Messages

136

Commander Deck Reviews / Need more Instants

« on: August 28, 2020, 10:10:22 pm »

Here's my Kalamax, the Stormsire deck.  It seems every time I play, I could stand to draw an instant just a little more often.  If you could make just one change, comment with the following:  a) What permanent you'd take out and b) what instant (or sorcery) you'd replace it with.

https://deckstats.net/decks/161053/1736933-kalamax-copies

137

Commander Deck Reviews / Skirk Fire Marshal Secret Commander

« on: August 28, 2020, 10:05:24 pm »

Okay, so back in Onslaught block, I had a goblin tribal deck that focused on getting a one turn kill with Skirk Fire Marshal.  It wasn't the best deck ever, but it usually could manage a turn 6 or 7 kill.  It ran white for damage prevention so it's not a suicide deck, and was a lot of fun to play, even if it only occasionally went off.  Strictly for nostagia, I'm trying to run the concept in commander.  I've tried this deck a few times, and even won, but I've not been able to ever go off with the Fire Marshal.  It's actually a fairly good deck since it has damage prevention and board wipes and token generation built in, but I'd like some help tuning up the deck to make for a one turn, kill everybody, Skirk Fire Marshal combo more often.  Any suggestions (please keep them somewhat budget).

https://deckstats.net/decks/161053/1738785-secret-skirk

138

Commander Discussion / Re: Ultimate Budget EDH deck competition

« on: August 28, 2020, 09:42:22 pm »

https://deckstats.net/decks/161053/1736414-subira-infect

139

Commander Discussion / Re: Cutting down your collection & decks

« on: August 28, 2020, 09:39:07 pm »

I've got a nice large 5 row box with each color, and I've decided that I'll never let any color fill more than one row.  I've got a smaller box for artifacts and multicolored cards.  I've kept some cards because of sentimentality or market value, others because I find them interesting or unusual, some because I just think they would be good if I ever had the right shell for them, so it was mostly duplicates and vanilla creatures and spells that are essentially the same each set (how many blue enchantments do I need that prevent the enchanted creature from untapping?) that I ended up giving to students in my after school MTG club.

140

Commander Discussion / Re: What kind of interesting brew challenges are you up to?

« on: August 28, 2020, 09:27:06 pm »

Those both could be good for Voltron.  Chromium would favor an Equipment build for sure, so you can just swing in for commander damage easily once you make him unblockable.  I wonder if there's a way to make alternating Halfdane from big to small every other turn would be useful.  Like Meekstone lets him untap when he's small, but then you make him enormous the next turn.  You could also have a variety of high toughness/low power and low toughness/high power creatures in the deck and various payoffs that you could abuse depending on which you need.  Since it's his base power and toughness, +1/+1 counters might be a way to go, since they mean he can always be the biggest thing on the board, plus counters on other creatures would still boost him when he copies them.

141

Commander Discussion / Re: Hidden Gems

« on: August 28, 2020, 09:15:49 pm »

Here's what I came up with looking for the best card in each of my EDh decks that I haven't seen played by anyone else:

Power Conduit: I've used him with Arixmethis, Slumbering Isle to get him down two counters the turn I play him, and then another at the beginning of the following turn.  I've used it with Decree of Silence to counter an extra spell.  Devoted Druid can tap for 3 every turn.  Any time you find yourself needing counters removed, it's surprisingly good.

Shadow Rift: Making a creature unblockable for 1 mana is good, having it replace itself is even better, but having the flexibility to also make a creature unable to block instead is what really makes this card undervalued.

Instill Energy: I don't know why this is so underplayed.  Haste in green is nice, but the ability to untap each turn is awesome.  Your mana dorks tap for double, basically paying for the spell the turn you cast it.  If you've got a big boy that you want to attack with but need to hold up as a blocker, here's psuedo-vigilance.  It's versatile and cheap.

Spectral Searchlight:  This is okay-at-best ramp, but it's a great tool for politicking if you're into that.  How many times has another player had an answer to a threat, but they didn't have the mana to play it.  If you have something scary staring you down with no way to stop it, it's super easy to say, I'll give a mana of any color to anyone that can remove this threat before it hits me.  The rest of the table will have the deal with the threat soon enough, so they're usually happy to step in if you help with the cost.

Soul Foundry:  This can really fill a lot of roles.  From making an essentially free Llanowar Elves every turn (since the one you made last turn pays for this turns activation), to finally getting triggers from Charmed Stray's ETB, there are endless ways to make this card interesting.

Dimir House Guard: Free sac outlet and a tutor.  Why is this not played more?

Awe Strike:  One mana to turn any instance of damage into life gain.  This can really wreck players.  Aetherflux Reservior?  I'll let you pay 50 life to have me gain 50, that seems fair.  Going all in for a one shot kill with commander damage?  I'll be happy to gain 21 life.  Heartless Hidetsugu?  Yeah, I'll gain half my life total instead, hope that's okay.

Sisters of the Flame: A 2/2 mana dork for 3 isn't that exciting, unless you're in red.  Red desperately needs ramp, and it loves getting a lot of little creatures on the board anyways.  (She's played in less than 100 decks on EDHrec?)

Skybind: This is a fabulous way to recur ETB's and can even be used before a board wipe to protect a key creature or, with an enchantment with flash, can save a permanent any time.  White loves enchantments and ETBs, so this would be a great fit in so many decks.

Rishadan Footpad:  Having everyone sac a creature is good, putting it on a recurrable body is great.  Yes, they can pay their way out of it and they choose the creature, but with a little patience or planning, that shouldn't matter.

Inviolability: Most card like this prevent all damage that would be dealt by and dealt to enchanted creature, or just deals with combat damage, but this just prevents all damage dealt to the creature.  This has plenty of ways to abuse.  Maybe you have an attack trigger that doesn't matter if you get through or not, maybe you have a creature with infect, but it will die the first time it tries to swing in, maybe you have a Wall of Glare or the like and just want to block everything, or maybe you're about to play Blasphemous Act.  This is gold in every case.  Even if you just put it on your biggest creature and swing every turn, that's still quite good.

Thundering Djinn:  There are lots of ways (especially in blue) to draw 10, 15, 20 cards in a turn.  This turns that card draw into damage when it attacks.  Even if it doesn't survive, it still gets that damage in, so it can always turn a bunch of draws into damage, but it does have evasion, so it will often get through as well.  There are 17,000 decks on EDHrec playing Psychosis Crawler, and yet less than 300 running this guy.  Obviously, this isn't as good, it only counts card draw on your turn before combat and it only hits one target instead of each opponent, but it can also direct that damage at a creature or planewalker, so it does have a little versatility that the crawler doesn't.

Well, there you go, a hidden gem from each of my decks.  Not many of these should be auto-includes for any color or archetype, but they're all fairly cheap and off the beaten path options that can be really great in the right build.

Let me know if you end up using any of these guys.

142

Commander Discussion / Re: How many overall lands in an EDH deck?

« on: August 28, 2020, 08:00:22 pm »

So, one of the big problems is that people copy people instead of doing their own statistical analysis.  Imagine if the deck suggestions on EDHREC or the like was that you have 35-38 lands for a given commander.  Well, what's more exciting, having 38 lands or having 35 lands and throwing in those few really cool spells that wouldn't fit otherwise?  It still feels fine, since 35 is still in the appropriate range of suggested lands, but the player doesn't realize that for their particular deck, 38 would make more sense.  So, over time, more and more people are building at the bottom of the range, and, as their decks make their way into the stats, the new suggested range for lands drops to 33-36, not because that's actually a good idea, but because that's what everyone's doing.  So now everyone starts feeling comfortable going down to 33 lands, and the stats keep dropping.

Another situation is that Commander, even casual commander, will always have a few Spikes.  Nothing against Spikes, but they make the game less enjoyable when Johnny and Timmy never get a win, and an truly optimized deck will beat a jank deck 99% of the time.  So, as the years go by, the top of your curve drops.  For Johnny, the really convoluted combos that take 14 turns to set up get abandoned for something more low to the ground and streamlined.  For Timmy, the super flashy spells that end the game are turned in for a little acceleration.  Remember when Insurrection was a common game ender for any one playing Red?  I haven't seen someone hard cast an Insurrection in months.

143

Commander Discussion / Re: Cards that steal from other people's libraries and graves

« on: August 28, 2020, 07:33:36 pm »

Chainer, Dementia Master is repeatable from the graveyard.  Infernal Denizen does some pretty great repeatable theft, but at a very steep cost.  I run him in my Mairsil, the Pretender deck, though, so once he's caged, I can just tap to steal all I want.  You'll want a Blatant Thievery as well if you're usually playing multi-player.

144

Commander Discussion / Re: Temple of the False God: Good land or trap?

« on: August 28, 2020, 07:22:37 pm »

I use it fairly often, as even "missing" a 4th land drop to then play a land that functionally adds 3 mana with drop 5 isn't bad.  Going from 3 mana to 6 on turn 5 is fine.  It also plays really well with land based ramp (as mentioned several times already), with untap effects (it's nice to cast an unwind and come out ahead on mana), and with plenty of other interactions in the game.  Ancient Tomb is better in the early game, but Temple of the False God is strictly better the instant you get 4 other lands, and there are few decks that won't be expecting to have 4 lands more often than not.  It's not exactly fun in the end game when you realize that if you'd had a few more life you could make it to another turn and you've been paying to Ancient Tomb all game.  It does depend on the deck (I would never run it in my Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain deck (plenty of mana rocks already and a really low curve) or my Sliver Overlord deck (I generally need ramp that also provides color fixing) but I'd absolutely run it in my Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle deck (my commander enters as a land, giving me often 4 lands out by turn 3) and my Kamahl, Fist of Krosa deck (I often have 10+ lands out for most of the game)), but I'd say, 90% of the time, it's not a bad choice.

(I've been stuck with a worthless Gaea's Cradle more than once before, after a board wipe or something, and no one's calling that a bad option for lands, and just last night I lost to a guy that had a "do nothing" Cabal Coffers for the first several turns)

145

Commander Deck Reviews / Subira Infect?

« on: August 28, 2020, 08:25:11 am »

Thoughts on creating a Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner EDH deck with infect as the primary win-con?  Can you make a deck that consistently kills two or more players in a single turn with unblockable infect damage?  The idea is to play an infect creature, give it unblockable and haste, and then pump it's toughness to 10 (or 5 with damage doubling or double strike more likely).  Even getting it to 8 damage and then having a few proliferate options may be worth considering as well.  Here's what I've got so far, it's fairly budget, but seems to be more or less heading the right direction.  Any suggestions would be great.

https://deckstats.net/decks/161053/1736414-subira-infect