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Author Topic: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help  (Read 2934 times)

Slyvester12

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[EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« on: February 20, 2020, 05:23:24 am »
I would like some help choosing a commander for a Persistent Petitioners deck.

I've really wanted to make a Persistent Petitioners mill deck for a while now. I had one on arena and it was crazy fun (except when the opponent was running Gaea's Blessing). Learning from my experiences in standard, I want to make a PP deck that excels at grave hate. The main issue I'm running into is color.

I initially planned to run Oona, Queen of the Fae with Dramatic Scepter into infinite mill, with the Petitioners being a silly wincon and blockers. The blue gives me the Petitioners and draw, counters, artifact tutors, while black gives grade A+ grave hate (thanks, Leyline of the Void), generic tutors, and creature removal. Also, the mana base would be reasonably cheap.

Now, though, I'm leaning toward Sultai. Green is my favourite magic color, and it hurts playing a deck without good ramp, not to mention creature tutors, artifact/enchantment removal, and effects like Beast Whisperer. The main problem is, it seems like either Muldrotha for recursion or Sidisi for a weird self-mill midrange strategy are the best options. I'd really like to mill my opponents out and I don't like cmc 5+ commanders.

EDIT: Also considering Zur the Enchanter to grab Intruder Alarm or pillowfort pieces while setting up my board. Still has the problem of bad ramp, though.

So, now I'm trying to decide between those options, maybe a partner pair (Silas for recursion and Thrasios for a mana sink seems good), or scrapping one of the colors and running Bant or something. Does anyone have experience playing mill in EDH or have some thoughts on the commanders I've listed/other choices?
« Last Edit: February 20, 2020, 05:34:40 am by Slyvester12 »
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Morganator 2.0

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2020, 05:05:43 pm »
I actually have a little bit of experience with Persistent Petitioners decks.

My first attempt was a Sidisi, Brood Tyrant self-mill. It worked alright, but the large number of Petitioners left little room for the other cool things you can do with Sidisi. I also made it a combo deck with Dramatic Scepter to mill-out my opponents, when I probably should have made it an incremental mill deck.

My next attempt was just me swapping out all 30 creatures in The Scarab God for petitioners. This meant that I had to mill my opponents if I wanted good targets for Scarab God's ability. That one was fun for a while, especially when I got to steal someone's Kiki-Jiki combo.

As you've already mentioned you can try Muldrotha self-mill. For that I would also add in a permanent-based combo like Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake. That way, you can blink your petitioners to infinitely mill your opponents.

Beyond that you could maybe do something with Phenax, God of Deception or Mirko Vosk. The real problem with incremental mill is that it's hard to accomplish in commander. Each opponent has a 99 card deck, which is harder to get rid of than 40 life. And, you're going to be doing all the mill yourself, whereas with combat damage other players will contribute.

I definitely recommend going with either Sidisi or Muldrotha. Use self-mill to give yourself an advantage, and then end the game with either infinite mill, or lots of mill.

WWolfe

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2020, 05:17:41 pm »
In some metas a fair number of decks also run one of the Eldrazi that shuffles your graveyard into your library when it hits the graveyard. I know I have it one in a fair number of my decks but the only one that it's really in for the shuffle effect is my Sidisi self-mill. That might not be a factor in your meta at the moment, but once you play a mill deck a time or two with any kind of success people would likely adjust and start running one of them or Gaea's Blessing.
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Slyvester12

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2020, 08:26:15 pm »
That was kind of the point of my first post: I want to run black for grave hate like Leyline of the Void that prevents Gaea's Blessing and the titans from reshuffling my opponents' decks. Also, I'm leaning towards pillowfort to help keep out enemy creatures. I think I might run Zur for a bit to grab prison enchantments and combo pieces like Intruder Alarm, while the Petitioners will be the main mill engine. If that doesn't work, I'll probably just switch to a self-mill deck that tries to end things with Sidisi tokens or Oracle.

Thanks for the input, guys.
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WizardSpartan

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2020, 09:29:59 pm »
I want to make a PP deck
Taken out of context, this idea for a deck becomes about 1000x more interesting  :P


I won't just leave you at that, though. I think you definitely need black, and I like Zur. Just be sure to warn people you aren't playing cEDH Zur, or they may focus you unnecessarily. You have plenty of pillowfort options, removal options, and cool mill options like Fraying Sanity or Drowned Secrets.

Vileo Sufora

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #5 on: February 21, 2020, 03:15:40 am »
If you want consistency, I'd vote for Esper colors. Between white and black, you have a lot of enchantments that can take care of opponents' graveyards (Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void) or even the usual artifact suspects (Soul-Guide Lantern, Relic of Progenitus). White has a lot of ways to search for enchantments and blue already covers artifacts. In regards to ramp, you'll have to work with Smothering Tithe and artifact mana, but especially with Arcane Signet dropping in price, that's in a good place at the moment. There are also a lot of Advisor-type creatures in Esper, like Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths and Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. And let's not forget about Arcane Adaptation and Xenograft regardless of which direction you go. If you're in black and wanna drop the money on it, Conspiracy exists, too. You may also want to include stuff like Turnabout and Dramatic Reversal.

You can take some cues from the Modern deck, Lantern Control, too. Lantern of Insight, Ghoulcaller's Bell, Pyxis of Pandemonium, and Codex Shredder. Though considering there aren't any other Lantern effects, that's not the most consistent route.

In regards to my suggestions for commanders, the main unique one that stands out to me is Merieke Ri Berit. There are plenty of others, but considering this is shaping up to be control, stealing an opponent's key creature at an important point in the game can be very powerful. In addition, she synergizes very well with Conjurer's Closet and Thassa, Deep-Dwelling to flicker the stolen creature to permanently gain control of it (Closet and Thassa both specify that it returns to the battlefield under your control). Plenty of other ways to build control around Persistent Petitioners, but this is one that I've looked into before.


Red_Wyrm

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2020, 04:45:57 am »
Soooooo, like my pal, Morgy, I, too have some experience with PP.

When making the deck, I didnt originally have to worry about any reshuffle effects. I do now and I have adjusted the deck accordingly. Just got leyline of the void last week.

I chose Muldrotha as my commander. I wanted green mainly for bloodbond March as well as untap effects like awakening and seedborn muse. I think I also run doubling chant. If I do, I've never drawn it, but I'm pretty sure it's in there. I wasnt allowed to go infinite so I went with the untappy stuff to help speed up the milling process.

Then I knew I wanted black for cards like, again, bloodbond march and secret salvage, along with the tutors offered by black.

And blue is there for the persistent petitioners, if you couldnt guess that.

My main wincondition (and only) is thrumming stone because its technically non infinite. And if that doesnt work out, I just sit there and look pretty as I slowly mill my opponents without it.

I had an idea with Bolas's Citadel to use the petitioners ability to mill 1 if my top card is a land and essentially make a storm deck with aetherflux reservoir. At a certain point i gain more life than the spell costs, but I have yet to act on that idea. I've also considered self mill, but I wanted a deck that had to mill my opponents.

The deck does actually win, believe it or not, and win through milling. The decklist is on my profile, but it's super outdated I think. I'll probably go and update it for you.

Oh, also, I did stop using muldrotha as the commander. She's in the 99. Now I run damia, sage of stone because my hand was always empty or close to it.

Edit: Here you go, fully updated! I took Morgantor's idea with the Peregrine Drake+Deadeye Navigator combo. Since my meta has increased in power level, infinite combos are kind of the standard. Also, for the record, Doubling Chant was in the original deck list, I just took it out before ever casting it. I once made a 60 card biovisionary deck and so I had a doubling chant (well 2) on hand and decided to try it out. That biovisonary deck rocked. I want to try it in commander. We shall see.

Anyway, here is the deck: https://deckstats.net/decks/69736/1255436-persistent-pertitioners-edh#show__spoiler
« Last Edit: February 21, 2020, 05:16:01 am by Red_Wyrm »
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Slyvester12

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #7 on: February 21, 2020, 09:40:34 am »
I appreciate all of the help, guys. Right now, I'm building with Zur to help get out pillowfort and tax effects (also, Rest in Peace). I'll post a list probably later tonight. I am missing the green, but the deck seems like it'll be fun.
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Slyvester12

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #8 on: February 22, 2020, 06:20:24 pm »
I know this is technically a double post, but it's been a couple of days and I don't think editing my old post will show a new comment for the thread. Sorry about that.

https://deckstats.net/decks/132279/1559587-zur-s-pillowfort-mill?lng=en
Anyway, here's the deck so far. Still working on cuts. Running the Petitioners really cramps the rest of the deck. I'm starting to think it would be easier to make a mill deck without them, but they do sound really fun. I'll update again when I've, hopefully, finished trimming it down.

EDIT: Updated the link. I'm not sure I'm happy with the final result. There wasd a lot less room for the pillowfort than I expected, and now I'm starting to think Muldrotha and untap effects like Red_Wyrm mentioned (which is what I was originally planning, too) might be better after all.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2020, 06:43:13 pm by Slyvester12 »
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Vileo Sufora

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #9 on: February 23, 2020, 04:45:33 am »
You're right, editing your previous post would not have bumped the topic.

Yeah, it's definitely easier to mill without Persistent Petitioners. It's a fun deck direction, though, and sometimes you want to play the fun thing and not the efficient thing. All depends on what you want to do.

If you want to be that person, you can remove No Mercy, which Zur can't fetch and doesn't necessarily prevent things from attacking you, and replace it with Web of Inertia, which is tutor-able by Zur. At best, with Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void out, no one has cards in their graveyard to exile to attack you. At worst without them, it's still a kind of graveyard hate and/or attack deterrent.

If your play group is chill with infinite combos, you can slip Helm of Obedience in the mix, since it also combos with RIP/Leyline. If you're unfamiliar, you activate Helm for X=1 while RIP or Leyline are out, and it just exiles someone's library because of the way Helm is worded. The cards that are milled go straight into exile instead of the graveyard, so the condition of milling X cards (or a creature) can never be met, so it loops until their library is gone. I'd be careful with that inclusion, though, because that combo is pretty competitive. Like I said, it depends on how your group feels about two-card combos.

At a glance, I'd cut Visions of the Beyond (since it's a non-bo with exiling your opponents' graveyards) for either Swiftfoot Boots or Lightning Greaves.

Red_Wyrm

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #10 on: February 23, 2020, 07:25:27 am »
I don't think a double post like this is a big deal. I believe the no double posting is to prevent someone from posting 1 post to reply to 1 person, then another post to reply to another consecutively, as I have seen on other forum sites.

And while editing the original post doesn't bump the topic, the thread does display the bright orange "new" tag on the thread, it just won't be bumped to the top.

EDIT: Updated the link. I'm not sure I'm happy with the final result. There wasd a lot less room for the pillowfort than I expected, and now I'm starting to think Muldrotha and untap effects like Red_Wyrm mentioned (which is what I was originally planning, too) might be better after all.

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Slyvester12

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #11 on: February 23, 2020, 07:34:11 am »
I completely forgot about Helm of Obedience, thanks.

Also, I always spell your name correctly, Red_Wurm.  :)
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Red_Wyrm

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #12 on: February 23, 2020, 08:59:10 am »
I completely forgot about Helm of Obedience, thanks.

Also, I always spell your name correctly, Red_Wurm.  :)

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« Last Edit: February 23, 2020, 09:02:28 am by Red_Wyrm »
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WizardSpartan

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #13 on: February 24, 2020, 12:26:32 am »
Also, I always spell your name correctly, Red_Wurm.  :)



BahahaHAHAHAHAHAHOOHOOHEEHEEHAAAAAHhh

Oh boy I haven't laughed like that in a long time. I can't tell if Slyvester12 was kidding, but that was nonetheless insanely funny. I think that quote should replace the 2nd quote in your sig, Red_Wyrm. Wouldn't you agree, honey?

Morganator 2.0

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Re: [EDH/Commander] Persistent Petitioners Help
« Reply #14 on: February 24, 2020, 01:30:21 am »
Here's something I probably should have mentioned earlier.

Whenever you're doing a deck like Persistent Petitioners, Shadowborn Apostle, or Rat Colony, what's more important that the number of those creatures you include is the amount of card draw you use. These creatures are only good in large numbers, so you need to be able to draw them in large numbers.

Also, unrelated, but do think we should just keep purposely misspelling Red_Worm?
« Last Edit: February 24, 2020, 01:32:45 am by Morganator 2.0 »