So, I got the cards in the mail today, but when I started to put the deck together, I realized I had way too many non land cards (my goal for this deck is 39 lands and 60 non lands). Any chance you can help me cut this down (70 cards as of now):
I'm excited for you and too be honest a little jealous
First of all you have a ton of mana sources (artifacts and land ramp) and this was previously to really support a 5 color design. But now that you are down to basically Sultai, the need for so much fixing isn't as much required.
39 lands is too much for how much fixing you have. You can easily go down to 37, and I personally would go to 35, but let's just say 37 to make you feel comfortable.
That will be 8 cards we need to cut. Pit Spawn - Worst of the fatties imo. Myojin of Seeing Winds - I do love this card, but you actually have to cast it to get the effect, otherwise it's just a 3/3. Better in a deck, that is able to consistently cast it. Ice Cave - Too durdly and a symetrical effect, so dangerous. Awakening - Even though it plays into the Tradewind Rider combo, you don't have enough instant speed game plan to warrant giving opponents the symetrical effect. So just be happy with Seedborn Muse. Mist of Stagnation - I wouldn't play this unless you have your own means of removing cards from opponents graveyards. You run the risk of opponents graveyard removal blowing you out in two different directions. Joiner Adept - Actual color fixing isn't that important anymore. Nature's Lore - With only being able to play basic lands with types, this can only get a basic Forest. So it doesn't fix your colors as you already would have G to cast it. That's why the other land ramp with actual "basic lands" are better. Reap and Sow - Bit slow.
Thanks. One of my ideas was to combine Awakening and Ice Cave once I have a reasonable board state, which is why I combined those two (hey, rage quitting is a valid wincon).
Ilharg, the Raze-Boar3RR Legendary Creature - Boar God
Trample
Whenever Ilharg, the Raze-Boar attacks, you may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped and attacking. Return that creature to your hand at the beginning of the next end step.
When Ilharg, the Raze-Boar dies or is put into exile from the battlefield, you may put it into its owner's library third from the top. 6/6
Basically this commander is sneak attack on a stick, except the creature you sneak in never die but instead return to your hand. Which for creatures that enter the battlefield is very powerful. But also consider creatures you want to sneak attack in with that normally lack haste. This also means what you sneak in with won't be affected by sorcery speed answers. The other type of creatures to look out for are ones that have an effect when leaving the battlefield. The Final kind are those that trigger on dying which make it unfavorable for an opponent to attempt killing it.
Next to go over is the fact he is a 6/6 trample by himself. He is exactly +1/+0 power away from being a 3-turn clock and that he can't just be simply chump blocked.
Finally, this commander is very sticky and hard to get rid of. The means to get rid of him are something like Imprisoned in the Moon, Song of the Dryads, or Darksteel Mutation for a few examples. Meaning he will default to your library if he would be sent to the graveyard or even to exile. Normally tucking your commander is not a liked idea, but when its 3rd from the top, that means he won't be gone for long and that he dodges commander tax which is a powerful thing for red.
I've assembled a few I thought off the top my head in the decklist below. Can't wait to see what else pops up.
What sort of card draw should I add? Fact or Fiction is probably a shoe in, but what else? Would you say that the ramp/color fixing I am playing is sufficient?
Being basically pure Sultai means that your color fixing is plentiful.
So, I got the cards in the mail today, but when I started to put the deck together, I realized I had way too many non land cards (my goal for this deck is 39 lands and 60 non lands). Any chance you can help me cut this down (70 cards as of now):
The problem with Luminarch Ascension is that it's the archetypical EDH early game leg-up nonsense, like Serra Ascendant. Drop it on curve, the table gasps in unison, nobody can do anything about it immediately, it clocks people a bunch and eventually goes away, getting you more attention than it deserves. You topdeck it late and it does nothing. Given the fact the Ascension's fail case is a "KICK ME" note in a deck trying to slip under the radar, I've been giving it a wide berth.
I haven't managed to get Orrery evaluation in, for I got distracted with a new shiny. It's funny how I just declared that there could be more mana in the deck, only for Bolas Rock to hit. Initial testing has been quite ludicrous - the thing lands and immediately tears into the library, leading to a ridiculous amount of value. The same high density of shuffles that make Top useful double up as brick protection here, as does Top itself along with Necropotence and Doom Whisperer. There's some pretty damned strong lifegain in the 99 to help offset the drain if a particularly juicy value chain presents itself. Importantly, the explosion will leave behind a tangible benefit even if it's met with a wipe because of experience counters. This feels like the equivalent of strapping a rocket engine to your bicycle, slamming down the pedal and hoping you don't splatter against the wall - a very EDH design. The last time I was this smitten by a card was Meglonoth.
One of those test rounds turned out to be one of the best games I have ever played. Bolas Rock came down on turn seven, ripped through about 20 mana's worth of topdeck, scavenged a number of experience counters and got immediately nuked to the stone age through a concerted Terastodon into Austere Command from the rest of the table. Daxos never managed to explode as hard previously, let alone off a single card. The activated ability, which I figured would never see use, was popped in response to the Command and turned some doomed tokens into a nontrivial table slug. Had I not gotten wiped, it was pretty over. In spite of being wiped, the experience counter advantage was sufficient to offer a ridiculous leg up for the rest of the game. While the rest of the table got distracted by a baller Avacyn + Archetype of Endurance + Platinum Emperion setup Mayael side, which got Clone Legioned, I healed to triple digits off a massive lifelink swing and did an Enter the Infinite tier draw off Necropotence, somehow staying under the radar. Upon untapping, a perfectly sculpted alpha with multiple backup lines was ensured. What a game, that one.
The more I play with Luminarch Ascension the more I realize that it really does do the opposite of what the deck wants and will be cut. The tokens are nice and really powerful, if it gets alone, but it is not worth the hate generated to cast it. I had a two games early when I got to play it on turn two and then got it to quickly activate, which is why I was defending it. Drawing it later in the game is borderline useless and I literally casted it once to get one more experience counter for my tokens, meaning that this could be replaced by an enchantment with CMC 2 or less and would have been better.
The Bolas stone seems nuts and seems like another Ad Nauseam engine (right to the point where Tendrils of Agony is a very viable finisher).
What sort of card draw should I add? Fact or Fiction is probably a shoe in, but what else? Would you say that the ramp/color fixing I am playing is sufficient?
[quote from="darrenhabib »" url="/forums/the-game/commander-edh/807540-nostalgia-deck-help?comment=16"]I can't believe how many of those reanimation cards I missed (and used to play). After a quick search on gatherer (and there are a lot more spirits (and some really janky ones like Sibilant Spirit and cards I would have never thought were spirits like Liege of the Hollow), would a reanimation theme work better or would a spirit tribal theme work better?
I do have a Spirits tribal deck (non-restricted), and it's pretty average, so I wouldn't be sold on doing that, especially as you are only really pulling from the Kamigawa sets.
The thing is that the synergies are not all that great as actual "Spirits" and whenever you also see the word "arcane", there just isn't enough good ones to make the triggers work well.
There is "soulshift", but again I find it a little underwhelming, often not having a target, and they are over-costed.
As long as you play some discard outlets then you can save yourself from filling your hand with too many of those big creature, so that you can make use of reanimation cards. This is why I really like Forbid, Greater Good, Frantic Search, Windfall as a starting base for discard.
If that makes sense it's not like you are all in on reanimation, but it does give you a way to not just playing out "one big creature per turn" as your only game plan.
And then in the face of removal you can use the reanimation as value.
I've built up a pretty strong picture in my head how I'd piece a deck together, do you want me to make a deck list that you can look through? I do tend to take over peoples threads/builds once I start thinking about them, so I'd understand if you just want ideas and not a full list.
</blockquote>
So in trying to put this deck together, I wanted to make sure I had each set covered too, so this is what I was thinking:
Of the cards you suggest, Vedalken Orrery is the most interesting. I haven't been able to kill stuff reliably enough to use reanimation auras to good effect, Luminarch Ascension is a trap as discussed time and time again, Underworld Connections is a stick I use to dismiss poor draw options, Martyr's Bond is crazy overcosted for what it can actually do in the deck, and I shared my Nether Void concerns last time you showed up 'round these parts. Maybe they've been working out for you, if so glad to hear that. However, 2016 me has this to say about the Orrery:
Also, in the interest of notes for the future, I tried Vedalken Orrery. It seemed like a great idea, as granting flash to all sorts of enchantment nonsense is a slam dunk. I drew it in a few games, and one game it was indeed a slam dunk, but in the others it didn't really do all that much. It has a smaller average impact than something like Cloudstone Curio. True, it was nice to slap in Sphere of Safety against an overcommitted, over-equipped voltron (making me immune for the turn), or eat what would have been a threatening army in a few turns with No Mercy, or have Rule of Law/Oblivion Ring etc at instant speed, but this only does proper work every now and then. It wouldn't be too good for consistency, so at least at this point I'm not going to run it.
It's entirely possible the deck's in a better place now and it wouldn't suck, I guess I should try it again at some point if it's been working so well for you.
Seeing how I'm making a post here, may as well toss the tiny predictable list update.
The Dynamo never did anything wrong. It unconditionally delivers a sturdy mana burst that's handy at any stage of the game. Five rocks is not particularly excessive, so that now makes two reasons for cutting it that were quite bogus. In it goes, over the long earmarked Blind Obedience. I was considering taking out Righteous Aura instead, but the card is good at handling large swingers/voltrons, something the deck inherently has more trouble keeping at bay than swarms. Plus hey, the occasional fireball protection cheese doesn't hurt either. The Obedience's CIPT tempo slug is not something the deck can abuse super reliably, and while it's a handy nuisance it's got a lower ceiling than the Aura. So this essentially retcons the cut for Smothering Tithe (which has been performing very well, mind you). The deck sure likes its mana, the more the merrier, and the bigger the mana pool the more it tends to win. There's a nonzero chance this side of the deck will continue to grow.
I also tested a few other options, to varying degrees of success:
I got Black Market out onto the board. Someone wiped. Suddenly I had 10+ extra black mana, the board repopulated, another wipe came down, I flooded the table in dudes and everything was over. How could I not be running this?! Old me's musings about the inconsistency of the card reared their head soon enough, as in the following five games I failed to amass anything of note on there. Revel in Riches further exacerbated this problem, as I couldn't even throw chumps under the bus to get some value out. I got maybe 1-2 treasure total across all of its test games. I guess these are the perks of not living in a particularly wipe-happy meta, but the overall reiterated takeaway is that the cards are quite high variance. This in combination with their nontrivial mana cost is going to keep me off them.
Crypt Ghast works very well with a spiffed mana base with fetches, plus the Urborg angle. However, Daxos is not inherently explosive, so the extra burst of mana would rear heads, and as it was easier to deal with than the fat mana lands (who knew killing a bear was simpler than landing a Strip Mine style effect) it just got me unwarranted attention that I wasn't able to fend off with the extra resources. Still the best of the trialled options, maybe one day...
Dowsing Dagger was a failure, simple as that. There's a major psychological difference between "I got the land on swing" versus "I get a Lotus on hit" and the dude just won't connect if the opponent can help it. And seeing how the list only offers Flickering Ward and a handful of fliers in the evasion department, guaranteeing connecting with one particular dagger-wielding chicken just isn't going to happen.
I haven't hit the Luminarch Ascension in play testing yet, but the more I think of it, the more likely it will probably be cut. My theory when putting it in was it was an alternative mana sink to Daxos, the Returned in the event he got hated out (it is far tougher to deal with enchantments than a creature for every color but green).
The Nether Void, when I have tested it, has been a combination of powerful taxing effect or another Rule of Law effect, since most decks usually cannot afford the 6 extra mana. The Underworld Connections has been a semi-lackluster Phyrexian Arena (you trade off being able to use it potentially on the turn you play it and at will at the cost of it costing one land a turn and providing opponents with an easy Strip Mine target). Martyr's Bond I am using as proactive wrath protection, but it seems too expensive. That all being said, I haven't gotten a ton of games in yet, so it was a pretty low sample size.
The Vedalken Orrery has been really good when I have played it since people were really scared of attacking me when I had it up (it is far scarier to attack into someone with 7-9 mana up and can play anything from their hand than with 4-5 mana and have fewer options as to what can happen. I would say it probably has dissuaded more attacks for that reason than Ghostly Prison, especially when people don't know your deck. Being able to Merciless Eviction or Austere Command at instant speed is as close as orzhov will get to Cyclonic Rift.
Overall, I got a few games in and the deck has performed very well, though I may have caused people to have an irrational hatred of Eidolon of Rhetoric and Uba Mask Also, using Skybind to flicker a bounce land is very satisfying, though I have not managed to live the dream by flickering a Lotus Vale or Scorched Ruins.
You can use Hermit Druid to put creatures into your graveyard, you will be running mainly basics, but you should hit a few each time while getting your land drops.
Honestly I think there is a really sweet deck in there, and it's not spikey, full of flavor and should be lots of fun as well.
I can't believe how many of those reanimation cards I missed (and used to play). After a quick search on gatherer (and there are a lot more spirits (and some really janky ones like Sibilant Spirit and cards I would have never thought were spirits like Liege of the Hollow), would a reanimation theme work better or would a spirit tribal theme work better?
Reanimation cards I could think off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more within the blocks. Necromancy - Visions $7.9 Reanimate - Tempest $10 Victimize - Urza's Saga $1.51 Exhume - Urza's Saga $2.45
The problem here is that Necromancy is only from Visions, which is before Weatherlight and Reanimate is over $10, so I cannot use either.
Diabolic Servitude is a more expensive reanimation card that doesn't work with Worldgorger Dragon and Doomed Necromancer, which take a turn to set up and everyone can see your next play coming from a mile away. While Chainer, Dementia Master can reanimate creatures, it is 8 mana and 3 life before that could happen. Strands of Night is another option but playing 5 colors limits the number of swamps you have, Verdant Force is another quality creature that can be reanimated and I have always wanted to play Pit Spawn. The issue is that without tutors, there are only 6 relatively inexpensive ways to reanimate creatures, which means it can be very likely that they will sit my hand/yard.
Reanimation cards I could think off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more within the blocks. Necromancy - Visions $7.9 Reanimate - Tempest $10 Victimize - Urza's Saga $1.51 Exhume - Urza's Saga $2.45
The issue with mana fixing is that, with these rules, I don't have access to shocks/tango lands/dual cycle lands, which weakens a lot of the usual ways that green decks can color fix in commander (i.e. that searching for a forest can only get me a green mana producing source as opposed to in normal commander when it could get a hybrid mana source). That being said, I have the option of Harrow, Kodama's Reach, Explosive Vegetation, Rampant Growth and Sakura Tribe Elder. The sultai deck would also allow me to play the bringer cycle from Fifth Dawn and the avatars from prophecy, some of which are very strong. On the other hand, a Vhati deck could be very interesting as well.
So is your intention to literally have all your 100 cards from within these sets? I was just thinking that your stipulation was that you at least played a card from each of the sets.
If you're restricting your entire deck to within these cycles then the Bringers will definitively be some of the better reanimation targets. Honestly I'm not sure what "big fatties" are available from Weatherlight through to Kamigawa?
An all basic lands deck would be fine with some land ramp as you've pointed out.
Yea, my intention is that every one of the cards in the deck had to have been printed in one of those sets. The $10 max per card (which I am basing off of SCG) (in addition to preventing me from forking over serious money on a less competitive deck) is also to make sure I look further outside the box than the usual cards I would run from these sets. The basics could work, but the closer I get to five colors rather than 2, the tougher this will be. This is also back when WOTC was emphasizing the ally over enemy color interactions, so the only enemy color land fixing (besides cards that tapped for all 5 colors of mana) were the Apocalypse pain land cycle and the Tempest CITP pain land cycle.
What about Steel Hellkite or Myr Battlesphere? Sorry, its late so I am trying to list these as I remember them.
Thanks. One of my ideas was to combine Awakening and Ice Cave once I have a reasonable board state, which is why I combined those two (hey, rage quitting is a valid wincon).
Warstorm Surge
Where Ancient's Tread
Solemn Simulacrum
Siege-Gang Commander
Zealous Conscripts & Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker (Both are excellent in this deck on their own)
Meteor Golem
Strionic Resonator
Combustible Gearhulk
Inferno Titan
Dragon Tyrant
Panharmonicon is a no brainer, then? What about Balefire Dragon or Dragon Mage?
So, I got the cards in the mail today, but when I started to put the deck together, I realized I had way too many non land cards (my goal for this deck is 39 lands and 60 non lands). Any chance you can help me cut this down (70 cards as of now):
Creatures (28):
Utopia Tree
Tradewind Rider
Solemn Simulacrum
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Joiner Adept
Genesis
Seedborn Muse
Phyrexian Delver
Verdant Force
Birds of Paradise
Pit Spawn
Bringer of the Black Dawn
Bringer of the Blue Dawn
Visara the Dreadful
Avatar of Woe
Elvish Piper
Scion of Darkness
Phyrexian Infiltrator
Volrath the Fallen
Chainer, Dementia Master
Seizan, Perverter of Truth
Myojin of Seeing Winds
Keiga, the Tide Star
Myojin of Life's Web
Kokusho, the Evening Star
Iname, Death Aspect
Iname, Life Aspect
Kyoki, Sanity's Eclipse
Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Enchantments (10):
Phyrexian Arena
Pattern of Rebirth
Ice Cave
Mists of Stagnation
Diabolic Servitude
Awakening
Greater Good
Pernicious Deed
Animate Dead
Oversold Cemetery
Artifacts (7):
Fellwar Stone
Gilded Lotus
Nevinyrral's Disk
Lightning Greaves
Oblivion Stone
Darksteel Ingot
Star Compass
Instants (7):
Capsize
Fact or Fiction
Frantic Search
Harrow
Mystical Tutor
Forbid
Entomb
Sorcery (18):
Kodama's Reach
Exhume
Reap and Sow
Far Wanderings
Nature's Lore
Windfall
Cannibalize
Rampant Growth
Victimize
Reanimate
Living Death
Buried Alive
Syphon Mind
Stitch Together
Zombify
Twilight's Call
Decree of Pain
Beacon of Unrest
The more I play with Luminarch Ascension the more I realize that it really does do the opposite of what the deck wants and will be cut. The tokens are nice and really powerful, if it gets alone, but it is not worth the hate generated to cast it. I had a two games early when I got to play it on turn two and then got it to quickly activate, which is why I was defending it. Drawing it later in the game is borderline useless and I literally casted it once to get one more experience counter for my tokens, meaning that this could be replaced by an enchantment with CMC 2 or less and would have been better.
The Bolas stone seems nuts and seems like another Ad Nauseam engine (right to the point where Tendrils of Agony is a very viable finisher).
What sort of card draw should I add? Fact or Fiction is probably a shoe in, but what else? Would you say that the ramp/color fixing I am playing is sufficient?
So in trying to put this deck together, I wanted to make sure I had each set covered too, so this is what I was thinking:
Weatherlinght: Buried Alive
5th Edition: Animate Dead
Tempest: Reanimate, Rampant Growth, Harrow, Capsize, Living Death, Verdant Force, Tradewind Rider
Stronghold: Awakening, Cannibalize
Exodus: Forbid, Pit Spawn
Urza's Saga: Diabolic Servitude, Exhume, Victimize, Windfall,Greater Good
Urza's Legacy: Frantic Search, Karmic Guide
Urza's Destiny: Pattern of Rebirth
Mercadian Masques: Vernal Equinox, Thrashing Wumpus (Unsure of these)
Nemesis: Volrath the Fallen
Prophecy: Avatar of Woe
Invasion: Phyrexian Delver, Phyrexian Infiltrator, Utopia Tree
Planeshift: Star Compass
Apocalypse: Pernicious Deed, Phyrexian Arena, Ice Cave, Pain Lands
Odyssey: Entomb, Zombify
Torment: Chainer, Dementia Master
Judgment: Stitch Together, Mist of Stagnation
Onslaught: Visara, the Dreadful, Explosive Vegetation, Oversold Cemetery
Legions: Scion of Darkness, Seedborn Muse
Scourge: Decree of Pain, Eternal Dragon, Dimensional Breach
Mirrodin: Molder Slug
Darksteel:Reap and Sow
5th Dawn: Beacon of Unrest, Bringer of the Black Dawn, Bringer of the Blue Dawn, Joiner Adept
Champions of Kamigawa: Kodama's Reach, Sakura Tribe Elder, Kokusho, the Evening Star, Keiga, the Tide Star, Ryusei, the Falling Star, Myokin of Life's Web, Myojin of Seeing Winds, Iname, Death Aspect, Iname, Life Aspect
Betrayers of Kamigawa: Yomiji, Who Bars the Way, Kyoki, Sanity's Eclipse
Saviors of Kamigawa: Kagemaro, First to Suffer
6th Edition: Birds of Paradise, Mystical Tutor
7th Edition: City of Brass, Pain Lands
8th Edition: Elvish Piper
I haven't hit the Luminarch Ascension in play testing yet, but the more I think of it, the more likely it will probably be cut. My theory when putting it in was it was an alternative mana sink to Daxos, the Returned in the event he got hated out (it is far tougher to deal with enchantments than a creature for every color but green).
The Nether Void, when I have tested it, has been a combination of powerful taxing effect or another Rule of Law effect, since most decks usually cannot afford the 6 extra mana. The Underworld Connections has been a semi-lackluster Phyrexian Arena (you trade off being able to use it potentially on the turn you play it and at will at the cost of it costing one land a turn and providing opponents with an easy Strip Mine target). Martyr's Bond I am using as proactive wrath protection, but it seems too expensive. That all being said, I haven't gotten a ton of games in yet, so it was a pretty low sample size.
The Vedalken Orrery has been really good when I have played it since people were really scared of attacking me when I had it up (it is far scarier to attack into someone with 7-9 mana up and can play anything from their hand than with 4-5 mana and have fewer options as to what can happen. I would say it probably has dissuaded more attacks for that reason than Ghostly Prison, especially when people don't know your deck. Being able to Merciless Eviction or Austere Command at instant speed is as close as orzhov will get to Cyclonic Rift.
Finally, I have the extra slots since I don't have a fully optimized mana base yet. I have a spare Scrubland and Serra's Sanctum but not a spare Godless Shrine and fetches, so some of the cards like Crucible of Worlds, Weathered Wayfarer and Expedition Map would not be as strong, so the mana base is not very different from the precon's.
Smothering Tithe is also extremely strong as, unlike Rhystic Study, no one ever wants to pay for it.
Overall, I got a few games in and the deck has performed very well, though I may have caused people to have an irrational hatred of Eidolon of Rhetoric and Uba Mask Also, using Skybind to flicker a bounce land is very satisfying, though I have not managed to live the dream by flickering a Lotus Vale or Scorched Ruins.
I can't believe how many of those reanimation cards I missed (and used to play). After a quick search on gatherer (and there are a lot more spirits (and some really janky ones like Sibilant Spirit and cards I would have never thought were spirits like Liege of the Hollow), would a reanimation theme work better or would a spirit tribal theme work better?
The problem here is that Necromancy is only from Visions, which is before Weatherlight and Reanimate is over $10, so I cannot use either.
Diabolic Servitude is a more expensive reanimation card that doesn't work with Worldgorger Dragon and Doomed Necromancer, which take a turn to set up and everyone can see your next play coming from a mile away. While Chainer, Dementia Master can reanimate creatures, it is 8 mana and 3 life before that could happen. Strands of Night is another option but playing 5 colors limits the number of swamps you have, Verdant Force is another quality creature that can be reanimated and I have always wanted to play Pit Spawn. The issue is that without tutors, there are only 6 relatively inexpensive ways to reanimate creatures, which means it can be very likely that they will sit my hand/yard.
Yea, my intention is that every one of the cards in the deck had to have been printed in one of those sets. The $10 max per card (which I am basing off of SCG) (in addition to preventing me from forking over serious money on a less competitive deck) is also to make sure I look further outside the box than the usual cards I would run from these sets. The basics could work, but the closer I get to five colors rather than 2, the tougher this will be. This is also back when WOTC was emphasizing the ally over enemy color interactions, so the only enemy color land fixing (besides cards that tapped for all 5 colors of mana) were the Apocalypse pain land cycle and the Tempest CITP pain land cycle.