This is a bad question for me to answer. I'm the guy that builds stupid decks with underwhelming generals just to see how effective I can make them. I completely understand that in a format where most players look for optimization and "solving" their decks general, what I enjoy out of this format is considered silly and wasteful. At the tables I play at, my decks are usually where this sort of conversation comes from
For example I love my latulla, keldon overseer deck with a sick passion. Some of my most pimp and high-value decks I maintain (Latulla and Jeska, Warrior Adept) are just abysmal in power. And man do I get a lot of crap from some friends and spectators for "misusing expensive mtg resources."
To answer the question although, my opinion is on the other end of the spectrum. I feel that if a general is considered "solved" in any way, such that people can talk about optimization with little effort or research, if it is just "known" that to run X-general you should run X-cards, then that is a general I find pointless to run.
Competitively speaking you need a quality deck to compete against other tier quality EDH decks. If that is all you play, then this entire topic probably doesn't mean anything for you.
I understand net-decking for competitive tournaments since in a constructed format, it is necessary to understand what everyone is playing at large events. But in this format, I see very little value in running a hyper-common general in a hyper-common deckbuild with hyper-common cards if you capable of developing your own deck with a general you actually want to play.
If the hyper-common general is your baby, and its a card that you have grown to love, then yes, that is great! Otherwise I don't understand how people don't get bored with their decks.
My opinion is also due to me being a hyper-casual-hipster.
Oh ya I didn't even think about the manlands. I've also never ran wastes in EDH yet so I'm not too sure how frequently they will be needed. I will need to tweak the manabase asap.
My original list of 200+ cards had every pinger, filter, and mana-dork to evaluate, and I had some serious non-bo's. Some ideal goodies like bonded fetch and jace, vyrn's prodigy had to be cut when I realized they were just bricks and didn't combo. I didn't even realize that half of my original conceptual idea bricked since Ith prevented combat damage
Basilisk Collar should also go in too, since it is a nice way to stay alive. From the outside this deck looks like it has some dead time after resolving some cheap mana-dorks up to when it can land Ith, and having a death-toucher as a blocker is a nice way to fend people away.
A big fraction of this deck could be removed in favor of creating a more stable generic white/blue deck. For example the pinger section, the looter section, or the mana-dork section could each be removed to help strengthen the rest of the decks potential.
Oh boy, here we go. This was a challenge from a buddy to make this guy more playable. The following decklist was created after much theory-crafting, and has not been created in paper. After getting some external opinions I may make it on mtgo for playtesting.
It is essentially an all-in funky combo deck around abusing Ith's interaction with either Illusionist's Bracers or Mesmeric Orb, so we can combo with untap creatures, or self-mill us into some graveyard antics.
The combo's work entirly due to Ith being able to attack, not tapping due to his vigilance, and his activated ability not requiring the target to actually be a tapped creature. With just Ith himself attacking we can create a state of infinite tap+untap triggers. Add in mesmeric orb and we can mill ourselves (with basalt monolith acting as a nice backup). Equip Ith with illusionist's bracers and we can infinitely untap any creature with a tap ability that attacked with Ith.
The combo using bracers can generate infinite mana, infinite draw, infinite self-mill, or infinite damage via pingers.
With a pinger the game just ends. With Mangara of Corondor the opponents loose their entire board.
There is a lot of potential for alternative combos too. Combo interactions could also include infinite life-gain with Silent Attendant, or an enchantment theme via the mill and utilize Replenish. The potential for infinite pump is here, but is nerfed by our own generals damage-prevention clause. We could make an infinite/infinite Lodestone Myr, Kabuto Moth, Streambed Aquitects or Angelic Page, but they will negate their own damage. I feel that Mikaeus, the Lunarch and Clockwork Vorac are still worth running since the counters will stick around and trample helps. Sadly the other candidates like Wake Thrasher, Steel Overseer, and Clockwork Hydra have zero evasion for us to benefit from.
This first draft is an all-in combo approach. I tried to include a nice assortment of graveyard recursive spells to try and keep the all-important illusionist's bracers or mesmeric orb coming back. Making cuts was brutal as the decklist already feels really stretched tight.
I know that relying on a 7-cmc general is pretty bad idea, but this looks super fun. I'm looking for all sorts of feedback and ideas to help improve this list.
If you are after Geralf then you may want to consider a focused tap/untap theme. I've built him a few times from good-stuff creature/aggro/zombie/etc, and the absolute strongest was when I just focused on finding ways to untap him.
There are some garbag spells you can try like the dimir cypher one
His power really shines with intruder alarm + training grounds. You can amass an enormous army at the end of someones turn for every open blue mana Enchantments are hard to tutor for in mono-blue, but the games where I was able to assemble these parts always ended shortly after.
One of my older sliver decks was most likely my most competitive. I ran it around 2008, essentially splashing my old bidding goblin deck into a sliver build with a few random exotic staples I had gathered in a trade.
It was essentially a dega sliver build without bothering for +1/+1 effects, but with a different plan other than direct aggro.
I don't think it would fair in today's casual environment, and with how knowledgeable my friends are of the game I'm sure that anyone could poke holes in this sort of deck pretty quickly. But back then it was sweet. I still maintain a very dumbed down version of this (no LED/tutor) that takes on a more aggro approach.
A flying commander that bypasses recast tax, in the colors of ramp + equipment goodstuff is already ideal, but add in control elements and his ability to tap down an opponents attacker just by being cast, makes for some pretty good tempo swings.
Treat him like a voltron rafiq deck. The best part is putting rafiq in the 99, so you can green suns / natural order / cord him out for a wicked final blow. Most people see rafiq and anticipate their potential death-turn, but doing this with Derevi is just unexpected and funny.
Well with the final spoilers, and me being very wrong with my initial guess work (enemy fetchs, more foil legendary commander, reprinted cycle of the Invitational winners cards, etc), I'm still semi-happy with the end results.
I'm really happy with a lot of the reprints helping bring down high-value cards, and seeing new foil versions to hopefully impact the exotic judge foil prices.
Currently I'm most excited for, in ranked order;
1.) toxic deluge in foil, due to the number of non-foil versions in my nearly all-foil decks
2.) baleful strix in foil, same as above.
3.) night's whisper with the sweet gorgon artwork in foil. The original mirr printing is neat, but I prefer the gorgon head molestation.
4.) entomb has new artwork and Gisa quotes, which looks really sweet, and the animate dead artwork is finally giving us a non-PDS foil to work with.
5.) non $100 foil dazes Along with another printing of chain lighting/cabal therapy/xantid swarm makes legacy cards more accessible/visible to non-legacy players, which feels like a very smart way to entice recruitment into the format.
6.) Havoc Demon is my fav demon past Rakdos the Defiler, and this new artwork is sweet. Wang even tried to work in the thick up-turned husk/horns, although they are set a bit lower in his face.
7.) THE TOKENS! Sengir Autocrat and Tooth and Claw will finally see some sort of legit token in paper!
1.) Rorix Bladewing being given new artwork was a really random shock. I played him when he was legal to death, I have a hyper-casual good-stuff mono-red EDH deck with him as a selectable general out of a few legendaries. I have always love the goofy looking dragon, and his rendition in bladewing the risen. In this new artwork, his facial sculpt is that of a completely different dragon and his rear set of wings looks like they were added as a second thought. Sure it is nice, but I think this artwork was intended to be something else...
2.) serendib efreet is a very bizarre choice. I can only imagine that there was some hot debate about reprinting one of the exotic Djinns, but both Juzám Djinn and Serendib Djinn are on the reserved list. I guess I'm mostly emo here since I still pilot a tribal Djinn deck and seeing new foil Djinn artwork would have been sweet.
3.) the artwork on Price of Progress. It looks more like the artwork that would have been on price of glory. Doesn't feel right. I love the card and getting more printings is great, but it seems like with what this card actually does, a more thematic artwork could have been assigned.
5.) mana crypt.... Ok hear me out here. Someone somewhere will always complain about sol ring starts, and not having access to mana crypt due to financial issues has made most casual tables only aware of the dreaded sol ring start. Yes I run mana crypt in my more competitive decks that legitimately do better with it, but most of my decks do not run this. Having access to another enabler for a potential hyper-aggressive start is dangerous to start handing out in a format where people constantly complain about sol ring.
I don't think they should ban either sol ring or mana crypt, but by making mana crypt more accessible financially, it will absolutely show up in more EDH decks, which will most likely increase the rate of bad-feeling starts in casual tables.
By me keeping the crypts I own in more elaborately complicated and competitive decks, I was able to keep my "power" out of newer, more casual, and newbie friendly tables by just not playing those specific decks. But I can't control what my opponents choose to put in their decks.
I like banefire as a big finisher in formats where you have tons of mana, but this deck looks like it wants to run on 3 lands.
Perhaps a pair of volcanic fallouts instead? Yes you may off a few of your own creatures, but you have very little board presence to defend against an aggressive deck. Wiping the opponents field can buy you extra turns, which essentially means extra draw's into more burn.
edit; you could also add a single thunderous wrath in the maindeck, as it can often times be a complete blow-out. In my competitive burn deck I run a single mana clash in the sideboard for giggles against newbie opponents, since a quick burn deck tends to make for unhappy games against newer players. Always gives them something fun to chat about.
Fun enough I could add the textless terminates for what I've done to this.
I chose to re-vamp my list by adding textless cards, giving me some better utility spells and end-game reach with incinerate. These are just the cards I had sitting in a trade binder. Terminates would be a sweet upgrade if I can find someone local willing to trade. Textless Lightning Bolts could be added to a theoretical decklist, but I'm not really wanting to spend any money on this.
I also fiddled with the creatures as well. I loved playing with all of these rarely seen ladies & gents, but many were just too underwhelming. I love rakdos cackler, but he is uniquely dedicated for...not this deck. Here is the current pile;
By adding infest I also nix'ed many of the low-toughness wombats for a semi-favorable boardwipe. The deck feels more mid-range than aggro now, using the flailers self-destruct and trampling bloodfray's to close out games.
Going off my posts initial request for input, I'm still stuck on how to develop a dimir theme deck. The textless cards look nice with all the watermark cards, so I don't mind blending that theme over to whatever the partner deck becomes.
Don't get me wrong, the card is amazing when there is a mana-doubler out. But sometimes, even when using it early for ~3, just to grab a landfall, you just end up punching yourself in the face.
Something like Faithless Looting and Tormenting Voice is more along the lines of graveyard filling and card selection, not actual "draw" in the sense of card advantage.
Humble Defector is cute, but it isn't quite card advantage if the opponent gets him, and you are already down 1x card by playing him and donating him. This could be less than card-parody from a smart opponent.
IMO the best card advantage that red has, while not quite draw, would be its ability to flash-back spells. Mizzix's Mastery, Recoup, and Past in Flames can generate some absurd card advantage. Again this isn't "drawing" cards, but it is the sort of authentic card advantage that mono-red has access to.
I'm not wanting to break down on your brew, but Alexi is really hard to make effective in EDH.
Don't get me wrong, cause I love the legendary spellshapers. I've maintained a latulla, keldon overseer deck for some time as she was one of my first few generals ever, and I've piloted Greel and Mageta both to great effect.
While the 2-card discard per activation is what makes most players turn away from these old spellshapers, with Alexi the primary issue is actually that she can only bounce creatures. This makes for two very strong reasons to not run Alexi;
and 2.), which is most likely the biggest issue, is that what if there isn't any creatures to bounce? Far too many decks hardly care about creatures or combat, and some wouldn't mind you bouncing their guys that have sweet etb-triggers so they can get more value.
Now again I'm not wanting to persuade you away from Alexi. The Dismiss into Dreams trick is sweet. But from what you have listed so far, it seems like a very delicate scenario to get Alexi online just to bounce and possibly manipulate hands, and only if they have creatures worth the mana+discard to activate her bounce.
If you are set on running her then I would consider going in one of two routes;
~ a very strict control shell w/ lots of counter magic that uses Alexi as a sort of back-up plan, where you run dismiss into dream and possibly overburden/sunder sort of effects to really punish creature based opponents. Alexi most likely won't see play until later stages of the game, will mostly come out to manipulate combat, and eventually swing with runechanter's pike as a wincondition. Think of a draw+go Vendilion Clique build.
~ or a creature-based deck with tons (30+) etb-value creatures that you want the option to re-buy+re-cast with Alexi. The type of deck that runs solemn simulacrum and a pile of clones so you can keep cloning the solemn and ramp your arse into the late game. Alexi most likely won't see much play unless you just want to re-buy a few things or manipulate combat to try and survive mid game.
You may want to take a peek at her relative/descendant (i think?) in Linessa, Zephyr Mage. Granduer is a cute gimmick to work around but if you are just after the bounce ability she seems a bit more stable, trading the multi-targeting for an x-to-mana-cost, and not requiring cards to activate. She also has one of the most beautiful bits of art I've ever seen in mtg cards.
Otherwise I think we just need more techy cards to enable Alexi, which don't exist (yet). Perhaps if there was some way in mono-blue to make the opponents lands turn into creatures, you could play the same game Jolrael, Empress of Beasts does and try to 1-sided landwipe the opponent.
Being that I make very obvious deck-building mistakes in terms of optimization, be it my own vanity preventing me from including off-color fetchlands, to developing some lame theme, I consider most of my decks to be very much below average in terms of power;
~ Akroma, Angel of Fury - a "big red" semi-voltron approach. Not too quick out the door, but as much red-value for long-term sustainability and a plethora of ways to enable Akroma to 1-hit kill someone. I would consider this to be approximately a 6.
~ Jeska, Warrior Adept - a voltron brew, with 20 creatures, 20 equip, and about ~8 mana rocks, so we can attack with Jeska on turn-2 or turn-3, and cast+equip something to her the next turn. The deck is limited to the colors, since Jeska was my first general, which is actually what holds this deck back the most. Approximately a 4.
~ Latulla, Keldon Overseer - a spell slinger mono-red control brew with big x-spell's and damage manipulation. While some of my more skilled friends feel that this deck is stupid and strong I have always felt that they just got unlucky while I myself got lucky. The deck only has one infinite mana combo, yet one friend in particular seems to magically cut strait to it every time... I'd rank it also as a 4.
~ Rakka Mar - an elemental token production (from Rakka) focused build. The deck could potentially make infinite tokens, but it isnt focused on that, instead trying to develop a much stronger board by pumping the tokens, burning per their entry, or other combat/damage manipulation. If Rakka is left alone it can get very out-of-hand very fast. Before commander tuck was removed I ranked it very low, around a 4, but now I'd rank her at a 6.
~ Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh - A 1v1 brew full of cheap instant burn spells and stone rains trying to flip + protect Chandra, all while cranking up to mizzix's mastery. It has some really phenomenal match-up's that have made some of my most competitive friends incredibly irritated that this janky crapper can take them so easily and consistently, but it also has some very bad match-up's against any big-creature (maelstrom) type builds. I'd rank her as a 7 for 1v1 depending entirely on the opponents deck, and a negative value for multiplayer.
~ Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge - A beacon of tomorrows/enter the infinite combo brew with lots of good-stuff or theft/value spells as backup. Pretty typical when considering a non-storm optimized Jeleva brew. I'd rank her as an 8. Probably my strongest deck I currently maintain for multiplayer tables, but also the one that gets hated the most.
~ Wydwen, the Biting Gale - A typical draw+go voltron brew. Most likely my strongest 1v1 build simply due to my history of playing this sort of deck. I'd rank it a 9 in 1v1. It has enough resilience that it can fair well in multiplayer games too, probably around a 5. Currently none of my friends enjoy fighting against this sort of deck so she doesn't get to see much play. I admit that the games can be very boring for them, but this is the type of deck that I pilot the best.
~ Bladewing the Risen - A dragon tribal with a very small worldgorger dragon combo, designed for very long mulitplayer games. The deck is abysmally slow and has very little game-play past "I cast a big dragon." Probably around a powerlevel of 4.
~ Lyzolda, the Blood Witch - A focused worldgorger dragon combo deck with a Cult Rakdos sub-theme. The deck is not as optimized as it should be, and can easily be tuned for a much higher win-rate and combo-speed. The combo is incredibly delicate, so if disrupted I tend to just scoop up my cards. The speed of the deck makes my friends consider this a very dangerous and powerful deck, but due to its delicate nature, along with me purposefully dumbing it down with water-mark theme cards, I can't help but consider it a 6.
~ Melek, Izzet Paragon all Russian Izzet-Watermark theme deck. A current pimp-in-progress. This is absolutely my weakest deck, being that it is a self-restricted deck that can only have cards with the Izzet watermark. It's limited to this theme with the intention of roll-playing whilst playing EDH, and is also used when alcohol is involved with a few games, as I have drinking-rules that I must abide when playing this deck. Power level = 1, terrabad, worse than EDH pre-con's. But christ is it a beautiful deck.
I have lots of other decks that I'm currently running (Rayne, Academy Chancellor clones, Vela the Night-Clad flicker combo, Maralen of the Mornsong zero-combo MBC, Gwendlyn Di Corci djinn tribal, Rorix Bladewing good-stuff, etc), but these are the decks that I tend to keep active for a shorter amount of time for experimenting with, and can't really consider an actual powerlevel as the decks tend to change frequently.
The issue with Ryusei is that he is never going to trigger if you put him in the command zone upon death. If you are just after dragon tribal then Rorix Bladewing is actually a very strong contender for a quick aggro approach. She runs like a creature-light Urabrask build, focusing on combat with Rorix (temur battlerage/seize the day/savage beating/etc).
I did have a Ryusei brew before the commander tuck-rule was maniupliated which had a few tricks like triassic egg and haunted fengraf to pull him from the graveyard, but now you can put him from yard into the command zone with Scrabbling Claws/Relic of Progenitus sort of stuff.
You may also want some good sac' spells to really make use of Ryusei's board wipe. Fatal Frenzy and Fling are really strong here.
For example I love my latulla, keldon overseer deck with a sick passion. Some of my most pimp and high-value decks I maintain (Latulla and Jeska, Warrior Adept) are just abysmal in power. And man do I get a lot of crap from some friends and spectators for "misusing expensive mtg resources."
I constantly waste an inordinate amount of time brewing up theoretical decklists for mostly trash unplayable legends (Lim-Dul the Necromancer/Maraxus of Keld/Avacyn, Guardian Angel/Ith, High Arcanist/Malfegor/etc).
To answer the question although, my opinion is on the other end of the spectrum. I feel that if a general is considered "solved" in any way, such that people can talk about optimization with little effort or research, if it is just "known" that to run X-general you should run X-cards, then that is a general I find pointless to run.
Competitively speaking you need a quality deck to compete against other tier quality EDH decks. If that is all you play, then this entire topic probably doesn't mean anything for you.
I understand net-decking for competitive tournaments since in a constructed format, it is necessary to understand what everyone is playing at large events. But in this format, I see very little value in running a hyper-common general in a hyper-common deckbuild with hyper-common cards if you capable of developing your own deck with a general you actually want to play.
If the hyper-common general is your baby, and its a card that you have grown to love, then yes, that is great! Otherwise I don't understand how people don't get bored with their decks.
My opinion is also due to me being a hyper-casual-hipster.
My original list of 200+ cards had every pinger, filter, and mana-dork to evaluate, and I had some serious non-bo's. Some ideal goodies like bonded fetch and jace, vyrn's prodigy had to be cut when I realized they were just bricks and didn't combo. I didn't even realize that half of my original conceptual idea bricked since Ith prevented combat damage
Basilisk Collar should also go in too, since it is a nice way to stay alive. From the outside this deck looks like it has some dead time after resolving some cheap mana-dorks up to when it can land Ith, and having a death-toucher as a blocker is a nice way to fend people away.
I really like the idea of paradise mantle here. Like Oracle's Insight it can make any dork into a needed combo-dork.
A big fraction of this deck could be removed in favor of creating a more stable generic white/blue deck. For example the pinger section, the looter section, or the mana-dork section could each be removed to help strengthen the rest of the decks potential.
I had considered just not running any of the looters/draw guys in favor of some Ith combat stuff like Stonehewer Giant/swords of x+y/loxodon warhammer/eldrazi conscription/righteous authority/steel of the godhead. Without so much space being dedicated to lab-man / creature recursion / self mill the deck has lots of room to work with.
Thanks for the feedback mate!
1x Ith, High Arcanist
Creatures (mana): 9
1x Alloy Myr
1x Gold Myr
1x Manakin
1x Opaline Unicorn
1x Palladium Myr
1x Plague Myr
1x Scuttlemutt
1x Sea Scryer
1x Silver Myr
Creatures (pingers): 8
1x Endbringer
1x Mawcor
1x Prodigal Sorcerer
1x Samite Archer
1x Stuffy Doll
1x Suq'Ata Firewalker
1x Thornwind Faeries
1x Zuran Spellcaster
Creatures (filter/draw): 7
1x Arcanis the Omnipotent
1x Archivist
1x Deal Broker
1x Inspired Sprite
1x Merfolk Looter
1x Reckless Scholar
1x Thought Courier
Creatures (others): 11
1x Angel of Glory's Rise
1x Archaeomancer
1x Clockwork Vorrac
1x Emeria Shepherd
1x Karmic Guide
1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Mangara of Corondor
1x Mikaeus, the Lunarch
1x Stoneforge Mystic
1x Sun Titan
1x Argivian Find
1x Blue Sun's Zenith
1x Capsize
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Intuition
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Psychic Spiral
1x Sphinx's Revelation
1x Stroke of Genius
Sorcery: 11
1x Breath of Life
1x Call to Mind
1x Fabricate
1x Fell the Mighty
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Mine Excavation
1x Open the Armory
1x Planar Birth
1x Resurrection
1x Retribution of the Meek
1x Steelshaper's Gift
Enchantments: 2
1x Marshal's Anthem
1x Oracle's Insight
Artifacts: 6
1x Basalt Monolith
1x Illusionist's Bracers
1x Mesmeric Orb
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Thousand-Year Elixir
1x Command Tower
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Glacial Fortress
1x Hallowed Fountain
10x Island
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Mystic Gate
1x Nimbus Maze
10x Plains
1x Prairie Stream
1x Skycloud Expanse
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Thawing Glaciers
4x Wastes
1x Argivian Restoration
1x Elixir of Immortality
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Hedron Crawler
1x Loxodon Warhammer
1x Millikin
1x Path to Exile
1x Recurring Insight
1x Remember the Fallen
1x Ritual of Restoration
1x Steel of the Godhead
1x Sunseed Nurturer
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Wake Thrasher
It is essentially an all-in funky combo deck around abusing Ith's interaction with either Illusionist's Bracers or Mesmeric Orb, so we can combo with untap creatures, or self-mill us into some graveyard antics.
The combo's work entirly due to Ith being able to attack, not tapping due to his vigilance, and his activated ability not requiring the target to actually be a tapped creature. With just Ith himself attacking we can create a state of infinite tap+untap triggers. Add in mesmeric orb and we can mill ourselves (with basalt monolith acting as a nice backup). Equip Ith with illusionist's bracers and we can infinitely untap any creature with a tap ability that attacked with Ith.
The combo using bracers can generate infinite mana, infinite draw, infinite self-mill, or infinite damage via pingers.
With a pinger the game just ends. With Mangara of Corondor the opponents loose their entire board.
With infinite mana we can draw ourselves out of the game with sphinx's revelation to find blue sun's zenith or stroke of genius to then deck the opponent.
With infinite mill we can fill our graveyard to win with laboratory maniac, or do silly shenanigans by reanimating Emeria Shepherd and casting planar birth.
There is a lot of potential for alternative combos too. Combo interactions could also include infinite life-gain with Silent Attendant, or an enchantment theme via the mill and utilize Replenish. The potential for infinite pump is here, but is nerfed by our own generals damage-prevention clause. We could make an infinite/infinite Lodestone Myr, Kabuto Moth, Streambed Aquitects or Angelic Page, but they will negate their own damage. I feel that Mikaeus, the Lunarch and Clockwork Vorac are still worth running since the counters will stick around and trample helps. Sadly the other candidates like Wake Thrasher, Steel Overseer, and Clockwork Hydra have zero evasion for us to benefit from.
This first draft is an all-in combo approach. I tried to include a nice assortment of graveyard recursive spells to try and keep the all-important illusionist's bracers or mesmeric orb coming back. Making cuts was brutal as the decklist already feels really stretched tight.
I know that relying on a 7-cmc general is pretty bad idea, but this looks super fun. I'm looking for all sorts of feedback and ideas to help improve this list.
The cute small effects to copy and untap him are thousand-year elixir, magewright's stone, puppet strings, rings of brighthearth, pemmin's aura, umbral mantel, illusionist's bracers, and thornbite staff + some sac-outlet.
There are some garbag spells you can try like the dimir cypher one
His power really shines with intruder alarm + training grounds. You can amass an enormous army at the end of someones turn for every open blue mana
By using skullclamp for draw, crypt sliver to hold down the defense, mindlash sliver to screw with hands, necrotic sliver to pop the opponents lands, and homing sliver to fill two(ish) key slivers in my graveyard (usually some combination of magma sliver/heart sliver/fury sliver/sedge sliver), I could lion's eye diamond+infernal tutor into a patriarch's bidding for a nice board presence fairly early in the game.
It was essentially a dega sliver build without bothering for +1/+1 effects, but with a different plan other than direct aggro.
I don't think it would fair in today's casual environment, and with how knowledgeable my friends are of the game I'm sure that anyone could poke holes in this sort of deck pretty quickly. But back then it was sweet. I still maintain a very dumbed down version of this (no LED/tutor) that takes on a more aggro approach.
A flying commander that bypasses recast tax, in the colors of ramp + equipment goodstuff is already ideal, but add in control elements and his ability to tap down an opponents attacker just by being cast, makes for some pretty good tempo swings.
Treat him like a voltron rafiq deck. The best part is putting rafiq in the 99, so you can green suns / natural order / cord him out for a wicked final blow. Most people see rafiq and anticipate their potential death-turn, but doing this with Derevi is just unexpected and funny.
I'm really happy with a lot of the reprints helping bring down high-value cards, and seeing new foil versions to hopefully impact the exotic judge foil prices.
Currently I'm most excited for, in ranked order;
1.) toxic deluge in foil, due to the number of non-foil versions in my nearly all-foil decks
2.) baleful strix in foil, same as above.
3.) night's whisper with the sweet gorgon artwork in foil. The original mirr printing is neat, but I prefer the gorgon head molestation.
4.) entomb has new artwork and Gisa quotes, which looks really sweet, and the animate dead artwork is finally giving us a non-PDS foil to work with.
5.) non $100 foil dazes
6.) Havoc Demon is my fav demon past Rakdos the Defiler, and this new artwork is sweet. Wang even tried to work in the thick up-turned husk/horns, although they are set a bit lower in his face.
7.) THE TOKENS! Sengir Autocrat and Tooth and Claw will finally see some sort of legit token in paper!
The other reprintings with first-time-foils like malicious affliction/gamble are nice too.
What I'm most disappointed in;
1.) Rorix Bladewing being given new artwork was a really random shock. I played him when he was legal to death, I have a hyper-casual good-stuff mono-red EDH deck with him as a selectable general out of a few legendaries. I have always love the goofy looking dragon, and his rendition in bladewing the risen. In this new artwork, his facial sculpt is that of a completely different dragon and his rear set of wings looks like they were added as a second thought. Sure it is nice, but I think this artwork was intended to be something else...
2.) serendib efreet is a very bizarre choice. I can only imagine that there was some hot debate about reprinting one of the exotic Djinns, but both Juzám Djinn and Serendib Djinn are on the reserved list. I guess I'm mostly emo here since I still pilot a tribal Djinn deck and seeing new foil Djinn artwork would have been sweet.
3.) the artwork on Price of Progress. It looks more like the artwork that would have been on price of glory. Doesn't feel right. I love the card and getting more printings is great, but it seems like with what this card actually does, a more thematic artwork could have been assigned.
4.) the sweet commander artwork of phyrexian gargantua got a printing in foil, but not phyrexian delver.
5.) mana crypt.... Ok hear me out here. Someone somewhere will always complain about sol ring starts, and not having access to mana crypt due to financial issues has made most casual tables only aware of the dreaded sol ring start. Yes I run mana crypt in my more competitive decks that legitimately do better with it, but most of my decks do not run this. Having access to another enabler for a potential hyper-aggressive start is dangerous to start handing out in a format where people constantly complain about sol ring.
I don't think they should ban either sol ring or mana crypt, but by making mana crypt more accessible financially, it will absolutely show up in more EDH decks, which will most likely increase the rate of bad-feeling starts in casual tables.
By me keeping the crypts I own in more elaborately complicated and competitive decks, I was able to keep my "power" out of newer, more casual, and newbie friendly tables by just not playing those specific decks. But I can't control what my opponents choose to put in their decks.
Perhaps a pair of volcanic fallouts instead? Yes you may off a few of your own creatures, but you have very little board presence to defend against an aggressive deck. Wiping the opponents field can buy you extra turns, which essentially means extra draw's into more burn.
chain reaction is also a very whimsical card. You may want to replace those with 2x pyroclasms, flamebreaks, earthquakes, or slagstorms. Kind of depends on what your opponents tend to play.
edit; you could also add a single thunderous wrath in the maindeck, as it can often times be a complete blow-out. In my competitive burn deck I run a single mana clash in the sideboard for giggles against newbie opponents, since a quick burn deck tends to make for unhappy games against newer players. Always gives them something fun to chat about.
I chose to re-vamp my list by adding textless cards, giving me some better utility spells and end-game reach with incinerate. These are just the cards I had sitting in a trade binder. Terminates would be a sweet upgrade if I can find someone local willing to trade. Textless Lightning Bolts could be added to a theoretical decklist, but I'm not really wanting to spend any money on this.
I also fiddled with the creatures as well. I loved playing with all of these rarely seen ladies & gents, but many were just too underwhelming. I love rakdos cackler, but he is uniquely dedicated for...not this deck. Here is the current pile;
3x Bloodfray Giant
1x Carnival Hellsteed
1x Cryptborn Horror
1x Dread Slag
1x Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
3x Hellhole Flailer
1x Lyzolda, the Blood Witch
1x Rakdos Augermage
1x Rakdos, Lord of Riots
3x Rix Maadi Guildmage
2x Splatter Thug
2x Squealing Devil
2x Thrill-Kill Assassin
2x Doom Blade
4x Incinerate
Sorcery (4)
2x Infest
2x Sign in Blood
Enchantment (5)
1x Anthem of Rakdos
4x Deviant Glee
Land (23)
2x Blood Crypt
8x Mountain
2x Rakdos Carnarium
2x Rakdos Guildgate
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace
8x Swamp
By adding infest I also nix'ed many of the low-toughness wombats for a semi-favorable boardwipe. The deck feels more mid-range than aggro now, using the flailers self-destruct and trampling bloodfray's to close out games.
Going off my posts initial request for input, I'm still stuck on how to develop a dimir theme deck. The textless cards look nice with all the watermark cards, so I don't mind blending that theme over to whatever the partner deck becomes.
More like commune with lava for 8 eot, reveal 7x mountains and a fire diamond, untap and draw a mountain. This has happened. I was about to learn just how aerodynamic my deck was.
Don't get me wrong, the card is amazing when there is a mana-doubler out. But sometimes, even when using it early for ~3, just to grab a landfall, you just end up punching yourself in the face.
In terms of "draw" of legitimately red cards, the playable ones are really just the good wheel effects (wheel of fortune/magus of the wheel/reforge the soul).
The exile/temp spells (commune with lava/act on impulse/outpost siege/prophetic flamespeaker) are never a guaranteed "draw" in terms of card advantage, and might incidentally exile the best cards in your deck.
Something like Faithless Looting and Tormenting Voice is more along the lines of graveyard filling and card selection, not actual "draw" in the sense of card advantage.
Humble Defector is cute, but it isn't quite card advantage if the opponent gets him, and you are already down 1x card by playing him and donating him. This could be less than card-parody from a smart opponent.
IMO the best card advantage that red has, while not quite draw, would be its ability to flash-back spells. Mizzix's Mastery, Recoup, and Past in Flames can generate some absurd card advantage. Again this isn't "drawing" cards, but it is the sort of authentic card advantage that mono-red has access to.
Don't get me wrong, cause I love the legendary spellshapers. I've maintained a latulla, keldon overseer deck for some time as she was one of my first few generals ever, and I've piloted Greel and Mageta both to great effect.
While the 2-card discard per activation is what makes most players turn away from these old spellshapers, with Alexi the primary issue is actually that she can only bounce creatures. This makes for two very strong reasons to not run Alexi;
1.) mono-blue already has far superior bounce spells that do not require a 5cmc creature w/o summoning sickness and 2x discarded cards to activate. Mono-blue just got a nasty bounce spell in engulf the shore, and has a huge stock of bounce spells that can either be non-conditional (cyclonic rift/devestation tide/crush of tentacles/kederekt leviathan), or built for you to take advantage of (displacement wave/inundate/whelming wave/wash out/evacuation/scourge of fleets). It will be a very exotic scenario for a clearly-telegraphed Alexi to out-shine these.
and 2.), which is most likely the biggest issue, is that what if there isn't any creatures to bounce? Far too many decks hardly care about creatures or combat, and some wouldn't mind you bouncing their guys that have sweet etb-triggers so they can get more value.
Now again I'm not wanting to persuade you away from Alexi. The Dismiss into Dreams trick is sweet. But from what you have listed so far, it seems like a very delicate scenario to get Alexi online just to bounce and possibly manipulate hands, and only if they have creatures worth the mana+discard to activate her bounce.
If you are set on running her then I would consider going in one of two routes;
~ a very strict control shell w/ lots of counter magic that uses Alexi as a sort of back-up plan, where you run dismiss into dream and possibly overburden/sunder sort of effects to really punish creature based opponents. Alexi most likely won't see play until later stages of the game, will mostly come out to manipulate combat, and eventually swing with runechanter's pike as a wincondition. Think of a draw+go Vendilion Clique build.
~ or a creature-based deck with tons (30+) etb-value creatures that you want the option to re-buy+re-cast with Alexi. The type of deck that runs solemn simulacrum and a pile of clones so you can keep cloning the solemn and ramp your arse into the late game. Alexi most likely won't see much play unless you just want to re-buy a few things or manipulate combat to try and survive mid game.
You may want to take a peek at her relative/descendant (i think?) in Linessa, Zephyr Mage. Granduer is a cute gimmick to work around but if you are just after the bounce ability she seems a bit more stable, trading the multi-targeting for an x-to-mana-cost, and not requiring cards to activate. She also has one of the most beautiful bits of art I've ever seen in mtg cards.
Otherwise I think we just need more techy cards to enable Alexi, which don't exist (yet). Perhaps if there was some way in mono-blue to make the opponents lands turn into creatures, you could play the same game Jolrael, Empress of Beasts does and try to 1-sided landwipe the opponent.
~ Akroma, Angel of Fury - a "big red" semi-voltron approach. Not too quick out the door, but as much red-value for long-term sustainability and a plethora of ways to enable Akroma to 1-hit kill someone. I would consider this to be approximately a 6.
~ Jeska, Warrior Adept - a voltron brew, with 20 creatures, 20 equip, and about ~8 mana rocks, so we can attack with Jeska on turn-2 or turn-3, and cast+equip something to her the next turn. The deck is limited to the colors, since Jeska was my first general, which is actually what holds this deck back the most. Approximately a 4.
~ Latulla, Keldon Overseer - a spell slinger mono-red control brew with big x-spell's and damage manipulation. While some of my more skilled friends feel that this deck is stupid and strong I have always felt that they just got unlucky while I myself got lucky. The deck only has one infinite mana combo, yet one friend in particular seems to magically cut strait to it every time... I'd rank it also as a 4.
~ Rakka Mar - an elemental token production (from Rakka) focused build. The deck could potentially make infinite tokens, but it isnt focused on that, instead trying to develop a much stronger board by pumping the tokens, burning per their entry, or other combat/damage manipulation. If Rakka is left alone it can get very out-of-hand very fast. Before commander tuck was removed I ranked it very low, around a 4, but now I'd rank her at a 6.
~ Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh - A 1v1 brew full of cheap instant burn spells and stone rains trying to flip + protect Chandra, all while cranking up to mizzix's mastery. It has some really phenomenal match-up's that have made some of my most competitive friends incredibly irritated that this janky crapper can take them so easily and consistently, but it also has some very bad match-up's against any big-creature (maelstrom) type builds. I'd rank her as a 7 for 1v1 depending entirely on the opponents deck, and a negative value for multiplayer.
~ Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge - A beacon of tomorrows/enter the infinite combo brew with lots of good-stuff or theft/value spells as backup. Pretty typical when considering a non-storm optimized Jeleva brew. I'd rank her as an 8. Probably my strongest deck I currently maintain for multiplayer tables, but also the one that gets hated the most.
~ Wydwen, the Biting Gale - A typical draw+go voltron brew. Most likely my strongest 1v1 build simply due to my history of playing this sort of deck. I'd rank it a 9 in 1v1. It has enough resilience that it can fair well in multiplayer games too, probably around a 5. Currently none of my friends enjoy fighting against this sort of deck so she doesn't get to see much play. I admit that the games can be very boring for them, but this is the type of deck that I pilot the best.
~ Bladewing the Risen - A dragon tribal with a very small worldgorger dragon combo, designed for very long mulitplayer games. The deck is abysmally slow and has very little game-play past "I cast a big dragon." Probably around a powerlevel of 4.
~ Lyzolda, the Blood Witch - A focused worldgorger dragon combo deck with a Cult Rakdos sub-theme. The deck is not as optimized as it should be, and can easily be tuned for a much higher win-rate and combo-speed. The combo is incredibly delicate, so if disrupted I tend to just scoop up my cards. The speed of the deck makes my friends consider this a very dangerous and powerful deck, but due to its delicate nature, along with me purposefully dumbing it down with water-mark theme cards, I can't help but consider it a 6.
~ Melek, Izzet Paragon all Russian Izzet-Watermark theme deck. A current pimp-in-progress. This is absolutely my weakest deck, being that it is a self-restricted deck that can only have cards with the Izzet watermark. It's limited to this theme with the intention of roll-playing whilst playing EDH, and is also used when alcohol is involved with a few games, as I have drinking-rules that I must abide when playing this deck. Power level = 1, terrabad, worse than EDH pre-con's. But christ is it a beautiful deck.
I have lots of other decks that I'm currently running (Rayne, Academy Chancellor clones, Vela the Night-Clad flicker combo, Maralen of the Mornsong zero-combo MBC, Gwendlyn Di Corci djinn tribal, Rorix Bladewing good-stuff, etc), but these are the decks that I tend to keep active for a shorter amount of time for experimenting with, and can't really consider an actual powerlevel as the decks tend to change frequently.
I did have a Ryusei brew before the commander tuck-rule was maniupliated which had a few tricks like triassic egg and haunted fengraf to pull him from the graveyard, but now you can put him from yard into the command zone with Scrabbling Claws/Relic of Progenitus sort of stuff.
You may also want some good sac' spells to really make use of Ryusei's board wipe. Fatal Frenzy and Fling are really strong here.