MTG Salvation

So I realised I can do a card search on EDHREC
Jhoira and Blue braids are boring to me.
My concern with Zedruu is that I'll just make another UW control deck, I need to be doing something interesting with her.

I still have PTSD from the scarab god in standard :P... the scry is like the least powerful part of the card

It seems like the one not mentioned is Taigam, Sidisi's Hand... is really the only one I can see myself making partially because he is uncommon.

Perhaps I should pick a different card or some kind of theme that isn't covered by my other 4 decks: Green black artifact recursion mid-range. UW planeswalker and hate card control. Tribal aggro and cheating big things into play. hmmm hmmm

Well, it's been years since I built a commander deck. I built 4 and stopped; GB mid-range, UW control, Bant Bird tribal and mono-red dragons. I stopped because I felt like these 4 decks basically did all that I might want to do in commander that and I couldn't carry any more. But I think its time to make something new, I have too many cards not doing anything and no other constructed magic to work towards.

To build decks I really like starting from one card and spiralling a deck outwards, normally that is my commander but nothing has interested me recently so I have picked a powerful card from my collection and trying to work out how to make the most out of it. Paradox haze but I don't know what commander to use with it any suggestions?

I am a johnny at heart, like blue and hate green, I am not against combo but it needs to be complicated to be interesting, Money might be a problem but I have a large collection and ways to get a ton of store credit but old cards can be super hard to get a hold of.

The professor has you covered in this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0wA9FVQY1w&t=0s

Even though there are no other samurai's in green I disagree that Isao, Enlightened Bushi is completely useless, you could use him as a Voltron commander that can never equip lightning greaves, but I have no idea why you would choose him over Thrun, the last troll.

You can also strip your opponent's hand with something like Mindslicer where are a green-black deck is advantaged in returning things from the graveyard.

Cloudgoat is a given

I found I really like Serra Angel, there is a reason she is a classic.
She kind of under drafted but the deck she is best in is kind of a rare draft (UW control).

Still when you fail to solidify an archetype and end up "good stuff" she is the kind of raw power you need to make that kind of thing work.

I also run
Elite Scaleguard and Sentinel of the Eternal Watch.

Terror of Mount Velus

I need one for my Zirilan of the claw commander deck

Quote from calibretto »

[I started posting events in our Facebook group a month or more in advance. I include a poll so people can vote on which weekend works best for them in a given month and we've just been going with the weekend that has the most people voting. If people commit to cube on X weekend, then they usually stick to it.

I used to do it a month in advance but people just seemed to completely forget or suddenly have an assignment they had to do that night. It was way worse than giving them a weeks notice. When they know full well what they have to do that week. Basically, last-minute cancelling or completely forgetting is a lot less likely.

Apparently doing it around Christmas/new year is actually a lot worse than randomly during the year, partially that is due to people going home from the Uni colleges. Harder still because my original regulars graduated and went back home. I tried to get it done between Christmas and New Year but it seemed everyone was away until the second week of Jan.

The issue appears that there is a lot of "I hate draft" people from among the younger/new folks. When I was at Uni we used to draft regularly but since that's not been a thing recently they just haven't done it, I guess. Plus deck building appears to be their favourite part of playing magic (hence having infinite EDH decks and constantly building new ones) But if I can never convince them to cube I don't think I can show them it's better than booster draft or Arena draft.

I like commander but if I organise a cube I want to cube. Unlikely the newer players I got to 4 EDH decks and stopped since I can't carry more I like all 4 of them but I never felt the need to build another one (every Idea I have seems to overlap too much with what I have to be honest).

There is 0% of getting anything like a GP around here. I guess there is the one big store but its a 40 min drive away and their tournaments start at 10 am on the weekend :s. My LGS closed down last year

I have 2x of Shadows over Innistrad boxes in my cupboard I was supposed to draft with my friends (people that introduced me to magic, not the people from the club) but they have a weird idea about draft in that they don't believe in swiss pairings so everyone has to play everyone and it takes all day and night to finish a draft. Then there is the prospect of Cube on top of that, for new sets they haven't really kept up on.

Herding people is such hard work ergh! they just have so many strange quirks and refuse to just let me do it my way.

Should I just keep bringing it to every magic event I ever go to until they give in and play it?

Arggh! I am so frustrated its completely impossible to get 8 (or even 6) people together to draft the cube I have spent so much time on.

The people at the uni games club that I used to play with (when I was at uni) are completely addicted to Commander, they basically invite people to play every weekend, even over the weekend I planned to cube with the result of all my players going to play commander instead and me being completely unable to convince any of the commander players to cube.

If any of my core players is ever away or unable to make it to an event it just never fires, and most of them, like me, have graduated.

As for my original group of magic playing friends I have bought my cube to many mtg events but they prefer large multiplayer casual games (not even commander) and despite some of them returning to regular magic play after years away.

How am I supposed to convince anyone to cube instead of commander or casual constructed any way???

Hmm I am not sure what to think about it. It's kind of blinding to just go through so many cards at once.

In
Reverent Hoplite
Anax, Hardened in the Forge
Chainweb Aracnir
Renata, Called to the Hunt

These are all great, I haven't decided what to cut for the reverent hoplite yet though maybe one of my token making spells.

Maybe
Oread of Mountain's Blaze
I like this card but I think Its too defensive for red in my cube.
I think I will put Goblin Wardriver back in to facilitate Anax
Phalanx Tactics this trick looks nasty for white tokens decks

Dreamshaper Shaman looks fun.. 5/4 is not terrible although 6 in red means you are unlikely to be playing it fairly.

I don't have many enchantments in my cube so I am not interested in enchantment stuff.

Anax, hardened in the forge and Renata, called to the hunt are interesting.

Oread of Mountain's Blaze seems like a nice way to fuel red decks help push through mana flood and finding good cards.

The Spider Confirmed but also... Reverent Hoplite which is also pretty amazing. White has perminate based removal and lots of pips.

Hmm still Mire triton seems just a step below my other 2 drops also I have a thing about 1 toughness creatures being bad (I have so many 1/1 tokens and 1/1 token hate), I'll see what my players think. I have a cube schedualed just before Theros BD comes out.

Mire triton. I don't think its quite good enough

The second gift of the spoiler season that is extremely rare

Purphuros, Bronze-Blooded 4R
Legendary enchantment creature - god

Indestructible
As long as your devotion to red is less than five Purphuros isn't a creature
Other creatures you control have haste
2R: You may put a red or artifact creature from your hand onto the battlefield from your hand. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step

5 mana is awkward but more redundancy is always welcome. With this and sneak attack, I think I might need to put Sarkhan's triumph back into my deck.

The short answer is yes but typically there will be some individual decks you can't beat while meta decks have game against everything.

I played a lot of UR Drakes over the last few years and at times the lands were the only rares in my deck and I was smashing people. Cackling drake/ pteramander decks