EMN actually gave us an okay card in Oath of Liliana. A fleshbag effect is not a bad thing to have, and Act of Authority has shown that the potential to milk value off Cloudstone Curio is a great thing. I might slot it in some time, but no obvious slot comes to mind.
For now, a batch of changes hinted at up-thread comes to fruition
There's nothing wrong with Black Market or Debtors' Knell. Their only problem is that they're not 100% guaranteed to do something crazy good while costing 5 and 7 mana respectively. Mystic Barrier had a similar problem and got offed, and now these fellows are following suit. Both are great cards, but if something costs this much mana it needs to have a more reliable impact on the board.
Spirit of the Labyrinth joins Necropotence and other "lucky" cards cut from the list at the wrong time. You seriously couldn't come up with a worse time to off the Spirit - the very update that put in heavier discard took out the Spirit, which handily impedes hand size development. As such, it gets to return, in spite of its horrible 3/1 squishiness. Reconnaissance is a card I've been eyeing since I realised I kind of want Intangible Virtue in the list, and realised this is a stronger version of that effect. Vigilance is awesome, and the potential to pull out creatures from unfortunate blocks is just ridiculous. All this for a single white. Don't mind if I do. If it fails, then that's an obvious spot to try enchantment fleshbag in. Somehow I don't feel it will fail though.
Also, I followed through on the Chains of Mephistopheles consideration and tried to "money out" the list online to see what would happen. Well, I added Chains, and I added Grim Tutor, and spiffed the mana base with fetches and a Scrubland. The deck played more less as is now. I might score a Chains proxy anyway, as it's a less feeble version of the sort of interaction that Spirit of the Labyrinth offers. Not super high priority though.
Seriously though, I don't see Chains that often in my meta, but the spirit is the bane of my existence haha. Slows down so many things like my commander or, arguably the best card draw spell in the format, Greater Good. If your opponents aren't heathens and enjoy card advantage and value then I'm sure those cards will do a lot of work for you.
*PS* - Your list doesn't appear to have gained the primer labeling in the 'Decklist Database' since the last update. I'm guessing its a similar issue to what happened to my list when it became a primer. If you PM Scoeri or comment on the database thread he should be able to help you out. Just thought I'd throw it out there
I mean, I wouldn't say Azami is super hosed by Spirit of the Labyrinth in a multiplayer setting. You turn a wizard sideways in everybody else's turn. This probably gets you hated as you dodge the wrench aimed at your strat by having access to said strat instant speed I'd imagine Chains would hurt you more.
Thanks for the heads up, I'll poke someone about it. Had a similar story with my other primer a while back, it's not like it really matters but good to get it formally resolved.
I mean, I wouldn't say Azami is super hosed by Spirit of the Labyrinth in a multiplayer setting. You turn a wizard sideways in everybody else's turn. This probably gets you hated as you dodge the wrench aimed at your strat by having access to said strat instant speed I'd imagine Chains would hurt you more.
Thanks for the heads up, I'll poke someone about it. Had a similar story with my other primer a while back, it's not like it really matters but good to get it formally resolved.
I get to net the same amount of cards, but over several turns. So it neuters my explosive turns of drawing upwards of 4-7 cards and then getting a Temporal Manipulation or Time Warp. Also if I really need to dig for a win or die its a bummer. Doesn't lock down my strategy, but it sure is annoying
The Chains is an even more a brutal denial effect. I've only ever seen it in one deck though.
Yeah, it's a solid card. I'm definitely not going to run it here as I have all of five things it would help me do, but I'm sure it's going to be a godsend to all sorts of Wx equipment/aura shenanigans. EMN brought some really cool stuff to blue though, and it seems that it's time to tear down my Tromokratis and build some sort of Ux machine with some of the parts from it.
Built this and took it for a spin last week. First game fell on my face because I made a very poor choice in the hand to keep on mulligan. Second game I won. My opponents were Surrak Dragonclaw dragon tribal (of my making) and a Kiora, the Crashing Wave casual sea monster deck.
First enchantment after Daxos was out was Ghostly Prison, which ate removal.
They tried to control Daxos a bit but otherwise let Sword of the Animist stay for many turns. That thing is ridiculous when you get to swing with it a half dozen times. At one point Kiora tried to contain 6 of my lands with an attack trigger from Lorthos, the Tidemaker. My next enchantment was Crackdown.
Those were the only two enchantments to die, I think, and I also had Rule of Law, Painful Quandary, Oppression, Necropotence, Doomwake Giant, and Grasp of Fate in play. Can't quite remember the order, and some of them had to come down without Daxos. The last one to come down, with Daxos on the battlefield making my 3 spirits 7/7, was True Conviction. Swung at both opponents losing no spirits and went from 15 life to over 40. They conceded.
Very fun list, though we'll have to see how long my friends will put up with the discard. I may have to cut that back a little for other effects.
The way this flew under the radar and incrementally locked down the board in my favor -- until at some point my opponents realize they can barely do anything -- reminds me a lot of slivers.
Nice Daxus Primer! I'm glad their are others that love Daxus as much as I do. My list is more tuned down and political for a casual environment but it's nice to see he can be played more competitively too. I think ill try making the deck a bit more "mean" like yours and see how my play group responds.
Nice Daxus Primer! I'm glad their are others that love Daxus as much as I do. My list is more tuned down and political for a casual environment but it's nice to see he can be played more competitively too. I think ill try making the deck a bit more "mean" like yours and see how my play group responds.
Great to hear you fellows are enjoying Daxos too! I wouldn't really call my list competitive, it's far too slow and the individual "blocks" are too low impact for it to merit that label. lyonhaert, that sounds like a spell economy dream/nightmare and getting three pieces online at once is not something that tends to happen. Play a few more games to let the playgroup get a feel for how a more regular level of disruption looks like. I loved reading the game report, interesting comparison to slivers. Reaper, regardless of oppressiveness, you could probably upgrade some stuff in the list on the cheap - where's your True Conviction? 8)
Trust me on this one, you're gonna love it, if the random lifegain'y cards peppered into your 99 are anything to go on it just wins games when it comes down.
actually I usually throw those on my oppomemts bombs to negate the damage done to me. The 3 mana one is kinda meh, ill probably cut it but the 1 mana one is decent.
I can def get behind Conviction. I'm picturing myself making 4×5/5's at the end of my opponents end step then dropping this to deal 40 damage to someone... It looks HOT. My only hesitation was wondering if it's a bit win-more?
You should consider Spirit Loop instead of Spirit Link. It's 1 more, but has the same wording (so that you get the life on a trigger) and can return to your hand to be reused. Could also consider Retether with as many auras as you use.
But spirit loop can only target creatures I control. As I mentioned above I like to put it on my opponents creatures to negate the damage they do to me and encourage my opponent to attack someone else instead. Retether seems like a great idea, thanks
But spirit loop can only target creatures I control. As I mentioned above I like to put it on my opponents creatures to negate the damage they do to me and encourage my opponent to attack someone else instead. Retether seems like a great idea, thanks
It's hard to say whether gaining you life on somebody else being hit is encouraging them to swing with the creature at someone else. Depends on how bad that someone else needs to die. It's possible people let it happen as "it's just life", no? Personally, I'd view it as a faux-Pacifism on the thing unless someone really, really needed to die, which is still not a bad deal for one mana.
Also no, True Conviction isn't winmore. If you drop it down on a board of 20 6/6 spirits then it is, but then what wouldn't be? This thing immediately sets out to work, even if you have a single body on the board, and scales magnificently the wider/taller you go. It's a game winner, not a game clincher. I'd put it in the same bin of must-answer stuff as Skybind, Thoughtrender Lamia and Doomwake Giant.
Kaya, Ghost Assassin is a nifty swiss army knife of utility. Hand attack while netting me a card, a small life swing, faux-removal/ETB recycling/loyalty reset. Seems pretty decent. My jaw isn't on the floor or anything, but it's a solid set of options and well worth a shot in the deck. Taking out Graveborn Muse to make room as she's plain draw and rather fragile at that. She's served me well, but Kaya's more versatile in what she can bring to the table.
Also, put Strip Mine back in. This deck has all the luck when it comes to awkwardly timed cuts that would work fine with new additions, and I ran Strip Mine back when I couldn't reliably find it or re-use it. Now it seems like a good thing to have available in the 99. Cutting the least reliable dual (Meteor Crater) to make room. Once again, nothing fundamentally wrong with what I'm replacing, but needed room and this was the least good of what was inside the deck.
Also also, just food for thought for the future, but I might be taking Mana Crypt out. I have rather shoddy luck with the bolts, which makes me realise just how risky an idea it is to wedge this rock into a list which is all about the late game and cruising there. True, this helps get to the late game quicker, but it also gets to have repeated attempts at my life total, which are not ideal given the deck's tendency to hand out life to help do powerful black things. This doesn't mean I'm going to cut it immediately, mind you, as when it does land it warps the game in comparison to what I'd be doing normally, but need to properly assess if the decrease in survivability is outweighed by the explosion it offers.
You are pretty heavily based on the precon here, so let's work from that. First off, there's a bunch of cheap cards that are very stupid in a Daxos shell, and you should be running all of them:
None of these will even come close to breaking the bank, so get the ones you're missing into your 99. I could understand if you'd choose to leave the Lamia out to not be a dick, but she's extremely effective.
You mention you're the aggro guy, so we can work with that. The precon has the upside of natively going super wide, offering more creature presence than the direction I took my list in (all sorts of disruptive enchantments), so you should have stuff to turn sideways. I'm quite surprised you missed True Conviction, that thing is beast, get it in immediately as I mentioned already. Easy immediate cuts involve all sorts of crap left over from the precon that's more of a crack stuffer than anything - Necromancer's Covenant, Dawn to Dusk, Death Grasp, Righteous Confluence, Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts, Oreskos Explorer, Thief of Blood...
I'd also suggest upgrading the removal/wrath package. Swords to Plowshares, Utter End and Anguished Unmaking are all reasonably cheap and offer tremendous utility and efficiency. Path to Exile costs a bit more money. When looking for room, I'd probably leave the sacrifice enchantments in the 99 as they synergise nicely with your recursion. However, Banishing Light and Stasis Snare could both potentially go as they're not as reliable at dealing with the problem. If you seriously only ever play 1v1, consider taking out Grasp of Fate, but that thing is so bomb in multiplayer that it should stay firmly in the 99 if you do branch out beyond 1v1. The aforementioned Extinguish All Hope can replace Deadly Tempest, and you should give serious thought to adding Rout over Day of Judgment. The instant speed utility is nothing to scoff at, with the base mode still being somewhat reasonable at 5 mana. Once again, a more expensive option is Elspeth, Sun's Champion. She helps your swarming tendencies and has the potential to wipe the field of fat things. Daxos is not a fat thing, and you can begin rebuilding immediately.
One thing you'll notice is that the list is mana hungry. Gilded Lotus is sick, I don't know how pricey it is around your parts though. Sword of the Animist shouldn't break the bank and offers a hilarious incremental advantage that catches people off guard every time. Fat lands are also helpful. Serra's Sanctum is the best of the best, but also costs a downright ridiculous amount of money after someone decided to pull a buyout. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is still a bit expensive, but more approachable. The land base is very low end, cuts should be easy to find. The most immediate would be the vivid lands. You should probably replace them with basics even if you don't go for Nykthos. Solid cheap lands that you should probably add would be Bojuka Bog, Caves of Koilos and Temple of Silence. Just rank your current nonbasics on how poor they are and make room from the bottom. I'd probably cut out the cycler lands or the wilds/expanse after the vivids.
Another good thing to pick up would be Ghostly Prison. The recent reprint dipped its price quite nicely. Possibly change Intangible Virtue into Reconnaissance for ultra mega vigilance all around, but you have more non-Daxos token sources than me so I'll leave it to your discretion.
Blind Obedience's main function is making creatures come in tapped. This makes it difficult to put up shields, shuts off haste beats, even incidentally disables some infinite combos. The artifact CIPT'ness is nice, but not really game breaking and was more of a perk than a feature I'd actively seek to use. The mana rock cascades tend to come early and be unexpected, so blowing the Daxos experience counter to catch an occasional Darksteel Ingot wasn't really on my to do list most of the time. And later on it didn't do much, apart from incidentally being a nuisance. Still, the creature tapping is a great way to be a nuisance, and forms a partial soft lock when Crackdown becomes involved.
Authority of the Consuls retains the main functionality while cutting down the mana cost (efficiency!) and swapping the life gain mechanic. The list is very greedy with its mana, and while you will usually manage to find one or two opportunities to pop an extort, this new life gain trigger is sure to haul in way more life points than the previous one. As such, it's an all around bump in efficiency, which is never really a bad thing. A minuscule upgrade, but an upgrade nonetheless.
In other news, I'm still flirting with the idea of Oath of Liliana. It has some neat synergies in the list (Cloudstone Curio comes to mind), but at the same time it's not as abusable as your typical fleshbag in a reanimation shell. As such, the drawbacks of the fleshbag are likely to be very noticeable. I probably won't pull the trigger in the end. All the recent changes are working fine, Kaya in particular is a lovely swiss army knife of utility as expected.
With the amount of Discard you have, is there a reason you're not running Waste Not?
I've been toying with the idea of Daxos and I'm sad that this optimized list cut a Blind Obedience, Extort looks like a lot of fun. I think I'd go wide with mana and cast a huge Exsanguinate. What made you move against that? How did Black Market make you commit too much in your first Main?
Edit: And Bloodchief's Ascension as another Enchantment that closes out the game with your desired strategy.
This is the kind of shell where you want each piece to stand on its own two feet and bring something of value to the table. Waste Not is dependent on there being discard for sure, and while there's a fair splash of those sort of cards in the 99 you aren't guaranteed to have it on tap. Imagine a situation where you draw Waste Not but no discard outlets. You plop it down onto the table, getting an experience counter, and get the occasional small trickle of value if someone incidentally discards to something else. Not an ideal use of a card slot. However, in the case of a commander such as Nath, the trickle of value will be there no matter what.
Black Market makes you dump a lot of your mana super fast because it tosses a massive glob of it at you main one and you have to work with it then and there. Not bad per se, as more mana is always welcome, but the deck thrives on having some reactive element and wants to hold a lot of its mana back often to have the power to mess with stuff instant speed during other people's turns. This may involve constellation effects going off at inopportune times, or just a piece of instant speed removal. The Market would cut back on the mana quantity you'd have for that, as you'd have to typically commit some white to go along with the wall of black to get things done main one. Additionally, it wasn't 100% guaranteed to fire. Some games you don't get a constant stream of creature death or a massive double digit Market after a wrath, but an awkward gummed up board where nobody makes a move. At five mana, this sort of thing isn't necessarily worth the risk.
Bloodchief Ascension is a brutal card, but one that gets you a bit too much attention for what it brings to the table in this particular build. Things tend to hit the 'yard with a bit more regularity than discard happens, but at the same time Ascensions bring a lot of stigma with them and you're bound to get smacked more than your share because of it. At the same time, you'll probably be ill equipped to take the beats, and the payoff is likely not going to be worth it.
This is by no means the be all end all list. There is no real be all end all list, as Daxos doesn't lend himself to a cutthroat build that can run with the best of them. As such, feel free to run Blind Obedience in your build and extort the night away. I just found I wasn't using extort all that much as it'd typically infringe on 3-mana allotments to make bodies with. Exsanguinate effects are also perfectly legit, with Debt to the Deathless being a stupid strong upgrade, but I'm not running them as I feel they don't actually win the game but rather just finish it off. That shouldn't stop you either if you want them in your 99. EDH is a format of self expression, and this is the very reason why lists like this one exist. As such, there is very little obligation to netdeck it, but merely to detail a particular build style which I've found to be effective from my perspective. It's all tainted by metas, personal preference (I've seen some guy ram Winter Orb into a Daxos shell *shudder*), and this is meant as guidance only
Just dropping in to say that I've decided to make Daxos 2: Electric Boogaloo my next project, and reading through your primer is a huge reason why. Very well written, and helped me remember a lot of sweet gems from old sets! Once my last batch of cards arrives, I'll post my list and hopefully join the conversation in earnest.
While doing research for my own Daxos Commander, I came across the card Martyr's Bond. It seems to be an absolute house, especially with your Attrition and Angelic Renewal that will want to be sacrificed anyway.
While doing research for my own Daxos Commander, I came across the card Martyr's Bond. It seems to be an absolute house, especially with your Attrition and Angelic Renewal that will want to be sacrificed anyway.
Is there a reason you're against Martyr's Bond?
It's slow and often doesn't take out what you need taken out.
I know I'll probably regret asking this, but is this a deck that wants Nether Void in its "symmetrical resource denial" group? We're not Staxing people out and putting them in a position where it'd be a complete lock, but it's a substantial tax, and can be a powerful play at the end of a big turn. You can even Curio it back with a Daxos token at the end of the turn cycle to keep your main phase tax-free. Takes a little finesse, and it's got a chance to bite us back, but I happen to have one just kicking around, and this deck would be the only place where it'd have a use.
Nah you don't want to run Spirit of the Labyrinth or Chains of Mephistopheles. It's not like they completely hose over certain decks that want to draw a lot of cards . . . *cough* Azami.
Seriously though, I don't see Chains that often in my meta, but the spirit is the bane of my existence haha. Slows down so many things like my commander or, arguably the best card draw spell in the format, Greater Good. If your opponents aren't heathens and enjoy card advantage and value then I'm sure those cards will do a lot of work for you.
*PS* - Your list doesn't appear to have gained the primer labeling in the 'Decklist Database' since the last update. I'm guessing its a similar issue to what happened to my list when it became a primer. If you PM Scoeri or comment on the database thread he should be able to help you out. Just thought I'd throw it out there
U Azami, Lady of Scrolls - Knowledge is Power U [Primer]
R Heartless Hidetsugu - The Art of Ending Games R
GB Ishkanah, Grafwidow - The Cluster HungersBG
Thanks for the heads up, I'll poke someone about it. Had a similar story with my other primer a while back, it's not like it really matters but good to get it formally resolved.
I get to net the same amount of cards, but over several turns. So it neuters my explosive turns of drawing upwards of 4-7 cards and then getting a Temporal Manipulation or Time Warp. Also if I really need to dig for a win or die its a bummer. Doesn't lock down my strategy, but it sure is annoying
The Chains is an even more a brutal denial effect. I've only ever seen it in one deck though.
U Azami, Lady of Scrolls - Knowledge is Power U [Primer]
R Heartless Hidetsugu - The Art of Ending Games R
GB Ishkanah, Grafwidow - The Cluster HungersBG
First enchantment after Daxos was out was Ghostly Prison, which ate removal.
They tried to control Daxos a bit but otherwise let Sword of the Animist stay for many turns. That thing is ridiculous when you get to swing with it a half dozen times. At one point Kiora tried to contain 6 of my lands with an attack trigger from Lorthos, the Tidemaker. My next enchantment was Crackdown.
At one point the dragon player killed Daxos the second time with 4 damage from Dragonlord Atarka because I had Eiganjo Castle on the battlefield and he remembers pretty well. He had Kessig Wolf Run and Xenagos, God of Revels, too and was probably going to try to kill me next turn. So when he cast Rancor targeting Atarka, I figured that was a splendid time for Swords to Plowshares. Mostly because he'd killed my Righteous Aura.
Those were the only two enchantments to die, I think, and I also had Rule of Law, Painful Quandary, Oppression, Necropotence, Doomwake Giant, and Grasp of Fate in play. Can't quite remember the order, and some of them had to come down without Daxos. The last one to come down, with Daxos on the battlefield making my 3 spirits 7/7, was True Conviction. Swung at both opponents losing no spirits and went from 15 life to over 40. They conceded.
Very fun list, though we'll have to see how long my friends will put up with the discard. I may have to cut that back a little for other effects.
The way this flew under the radar and incrementally locked down the board in my favor -- until at some point my opponents realize they can barely do anything -- reminds me a lot of slivers.
old thread
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
3 Daxos the Returned
Lands (39)
1 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Command Tower
1 Fetid Heath
1 Flooded Strand
1 Godless Shrine
1 Homeward Path
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Kor Haven
1 Marsh Flats
1 Maze of Ith
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Orzhov Basilica
7 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Serra's Sanctum
7 Swamp
1 Tainted Field
1 Temple of Silence
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
Creatures (13)
1 Mother of Runes
1 Weathered Wayfarer
2 Knight of the White Orchid
2 Oreskos Explorer
3 Mesa Enchantress
4 Academy Rector
4 Heliod, God of the Sun
4 Agent of Erebos
4 Erebos, God of the Dead
6 Sun Titan
6 Twilight Shepherd
7 Angel of Despair
8 Ashen Rider
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vampiric Tutor
3 Anguished Unmaking
4 Return to Dust
4 Utter End
Sorceries (6)
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Retribution of the Meek
3 Toxic Deluge
4 Replenish
6 Austere Command
6 Merciless Eviction
Enchantments (26)
1 Land Tax
1 Soul Snare
1 Spirit Link
1 Vampiric Link
2 Darksteel Mutation
2 Greater Auramancy
2 Luminarch Ascension
2 Seal of Cleansing
2 Animate Dead
2 Bitterblossom
2 Dance of the Dead
3 Dark Prophecy
3 Necropotence
3 Ghostly Prison
3 Karmic Justice
3 Vow of Duty
3 Vow of Malice
3 Act of Authority
3 Aura of Silence
3 Prison Term
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Underworld Connections
4 No Mercy
5 Sphere of Safety
5 Skybind
5 Black Market
1 Sol Ring
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Orzhov Signet
3 Chromatic Lantern
3 Crystal Chimes
3 Spear of Heliod
Planeswalkers (2)
5 Ob Nixilis Reignited
6 Sorin Markov
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
I can def get behind Conviction. I'm picturing myself making 4×5/5's at the end of my opponents end step then dropping this to deal 40 damage to someone... It looks HOT. My only hesitation was wondering if it's a bit win-more?
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
It's hard to say whether gaining you life on somebody else being hit is encouraging them to swing with the creature at someone else. Depends on how bad that someone else needs to die. It's possible people let it happen as "it's just life", no? Personally, I'd view it as a faux-Pacifism on the thing unless someone really, really needed to die, which is still not a bad deal for one mana.
Also no, True Conviction isn't winmore. If you drop it down on a board of 20 6/6 spirits then it is, but then what wouldn't be? This thing immediately sets out to work, even if you have a single body on the board, and scales magnificently the wider/taller you go. It's a game winner, not a game clincher. I'd put it in the same bin of must-answer stuff as Skybind, Thoughtrender Lamia and Doomwake Giant.
1 Graveborn Muse
1 Meteor Crater
1 Kaya, Ghost Assassin
1 Strip Mine
Kaya, Ghost Assassin is a nifty swiss army knife of utility. Hand attack while netting me a card, a small life swing, faux-removal/ETB recycling/loyalty reset. Seems pretty decent. My jaw isn't on the floor or anything, but it's a solid set of options and well worth a shot in the deck. Taking out Graveborn Muse to make room as she's plain draw and rather fragile at that. She's served me well, but Kaya's more versatile in what she can bring to the table.
Also, put Strip Mine back in. This deck has all the luck when it comes to awkwardly timed cuts that would work fine with new additions, and I ran Strip Mine back when I couldn't reliably find it or re-use it. Now it seems like a good thing to have available in the 99. Cutting the least reliable dual (Meteor Crater) to make room. Once again, nothing fundamentally wrong with what I'm replacing, but needed room and this was the least good of what was inside the deck.
Also also, just food for thought for the future, but I might be taking Mana Crypt out. I have rather shoddy luck with the bolts, which makes me realise just how risky an idea it is to wedge this rock into a list which is all about the late game and cruising there. True, this helps get to the late game quicker, but it also gets to have repeated attempts at my life total, which are not ideal given the deck's tendency to hand out life to help do powerful black things. This doesn't mean I'm going to cut it immediately, mind you, as when it does land it warps the game in comparison to what I'd be doing normally, but need to properly assess if the decrease in survivability is outweighed by the explosion it offers.
None of these will even come close to breaking the bank, so get the ones you're missing into your 99. I could understand if you'd choose to leave the Lamia out to not be a dick, but she's extremely effective.
You mention you're the aggro guy, so we can work with that. The precon has the upside of natively going super wide, offering more creature presence than the direction I took my list in (all sorts of disruptive enchantments), so you should have stuff to turn sideways. I'm quite surprised you missed True Conviction, that thing is beast, get it in immediately as I mentioned already. Easy immediate cuts involve all sorts of crap left over from the precon that's more of a crack stuffer than anything - Necromancer's Covenant, Dawn to Dusk, Death Grasp, Righteous Confluence, Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts, Oreskos Explorer, Thief of Blood...
I'd also suggest upgrading the removal/wrath package. Swords to Plowshares, Utter End and Anguished Unmaking are all reasonably cheap and offer tremendous utility and efficiency. Path to Exile costs a bit more money. When looking for room, I'd probably leave the sacrifice enchantments in the 99 as they synergise nicely with your recursion. However, Banishing Light and Stasis Snare could both potentially go as they're not as reliable at dealing with the problem. If you seriously only ever play 1v1, consider taking out Grasp of Fate, but that thing is so bomb in multiplayer that it should stay firmly in the 99 if you do branch out beyond 1v1. The aforementioned Extinguish All Hope can replace Deadly Tempest, and you should give serious thought to adding Rout over Day of Judgment. The instant speed utility is nothing to scoff at, with the base mode still being somewhat reasonable at 5 mana. Once again, a more expensive option is Elspeth, Sun's Champion. She helps your swarming tendencies and has the potential to wipe the field of fat things. Daxos is not a fat thing, and you can begin rebuilding immediately.
One thing you'll notice is that the list is mana hungry. Gilded Lotus is sick, I don't know how pricey it is around your parts though. Sword of the Animist shouldn't break the bank and offers a hilarious incremental advantage that catches people off guard every time. Fat lands are also helpful. Serra's Sanctum is the best of the best, but also costs a downright ridiculous amount of money after someone decided to pull a buyout. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is still a bit expensive, but more approachable. The land base is very low end, cuts should be easy to find. The most immediate would be the vivid lands. You should probably replace them with basics even if you don't go for Nykthos. Solid cheap lands that you should probably add would be Bojuka Bog, Caves of Koilos and Temple of Silence. Just rank your current nonbasics on how poor they are and make room from the bottom. I'd probably cut out the cycler lands or the wilds/expanse after the vivids.
Another good thing to pick up would be Ghostly Prison. The recent reprint dipped its price quite nicely. Possibly change Intangible Virtue into Reconnaissance for ultra mega vigilance all around, but you have more non-Daxos token sources than me so I'll leave it to your discretion.
1 Blind Obedience
1 Authority of the Consuls
Blind Obedience's main function is making creatures come in tapped. This makes it difficult to put up shields, shuts off haste beats, even incidentally disables some infinite combos. The artifact CIPT'ness is nice, but not really game breaking and was more of a perk than a feature I'd actively seek to use. The mana rock cascades tend to come early and be unexpected, so blowing the Daxos experience counter to catch an occasional Darksteel Ingot wasn't really on my to do list most of the time. And later on it didn't do much, apart from incidentally being a nuisance. Still, the creature tapping is a great way to be a nuisance, and forms a partial soft lock when Crackdown becomes involved.
Authority of the Consuls retains the main functionality while cutting down the mana cost (efficiency!) and swapping the life gain mechanic. The list is very greedy with its mana, and while you will usually manage to find one or two opportunities to pop an extort, this new life gain trigger is sure to haul in way more life points than the previous one. As such, it's an all around bump in efficiency, which is never really a bad thing. A minuscule upgrade, but an upgrade nonetheless.
In other news, I'm still flirting with the idea of Oath of Liliana. It has some neat synergies in the list (Cloudstone Curio comes to mind), but at the same time it's not as abusable as your typical fleshbag in a reanimation shell. As such, the drawbacks of the fleshbag are likely to be very noticeable. I probably won't pull the trigger in the end. All the recent changes are working fine, Kaya in particular is a lovely swiss army knife of utility as expected.
I've been toying with the idea of Daxos and I'm sad that this optimized list cut a Blind Obedience, Extort looks like a lot of fun. I think I'd go wide with mana and cast a huge Exsanguinate. What made you move against that? How did Black Market make you commit too much in your first Main?
Edit: And Bloodchief's Ascension as another Enchantment that closes out the game with your desired strategy.
Mid-Tier:
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG
Black Market makes you dump a lot of your mana super fast because it tosses a massive glob of it at you main one and you have to work with it then and there. Not bad per se, as more mana is always welcome, but the deck thrives on having some reactive element and wants to hold a lot of its mana back often to have the power to mess with stuff instant speed during other people's turns. This may involve constellation effects going off at inopportune times, or just a piece of instant speed removal. The Market would cut back on the mana quantity you'd have for that, as you'd have to typically commit some white to go along with the wall of black to get things done main one. Additionally, it wasn't 100% guaranteed to fire. Some games you don't get a constant stream of creature death or a massive double digit Market after a wrath, but an awkward gummed up board where nobody makes a move. At five mana, this sort of thing isn't necessarily worth the risk.
Bloodchief Ascension is a brutal card, but one that gets you a bit too much attention for what it brings to the table in this particular build. Things tend to hit the 'yard with a bit more regularity than discard happens, but at the same time Ascensions bring a lot of stigma with them and you're bound to get smacked more than your share because of it. At the same time, you'll probably be ill equipped to take the beats, and the payoff is likely not going to be worth it.
This is by no means the be all end all list. There is no real be all end all list, as Daxos doesn't lend himself to a cutthroat build that can run with the best of them. As such, feel free to run Blind Obedience in your build and extort the night away. I just found I wasn't using extort all that much as it'd typically infringe on 3-mana allotments to make bodies with. Exsanguinate effects are also perfectly legit, with Debt to the Deathless being a stupid strong upgrade, but I'm not running them as I feel they don't actually win the game but rather just finish it off. That shouldn't stop you either if you want them in your 99. EDH is a format of self expression, and this is the very reason why lists like this one exist. As such, there is very little obligation to netdeck it, but merely to detail a particular build style which I've found to be effective from my perspective. It's all tainted by metas, personal preference (I've seen some guy ram Winter Orb into a Daxos shell *shudder*), and this is meant as guidance only
Just dropping in to say that I've decided to make Daxos 2: Electric Boogaloo my next project, and reading through your primer is a huge reason why. Very well written, and helped me remember a lot of sweet gems from old sets! Once my last batch of cards arrives, I'll post my list and hopefully join the conversation in earnest.
Cheers!
Is there a reason you're against Martyr's Bond?
Mid-Tier:
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)