Magic the Gathering!

[lelandbowman3]

I'm doing a modern b/r eldrazi deck right now, and any advice/suggestions/insight would be appreciated. it's built from stuff I've pulled and modded: Fatpack, event deck, intro pack.
Decklist is:
7- swamp
5- mountain
3- akoum refuge
2- rocky tar pit
3- looming spires
2 rogues passage
1- eldrazi temple
1- blighted fen
--creatures--
3- forerunner of slaughter
3- emrakul's hatcher
3- dominator drones
2- silent skimmer
2- vampire nighthawk
1- vile aggregate
1- spike jester
1- It that betrays
1- blight herder
1- ruin processor
1- oblivion sower
1- barage tyrant
1- void winnower
--sorcery--
2- processor assault
2- touch of the void
2- transgress the mind
1- Serpentine Spike
1- corpsehatch
1- shadow slice
--enchantments--
1- Corpseweft
1- Dying Wish
--instants--
2- murderous cut

 

[FretsOnFyre]

^EDIT: I don't think Rocky Tar Pit is Modern legal, unfortunately.

Wow, looking back at my last post here, I really did not get the deckbuilding thing I think I'm in a happy place with my first Commander deck. It's performed pretty well so far in a fairly casual playgroup.

GENERAL - Bruna, Light of Alabaster

Enchantment (20)
1x Abzan Runemark
1x Alexi's Cloak
1x Battle Mastery
1x Bonds of Quicksilver
1x Chosen by Heliod
1x Claustrophobia
1x Corrupted Conscience
1x Curiosity
1x Diplomatic Immunity
1x Divine Favor
1x Eldrazi Conscription
1x Ethereal Armor
1x Glaring Aegis
1x Holy Mantle
1x Jeskai Runemark
1x Pacifism
1x Pentarch Ward
1x Siegecraft
1x Spirit Mantle
1x Tricks of the Trade

Artifact (7)
1x Azorius Keyrune
1x Azorius Signet
1x Mask of Avacyn
1x Sol Ring
1x Swiftfoot Boots
1x Talisman of Progress
1x Whispersilk Cloak

Instant (14)
1x Anticipate
1x Bone to Ash
1x Cancel
1x Cloudshift
1x Condemn
1x Essence Scatter
1x Jace's Ingenuity
1x Negate
1x Oblation
1x Psychic Barrier
1x Scatter Arc
1x Scout's Warning
1x Spell Rupture
1x Vapor Snag

Creature (10)
1x Auratouched Mage
1x Boonweaver Giant
1x Dragonlord Ojutai
1x Heliod's Pilgrim
1x Kithkin Spellduster
1x Mirror-Mad Phantasm
1x Ojutai Exemplars
1x Sovereigns of Lost Alara
1x Sphinx of Uthuun
1x Totem-Guide Hartebeest

Sorcery (10)
1x Akroma's Vengeance
1x Devastation Tide
1x Divination
1x Increasing Confusion
1x Mass Calcify
1x Sunscour
1x Three Dreams
1x Traumatize
1x Treasure Cruise
1x Void Snare

Land (38)
1x Azorius Guildgate
1x Bant Panorama
1x Esper Panorama
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Ghost Quarter
16x Island
14x Plains
1x Temple of Enlightenment
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Tranquil Cove

I'm trying to find a new general to build around now. I'd prefer something that's not Voltron (have that covered fairly well), something that doesn't demand very specific cards (not much money to spend) and I'd like to be able to use black (I have a few fun cards I need a home for). Figured I'd consult this thread - any suggestions?

 

[lelandbowman3]

^EDIT: I don't think Rocky Tar Pit is Modern legal, unfortunately.

You're right, it isn't: I meant to post legacy, not sure why I wrote modern.

 

[Xaios]

Wow, looking back at my last post here, I really did not get the deckbuilding thing I think I'm in a happy place with my first Commander deck. It's performed pretty well so far in a fairly casual playgroup.

GENERAL - Bruna, Light of Alabaster

Some cards your deck could use:
- False Demise
- Fool's Demise
- Abduction
- Flickerform
- Vanishing
- Steel of the Godhead
- Vow of Duty
- Daybreak Coronet
- Armored Ascension
- Winds of Rath
- Tragic Arrogance

Aside from Daybreak Coronet (which honestly isn't really that necessary), none of these cards break $2. Most are under $1.

I'm trying to find a new general to build around now. I'd prefer something that's not Voltron (have that covered fairly well), something that doesn't demand very specific cards (not much money to spend) and I'd like to be able to use black (I have a few fun cards I need a home for). Figured I'd consult this thread - any suggestions?

I'm afraid that doesn't really narrow it down much. What play style do you want the deck to be? "Have black and not be Voltron" doesn't really say much about what you want to do.

 

[FretsOnFyre]

I'm afraid that doesn't really narrow it down much. What play style do you want the deck to be? "Have black and not be Voltron" doesn't really say much about what you want to do.

That is true... Graveyard shenanigans would be fun - I like Ink-Eyes but would prefer two or three colors, and Mimeoplasm and Alesha have been on my radar. Looking for something else along those lines.

 

[lelandbowman3]

Some cards your deck could use:
- False Demise
- Fool's Demise
- Abduction
- Flickerform
- Vanishing
- Steel of the Godhead
- Vow of Duty
- Daybreak Coronet
- Armored Ascension
- Winds of Rath
- Tragic Arrogance

Aside from Daybreak Coronet (which honestly isn't really that necessary), none of these cards break $2. Most are under $1.

I'm running red/black, sorry if there was any confusion. I don't do well with splash decks. Just not my thing. Are there any current red/black cards you'd recommend?

 

[Xaios]

I'm running red/black, sorry if there was any confusion. I don't do well with splash decks. Just not my thing. Are there any current red/black cards you'd recommend?

Those cards are for FretsOnFyre's Bruna deck, not your legacy deck.

 

[Xaios]

Built a new Meren of Clan Nel Toth EDH deck:

General (1):
4 Meren of Clan Nel Toth

Planeswalkers (1):
5 Vraska the Unseen

Creatures (36):
1 Caustic Caterpillar
1 Viscera Seer
2 Blood Artist
2 Dawntreader Elk
2 Nezumi Graverobber
2 Pack Rat
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Satyr Wayfinder
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Catacomb Sifter
3 Eternal Witness
3 Moriok Replica
3 Wood Elves
3 Yavimaya Elder
4 Bloodline Keeper
4 Disciple of Bolas
4 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
4 Reaper of the Wilds
4 Smothering Abomination
5 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
5 Lord of Extinction
5 Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest
5 Puppeteer Clique
5 Shriekmaw
5 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
5 Thragtusk
5 Vulturous Zombie
6 Geth, Lord of the Vault
6 Grave Titan
6 Greenwarden of Murasa
6 Harvester of Souls
6 Reaper from the Abyss
7 Butcher of Malakir
7 Pentavus
7 Sepulchral Primordial
8 Terastodon

Artifacts (5):
1 Sol Ring
2 Golgari Signet
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Thought Vessel
4 Birthing Pod

Enchantments (8):
2 Evolutionary Leap
2 Shadows of the Past
3 Attrition
3 Phyrexian Arena
4 Deathreap Ritual
4 Grave Pact
4 Greater Good
5 Dictate of Erebos

Instants (4):
2 Grisly Salvage
3 Beast Within
3 Hero's Downfall
3 Putrefy

Sorceries (8):
3 Kodama's Reach
3 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Toxic Deluge
4 Jarad's Orders
5 Living Death
5 Overwhelming Stampede
7 Tooth and Nail
9 In Garruk's Wake

Non-Basic Lands (20):
1 Barren Moor
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Golgari Guildgate
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Grim Backwoods
1 High Market
1 Jungle Hollow
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Mosswort Bridge
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Polluted Mire
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Slippery Karst
1 Tainted Wood
1 Temple of Malady
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Woodland Cemetery

Basic Lands (17):
8 Forest
9 Swamp

Look forward to trying it out next week. Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[gnoll]

Built a new Meren of Clan Nel Toth EDH deck:

General (1):
4 Meren of Clan Nel Toth

Planeswalkers (1):
5 Vraska the Unseen

Creatures (36):
1 Caustic Caterpillar
1 Viscera Seer
2 Blood Artist
2 Dawntreader Elk
2 Nezumi Graverobber
2 Pack Rat
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Satyr Wayfinder
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Catacomb Sifter
3 Eternal Witness
3 Moriok Replica
3 Wood Elves
3 Yavimaya Elder
4 Bloodline Keeper
4 Disciple of Bolas
4 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
4 Reaper of the Wilds
4 Smothering Abomination
5 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
5 Lord of Extinction
5 Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest
5 Puppeteer Clique
5 Shriekmaw
5 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
5 Thragtusk
5 Vulturous Zombie
6 Geth, Lord of the Vault
6 Grave Titan
6 Greenwarden of Murasa
6 Harvester of Souls
6 Reaper from the Abyss
7 Butcher of Malakir
7 Pentavus
7 Sepulchral Primordial
8 Terastodon

Artifacts (5):
1 Sol Ring
2 Golgari Signet
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Thought Vessel
4 Birthing Pod

Enchantments (8):
2 Evolutionary Leap
2 Shadows of the Past
3 Attrition
3 Phyrexian Arena
4 Deathreap Ritual
4 Grave Pact
4 Greater Good
5 Dictate of Erebos

Instants (4):
2 Grisly Salvage
3 Beast Within
3 Hero's Downfall
3 Putrefy

Sorceries (8):
3 Kodama's Reach
3 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Toxic Deluge
4 Jarad's Orders
5 Living Death
5 Overwhelming Stampede
7 Tooth and Nail
9 In Garruk's Wake

Non-Basic Lands (20):
1 Barren Moor
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Golgari Guildgate
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Grim Backwoods
1 High Market
1 Jungle Hollow
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Mosswort Bridge
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Polluted Mire
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Slippery Karst
1 Tainted Wood
1 Temple of Malady
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Woodland Cemetery

Basic Lands (17):
8 Forest
9 Swamp

Look forward to trying it out next week. Anyone have any thoughts?

Yeah, I have a thought. You can't have 8 Terastodon in an EDH deck. Overall, it looks like you have to slim that deck down CONSIDERABLY... Like, one of each card, duuude........

And that goes for the general too. And I don't know if you realize this, but having 4 of the same general won't do you any good ANYWAY, since if you have one out and you cast another one THEY WILL BOTH DIE!!! That's because they're mythical creatures and they have special rules compared to the normal ones..............

Anywayzzzz, gl.......

 

[Xaios]

Got the munchies?

 

[gnoll]

Got the munchies?

Ok how about

sylvan library

mirri's guile

fecundity

wall of blossoms

elvish visionary

green sun's zenith

dryad arbor

survival of the fittest

reclamation sage

aluren

abrupt decay

gravecrawler

bloodghast

carrion feeder

phyrexian ghoul

nantuko husk

blood pet?

deathrite shaman

edit: the black creature from saga who gives you mana when you cast him (priest of gix i just realized he's called)

edit again: fleshbag marauder (+merciless executioner, functional reprint), innocent blood, pox cards....

edit 3: you probably want discard outlets too, no? lotleth troll, wild mongrel... and hell, why not get a vengevine in there. oh, and basking rotwalla

edit 4: sacrifice altars...... phyrexia, dementia, ashnod's........

edit 5 omg i just keep thinking of more stuff: phyrexian tower, and OF COURSE skullclamp

edit 6: cabal therapy! and veteran explorer POSSIBLY

edit 7: devoted druid

edit 8: you probably want to protect your general..... sylvan safekeeper? discard could help with that too, thoughtseize, inquisition of kozilek etc.... might work better overall than removal cards like putrefy etc.

edit 9: entomb, buried alive, some reanimation.... reanimate, exhume, animate dead are the best ones i suppose... maybe not exhume in edh, idk...

 

[Xaios]

A lot of the cards you listed would be great if I was playing a regular 60 card deck. Some of the cards I would put in if I had copies to spare (after all, I have 13 EDH decks, there are only so many copies of Sylvan Library to go around). Some are decent suggestions that simply didn't make it into the final version. However, a lot of these cards are only good in the early game, and don't scale well for multiplayer or the starting life total of 40.

 

[gnoll]

Can you elaborate?

I admit I don't play edh, but I think most of the cards I listed are just the strongest cards period for this kind of deck.

And anyway I don't get how you're gonna get your big guys into the graveyard... seems to me you'd need to discard them, entomb them, or play them first and then sacrifice them. I mean you have a few cards like Grisly Salvage but is that really gonna be enough? What if you draw your Terastodon and you don't have a discard outlet?

 

[Xaios]

Can you elaborate?

I admit I don't play edh, but I think most of the cards I listed are just the strongest cards period for this kind of deck.

And anyway I don't get how you're gonna get your big guys into the graveyard... seems to me you'd need to discard them, entomb them, or play them first and then sacrifice them. I mean you have a few cards like Grisly Salvage but is that really gonna be enough? What if you draw your Terastodon and you don't have a discard outlet?

EDH games tend to run far longer than games involving a 60 card deck, owing to the fact that it's a) a 100 card singleton format, b) 40 starting life, and c) multiplayer. It's exceedingly rare for a person not to live long enough to hard-cast a Terastodon, and if they don't, it's likely because they died to something that a reanimated Terastodon wouldn't have saved them from anyway. Often times being hyper-efficient in EDH isn't enough. Raw power counts a lot more than it does in other formats. That's why you rarely see things like Brainstorm, Ponder or Preordain in EDH outside of combo decks.

That's not to say that the cards you listed can't be good in other decks. Many certainly are. I manage the EDH primer for Omnath, Locus of Mana on MTGSalvation, and I run five of the cards you listed (Sylvan Library, Mirri's Guile, Survival of the Fittest, Green Sun's Zenith and Aluren) in that deck. But they're not the best choices here. Meren doesn't support the turbo reanimator style that you're going for, because she's restricted by experience counters. As such, any of the cards that I have which "fill the yard" do so as a secondary effect. Grisly Salvage and Satyr Wayfinder help me find land. Pack Rat makes some terrifying tokens. Jarad's Orders tutors for a silver bullet that I need at the time while providing additional plays in the future. What Meren does is she provides incremental value over time. Generals like Karador and Sidisi (the BUG version) are more suited to that sort of turbo reanimator you're thinking of.

 

[UV7BK4LIFE]

You don't want to draw Inquisition of Kozilek in turn 14 to see your opponent's hand full of 5 and 6 drops, no. That's pretty much the difference between EDH and Modern or Legacy.

I played the Meren of CNT preconstructed deck last week, we unboxed the whole set with our playgroup. It was fun to play them right out of the box. I definately would play survival of the fittest in this deck, it's so broken with this general it's not even funny anymore. And I had a blast with recurring eternal witness about 8 times in one game.

 

[gnoll]

Hmh, edh must be insanely slow then.

Is it really not possible to build edh decks that kill faster than that...? It just feels like I could easily build an edh deck that would slaughter anything trying to hardcast a Terastodon.

 

[Xaios]

Is it possible to win faster? Yes. Is it likely? Absolutely not, for several reasons:

- 100 card singleton takes the consistency of a typical 60 card deck and throws it out the window.
- 40 starting life total, while only being twice that of a normal game, really equates to being about 4 times harder to kill someone with a typical aggro-style strategy, ESPECIALLY because...
- Multiplayer. In a 1v1 60 card match, you have to deal 20 damage to win. In a 4 player EDH match, you have to deal 120.
- Politics is VERY real in EDH. If you come out guns blazing, then you better have a backup plan, because you'll soon find every other person at the table devoted to eliminating you first. On the flip-side, people are also wary of the guy who just seems to be sitting back, biding his time.
- Your Commander is always a known constant, before the game even starts. If people even suspect you're playing a deck that wins either with infinite combos or prison-style lockouts, you're probably gonna die first.

As a thought experiment, imagine yourself playing the kind of creatures that you listed. You came out perfectly, and on turn 6 (which is still REALLY optimistic considering the 40 life total), you deal someone lethal damage. However, you basically had to spend your whole hand doing so. You pass the turn. The next player casts Wrath of God. All your creatures are dead, can't be regenerated. Then the next person plays... well there are lots of options: Bojuka Bog, Rest In Peace, Grafdigger's Cage, Nihil Spellbomb, Tormod's Crypt, Angel of Finality... whatever they do, it exiles your graveyard. The point is, all the resources you committed to that relatively fast kill, save for your mana, have now been completely wiped out. You can recast your general, but with no more graveyard, that's not gonna do you much good.

I think you know where I'm going with this.

And yes, EDH is definitely slower overall. A typical multiplayer game usually takes at least an hour.

 

[gnoll]

Mhh, yeah, I think I'll stick to legacy. Edh seems like "best player loses" to me.

 

[Xaios]

That is untrue. It's simply that what makes you the best player at a table isn't the same as it is in legacy.

 

[UV7BK4LIFE]

Hmh, edh must be insanely slow then.

Is it really not possible to build edh decks that kill faster than that...? It just feels like I could easily build an edh deck that would slaughter anything trying to hardcast a Terastodon.

Turn one and two either a mana dude or equipment, turn 3 Rafiq of the Many,
turn 4 another equipment and equip both, then swing for lethal (=21) general damage.