Messages

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Commander Deck Reviews / Re: Really not sure about this one (The Council of Four)

« on: May 14, 2024, 02:59:35 pm »

That is a shame regarding your playgroup, but they will also grow and think differently over the years. I mean, with this deck you are just drawing more cards when everyone else is drawing more cards, which does not make you the main target necessarily. Plus you play also cards that do give them card advantage too, so it is not a very black or white thing with this commander. Another thing: maybe your playgroup has to be introduced to group hug commanders, at least from what you wrote.

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Commander Deck Reviews / Re: Really not sure about this one (The Council of Four)

« on: May 13, 2024, 04:34:44 pm »

Hey there,

After building the Galea deck, I also had the same thoughts and built a separate deck with him at the helm. I have now a semi-modular deck where I switch between him and Galea at the helm (switching a lot of cards actually) and I am quite happy, because the only thing tying both decks is the knights theme, but they play completely different.
Here is the decklist:
https://deckstats.net/decks/187019/3510588-the-council-of-four-knights/de

I tried him two times out. He is actually great and way more powerful than I thought. His strength lies on the types of cards you use (like Kami of the Crescent Moon and Howling Mine) that nobody really likes to blow up because of value and that he himself is mostly not a target, even if the deck goes out of hand. The reason for this is that he is a 0/8, so not really a attacking threat by himself. The second reason is that the opponents are mostly responsible if he churns out knights or draws you cards. The fairer the opponents play, the less powerful he becomes.


Cheers!

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Commander Deck Reviews / Re: How do YOU guys build commander decks?

« on: May 11, 2024, 01:08:28 pm »

Hello there

After seven years of building decks, I found a good average solution as a deck template to start building. Naturally, after doing that, I tend to playtest the deck 4-5 times and adjust it depending on the feel and the needs of it.

For me, key is that the mana base + ramp comes to 50 cards. This seems a lot, but I tend to look if I can find ramp that fits the deck, or is particulary good in the deck and might be ideally also fulfilling other purposes. For the avg. mana base, I calculate 30 lands+ mana value of the commander + 1 added land. This means, with a commander of mana value 5, the total land count would be 36. After that, I build the ramp package. If it is, for example, 36 lands, then I do 14 ramp, so that I come to the total value of 50. Ideally, it is even better if you can add + 1 ramp card, that seems to work the best (total Land and Ramp count: 51). At least that is where most sweet-spots lie in most of my decks.

After building the mana and ramp base, I look for at least 12+ card draw options, at least 1 mass removal, at least  4 recursion and 4 protection options and around 5 target removal (I tend to run a fairly low amout because my playstyle is tweaked more to let everybody do their thing;  having a fun evening and more games).The rest are cards that just specifically work with the commander.


So in the case of the hypothetical 5cmc commander it would look like this:

36x Lands
14x Ramp
12x Card Draw
5x Target Removal
1x Mass Removal
4x Recursion
4x Protection
76 Cards + Commander 77 Cards.

The rest of the 23 cards are just specific to the commander deck.



I hope it helps.

Cheers!

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Commander Deck Reviews / Re: Question about first commander deck

« on: May 10, 2024, 10:27:39 am »

Hey there,

if you like vampires, I would look maybe for a alternative. Edgar is, as other have written, very expensive, very straightforward and has also a certain reputation. If you like to try out vampires in general, look maybe at EDHrec for other commanders that fit into the vampire tribal scheme and look for one that makes your gears turn. I am saying this not to discourage you from building Edgar, but 100 Eur is a lot, regarding that you can actually build a whole deck that is fun and keep up for that price alone. You have many interesting commanders that can be build as vampire tribal like Clavileño, First of the Blessed, Evelyn, the Covetous, Elenda, the Dusk Rose, Licia, Sanguine Tribune or Olivia Voldaren. There is also a cheaper vampire-themed precon with Strefan, Maurer Progenitor at the helm called "Vampiric Bloodlines" that cost around 25 bucks. For the price of Edgar, you can buy that precon, upgrade it as you want and have fun at the table.

Cheers!

5

Commander Deck Reviews / Re: Looking for some help regarding my Galea deck

« on: May 07, 2024, 09:57:17 am »

Thanks for the reply! Yes, the amount of target removal is not very high and the auras like kenriths transformation would be better, I will look to swap one or two. The number is low by many accounts, but I am not the most enthusiastic about target removal in general . Regarding mass removal, I tend nowadays to lower the count to 1 or max. 2, because I do prefer dying in a game rather than extending the game for 1 more hour. I actually think that this is the best mass removal for Aura/Enchantment builds in white though. Not the best in general, but it works here. Regarding the knights: As I stated before, I could easily go for a Galea Voltron deck, either by leaning into the equipment or auras build, but I am not really interested in that kind of deck, too streamlined and less quirky. I love the flavour and the challenge of exploring more possibilities with her.

I actually played the deck a few times now and made a few adjustments to it. The first time it was too slow, the second time it worked allright but lacked some speed in the late game. The latest version has even more card draw to accelerate the process.

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Commander Deck Reviews / Re: A strong and unknown Commander

« on: May 06, 2024, 06:45:02 pm »

Hey, great deck idea! The only thing I noticed is that some ramp artifacts and general ramp cards are missing. You could lower the number of lands to 33-36 lands since 39 is pretty high and add a few ramp cards. I recommend to put at least 10-12 ramp cards the very least. I count only two, which will make your deck not work, or be very, very slow. It is always painful to cut cards you like for ramp, but you will have more fun on the long run, trust me

Another thing is, I would swap Resurgent Belief. The card looks always better than it is. Since it has suspend, your opponents will be ready for when it hits. It happen to me often, and I ended cutting the card since it telegraphs such a big move way too early to make it work properly.

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Commander Discussion / Re: Banlist Justifications

« on: May 03, 2024, 10:33:12 pm »

@jlutzxinc I think I was misunderstood here. I am all for casual commander and cEDH is not my thing. What I was saying is, that as soon as the games are shaped towards the competitive form, where there might be something on the line, even if it is just a booster pack (including pre-releases), then a banlist is absolutely needed. Same counts for pods where you do not know the players. In kitchentable casual commander, if you have a pod that you know, I do not think that it is needed. It reminds me, when we starded playing with my playgroup again in 2017 in 60 card format, after more than 17 years of hiatus, we used 4 sol rings in every deck...because we did not know better and did not know the restrictions and banlist. Is it broken? Surely. But we had still fun and leveled the plainfield around it. If a player had more than two on the battlefield, he would probably be targeted and loose all or most sol rings. At the end of the day, if you want to make a card or deck broken, you will find a way. It is up to the player and the pod to decide if they want to have fun or break the game.

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Commander Deck Reviews / Re: Looking for some help regarding my Galea deck

« on: April 30, 2024, 09:24:37 am »

Thank you so much for the responses! 

First of all, thanks Rose, some of the cards you suggested are really good. Silkguard for 1 green mana to cast is actually a way to protect. I did not know Spectral Steel, and it looks like it should work wonders, actually found a copy of it in the card collection With Halvar, I actually forgot that the text says "Auras"

Dactylartha, also many thanks! I think the idea with some top deck manipulation regarding lands might be good as ramp (Courser of Kruphix and the likes), I am going to peek into your decklist to have an idea.

Regarding ramp and card draw, after building so many decks over the last 7 years, it is kind of my template at first. 30 Lands + mana cost of the commander (is 4, so 34 lands) and the rest is ramp until I get to 50 cards (51 with the commander). Then 10 card draw cards at least, and from there on, I modify it depening on how the deck behaves.

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Commander Discussion / Re: Banlist Justifications

« on: April 29, 2024, 09:30:11 am »

I am one of those that think that Commander does not need a banlist except the „ante“ cards, but a discussion previous to the game. There are players who play mainly to win, while others do want to have fun, regardless of the outcome. People who like primarily to win, will most likely streamline their decks and go for combos and so on for the optimal play. A lot of the cards in the banlist would make for nice additions in competitive situations, but would be out of place in casual pods, leading to a more pubstompy feel. Therefore, I think it would not matter as much in situations were the goals of the pod vs. one player would be at odds, because the situation would occur anyways if someone is going for that combo win. + certain cards or combination of them would lead to having a target on your back anyway. Where I would draw the line is for cEDH or official tournaments, where a banlist makes sense, just to keep a balanced feel to the game. Regarding the explanations given for some cards in the banlist, seems to adress the fear of creating a „pay to win“ feel.

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Commander Discussion / Re: What do you think of "Baldur’s Gate Wilderness"?

« on: April 29, 2024, 08:24:28 am »

I personally love dungeons and the initiative I see it as fitting flavour for D&D. I think, the Initiative is even better, since it works as a second monarch. It has the drawback of outshining the rest of the dungeons, though. I recently took my dungeons/initiative deck apart, but I will definitely build another one. The one thing regarding these type of decks is that they can perform, but are not the most powerful. But if you are looking for fun, the dungeons and the initiative are a great option.

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Commander Deck Reviews / Re: Looking for some help regarding my Galea deck

« on: April 29, 2024, 08:12:57 am »

Thank you very much! Yes, I forgot to say that this is indeed it is kind of a budget option. I own all decks on paper (including the cards on this one) and in my playgroup does not allow for Proxies (which I am trying to convince them otherwise).So, while I do own shocklands, they are distributed among the many decks I have… and swapping cards across 20+ decks is no so much fun. But the inclusions you stated make complete sense regarding the mana distribution

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Commander Discussion / Re: Pip-Boy 3000.... is likely going to become a staple like Arcane Signet

« on: April 29, 2024, 12:17:55 am »

It’s a good take, even as others mentioned, not nearly as good as Arcane Signet. I think not even close. And you forget that there is a good portion of players like me that do no like universe beyond cards as much.

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Commander Deck Reviews / Re: Kess, Dissident Mage

« on: April 28, 2024, 10:56:55 am »

I am not a Kess player and I come from a less powered up pod, but I think maybe it would be good to have different variations regarding powerlevel on this one. For the most part, I would tone the counters down to 4-5. If you play high power, then I would look for more tutors instead. One that comes to mind that works really good with Kess (depending on how fast or how much interaction your pod plays) is Oriq Loremage. Also in casual it is better to have less counters. One thing is to protect your gameplan, but usually nobody likes to get their things countered, so if you play that high number, you will likely paint a target on your back without having any defensive support (creature tokens like with Murmuring Mystic) or stax pieces like Propaganda to give you a little bit of breathing room. Hope that helps

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Commander Deck Reviews / Looking for some help regarding my Galea deck

« on: April 27, 2024, 04:09:22 pm »

Hello everyone!

I am looking for some inspiration, tipps and recommendation regarding my Galea, Kindler of Hope deck and I hope you can help me. I am a experienced deckbuilder with more than 20 decks that I own on paper and years of experience building decks. I love some challenges and to search for some fringe uses of commanders. This time I want to build a Galea deck, but unlike most, not just focussed on Auras or equipment or both, but on three pillars:
Knights/Auras/Equipment

I know that the streamlined versions go for one of the options mostly (which is the smart thing to do), but I am here to have fun playing decks, and challenges while building them, not looking for the optimal power play. Unafortunately, I cannot find decks that focus on the three pillars. Is there someone that did this and want to share their decklist or ideas?

Here is the deck, it is just 60/70% tuned-in, still a long way to go.

https://deckstats.net/decks/187019/3497492-galea-aural-knights-ii

Let me know what you think, and I appreciate all feedback!

All best,
ERMTD

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Deck Reviews / Re: A mono-white Superfriends/Tokens/+1/+1 Counters deck!

« on: July 13, 2022, 09:24:12 pm »

Heyhey, yeah I forgot about the MDFCs But I think it looks better now! I regards to your playgroup: It is a shame if there is so much artifact hate, because everyone wants to play their deck. I can understand that people change their play habist according to situations where players are just cracking Lotus Petal and so forth to make a turn 3-4 win, more in cEDH style. But it is of course a shame if it is just meant to be a casual play and no one gets to try their deck out. I hope you have fun with the deck and tell me how it worked! Maybe I try an atempt some day, I think it is an interesting commander