer EDH, Omniscience is the better card. For Legacy and Modern, Dream Halls is better. I don't play 1v1 EDH, so I can't speak for it there.
There can be a marked difference between the words "best" and "most powerful."
Green could be the "best" for EDH since it may fit the ideology of EDH more fully than any other color. However, I'm willing to fight anyone who argues that green is better suited to win than blue in EDH, or any other format.
This is not to say that green (or any other color) is or isn't better politically than blue, but as far as the ability to win is concerned, green pales, absolutely pales in comparison to blue.
As for being a supplementary color, blue is arguably better too. Very rarely is a deck less suited to win a game by adding countermagic, whereas adding green can occasionally dilute a strategy which a particular deck is pushing for.
I'll even go father and say that green doesn't even make it into the most competitive dual-color combination, which is my opinion is UB. But that's a different topic.
Sure it's insanely strong, but it costs 10 mana, and Rector is the only thing that can easily get this into play. That already necessitates a WU deck and probably Green or Black to find the Rector. People aren't going to just shoehorn this into every deck.
umm EDH is thriving and doing fine aand IIRC the RC has stated multiply times that thire goal isn't to make a blanced format.
If the format isn't balanced, it's not going to be fun for the majority of players. Especially online, where people have access to any card.
EDH isn't meant to be a competive format, the players make it a competitive format.
This casual format should be monitored closely to ensure that unfun and unfair cards aren't allowed in circulation, precisely because the game isn't competitive and therefore an "unfair" deck can ruin the format for those who play far more casual, balanced decks.
If the "council" should not rely on community suggestions to balance the game, then they should not rely on yours as well.
There's a difference between relying on something, and considering it.
Here's my main problem with your line of thought throughout this entire argument though: You don't understand the biggest relevant difference between fun, and balanced. Fun is a subjective concept. While you no doubt have complete authority over your own fun (you know when you're having it), you have no idea when any of the hundreds of thousands of other players in this format are having it.
Maybe so, but there's a far more clear understand of what ISN'T fun more the majority of players. Don't pretend otherwise.
However, balance is objective. You can look at statistics from testing, decklists you and people helping you have submitted, percentages of decks that a certain card has appearred in, etc, etc to determine if one card is warping the format.
Hardcore research isn't going into EDH. It doesn't need to in order to perceive the obvious, just play a few games every day for a month, online. You'll get a taste real fast.
Because of the impossibility of banning for fun (To take your example, some players enjoy the game leading up to their opponent's infinite turn, and the attempts at stopping him from reaching that point, more because of the threat of going infinite), bans should only be made to remove format warpers, not cards you find distasteful.
I seriously doubt that "some players" (strangely anonymous, but they must exist for the sake of your argument, right?) enjoy when their opponent goes infinite, or trying to stop him from doing so. It sounds like a load of bull****, and if you'd like to show otherwise can you find a decent sample size of players willing to say that they do enjoy that?
No. Bans need to be placed on cards that suck the fun out of the game for the majority of players, and that isn't complicated to see. You're making this far more complex than it needs to be.
I'm gonna let you in on a secret. EDH isn't competitive. So the rest of your little rant is irrelevant. I agree that competitive games cannot be balanced by those playing it. But that isn't the case here and it never will be.
I see competitive EDH games being played all the time. But your argument works in my favor, smartass. This casual format should be monitored closely to ensure that unfun and unfair cards aren't allowed in circulation, precisely because the game isn't competitive and therefore an "unfair" deck can ruin the format for those who play far more casual, balanced decks.
Your deck has been a pleasure to run, and I appreciate your support. I can tell you put care into your deck, which is important.
I can see what you mean, but let me explain why I made the changes. I'm not sure if I like all the changes I made - however there was a reasoning behind it all.
I doubled up on Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves because of Dralnu. When he hits, it's obviously important to protect him from burn AND giving him haste is amazing late game. If he was cut, I'd cut both Greaves and Boots. I'm not fully convinced that cutting him is a good idea, though. The low CMC of your spells, combined with the ramp of green, theoretically and practically works very well with Dralnu.
It may not be the BEST deck for Dralnu, but Dralnu makes the deck better. I think, anyway. I'll keep testing.
In my meta I have yet to see a mill deck, which explains my perspective. If there were mill decks in my meta I'd certainly wouldn't cut Ulamog. =)
Cord of Calling seems great, thanks for the suggestion.
I didn't really think of that. I'll add her again. Thanks =D
Havengul is one of my pet cards. I agree with you - Havengul is "clunky" in that he requires a lot of mana. Therefore, you should think of him as an Eldrazi or a Time Stretch: you only want to see him late, late game.
But when you have 5 creatures in the graveyard and 22 available mana, you'll be so happy to topdeck him. Believe me, being able to play all your creatures again from the graveyard, have then get wrathed again, then Volraths/Unholy grotto him back to the top and do it again, is AMAZING - especially when you're recurring beasts like Eternal Witness, Scavenging and Venser.
I think people tend to try to use Havengul mid game, and get lackluster results because when you have say, 7 mana available, he doesn't do much. He works best with a lot of mana. A lot of mana. But when you do he'll win games.
My suggestion would be to toss him with Lilianna or some other discard. Then when you need him late game, you just pop him to the top of the library and go to town.
Like Dralnu, he's a late game workhorse. But he'll recur your creatures literally forever, adding a superb late game.
I'm not ashamed to say I have 6 decks with Dralnu as commander, and I have yet to be disappointed. He's pure CA, probably the second most of any card after Havengul and maybe an out-of-control Rhystic Study.
Lilianna and Havengul have strong synergy together, as does Snapcaster and Lilianna and Snapcaster and Havengul.
Swiftfoot Boots have poor synergy with all three cards.
Would you consider it a good idea to
- Swiftfoot Boots
- Dralnu, Lich Lord
- Lightning Greaves
- Ulamog
- Tooth and Nail
- Sol Ring
+ Lilianna
+ Snapcaster
+ Chord of Calling
+ Regrowth
That frees up two slots. Adding Snapcaster replaces Dralnu, which also takes the need for Boots and Greaves away. Lilianna has obvious synergy with both Snapcaster and Havengul, since you can pitch either and easily see them again. Havengul allows all your creatures to recur indefinitely late game, and puts them directly into play unlike Seedborn Muse + Volrath's, allows for multiple recursions in a single turn, is less mana hungry, does not cost your draw step, nails your opponents creatures, and only costs one card with a decent 4/4 body for 5.
(I can really sell him, can't I? But in all seriousness, he's worth keeping for late game I think)
This is definitely one of my favorite decks. You did a great job. The low CMC allows you to play your hand.
A couple things I added really put it over the top. Havengul Lich and Dralnu, Lich Lord are two cards I added that I would never cut. They add so much late-game firepower.
Psychotog and Snapcaster became Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots.
Ulamog and Lilianna became Havengul and Dralnu.
1) It exiles a card from your hand for every card you play for free. The toll can really add up.
2) The effect is global, so your opponents benefit - in theory - just as much as you do.
Despite the downsides, Dream Halls is still incredibly powerful. This should speak volumes for how powerful Omniscience will be, should it hit the field.
Omniscience removes both the downside, but is twice as expensive. I'm willing to argue that for multiplayer EDH, Omniscience is the better card. For Legacy and Modern, Dream Halls is better. I don't play 1v1 EDH, so I can't speak for it there.
I worded that poorly, so I'll edit.
Green could be the "best" for EDH since it may fit the ideology of EDH more fully than any other color. However, I'm willing to fight anyone who argues that green is better suited to win than blue in EDH, or any other format.
This is not to say that green (or any other color) is or isn't better politically than blue, but as far as the ability to win is concerned, green pales, absolutely pales in comparison to blue.
As for being a supplementary color, blue is arguably better too. Very rarely is a deck less suited to win a game by adding countermagic, whereas adding green can occasionally dilute a strategy which a particular deck is pushing for.
I'll even go father and say that green doesn't even make it into the most competitive dual-color combination, which is my opinion is UB. But that's a different topic.
"There's no reason to play in any way that I don't approve, just do what I say."
You don't even need to try to infinite combo, a thoughtfully constructed U/B Grimgrin deck will just pulls wins out the ass time and time again.
Bursty damage, resilient, and has access to countermagic and card draw with a strong creature base.
Show and Tell
If the format isn't balanced, it's not going to be fun for the majority of players. Especially online, where people have access to any card.
This casual format should be monitored closely to ensure that unfun and unfair cards aren't allowed in circulation, precisely because the game isn't competitive and therefore an "unfair" deck can ruin the format for those who play far more casual, balanced decks.
There's a difference between relying on something, and considering it.
Maybe so, but there's a far more clear understand of what ISN'T fun more the majority of players. Don't pretend otherwise.
Hardcore research isn't going into EDH. It doesn't need to in order to perceive the obvious, just play a few games every day for a month, online. You'll get a taste real fast.
I seriously doubt that "some players" (strangely anonymous, but they must exist for the sake of your argument, right?) enjoy when their opponent goes infinite, or trying to stop him from doing so. It sounds like a load of bull****, and if you'd like to show otherwise can you find a decent sample size of players willing to say that they do enjoy that?
No. Bans need to be placed on cards that suck the fun out of the game for the majority of players, and that isn't complicated to see. You're making this far more complex than it needs to be.
If only that were true. =/
I see competitive EDH games being played all the time. But your argument works in my favor, smartass. This casual format should be monitored closely to ensure that unfun and unfair cards aren't allowed in circulation, precisely because the game isn't competitive and therefore an "unfair" deck can ruin the format for those who play far more casual, balanced decks.