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Author Topic: Your deck never stood a chance  (Read 809 times)

damatovg7

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Your deck never stood a chance
« on: February 18, 2020, 02:01:02 am »

Red_Wyrm

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Re: Your deck never stood a chance
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2020, 06:46:05 am »
What is Grim Grin doing in here? Also Intruder Alarm seems to be useless too. You don't have anything to combo with either of them.

Perhaps try some tutors instead to add some consistency to the deck, like Demonic Tutor or Scheming Symmetry (and then mill your opponent's top card).

You seem to have a little bit of zombie synergy going on here, but not enough to make it a zombie deck, and it weakens the mill aspect of it to the point that it isn't great at that either. You are trying to do zombies and mill. You need to pick one. I'd recommend mill since Phenax is the commander, but it is up to you.

Assuming we are doing the mill thing, here are my suggestions.

Get rid of every zombie and everything zombie related.

Now if you are casting things like mind grind, I would recommend a strategy like this:
1) Ramp. As much of it as possible. X will need to be around 30 since most players run around 35 lands in there. Your best bet for this would probably be running a lot of black cards like Crypt Ghast, Cabal Coffers, Nirkana Reverent and such. Combine them with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth for as much ramp as possible. Also consider cards like Bubbling Muck. Now I realize getting 30+ mana will still be difficult, so also think about cards like Mirari or Mirrorpool. These cards copy the value of X when a spell is on the stack (well all copy spells do), so you really only need x=15ish and then copy it to do it twice. I'd also add in tutors and counterspells to make sure you get the cards you need and you have protection, but that is the gameplan, and a solid one for mill, I think, but mill is meh in general in commander.

Another idea, since the last one doesn't really use Phenax is to build a wall tribal deck, a bunch of creatures with big butts.

I'll leave a few links:
Wall Theme EDHREC
Scryfall all Blue and Black Walls
Phenax EDHREC

I think I would go a route with Tree of Perdition, and try and copy it with spells like Phantasmal Image, Rite of Replication, Stolen Identity, etc. And then I would use their ability to exchange life total of an opponent with its toughness. This would allow you to mill for 40ish at a time when tapping them to use Phenax's ability. Again, tutors and counterspells for consistency and protection.

You know, I've actually won several games by milling. I use Persistent Petitoners. Here is my deck list:

https://deckstats.net/decks/69736/1255436-persistent-pertitioners-edh/en#show__spoiler

The commander I use is Damia, Sage of Stone, not Muldrotha. My hand was being emptied too fast so I added a simple fix in Damia. Paradox Engined has been banned and I haven't updated the list. What I did was pull out Paradox Engine, put Muldrotha in the 99 and make Damia the Commander (she isn't in the original deck list, she replaced Paradox Engine).
« Last Edit: February 18, 2020, 06:49:22 am by Red_Wyrm »
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damatovg7

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Re: Your deck never stood a chance
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2020, 10:45:41 am »
I understand criticism, but I see you questioning Grim-Grin, Intruder Alarm, and the zombies. These are put in to complement Phenax. In order to use the ability Phenax gives creatures, you need to have creatures in order to do it. Undead Alchemist, Liliana, and Scarab God are the primary zombie engines.

Grim-Grin is used to get bigger to tap, Mill opponents, get creatures, and Mill more.

Intruder Alarm is there so that anytime our opponent plays a creature, all my creatures untap and I can Mill my opponents again. If a creature enters on my side, I can Mill more. Plenty of synergy between Intruder Alarm and Phenax.

In regards to Zombies and Mill, consider the combo between Scarab God and Mill. Look at Mindcrank and Scarab God or Mindcrank and any of my Life Drain influences in the deck.

The deck may be a Mill deck, but it's meant to have multiple win cons on the side like LabJace, Life Drain, and Exiling cards.

I didn't feel confident running Cabal Coffers or mono black ramp because it's not enough black to justify doing so. Remember, this is a Dimir, (mostly blue), deck and not mono black where those cards shine. I would otherwise need lots of black influence to make good use of them.

As for Tutors, I considered Scheming Symmetry, Demonic Tutor, and other tutors, but in the end, i otherwise opted to not include tutors because of the draw influences giving me enough cards in the deck anyhow and I don't need to search for any cards in particular.

As for Sultai, I don't believe Green does much in the way of Mill. I appreciate your suggestions, but none of them work with the direction I'm taking with the deck.

damatovg7

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Re: Your deck never stood a chance
« Reply #3 on: February 22, 2020, 05:01:50 am »



Revision 28

Added/removed cards:
-1 Phyrexian Altar
+1 Bitter Ordeal
-1 (SB) Jace Beleren

Varatius

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Re: Your deck never stood a chance
« Reply #4 on: February 22, 2020, 05:59:59 am »
As for Sultai, I don't believe Green does much in the way of Mill. I appreciate your suggestions, but none of them work with the direction I'm taking with the deck.
[/quote]

I mean not milling other people the only thing I can think of is nessian boar from tbd.  However theres a few options for self mill.  The obvious is hermit druid.

damatovg7

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Re: Your deck never stood a chance
« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2020, 06:04:46 am »
Don't get me wrong, in a different build, Sultai and self Mill can work, obviously there's LabJace, but the Deck isn't constructed for that. Each Commander deck is different, even if it's the same archetype, one will be LabJace and another will be milling opponents. Syr Konrad is a Mill Commander too, but he's also different.

damatovg7

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Re: Your deck never stood a chance
« Reply #6 on: August 15, 2020, 06:27:58 pm »

damatovg7

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Re: Your deck never stood a chance
« Reply #7 on: August 05, 2021, 06:47:03 pm »