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Category Archives: EDH/Commander

This post is about Elder Dragon Highlander

New Year, new content (maybe…)

11 Jan

Well it’s that time of the year again – I’m going to eat better, exercise more, be happier, and save more money than I ever have before!

Yeah, right. Having gotten all that out of the way, let’s talk about where this blog is headed. I’d like to get more content out there – realistically I’d like to write at least one article a month on here – but I’d like to write things that the three of you that are still reading this actually want to read. So, what do you want to read about? Vote below!

Voting will remain open indefinitely; if you know of anyone who wants to read about EDH/Commander, send them over here to vote!

Let’s be careful out there 🙂

 
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Posted by on January 11, 2019 in EDH/Commander

 

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Deck Build – Krav Maga, uh, Krav and Regna

13 Nov

A friend of mine (let’s call him Greg) has asked me for some deck building help – he’s a Magic player from way back, and he’s been playing EDH for a little while now, and is having problems with a couple of decks – namely those being played by his sons. One of them is playing Angry Omnath, and the other is on Brago, King Eternal.

The Omnath deck is everything you’d expect – fast, angry and deadly. The Brago deck is slower and goes the controlling route – in Greg’s words his son is turning into “that guy” in the group. Greg has been using Krenko and although he’s not getting blown out every game, he wants a bit more staying power.

The Brago deck kills with creatures that have enter-the-battlefield effects. There are two cards in particular that kill that dead – Torpor Orb and Hushwing Gryff. Those are reasonably narrow and tend to hurt the regular EDH decks (as a general rule a lot of decks use a lot of EtB effects) but it’s something to keep an eye on while we’re building our deck.

The easier way to prevent Brago shenanigans is just to never let it hit you, although any decent Brago deck will have ways to flicker it’s creatures outside of combat as well. Although there’s a difference in scale, preventing combat damage is also a good strategy against Omnath.

I suggested a couple of possible decks, and Greg settled on the pairing of Regna the Redeemer and Krav the Unredeemed. A black/white “bleeder” or “aristocrats” style deck may be just the thing. There are a few Krav/Regna lists floating around, but the one I’m drawing the most inspiration from is a deck from MagicalHacker; the decklist is available here, and below is a video of the deck in action.

As you can see (if you watched the video) it’s quite the beast and able to pull off very impressive plays. If you didn’t watch the video, it uses a combination of life gain creatures like Soul Warden with “aristocrat” creatures like Blood Artist and Falkenrath Noble, along with Krav, to bleed the opponents dry while building up an impressive life total. There are a ton of ways to recur the creatures out of the graveyard, and in this video in particular, MagicalHacker gains EIGHTY life over two turns (admittedly with some lucky draws). The deck plays more like a combo deck than a traditional magic deck, but because all the combo pieces are relatively cheap, it can interact with the opponents in the early game before it “combos” off in an explosion of life gain and life loss. I was really impressed by this list.

Greg wants to keep the deck fairly budget – in the $50-75 dollar range. That, by EDH standards, is pretty close to nothing so I’ll have to be fairly careful. However, a big part of EDH deck costs tends to be the mana bases, and having a two colour deck negates that cost to quite a degree. Also, in this particular deck, none of the piece are really that expensive. So, let’s get brewing!

We may as well start with the manabase. Obviously in a budget deck, Badlands is out. In fact, I’m going to restrict the deck to lands that cost $2 or less, and will have a big emphasis on basics. All prices are based on cards from CardKingdom.com, who are pretty awesome when it comes to shipping cards off to small corners of the world.

Manabase:

Dual/Multi Colour Lands:

Land Search Lands:

Utility Lands:

Lands that make one colour (quite a lot of it, in some cases):

In order to get more value out of Cabal Stronghold we’ve put in more Swamps than we probably need; however the deck is pretty well balanced on black and white spells so it hopefully won’t matter too much whether we get the dreaded “all one colour” opening hand.

There are a couple of main engines that I want to get going; one is a fairly intense lifegain strategy to protect against Angry Omnath, and the other is damage prevention (or more specifically, combat damage) to stop Brago’s flickering trigger.

Lifegain for fun and profit

This is by far the easier of the two to accomplish. White and Black (and especially white and black together) are excellent colours for all of your life-gaining needs. Most of the lifegain in this deck is going to come from creatures entering and exiting the battlefield – the regular old “Aristocrats” strategy.

Gaining life – coming in edition:

Gaining life – going out edition:

Just these 9 cards will be enough to get a steady stream of life going – especially if they keep coming back onto the battlefield. More on that line later! Moreover, nearly all of the cards in the “going out” list drain the opponent for one each time a creature dies (sometimes yours, sometimes any creature) which can be used to deal a surprising amount of damage.

The main way we’re going to kill these creatures is with Krav – his ability is way above the curve – for only one mana you can sacrifice any number of creatures and gain that much life. Oh, and put that many +1/+1 counters on Krav. Oh, and draw that many cards. The value of that one ability is pretty insane. However, we’re going to need a few more sacrifice or mass kill spells as well, as we can’t guarantee Krav will always be in play (or able to use his ability). Because this is a budget list, all the usual suspects (Ashnod’s Altar, Altar of Dementia, Attrition, Phyrexian Tower and so on) are out. What we’re looking for are repeatable sacrifice outlets, preferably free, that do something useful. We don’t want to overload on these – we have our Commander after all, and even if he’s turned off somehow, just drawing one of these outlets means we can kill him off and recast him. What I’ve come up with are these:

Sacrificing the team:

And as super secret tech:

Vampiric Rites is a fair version of Krav’s ability. You draw a card and gain a life for 2 mana and sacrificing a creature. Carrion Feeder can grow quite large, but he may be cut later since we’re going to have a quite a temporary view on most of our creatures. Spawning pit turns every second creature into a 2/2 which will then trigger our life gaining creatures again. Viscera Seer lets us set up our next draw, whether that’s from Krav, Vampiric Rites, or just the beginning of the turn.

Circle of Despair and Martyr’s Cause are part of the “don’t let Brago hit me” plan – in both cases we can sacrifice a creature (for one mana or zero mana) to prevent all damage from a single source. Notably, the source of the damage is never targeted, so even if Brago is hexproof’ed or shroud’ed we can still prevent the damage he would do, which means his ability will not trigger. Of course, it can be used on any other creature as well. It’s also a way to prevent some of the damage from Omnath; for each creature we sacrifice – and remember, we want to be sacrificing our creatures anyway – we can prevent one instance of his “deal 3 damage” trigger when an Elemental dies.

While we’re sacrificing all our creatures, we may as well get some use from them on the way out and that’s where this next category comes in.

Profiting from your Death:

Butcher of Malakir will make your opponents sacrifice a creature every time one of yours dies (and thereby trigger our Blood Artists again too!). There are a few other cards which have the same effect (Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos, Martyr’s Bond) but they are all definitely not on the budget end of the spectrum so we’re going to have to leave them behind for now. Pitiless Plunderer is an excellent card for this deck; just for doing what we’re doing, we’re going to be getting mana out of the deal. Pawn of Ulamog and Sifter of Skulls do the same thing, and even better they make easily sacrifice-able creatures while they’re doing it!

Once we’ve sacrificed our team, the next stage on the way to world domination is to bring them all back again. There’s a suite of spells which accomplish just that:

Creature Recursion, en masse

Note that if a bunch of creatures all come into play at the same time, they all “see” each other entering; so if you are returning 4 creatures, and two of them are Soul Warden and Soul’s Attendant, they’ll both trigger and gain 3 life each (so 6 life for us!). This is particularly relevant for the two Cauldrons – because a lot of our creatures are x/1’s, if they persist back they will die straight away. However, they do enter and then leave the battlefield, so all of those abilities will trigger again.

To really give us some creatures to play around with (and also to provide some additional defence) we’re going to throw in some token makers. One of the token makers we’re going to use is our other Commander – Regna. As long as we’ve gained life in a turn (and we’ll be doing plenty of that), she makes two tokens on every end step. Some of these will really only be useful in the later game, but others will work pretty much at any point.

More Fodder:

Creatures:

Non-creatures

To be honest this is probably too many but we’ll fill out the rest of the deck and then circle back here to see what stays.

It’s time to fill out the big three of EDH decks; Removal, Draw, and Ramp.

Ramp

Perhaps the least exciting category, all we’re going to do here is add a few mana rocks that let us cast more spells.

Draw

Only slightly more interesting, a few card draw spells. Note that a few things we’ve already included count, such as Hedron Archive. We’ll add these:

Removal

Every deck needs a way to kill your opponent’s stuff; White and Black are especially good at it. We’re going to add these:

Way back at the top, we briefly discussed adding Torpor Orb and/or Hushwing Gryff to stop the Brago deck in it’s tracks; having now looked at what we’ve got, it will also shut down large portions of our deck, so let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot too much. We have two more slots left and I’m going to devote them both to “Fog” effects. Both Brago and Omnath (and 80% of most of Commander decks) win with combat damage, so if we can Fog the combat phase we’ll get plenty of time to “go off”. The cards I’ve picked are:

Also note that we have Knight-Captain of Eos in the “token makers” category above, and that’s also a repeatable fog effect, along with Circle of Despair and Martyr’s Cause. When you combine those two enchantments with the Knight-Captain with the Kami, with all the spells that can recur those creatures, we should be able to Fog our way to victory!

And we’re done!

Running this decklist through CardKingdom.com’s deck builder gives us a total of $63.44 in American dollars – this is definitely a budget deck, but it also definitely punches way above its weight. I’m hoping Greg will be able to use it to take back a bit of control at his table, and I’m keen to see how he does with it.

The next post on this blog will be an upgrade article; within a reasonable budget (say, $200-300), and cost no object, what upgrades would I make?

Until next time, thanks for reading, and keep pingin’ your opponents for one, until they die!

 
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Posted by on November 13, 2018 in Deckbuilding, EDH/Commander

 

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Next up….

26 Oct

I’ve been asked by a friend to brew up a decklist for him; while you’re waiting for that, have this, for no reason at all

Regna and Krav

 
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Posted by on October 26, 2018 in Deckbuilding, EDH/Commander, Preview

 

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Damia, Lord of Gorgo… Oh My God what am I doing with my life

22 Oct

So, I’ve made a horrible horrible mistake. Sultai (or, if you’re an old bastard like me, BUG) is widely regarded as the best colour combination in Commander (or, if you’re an old bastard like me, EDH). Green’s acceleration and big ol’ fatties. Blue’s permission. Black’s discard and destruction. Sultai, not Abzan (or, if you’re an old bastard like me, “Junk” – yeah, let’s face it, the new names are better…) is the true colour of inevitability.

My old Damia, Sage of Stone deck was BUG Sultai Goodstuff.

206

Yep. Real card. They sure don’t make ’em like that any more. Thank God.

Well, it was and it wasn’t. I had janky-as-hell cards like Teferi’s Puzzle Box (hey, I’m skipping my draw step, I didn’t care), Ice Cauldron (see right) and EDH all star Bottled Cloister in there, but I also had Genesis Wave and Avenger of Zendikar and Hinder and Living End and Rite of Replication and a bunch of other really good cards.

I hated it.

It was slow, and grindy, and boring, and totally soulless, and although it tried to do cool stuff with Damia triggers and drawing cards and so on, it usually just ended up Genesis Waving for a thousand and winning with whatever came up.

HOW ORIGINAL OF ME I AM A DECKBUILDING GOD LOOK UPON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR

So, back to my bad decision.

“Self,” I said to myself (since that’s the only way I get intelligent conversation these days, since the restraining order and all – Oh hai Mark!), “what you need to do is give yourself an actual theme. Something to tie the cards in the deck together. A restriction if you will. A wise man once* said ‘restrictions breed creativity’. (Oh hai Mark!) So, think of a decent theme, restrict yourself to that and let the creativity flow, man!”
*way way waaaaaay more than once

But what theme? Do I want to Enter the Infinite? Do I want to Doomsday my way to victory? Do I want Horror tribal? While all of those sound amazing (….) I decided I wanted to do something else. Why win when you can…not?

Here’s where I made my first big mistake. I came up with too many ideas. I managed to knock them down to:

  • Sultai Goodstuff (hey, it is the best colour combination in Magic after all)
  • Gorgon Tribal
  • “Snake” Tribal (Gorgons, Naga, and Snakes)
  • All Deathtouch, all the time
  • Poison/Infect/Wither (with Proliferate)

Way back when Kamigawa was legal in standard with Mirrodin I had a pretty fun (but definitely causal – after all this was when Mirrodin was Standard legal and if you weren’t playing Arcbound Ravager you were playing it wrong) Snake deck – with Seshiro, Sachi, Sosuke, Shisato, and Sosuke’s Summons, with Orochi Hatchery and draft deck all-stars like Orochi Ranger (I’ll let you look that one up yourself). It was a lot of fun and I thought maybe this deck could recreate that with some additional oomph from black and blue.

Snakesss

I eventually more-or-less settled on the Wither/Poison/Infect deck though.

Then I realised I hated playing against Poison, so why would I want to do that to a table?

So I settled on Deathtouch “Tribal”. But that’s kind of meh as theme.

So I went back to Gorgon Tribal. And then to Snake tribal.

And then I made my second big mistake. I asked a local Facebook group which deck I should build. And of course, their most popular answer was Sultai Goodstuff, because they all have no soul.

The second most popular result in that poll was Gorgon Tribal, so (after way too much writing) here we are. Gorgon Tribal, go!

So I sit down at Scryfall, type in “type:Gorgon” and hit go.

15 results. Fif. Teen. Turns out, there are 15 Gorgons in all of Magic, and that’s counting the Golgari in the most recent Ravnican expansion. Adding changelings doesn’t even help that much – as it turns out there’s only an additional 16 changelings in Sultai colours, and most of them are pretty awful. However, there’s enough…just… to work with here, so let’s get to brewing!

Definites, sorted by CMC:

So, 10/15 isn’t a bad ratio – there are a few interesting options in there. Plenty of Deathtouch, but what grabbed my attention was that Gorgon Recluse and Infernal Medusa have an ability that isn’t seen very often – they destroy any (nonblack for one, or nonwall for the other) creature they block or are blocked by – even if they don’t deal it any damage. This is an ability shared by a few creatures – notably Basilisks and Cockatrices – some of them require dealing combat damage and some of them don’t. Of note, just about the only creature that has this ability, and that can destroy any and all creatures blocked by it is Tangle Asp – one of the creatures I had in my CHK-era snake deck. In it goes! And, as it happens, the only other creature with that condition-less text is Venomous Dragonfly, which is a flying 1/1 for four. I’ll pass on that one for now. I’ll keep an eye on the other creatures in this category that do the same thing to non-Walls, as Walls are a lot less common than black creatures. That only consists of Cockatrice and Thicket Basilisk.

Looking at the rest of the gorgons; Arisen Gorgon is a 3/3 for 3 that has deathtouch if we control a Liliana planeswalker. Maybe decent, if we end up with any. Keepsake Gorgon is a 2/5 for 5, which for a the low low cost of 7 more mana, becomes a 3/6 and destroys a non-Gorgon. No thank you! Likewise Korozda Gorgon is a 2/5 for 5 that messes with +1/+1 counters, which isn’t something I’m likely to be interested in. Masked Gorgon will give all of my opponent’s green and white creatures protection from my deck. HARD pass. The last gorgon not on the list is Damia herself. Might be playing that one.

Looking at the available changelings, there’s only two I actively want to run: Chameleon Colossus, and Cairn Wanderer. That ain’t helping much. Some of the instants are interesting though – Nameless Inversion and Ego Erasure both remove all creature types from their “targets” (Ego Erasure doesn’t actually target any creature), which would handily get around the whole non-Wall thing we were talking about earlier. I suppose at a stretch I could include Amoeboid Changeling for the same reason.

So, how do you take advantage of the fact that your creatures kill everything they block, or everything that’s blocking it? The first thing I thought of was that since people tend to want to keep their creatures, they just won’t block. Of course that has it’s own advantages when it comes dealing 40 damage to your opponents! So then I thought of adding things that trigger when damage is dealt to players – Curiosity effects, Saboteur (“destroy target “) effects, and things like Quietus Spike. The list of playables (note that I have a pretty relaxed idea of playable) is:

  • Bloodforged Battle-Axe
  • One with Nature
  • Sixth Sense
  • Sigil of Sleep
  • Dowsing Dagger
  • Hammer of Ruin
  • Mask of Memory
  • Mask of Riddles
  • Rogue’s Gloves
  • Quietus Spike
  • Snake Umbra
  • Spellbinder
  • All the Swords of Stuff and Junk(tm) (although I only own three swords and they’re all in other decks)
  • Bident of Thassa
  • Larceny
  • Scytheclaw
  • Nature’s Will

Obviously some of these are better than others and I won’t be putting all of them in. In particular, since I’m in Blue, and my General is Damia, I shouldn’t need a whole lot of creature-based card draw.

There’s another angle to this though; if I have a creature that destroys all the creatures blocking it, why no make all the creatures block it? I’m talking old school Lure effects here. Similarly to the “Curiosity” effects above, I’ll be valuing repeatable/persistent effects over instants and sorceries. As far as I can make out, my options there are:

Special mention to Ochran Assassin, who has this ability and Deathtouch, Breaker of Armies, who has this ability and 10 power (which is it’s own kind of Deathtouch, if you look at it a certain way), and Stone-Tongue Basilisk, which has this ability if I have Threshold and destroys creatures it damages; two conditional, uh, conditions, is probably one too many for what I’m trying to do. Also there are a few cards (not many) like Courtly Provocateur and Provoke which sort of do the same thing – Predatory Rampage seems especially good – but again one shots probably aren’t going to cut it here.

That’s a shorter list than I’d like, but 6 (3 good, 3 not so good) is probably enough to get one when I need it. Especially since I’ll (hopefully) be drawing multiple cards per turn with Damia. More on that later.

Making my creature alluring (DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE) does two things; if the lure effect is on something with Deathtouch or the Tangle Asp ability, it effectively functions as a one-sided Wrath; and it all but guarantees the rest of my team getting through and getting those combat damage triggers.

Of course, my creature is almost certain to die when it gets blocked by someone’s whole team (which, incidentally, makes Nemesis Mask way better than all the Aura Lures). Unless, of course, they don’t! So, part 3 of my unnecessarily complicated death machine is to give the Lured creature regeneration or indestructible. Luckily quite a few of these effects are serpent-themed, to wit:

  • Asceticism
  • Blessing of Leeches
  • Molting Skin (and it’s identical twin, Broken Fall)
  • Draconian Cylix (synergy with Damia!)
  • Medicine Bag (even better with Damia!)
  • Rushwood Herbalist (Medicine Bag with legs)
  • Gaea’s Embrace
  • Gaze of the Gorgon (is a one-shot, but it has to go in this deck)
  • Jolrael’s Favor
  • Nurturing Licid (handy things these Licids!)
  • Regeneration
  • Serpent Skin
  • Strands of Undeath
  • I should mention Yavimaya Hollow here, but I will also mention that it’s a bit pricey for me
  • Darksteel Plate
  • Shield of Kaldra
  • Soul of New Phyrexia (expensive to activate every turn)
  • Stonehoof Chieftain
  • And a few other instants that grant indestructible until end of turn

There’s way too many there to play them all, so I’m probably going to add these ones:

Which still might be a couple of cards too many. We’ll see.

This is turning out to be a pretty mana hungry deck (and I have some plans for big game-ending plays), but I think we’ve got to a point where we’ve got a decent theme going, we’ve got some cards we want to put in to play out that theme, and now we get to the (for me…) boring part of deckbuilding where we put in ramp, card drawing, and removal. About the only thing I need to talk about now is how we’re going to win this thing. Having a bunch of 2 and 3 power Gorgons isn’t going to cut it – but we are (if the plan works) going to have a TON of creatures in my opponents graveyards. It’s always fun to get your head beat in by your own creatures, right? Enter these:

  • Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead/Reanimate
  • Beacon of Unrest
  • Bone Dancer (this card could be completely amazing if it’s attacking alongside a Lured creature!!!)
  • Boneyard Parley (this is probably really bad, but picking five creatures out of everyone’s graveyards is pretty tempting)
  • Coffin Queen
  • Endless Obedience
  • Extract from Darkness
  • Fated Return
  • Fool’s Demise
  • Grimoire of the Dead
  • Necromantic Summons
  • Puppeteer Clique
  • Rise from the Grave
  • Rise of the Dark Realms
  • Scion of Darkness (ties into the whole Lure/Combat damage thing as well)
  • Sepulchral Primordial
  • Thrilling Encore(!!!! – among other things I don’t need a regenerator to get my Lured guy back using this, as it’s all creatures from all graveyards)

Again, I won’t be putting all of these cards in, but it’s nice to know we have options. Now, I have to make cuts, and put in the usual boring stuff. Here we go!

Gorgons

Other Creatures

Lure Effects

Regeneration/Indestructible Effects

Saboteur/Combat Damage Effects

Reanimation Effects

Ramp

Honestly I haven’t thought too hard about this one; the following are just what I thought of off the top of my head, that are good enough to include:

Card Draw/Card Advantage

Our General is all the card draw we’d ever need, but there’s no guarantee she’ll be in play so we’ll need some back up:

Counters

That’s 66 cards so far (67 including the General, of course). That leaves 33 slots, and there is no removal included so far. That’s not really optimal. I don’t think I’ll need a lot of creature removal as that’s what this deck does (all going according to plan) but I’ll definitely need some artifact/enchantment/Planeswalker removal in here. I want to add at least 4 slots for removal, and I want to run 36 or 37 land, so that means dropping seven cards and taking the card count down to 59.

Time for everyone’s least favourite game show:

vtemp

First off; all of the Gorgons are staying. In the other creatures category, Ochran Assassin is a nice backup but is probably too weak to be of any use. (66) Rushwood Herbalist is a bit slow, and as a creature is probably too vulnerable. (65) The other creatures are all fine.

Seton’s Desire goes as I can’t guarantee I’ll have Threshold – if the abilities were the other way round, I’d be keeping it. (64).

I like all the Regeneration effects – Molting Skin and Serpent Skin are probably the two weakest, but they’re also the two that are most on theme, so I’ll keep them.

The Saboteur effects is probably the category I most overloaded on – I know for sure I want to keep Quietus Spike, Scytheclaw, Bident of Thassa and Snake Umbra. Nature’s Will is an absolute beating, and can stand in as a budget replacement for the good half of the Sword of Feast of Famine (which I don’t own). That leaves One with Nature (staying), Dowsing Dagger (which I’d like to keep but will cut for now – 63), Mask of Riddles (cut, 62), Larceny (staying for now) and Night Dealings (cut, 61).

From the reanimation suite, the only one I really want to cut is Necromantic Summons (60). The rest all do something game-ending, or have an angle that I’m keen to try out (Convoke, repeatability, non-targeted).

For the counterspells, I’ll be targeting non-creature spells with them most of the time. The exile spells and Rewind stay, but I think I’ll cut Hinder (59) and Spell Crumple (58).

Adding in 37 lands gives us 95 cards, so we have 5 spots for removal, which seems about right (remember, all going well we’ll be drawing 3 or 4 cards every turn). Hopefully I don’t need to worry too much about creature removal, although a board wipe or two never really goes amiss.

Removal

Add lands to taste (I’m going to put Dowsing Dagger back in and count that as a land) and by God I think we have a decklist! I won’t type all that out again (again) but here’s a link to the deckstats page for it: Damia, Sage of Gorgons

And, that’s it! Now I just have to hit up Card Kingdom and get a bunch of these cards and I’ll actually be able to play the deck!

If you made it this far, thanks very much for reading the increasingly boring ramblings of some random guy on the internet – you go and have yourself a great day, and watch out for the Gorgon invasion!

EDIT:

Welp, turns out Rhystic Study and Stonehoof Chieftain are waaay more expensive than I thought; in the meantime I’ve removed them and replaced them with Mystic Remora and Darksteel Plate respectively.

 
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Posted by on October 22, 2018 in Challenge of Doom, EDH/Commander, Uncategorized

 

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Is this thing on?

16 Oct

So, uh, it’s been a while. Like, a looooong while. I didn’t exactly take a break from Magic, but for a while there I played maybe one game every 4 months or so. Lately though I’ve been on a bit of a deck updating blitz, and have actually been playing again, and I think I’m maybe ready to dust off the ol’ Opinion Machine(tm) and have at it.

Wonder if anyone is still subscribed to this thing? I guess we’ll find out.

Content coming SOON.

Probably.

Hint:

damia__sage_of_stone_by_steveargyle-d3k1z8b

 
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Posted by on October 16, 2018 in Challenge of Doom, EDH/Commander, Uncategorized

 

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Whoops, I Did It Again…

24 Jan

Well that’s certainly my bad deed for the day.

SOOOOOO how about that content, huh? Yeah, uh, well….

Now, I wasn’t foolish enough to make any New Year’s Resolutions about keeping this thing here active, but I did make a resolution to finish off my Deck Building Challenge of Doom – one deck of every currently legal colour combination. For those of you following along at home, this is what I have so far:

Mono Colour (4/5)
White: Kitsune Mystic (allowed in my playgroup), Enchantments
Black: Lim-Dul the Necromancer, Zombies
Red: Jaya Ballard, Task Mage, Burn and Jaya themed (every card with Jaya Ballard flavour text that can legally go in the deck. Yes, including Mystic Compass and Melting…)
Green: Omnath, Locus of Mana, OMNATH SMASH (General Damage deck)

Allied Two Colour (2/5)
Red/Green aka Gruul: Radha, Heir to Keld, Tribal Elf/Warrior
Green/White aka Selesnya: Tolsimir Wolfblood, Tokens

Enemy Two Colour (4/5)
Black/White aka Orzhov: Ghost Council of Orzhova, Blink/Tokens
Blue/Red aka Izzet: Nin, the Pain Artist, hurting you for drawing cards. And making you draw cards.
Black/Green aka Golgari: Savra, Queen of the Golgari, Sacrifice and board control
Green/Blue aka Simic: Edric, Spymaster of Trest, Rogues and Superspies

Shard (3/5)
Blue/Black/Red ala Grixis: Jeleva, Nephalia’s Scourge, Tribal Vampires
Black/Red/Green aka Jund: Sek’Kuar, Deathkeeper, eating my own dudes for Fun and Profit and Face Smashing
Red/Green/White aka Naya: Mayael the Anima, My Friends Are Bigger Than Your Friends

Wedge (5/5) (C’mon Wizards name these things already)
White/Black/Red: Kaalia of the Vast, Demons and Dragons and Angels OH MY
RUG: Animar, Soul of Elements, Big Creatures on the Cheap
Black/Green/White: Doran, the Siege Tower, I Like Big Butts (vaguely Treefolk tribal)
Red/White/Blue: Zedruu the Greathearted, Take My Stuff
BUG: Damia, Sage of Stone, I Drop My Hand, I Pick It Up Again

I haven’t built 5-colour or colourless yet…

Since I made my resolution, I actually finished some of the half-built decks I had lying around, so these decks are now built but haven’t been tested yet:

White/Blue aka Azorius: Isperia the Inscrutable, toolbox fliers
Green/White/Blue aka Bant: Rafiq of the Many, A Rafiq Deck Like Every Other Rafiq Deck

And I’ve also started and ordered cards for Black/Red (Rakdos) which is Wort, Boggart Auntie, Goblin Tribal, and have sleeved up the White/Blue/Black (Esper) C13 Precon with Oloro, Ageless Ascetic at the helm, which I’ll be tweaking here and there. The Isperia and Wort decks make up for the otherwise lacking Allied Colour Pairs listing.

So what do I have left?

Mono-Blue
Blue/Black
White/Red
5 Colour
Colourless

Not too bad (although I am cheating on the Esper deck a bit since at this point in time it is literally just the pre-con deck).

So, I need some ideas for what I have left. Time for a poll!

The Mono-Blue options

  1. Ixidor, Reality Sculptor. I’ve tagged this one “Ixidor’s all signing, all dancing, all morph, 3-card Monte of DOOOOOM”. As many mono-U morphs as I can fit in, and as many ways to turn them face down as I can find (so far limited to Ixidron, Master of the Veil, Weaver of Lies and maaaaybe Backslide. If I’ve missed any – aside from ones that can turn themselves face down like Vesuvan Shapeshifter and Mischievous Quanar – please let me know!). This was my first idea for a mono Blue deck; I’m not a fan of decks that just counter everything and I’m a bit of a Timmy/Johnny so constantly flicking morphs up and down amuses me… Turn Weaver of Lies face up, flipping all my other morphs back down, one of which is Master of the Veil to turn Weaver of Lies face down… do it all again… But that doesn’t really get me anywhere.
  2. I have mentioned this guy before:

    I don’t think any more needs to be said 😛
  3. Born of the Gods gave us this guy

    And this spell..

    Again, not too much more to be said, I think. Leviathans, Kraken, Octopi, Serpents and Merfolk, AHOY!

The other colour combination I’m considering is Red/White. Again I have three options:

  1. Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. YAWN. But I have been thinking about this one for a while, so I’ve pretty much got it mapped out in my head. But it will look like everyone else’s Gisela deck, and that’s not a good thing.
  2. Anax and Cymede. I keep seeing all these “two target creature” spells and thinking “Hey….” This one will be about 50/50 Heroic and Battalion, and I think could be interesting… Right up until all the little solder dudes get outclassed by every other creature on the board (sometime around turn 6)…
  3. Aurelia, the Warleader. Also known as ATTTTTTACK!!!!!! ATTTTTACCKKKKK!!!!!!

So, gentle reader, I give you the chance to help me decide. Hit me up in the comments, and/or vote in the polls below!!!

Until next time (whenever that is)!

 
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Posted by on January 24, 2014 in Challenge of Doom, EDH/Commander

 

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Small update

30 Oct

So, I’m in the middle of typing my next epic masterpiece (Transforming Nin into Nekusar) and I realise my links to me decklists in the pages up on the top right of this site link to an OLD version of deckstats, and therefore old versions of my decks – and that the “new” version of my deck on deckstats isn’t up to date either…

Looks like I have some updating to do. Feel free to have a look at those decklists as a general guideline (the decks haven’t changed that much) but let’s consider them guidelines rather than the actual contents of the decks.

In other news the post I’m working on is turning into a bit of a monster – I’ll post it when it’s ready but that may not be for a couple more days yet… stay tuned, gentle reader!

-Stan. Uh, I mean, Matt.

 
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Posted by on October 30, 2013 in EDH/Commander

 

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Commander 2013 – good, better, best?

22 Oct

Much like General Damage Control, (who coincidentally have just made a very similar post to this one…) there’s nothing I like more than to complain how Wizards has dropped the ball on one thing or another, or how certain decks/cards/players are unfun or whatever.

So, here goes my list of complaints about the upcoming Commander 2013 product:

  1. Oversized Generals. A complete waste of cardboard.
  2. It’s not out yet. Why is it not out yet?
  3. Uh…….

I think this one is going to fit firmly in the “credit where credit’s due” camp. This product looks FANTASTIC. I cannot wait to get my hands on these things (and at MSRP too, thanks to my very FLGS*!)

So, for each deck I’m going to highlight my favourite new card, favourite reprinted card and (because I like to complain) my “what the hell is that in there for?”. And because I have not much of the self control, there’ll no doubt be a few honourable mentions too…

Let’s get to it!

Eternal Bargain (aka Esper, WUB)

New Card Hotness: Act of Authority

Oblivion Ring on steroids, it took me a couple of reads of this before I figured out it doesn’t have the “when Act of Authority leaves the battlefield” or “for as long as Act of Authority is on the battlefield” clause. At worst, this is a 3 mana exile spell. More than likely you’ll get to exile two things and the new owner will (possibly) exile Act of Authority, or they will continue the chain and exile something else for you. I’m very keen on this for my Zedruu deck (since it gives itself away) and also for my Kitsune Mystic enchantment deck (although it’s quite good against my Kitsune Mystic enchantment deck, so maybe not…). A very, very cool multiplayer effect, and (in my humble opinion) EDH Politics Done Right.

Old Card Sexiness: Lim Dûl’s Vault

Hands down. Every time I read that card I’m like “no way can it do all that for only 2 mana, and at instant speed!” Yet, here we are. I’ve often thought of picking one of these up and throwing it in a deck just for the sheer awesomeness of it. To be honest I’m not sure where it will go (my only U/B decks at the moment are Garza Zol/soon-to-be-Jeleva, and Damia) but I’m certain it’ll find a home.

Honourable Mention: Spinal Embrace. Creepiest. Art. Ever. And a hell of a combat trick.

Say What?!?

I really want to complain about Transguild Promenade in here. It’s a land that will never see play, ever… it puts you back two land on the turn you play it, even if it’s all things to all people after that. However, the fact that that’s pretty much the only card in here that is outright bad (Wall of Reverence? Marrow Bats? Not so bad in this deck) says a lot about how good this one is. Well played WotC, well played.

Nature of the Beast (aka Naya, RGW)

That New Card Smell: Tempt With Discovery

To be honest I struggled with this one – all the new cards in this deck are pretty good (and I know a lot of people are going ga-ga over Marath) but I’m just not excited about any of them. I like this (and the rest of the “Tempt with” cycle) as a MUCH MUCH MUCH better idea than Join Forces, and this one in particular; at worst it’s the non land-destruction version of Reap and Sow and at best you get 3 or 4 lands out (any land, and untapped!) while other people search out their Urborg or Cradle or Strip Mine or whatever. I like.

That Old Card Nostalgia: Eternal Dragon (NOW WITH NEW ART)

And ain’t it sexy? I only have one Eternal Dragon and it’s in my Mayael deck; somehow I managed to get a Japanese one and it’ll be nice to get my hands on an English version. Plus I love that art!

Honourable Mention: Wrath of God. The one, the only, when everything must die at bargain basement prices. Accept no substitutes.

Huh?: Tower of Fortunes

I get that this deck is (reasonably..) low on card draw, but this seems out of place. The only mana acceleration I can spot is Cultivate and the Tempter, above – there’s lots of landcycling and Sprouting Vines, but they don’t actually accelerate you any. The Tower is ridiculously expensive and comes right at the time when you’d want to be landing Big Huge Creatures, not something that you have to sink 12 mana into to get four cards. A real head scratcher, for me.

Power Hungry (aka Jund, BRG)

Hot New Thing: Prossh, Skyraider of Kher

Prossh has the honour of being the only General on the front of the box to make this list (although it’s very close in UBR’s case, see below). Having said that, he’s not going to be at the head of any of my decks; he is however going straight into my Sek’Kuar deck as a source of multiple creatures and a free sac outlet. He will (in all likelihood) only ever make 6 Kobolds, but a 5/5 flyer with six little sacrificial buddies isn’t exactly a bad deal. I like me some Dragons and this guy is pretty cool, even if he’s not exactly the most powerful Angry Red Flier ever printed.

Honourable Mention: Fell Shepherd. This guy is going to be reasonably insane in my Savra deck.

Old Flame(s): Waaaay too many to choose from

But I’m going to go with Goblin Sharpshooter. I’ve been after one of these for a really long time and getting him in a modern border is just icing to go on the pew-pew-pew cake. He’ll be going into my BR Wort deck when I build it but for now he can also go into Sek’Kuar, a deck where the untap potential of this guy is just this side of (does the math) lots and lots.

Honourable Mentions: Hoo boy. Endless Cockroaches, Hua Tuo, Foster, Goblin Bombardment, Night Soil in a new border, Reincarnation (in a new border and with fixed wording) and Tooth and Claw. This one’s a doozy! Also a big shout out to Silklash Spider who may be my favourite green creature ever.

I don’t geddit: Hunted Troll

Sure I get the appeal of an undercosted beater and in multiplayer you can give the Faeries to a friend, but compared to the rest of this deck he seems to be in here for no really good reason. I guess the same could be said for Jund Charm too – none of it’s modes are particularly relevant to the game plan, and it seems like it’s in here because it’s the right colours. These are, however, small concerns.

Mind Seize (aka Grixis, UBR)

This deck is weird. It doesn’t seem to have a plan. All the rest clearly do but this one seems to be a strange, clunky combination of stall, card draw and creature kill. Does it want to win with Jeleva exiling everyone’s libraries? Is it a mill deck? Does it want the opponents to die of old age? I have no idea.

New and Improved: Nekusar, the Mindrazer

The star of my last post, and the reason I started posting again. This guy is going to vastly improve my Nin, the Pain Artist deck by taking over as General. Perfect fit for what I want that deck to do, which is make my opponents draw cards and punish them for it (what some people call “Group Slug” as opposed to “Group Hug”). Windmill slam, get-out-of-my-thoughts, perfect strike.

Old and Reliable: Strategic Planning

Looking at this decklist, it’s by far the one I’m the least excited about. The only other card I’m really excited to see in here is Decree of Pain in modern border for the first time (no, I do not count Commander’s so-called Arsenal). Seeing the Portal Reprint in here is pretty cool, and seeing three cards while stocking your graveyard (even in blue) is pretty good.

Dazed and Confused: Most of the rest of the deck…

But especially Vampire Nighthawk. Not sure what this guy is supposed to achieve…. also I get why Arcane Melee is in there, but Arcane Melee and Cruel Ultimatum are not BFF’s. Or Grixis Charm. Or Crosis’s Charm.

Evasive Maneuvers (aka Bant GWU)

New!: Djinn of Infinite Deceits

This is pretty much exactly the kind of creature I’m looking for for my Zedruu deck. A big flying wall that not only gives stuff away, but takes yours at the same time. This deck has a lot of very good cards, but I’m not that interested in good cards… Angel of Finality, Restore, and Unexpectedly Absent will all see actual play, but it’s the big janky flyer that intrigues me.

Old!: Lu Xun, Scholar General

Another portal card that I would never be able to get my hands on (and I live in one of the few parts of the world that Portal Three Kingdoms was actually available, albeit before I was playing), this guy is going straight into my Edric deck.

Honourable Mentions: Karmic Guide, Mirror Entity, Rubinia Soulsinger (in a new frame with very nice new art), and Thousand-Year Elixir, which for some reason is still a $5 card. Oh, and Borrowing 100,000 Arrows, even if only for the name.

Bad!: Leonin Bladetrap

The number of times this is going to be relevant is on the conservative side of 1. Bad, bad card.

Well, that’s more than enough from me. What are you looking forward to? What don’t you like? Hit me up in the comments!

*That’s Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price, and Friendly Local Game Store, in case you were wondering
 
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Posted by on October 22, 2013 in EDH/Commander

 

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He’s not dead, he’s restin’!!

16 Oct

(tap tap tap) This thing on?

Holy Mother of Pearl, can this be content? Well, I guess only you can tell me that…

Things have been… hectic… over the last year. I’ve missed posting on here though and have been tangentially keeping up with the EDH world, mostly through mtgcommander.net and generaldamagecontrol.com. I’ve just started playing EDH again, and have been teaching it to my girlfriend – it’s really interesting getting a new player’s perspective on the format, especially one who is (practically) new to Magic. I’ll be posting more about that – and may ask her to write a guest piece – sometime soon. (Update: I’ve asked her and she’s keen – upcoming post sometime in November after final exams)

What has finally pushed me over the edge though, and forced me to start posting here again, is this guy:

Where was this guy a couple of years ago? The last time the Commander Precons came out, a lovely little lady called Nin, The Pain Artist was released onto the unsuspecting world. I ended up choosing Nin as my R/U general for my Deck Building Challenge of Doom™ – one general of each (legal) colour combination. Nin’s general theme is “here, have some cards. Now HOW DARE YOU HAVE CARDS I KILL YOU” with Psychosis Crawler, Sudden Impact, Molten Psyche, and friends.

While making that deck I came across such fun cards as Phyrexian Tyranny and Spiteful Visions and Underworld Dreams and thought “Wow it would be great if there was a Black/Blue/Red General who cared about card draw…”

AND NOW THERE IS

The problem (and it’s very much a “first world problem” problem) is that my Nin looks like this:

(Alter done by MTG Card Extensions on Facebook. Check out her work here)

Also, I already have a UBR deck – Tribal Vampires, headed by Garza Zol. It’s not a great deck, but it is fun to play and I was going to swap out Garza Zol for the other new hotness in the upcoming UBR deck, Jelava:

Now admittedly Jelava doesn’t have a lot to do with my deck other than her creature type, but she’s new and exciting and the art isn’t as bad as Garza Zol (hint: Nothing Is), and she’s considerably cheaper. However, I’m reasonably fond of the Vampire deck as it is. I could theoretically drop the blue out of it and run it as a B/R build, since I don’t have a B/R deck. The planned B/R deck was going to be a Wort, Boggart Auntie goblin tribal, but I haven’t actually started to build it yet, although I have a number of ideas and I’d quite like to build it.

Basically I can’t make my damn mind up. I really do want to add black to my Nin deck – do I just suck it up and have two (completely different) UBR decks? That would leave a hole in UR, plus I’d have an altered Nin who wouldn’t be the general. If I make the Nekusar deck do I retire Garza Zol? Do I make Garza Zol RB (probably with Olivia Voldaren at the helm) and forget the Goblin Plan?

Whoever said options are a good thing?!?

So, to the polls! (This is also a not-very-sneaky way of seeing if I can stimulate some interest in this blog again 😛 ) Vote for as many options as you like; Should I keep or change Nin? Should I have two UBR decks? If not, should I have to RB decks? Vote early and often!

Footnote: If anyone can tell me how to do those fancy mouseover card images on this site, I’d be mighty appreciative. As far as I can tell, it needs Javascript, and I can’t run Javascript on this (free) site, but can if I move to wordpress.org and host it on my own server – except I don’t have one of those, and have no intention of getting one. I’m pretty happy to stick with the links to magiccards.info for now, but if some clever clogs out there knows a better way, please do let me know!

Cheers all, good to be back 🙂

Matt

 
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Posted by on October 16, 2013 in Challenge of Doom, EDH/Commander

 

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Deck Analysis – Radha, Heir to Keld

23 Nov

Hi again folks,

Well the votes are in and as you can see from the lovely lady with the extra head above me, the deck you want me most to talk about (thanks to the people out there that voted!) is Radha, Heir to Keld. I have this deck built at the moment, but it’s unique amongst my decks in that I already have a stack of cards I want to put in, and I’m not really sure what direction I want to push her in.

Radha is somewhat unique in another way; I’ve only read one Magic novel in my entire life, and that is the Time Spiral novel in which Radha plays a reasonably large part. In the novel Radha is all fire and action, and is obsessed with proving her worth through battle. It’s also revealed that she has the beginnings of planeswalker spark, although that obviously doesn’t go anywhere (Hey WotC! Let’s see a R/G Radha, Planeswalker of Keld!).

My original thoughts were to make a pretty basic Red/Green aggro deck, using Radha’s ability to make mana in the combat phase to power Tricks™. Unfortunately the “new” rules changes (this is an old idea 😛 ) mean that the mana she provides is generated and must be used during the Declare Attackers step, which reduces the surprise value somewhat. Actually it reduces the surprise value to nil, which is a real downer….

What I’ve ended up with is a Red/Green kinda aggro semi-tribal Elf/Warrior/Beserker mess, including such all stars as Lovisa Coldeyes and Raging Goblin. (OK so the Raging Goblin is in there because I love me some Raging Goblin…) I’ve played it a few times and as soon as it runs out of steam – and it does that fairly quickly – it’s full of 2/2’s and 2/1’s and 3/3’s that everyone can pretty much ignore. (My Damia deck has a similar problem, but for a different reason – it’s full of mana dorks to help me get to Damia ASAP – but once they’re in play, they tend to be somewhat irrelevant.)

The other idea I had is a super ramp deck (Radha is a mana source, after all) and build up to massive X spell after massive X spell, preferably assisted by Radha’s mid-combat mana-adding ability. Most of the spells in the “sideboard” are these X-spells; but there are some in the deck already as well, along with such cards as Rosheen Meanderer. (Who, you may note, is not an Elf, a Warrior, or a Beserker. I is good at the theme decks!). The other, similar but different, option is to build an EDH version of “Elfball” – a deck which utilises a ton of mana producing elves, and ways to untap them, to build up to arbitrarily large amounts of mana and use a Fireball (or Comet Storm, or similar) to take out the entire table at once. I have some of those cards in here as well.

The list as it currently stands is missing a lot of good Warriors – most notably Imperious Perfect, Wren’s Run Vanquisher, and Bramblewood Paragon. Apparently I’m also good at the giving away playables… I swear I have them in the Black Hole that is my hobby room… somewhere… but I’m still looking for the last kid I sent in there to get something for me.

I’ve done a bit of searching (on mtgsalvation and mtgcommander) for other Radha lists, and there are a few popular archetypes for Radha decks. For some reason the most common one I can find is a combination mana ramp/land destruction build; since Green and Red have the best LD spells, I guess. This is a type of build that interests me about as much as pulling my own fingernails out with a pair of pliers; if I had to sum up my personal EDH philosophy in one phrase it would be:

Let people play their deck

(For the record, yes I run decks with counterspells and creature destruction and board control. I run Faerie Trickery, but not Forbid. If you can’t see the philosophical difference between those two spells, this blog ain’t for you 😉 )

Other types of Radha decks floating around are:

  • A quite cool and tricksy Life from the Loam/Crucible of Worlds/Seismic Assault/Storm Cauldron deck (but really, this could be any R/G general)
  • Goodstuff Aggro/Ramp… accelerating into Avenger of Zendikar and friends. How exciting!!!
    • Having said that I did find one deck which had quite a cute idea with Birthing Pod, Weatherseed Treefolk and/or Shivan Phoenix; basically you can pull every 6 or 7 drop out of your deck (one per turn) since the Treefolk and the Phoenix just keep coming back
  • Elfball (as described above, and in more detail below)
  • Elf-without-the-ball – all the big mana but only used to power out more and more Elves, usually killing with Ezuri or Kamahl, Fist of Krosa (not that he’s an elf)

ElfBall (from someone who clearly doesn’t know how it works)

The general idea with the old-school Elfball lists that were floating around in casual land since forever is that you use an Elf that taps for a lot of mana (typically Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary or Wirewood Channeler) and some way to continually untap him that costs less mana than he produces, making an arbitrarily large amount of mana and Fireball everyone for the win (hence ElfBall). Most of the decks I’ve seen in action splash blue for one or both of Pemmin’s Aura or Freed from the Real, as they only require a single mana to untap. In red and green, your options are limited somewhat:

  • Umbral Mantle (requires the creature to tap for at least four mana)
  • Sword of the Paruns (ditto)
  • Aggravated Assault

There are other ways the ElfBall works as well; the most common that I’ve found is to make an infinite storm count by using Cloudstone Curio and Heritage Druid, along with two other one-drop elves. It works a little like this:

  • Have Cloudstone Curio in play, and Heritage Druid either in play with one other one-drop Elf, or in your hand with two other one drop Elves.
  • Play the Elf in your hand (Storm 1)
  • With the Cloudstone Curio trigger on the stack, tap three Elves to make GGG
  • Return a tapped Elf to your hand
  • Play that Elf (Storm 2, GG in mana pool)
  • Return a tapped Elf to your hand
  • Play it (Storm 3, G in mana pool)
  • Return the last tapped Elf to your hand
  • You’re now back at stage one – You have two untapped Elves + Curio in play, and a third in your hand

Things get even wackier if one of your Elves is Nettle Sentinel – because it untaps itself when you play another Elf, you don’t need to return it to your hand. This means you make green mana out of the deal, which leads to infinite storm, and infinite green mana (essentially it’s another way to ElfBall). Finish off with your choice of Ignite Memories or Grapeshot (or Haze of Rage or Hunting Pack if you’re feeling weird, or Volcanic Awakening if you’re feeling like a dick…)

ElfBall Pros

  • It’s about the only way to make Elves relevant in EDH
  • It comes out of left field (at least the first few times)
  • It’s reasonably resilient
  • It doesn’t require the combat phase to win
  • I don’t play a lot of combo – this will only be my second combo deck (the first being Animar, which is more a U/G creature deck with some combos in it. It has a grand total of 3 red cards, as I write this, and two of them are only there to give haste to my team.)

Elfball Cons

  • It’s not particularly interactive. This of course applies to most combo decks
  • It needs all it’s pieces (and it needs lots of pieces) at once which means either a) tutors, or b) lots and lots of waiting
  • Being R/G, it won’t have a lot of ways to protect itself
  • It’s much harder to get the right bits assembled when only one of them is in the deck.
  • It will pretty much play out the same way every game

Another option is…

Warrior Tribal!

There are some great Warriors in Magic. The vast majority of them are in Green and Red. This seems relevant, since Radha is herself a Warrior. (As an aside there are 5 legendary G/R warriors. A 4/4 First Striking, Legendary Landwalking lass for 6, a 4/6 Rampage: 1 for 6 (wow…), Radha, A 3/4 guy who comes with his twin for 6, and a 4/4 Trampler for 5, with a mid-combat pump. Radha seems best to me, although a couple of these guys could sneak in.)

Lorwyn block really is the star here; it gave the Warrior tribe a lot more late-game punch with the addition of Giant and Treefolk Warriors (as well as Goblins, Elves, and Elementals). There are 68 Green and/or Red Warriors in Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block alone! They did need the help though – there are only 183 Warriors in the rest of Magic history, and most of them are…. sub-par (Akki Raider, looking at you here…)

After going through the list, these are the ones I thought may actually be worth playing:

Elf Warriors

Allosaurus Rider
Bramblewood Paragon
Elvish Skysweeper
Elvish Vanguard
Imperious Perfect
Joraga Warcaller
Lys Alana Huntmaster
Nath’s Elite
Nettle Sentinel
Talara’s Battalion
Winnower Patrol
Wren’s Run Packmaster
Wren’s Run Vanquisher

Goblin Warriors

Bloodmark Mentor
Boggart Ram-Gang
Goblin Bangchuckers
Goblin Wardriver
Zo-Zu the Punisher

Elemental Warriors

Brighthearth Banneret
Inner-Flame Ignitor
Nova Chaser (if enough Elementals)
Vengeful Firebrand

Giant Warriors

Boldwyr Heavyweights (requires Stranglehold?)
Boldwyr Intimidator
Countryside Crusher (requires mana acceleration, or some way of getting lands from graveyard to hand or play)
Furystoke Giant
Hamletback Goliath
Hotheaded Giant

Treefolk, Human, Troll, Vampire, Cat, Wolfir and Snake Warriors Oh My!

Ambassador Oak (brings an Elf Warrior friend!)
Champion of Lambholt
Drumhunter
Falkenrath Marauders
Hunted Troll
Jedit Ojanen of Efrava
Kargan Dragonlord
Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
Markov Blademaster
Matsu Tribe Sniper
Nacatl War-Pride
Petrified Wood-Kin
Sosuke, Son of Seshiro
Splatter Thug
Viridian Zealot
Vulshok Battlemaster
Wolfir Silverheart
Zealous Conscripts

While it’s not a particularly impressive list, there is some potential there. However, I think a lot of the work will be done by only a few of the creatures; notably Bramblewood Paragon and Boldwyr Intimidator. Everything else either makes more creatures, or make themselves or others bigger. There’s a distinct lack of evasion, which I guess for Warriors isn’t a huge surprise.

Aggro decks in EDH just plain don’t work – there is one aggro deck I can think of in our playgroup that is any good, and it’s a G/R Stonebrow deck that ramps up to big trampler after big trampler, usually with Savage Beating (THE most appropriately named card in all of magic) to finish. Having a bunch of 3/3’s and 2/3’s simply doesn’t cut it against the haymakers most EDH decks are throwing around, and that’s before the somewhat inevitable board wipes. So in order to make a tribal deck work, you have to be able to FINISH HIM!!

So, I thought to myself… what if I could combine the two decks? Have an Elfball Tribal Warriors mashup?

Such a deck would have a game plan kinda like this: In the early game throw out some threats in the form of Warrior beatdown, as well as a fair bit of ramp-age (turns out that word needs a hyphen, otherwise it’s just rampage, which is kind of appropriate I guess). In the mid game it’ll prey on targets of opportunity while setting up for the Big Finish, which will be a large X-spell of some variety. Cards like Earthquake in this scenario are fine, since if the early game has gone well I’ll be on more life than anyone else.

For this strategy (and I use that term loosely) I’ll have to cherry pick only the very best Warriors, and the ElfBall cards which are essential to creating large amounts of mana – although it must be noted that I don’t have to have the ability to go Infinite – if I get to X=20 or so, that should be more than enough. First let’s look over the Warrior list above for cards which also work in ElfBall:

Nettle Sentinel.

Hmm. This could be harder than I thought. There are a few good Warriors which can act as mana sinks for Arbitrarily Large Amounts Of Mana (Wren’s Run Packmaster, Joraga Warspeaker, Boldwyr Intimidator, Inner-Flame Igniter (sort of), Vengeful Firebrand, Kargan Dragonlord (although he “only” needs RRRRRRRR)). The trouble is, if I draw all (or worse, only some of) my Elfball stuff too early, I have nothing to do in the early game. If I don’t draw it at all, I’m just going to sit around with a bunch of outclassed creatures. Still it’s not all doom and gloom. I think I can build enough resilience in – without resorting to a bunch of tutor effects – that Fun Times will be had. So, this will be my initial build:

General: Radha, Heir to Keld

Warriors: (sorted by converted mana cost)

  1. Elvish Skysweeper, Joraga Warcaller, Nettle Sentinel
  2. Bramblewood Paragon*, Brighthearth Banneret, Goblin Wardriver*, Kargan Dragonlord*, Matsu-Tribe Sniper, Varchild’s War-Riders*, Wren’s Run Vanquisher, Viridian Zealot*
  3. Boggart Ram-Gang, Champion of Lambholt*, Imperious Perfect*, Inner Flame Igniter, Markov Blademaster, Mirri Cat Warrior, Zo-Zu the Punisher
  4. Ambassador Oak, Hunted Troll, Lys Alana Huntmaster, Sosuke Son of Seshiro, Vengeful Firebrand, Wren’s Run Packmaster
  5. Nath’s Elite, Stonebrow Krosan Hero, Vulshok Battlemaster*, Zealous Conscripts*
  6. Nacatl War-Pride
  7. Allosaurus Rider, Boldwyr Intimidator, Hamletback Goliath

*Cards I don’t actually own… Champion of Lambholt incidentally makes all my dudes unblockable if I cast an infinite number of Elves in a turn. Handy!

I considered Nova Chaser here but I only have three other Elementals – not good odds.

Counting that up we have 32 Warriors. Pretty good numbers for a semi-tribal deck, and still plenty of room to add the ElfBall pieces. So far, so good! Adding to that, Elfball pieces (remember, I’m not trying to go infinite, but simply Large™

Combo Number 1: Infinite Mana: Rofellos Llanowar Emissary, Elvish Archdruid, Priest of Titania, Wirewood Channeller, Umbra Mantle, Sword of the Paruns. Finish with Comet Storm, Earthquake, Hurricane, or something else that gets everyone at once, preferably at instant speed.

Combo Number 2: Infinite Storm Count: Cloudstone Curio, Heritage Druid, any two other 1-drop elves (currently Elvish Skysweeper, Joraga Warcaller, and Nettle Sentinel). With Nettle Sentinel this also gives me Infinite G mana. I’ll have to put in more here – getting Heritage Druid and 2 out of the other three one-drops in play at once seems pretty unlikely. Candidates are: Arbor Elf, Centaur’s Herald, Copperhorn Scout, Elvish Lookout, Essence Warden, Gladecover Scout, Greenseeker, Joraga Treespeaker, Llanowar Elves (and maybe Fyndhorn Elves), Quirion Ranger (this guy is a shoe-in, given the next category), Skyshroud Ranger, or Taunting Elf (although he probably wouldn’t survive long enough!). That’s 12 more to choose from. After the infinite storm, I will have Grapeshot, Ignite Memories, and Hunting Pack (hopefully with a haste enabler like Fires, see “Other bits” below…). I really want to throw Haze of Rage in here, but without something else to help it out, whatever dudes I have (that will be infinitely large power, but no more toughness than normal) can just be chump blocked.

“Combo” Number 3: Big Enough: Rather than generating an “arbitrarily large” amount of mana, this uses the mana producers from Combo 1 above to generate merely “enough mana to kill you all”; Quirion Ranger, Wirewood Lodge, Magewright’s Stone, Scryb Ranger, Seeker of Skybreak, Seize the Day, Thousand Year Elixir, Wirewood Symbiote.

The idea here is that I have approximately 30 cards to work with after including the 32 Warriors above; after a little jiggering around this is what I’ve decided on:

ElfBall Package, sorted by Converted Mana Cost:

0. Wirewood Lodge
1. Essence Warden, Fireball, Hurricane, Heritage Druid, Joraga Treespeaker, Llanowar Elves, Quirion Ranger, Skyshroud Ranger, Taunting Elf, Wirewood Symbiote
2. Comet Storm, Fault Line, Grapeshot, Magewright’s Stone, Molten Disaster, Priest of Titania, Rofellos Llanowar Emissary, Rolling Thunder, Scryb Ranger, Seeker of Skybreak, Squall Line
3. Cloudstone Curio, Elvish Archduid, Sword of the Paruns, Thousand Year Elixir, Umbral Mantle
4. Wirewood Channeler
5. Aggravated Assault, Ignite Memories
7. Hunting Pack

Altogether that’s 62 cards. That’s what you get for trying to shoehorn two different decks into one – ideally I want to run 35-37 lands (the curve is reasonably low) so I have zero, one, or two cards left… and no real way to deal with anything my opponents are doing (short of killing them dead, of course).

This is what the deck looks like so far (I added Stomping Ground, Rootborn Crag, and Basics).

I’m tempted to call it there and play a few games with the deck as it is; partially because I want to see if it’ll work at all, partially to see if I need to add things like Fires of Yavimaya, and partially because this post is nearly 3,000 words long and has taken me nearly a week to write 😀 (That also explains the somewhat sporadic card tags… If you need to see what a card is click the link in the previous paragraph and just hover over the card name 🙂

What do you think? Does the complete lack of meaningful interactions with the rest of the table kill this off? Does the complete lack of mana ramp sink this deck before it takes off? How can I play a Radha deck without Bang Veggies!? Stay tuned! Comments as always, welcome!

 
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Posted by on November 23, 2012 in Challenge of Doom, EDH/Commander

 

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