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!
Hey, thanks for the kind words! Hope you get a kick out of Daxos. Recently we managed to persuade a modern stalwart to give EDH a hand, and one of the decks he got to try was this list over here. He was grumbling about how he was perpetually a turn behind where he wanted to be, but his slightly understated board state let him slide under the radar for a bit. He also happened to have Anguished Unmaking when I tried to Song of the Dryads Daxos. He eventually set down Attrition and had a great thing going against the perpetually oddly nonblack table. He did go out first, but it took a lot of concentrated effort to make it happen. I think he actually enjoyed it,
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.
Pretty much that, and the fact we lack the ease of sacrificing on demand. Go for a more sac outlet heavy build and it may work, but I'd probably recommend starting with Grave Pact at less mana to begin with. And even then, Daxos isn't exactly the greatest sac-for-days commander on the block, you're likely to get better mileage out of something like Ghave.
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!
Hey, thanks for the kind words! Hope you get a kick out of Daxos. Recently we managed to persuade a modern stalwart to give EDH a hand, and one of the decks he got to try was this list over here. He was grumbling about how he was perpetually a turn behind where he wanted to be, but his slightly understated board state let him slide under the radar for a bit. He also happened to have Anguished Unmaking when I tried to Song of the Dryads Daxos. He eventually set down Attrition and had a great thing going against the perpetually oddly nonblack table. He did go out first, but it took a lot of concentrated effort to make it happen. I think he actually enjoyed it, though.
Oh, I've already gotten a kick out of him. I was able to snap up a precon on the cheap, and while my initial idea was to go straight for Karlov of the Ghost Council and ostensibly find a use for that FTV Lore Umezawa's Jitte, I've always had a penchant for making cool decks helmed by awful commanders (Stitcher Geralf and Akuta, Born of Ash, the latter of which has a primer here if you look hard enough), and I just couldn't get away from Dax-Man. My first draft was clunky and it definitely reeked of "babby's first precon" out of the gate, but it was enough to get me hooked. I ordered a Serra's Sanctum and the rest, as they say, is history.
Great to hear that Yep, Karlov offers a stronger deck, but EDH is not just about strength or we'd all be running around with Arcums, Animars, Zurs or what have you. As for Nether Void, the Curio trick is real and I could see it working due to how mana-heavy the shell tends to be, but it feels like it would bite you on the face more often than not. I mean, if you happen to have one sitting around (*grumble*) give it a shot and see what happens?
The #1 Attribute to Daxos is his undrwhelming political presence in multiplayer. You can play him cheap and focus on a defensive board position. Even though my playgroup knows what Daxos can do and how often he wins they still tend to ignore him in the mid game and focus on the token army being amassed by Sidisi or the crazy combo pieces being layed by Sharuum and Prossh. Daxos is a threat but not an immediate one.
The #1 Attribute to Daxos is his undrwhelming political presence in multiplayer. You can play him cheap and focus on a defensive board position. Even though my playgroup knows what Daxos can do and how often he wins they still tend to ignore him in the mid game and focus on the token army being amassed by Sidisi or the crazy combo pieces being layed by Sharuum and Prossh. Daxos is a threat but not an immediate one.
This is pretty much my experience with Daxos as well, at least in multiplayer. Not super strong, but you have just enough defense that you get ignored early and midgame. Then you reach a tipping point -- usually with the dropping of 1 or 2 key enchantments -- where it becomes very difficult for your opponents to deal with you and not die. The way this pattern has played out for me reminded me a lot of slivers. 2-3 slivers would be out and I'm telling everybody else, "we need to kill those now," and they're thinking, "those are relatively harmless." Then a key sliver or two drops and they're suddenly all dangerous and/or harder to deal with.
Pretty much the story of Daxos life. Yesterday I walked him out of my usual playgroup comfort zone, and ended up in a relatively big five man game. I got some discard going with Necrogen Mists and Kaya, Ghost Assassin, which crippled two of the players. The Venser, Shaper Savant got rid of my Spirit of the Labyrinth early on and was drawing like mad, and the Geist of Saint Traft wasn't too poor off either. At one point, the Venser decided to make an army of Patron Wizards, tapping out in the process. Geist thankfully had a Supreme Verdict, so the army got dealt with. Nevertheless, Venser's status as top threat got firmly cemented, so when the Xenagod skilfuly topdecked Atarka, World Render the target was obvious. Everybody else soon followed suit. Oh, but what is this on my side of the field, neglected because everybody else was dealing with the blue decks? Skybind! And nine mana! And another cheeser win was had.
Pretty much the story of Daxos life. Yesterday I walked him out of my usual playgroup comfort zone, and ended up in a relatively big five man game. I got some discard going with Necrogen Mists and Kaya, Ghost Assassin, which crippled two of the players. The Venser, Shaper Savant got rid of my Spirit of the Labyrinth early on and was drawing like mad, and the Geist of Saint Traft wasn't too poor off either. At one point, the Venser decided to make an army of Patron Wizards, tapping out in the process. Geist thankfully had a Supreme Verdict, so the army got dealt with. Nevertheless, Venser's status as top threat got firmly cemented, so when the Xenagod skilfuly topdecked Atarka, World Render the target was obvious. Everybody else soon followed suit. Oh, but what is this on my side of the field, neglected because everybody else was dealing with the blue decks? Skybind! And nine mana! And another cheeser win was had.
By Athreos' judgment
Where the fallen soldiers lie
The time for victory has come
Behold! The binding sky
Now, before you toss a full wine bottle at your screen, let me save face by saying I have another enchantress EDH deck, and that one has my only copy of Ghostly Prison right now. We're working on fixing that.
The list looks fine. I'm quite surprised by some of the includes and absentees (like Beseech the Queen but no Demonic Tutor), but I guess this is also dictated by other decks?
The list looks fine. I'm quite surprised by some of the includes and absentees (like Beseech the Queen but no Demonic Tutor), but I guess this is also dictated by other decks?
You are correct. That, and for whatever reason Demonic Tutor is a great way to get labeled a tryhard and focused off the table where I play. (Don't ask, my playgroup is really strange.) I've been trying to get away from unconditional tutors, anyhow - take the game as it comes, you know? I get tired of a deck quickly if I'm always hunting down the same half dozen cards.
Also also, I bought a pair of Chains of Mephistopheles several years ago for Legacy. That never panned out, sooo... yeah. Bling for Daxos. It's also pretty good with Necropotence, I hear.
Yeah, Chains is a lovely, lovely card that would immediately go into the 99 if I had it. Delightful hand size development impediment.
Also, you don't really tutor for the same half dozen cards here, you take it as it comes each game and assess what's needed. There's a lot of silver bullets. A massive problem commander? Nevermore/Darksteel Mutation. Go wide days? Sphere of Safety/Doomwake Giant. Huge damage from a single source, be it fireballs or fat beaters? Righteous Aura. Graveyard shenanigans? Agent of Erebos. And so on in this fashion. Even the choice of game ender varies from game to game, as sometimes you just want your army to be gigantic and lifelinking, other times you want heavy control over what's on the field at any given time, and yet other times you just want to watch people discard in their draw step so they don't get up to anything too kooky. Still, I guess if Demonic Tutor carries a heavy stigma, you can't really fight that.
Upon further thought, I could probably move in Academy Rector from my other deck, given that that deck's primary M.O. is to resolve Enduring Ideal. Any idea on what I could cut to make room for Rector here?
The Rector is very solid, but I do sometimes miss having more sac outlets to be able to crack her with ease at my leisure. Still, nowhere near cuttable.
I'd consider the cut between Cage of Hands (overcosted for bouncing, and there's better removal around) and Faith's Reward (situational response to enchantment wrath?).
The better my decks become, the less I can reasonably justify holding up 4 mana answers to anything because of how much it could set me behind on board position.
The better my decks become, the less I can reasonably justify holding up 4 mana answers to anything because of how much it could set me behind on board position.
Those are both decent sounding cuts.
I assume you're referring to Faith's Reward here? Yeah, that's a bit situational. But still, whatever you might be holding the mana for, the beauty of Daxos is that if you don't get to do what you held up you still get to make bodies.
I've been playing Daxos for a bit now, and I've gone all-in on the pillowfort strategy. The idea is, essentially, to make it as hard as possible for people to swing at me and then overwhelm them with tokens. It's easier said than done, though, and I feel like the deck lacks some threats.
Cards that I've been running that I haven't seen mentioned too often:
Lili helps the discard aspect, while working well with Rule of Law and providing removal in a pinch.
Ob and Sorin draw me cards and blow stuff up if I need them to.
Wound Reflection is a recent addition; feels like this might make my opponents swing at each other more often (especially when I'm sitting behind any number of prison effects)
Also, no love for Angel of Despair or Necromancy? I like Necromancy's instant speed possibilities and the Angel is solid, going crazy when paired with Skybind.
Brave the Sands isn't bad at all, but Reconnaissance just seems better from my perspective. You lose the extra creature block in favour of attack step shenanigans. Whale into people freely, then remove everything from combat that got blocked in a manner you're unhappy with, let the remaining damage connect, then remove the still-formally-attacking creatures from combat. Ultra-vigilance in a way. There's only so many slots in a deck you'd dedicate to these sort of effects, and I'd rather run this particular card instead.
Force Bubble is cute, but it just keels over and dies if you eat 4 or more damage to the face. That's not all that much in commander realms. I mean, technically you can scoop it back up to your hand with Cloudstone Curio in response to the sacrifice trigger, but if we're looking at things from that perspective why not just commit to something more abusable and do Delaying Shield instead? Even without Curio shenanigans, it turns off voltron kills. That's not that bad.
Windborn Muse and Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts are both reasonable pillow fort effects, but they're also both creatures. This comes with the drawback of them dying as collateral damage from people trying to solve other problems via wraths. The Muse is better than Teysa though, I actually own one but never got to slot her in to try her out. Her squishiness and the fact Ghostly Prison isn't quite as back-breaking to pay your way through as Sphere of Safety led her to stay in the binder.
Comeuppance is a lovely piece of shenanigans and by far the best card for the deck of the ones you listed. The blowouts are real! If I notice anything in my list underperforming, I'll consider slotting it in.
Wound Reflection feels like it would be more likely to get the opposite reaction to the one you're expecting. "Oh crap, this guy is making us bleed super hard, let's kill him so the bleeding stops!". This is followed by your defences being put to a heavy test, and one which you may have a hard time passing depending on how well you're built up. As such, this either gets you knocked out or unproductively freezes the game to some degree. Not greatly recommended.
My list is rather planeswalker light as I'm not a huge fan of them. Whether on Cockatrice or in paper, 'walkers tend to get punched as soon as they come down, leading to short lifespans. As such, the planeswalkers I'd advocate are those that come down with a massive thump and proceed to heavily warp the game if they get to stay around (Elspeth, Sun's Champion), or those that are oddly unassuming and slowly grind out a hefty helping of swiss army knife value (Kaya, Ghost Assassin). Liliana of the Veil is actually weaker than Kaya, and there are less susceptible discard options at 3 mana which you'd probably be better off running instead. Sorin, Grim Nemesis is a great card advantage machine, but tends to draw attention to you without pulling Sunspeth-tier dumbness. Ob Nixilis Reignited is the best of the bunch you propose, a solid mono-black value house that wrecks creatures (usually with less resource expenditure than Sorin, too!) and draws cards.
In an Ashen Rider world, Angel of Despair fell a bit to the side. Somehow I don't think that taking one mana off the CMC would make the card that much easier to use, and I've found the Rider notoriously difficult to work with due to how insanely mana hungry he is. That's not to say that you shouldn't run this sort of effect, all the more power to you if you manage. Necromancy and company underperform here slightly as those sort of effects are usually better if you take it onto yourself to fill up graveyards. Meanwhile, this list has a single digit number of creatures and a large chunk of its removal comes in the form of exile. If you find graveyards brimming with things to pick up with this, go forth. Some folks trade off the instant speed utility for the aura-ness of Animate Dead, allowing them to hit it as part of their Open the Armory toolbox.
Just finished a 5-way FFA game: Myself playing Daxos, then Atraxa precon (slightly modified), Kiora krakens, Kiki-Jiki (with a cool paint job), and Chainer (which I loaned them).
I had an early Authority of the Consuls that kept me floating and kept everybody else really annoyed. That and exiling Kiki's Caged Sun really slowed him down. Kinda painted a target on myself because they wanted to get rid of Authority that badly.
It reached a turning point where I didn't recognize the control of the board I still had (though it was slim) and cast Toxic Deluge. I had 6 5/5 spirits and should have kept making more and swinging even though I was getting hit hard with a Bogardan Hellkite. Also didn't realize he had Mimic Vat out and kept pinging me with it anyway. Chainer had stolen a few things when I did Deluge and sacked them all through Altar of Dementia and Rings to mill everybody but me. So Kiki kept pinging me for 5 with the imprinted Hellkite and sacrificing it to Goblin Bombardment, and eventually got me down to 4 life. Chainer then Exsanguinated everybody for 12 and could have started repeating it next turn, but Kiki got his Thornbite combo and won.
I'm thinking I should probably find my Leyline of Sanctity, though I'm considering Orbs of Warding. Doesn't make up for my mistakes this game, but noncombat damage does seem to be a gap in the armor.
It does seem like Leyline of Sanctity would have helped there, yes. It was a weird sort of noncombat damage though, as for large chunks Righteous Aura is perfectly fine. Also, it's kind of funny how no matter what, we can't stop Exsanguinate style mass life loss.
True, Righteous Aura would have approximately halved what I was receiving from the hellkites. I'd have tutored for it or removal if I'd drawn one of those. I should probably have kept searching for 3 basics off of Land Tax every turn that I could even if it meant discarding them because I was somewhat flooded on my draws.
The Hellkite damage sounds awkward enough for Righteous Aura to have a poor time against it as you're barely saving anything. A better tutor would have been a source of lifelink, as you sound like you had a board. Still, the luck of the draw, not much you can do sometimes.
Just a quick post with regards to C16 - nothing makes it in. The closest would be Duelist's Heritage as you could also opportunistically pump swingers going from Player B to Player C, but that's not the sort of effect that merits a slot in the 99.
Surprising that Authority of the Consuls got such a reaction really, I've always found Blind Obedience style shenanigans to go down without any problems. If anything, the table should have been thankful for holding Kiki down?
Surprising that Authority of the Consuls got such a reaction really, I've always found Blind Obedience style shenanigans to go down without any problems. If anything, the table should have been thankful for holding Kiki down?
Yeah, they should have. Most of them were just really annoyed at their creatures entering tapped and me staying around 40 life. I don't think most of them knew what Kiki wanted to do, and it was definitely Kiki trying to kill me to get rid of it Authority. Kiora could have helped protect me a little by plussing her against Bombardment but was trying to stay under the radar. Kiki's win was Chainer's doing in the end, really. He milled Kiki's deck (which is what put Thornbite Staff in there) and only looked at creatures, and is also the one that killed me.
I'm not putting Leyline in as I realized that Runed Halo would have helped, too. I just didn't get lucky. I did however finally get an Idyllic Tutor and slotted that in. I've been running 37 lands because I had issues before but might try going back down to 36 to add Spirit Loop or Spirit of the Labyrinth.
Just crazy spitballing here guys, but what do you think of trying out Smuggler's Copter? I mean, it's a looter, it lets us do something useful with Daxos, it hides from sorcery speed removal quite handily... am I on to something potentially useful here, or is it just 1am talking?
I'm just looking at an unnecessary $15 card. Might be great, but expensive for what it could do for us. I'm getting more games in with your 'under-the-radar' build, Smuggler's Copter is a good card that doesn't Stax. That is the antithesis of this Daxos brew.
If anything, I like the look of Cultivator's Caravan. Daxos and utility creatures can Crew it, until then it provides more mana. Though by the time you're willing to use tokens to Crew, they're probably bigger than 5/5 making the Crew 3 not so good.
Hey, thanks for the kind words! Hope you get a kick out of Daxos. Recently we managed to persuade a modern stalwart to give EDH a hand, and one of the decks he got to try was this list over here. He was grumbling about how he was perpetually a turn behind where he wanted to be, but his slightly understated board state let him slide under the radar for a bit. He also happened to have Anguished Unmaking when I tried to Song of the Dryads Daxos. He eventually set down Attrition and had a great thing going against the perpetually oddly nonblack table. He did go out first, but it took a lot of concentrated effort to make it happen. I think he actually enjoyed it,
Pretty much that, and the fact we lack the ease of sacrificing on demand. Go for a more sac outlet heavy build and it may work, but I'd probably recommend starting with Grave Pact at less mana to begin with. And even then, Daxos isn't exactly the greatest sac-for-days commander on the block, you're likely to get better mileage out of something like Ghave.
Oh, I've already gotten a kick out of him. I was able to snap up a precon on the cheap, and while my initial idea was to go straight for Karlov of the Ghost Council and ostensibly find a use for that FTV Lore Umezawa's Jitte, I've always had a penchant for making cool decks helmed by awful commanders (Stitcher Geralf and Akuta, Born of Ash, the latter of which has a primer here if you look hard enough), and I just couldn't get away from Dax-Man. My first draft was clunky and it definitely reeked of "babby's first precon" out of the gate, but it was enough to get me hooked. I ordered a Serra's Sanctum and the rest, as they say, is history.
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
By Athreos' judgment
Where the fallen soldiers lie
The time for victory has come
Behold! The binding sky
Oh, also - my first decklist, hurray!
1 Daxos the Returned
Enchantment (25)
1 Act of Authority
1 Attrition
1 Aura of Silence
1 Blind Obedience
1 Bottomless Pit
1 Cage of Hands
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Darksteel Mutation
1 Flickering Ward
1 Grasp of Fate
1 Karmic Justice
1 Mystic Barrier
1 Necrogen Mists
1 Necropotence
1 Nether Void
1 Nevermore
1 No Mercy
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
1 Righteous Aura
1 Rule of Law
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Seal of Doom
1 Skybind
1 Sphere of Safety
Instant (5)
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Faith's Reward
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Utter End
1 Barren Moor
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Command Tower
1 Forsaken Sanctuary
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Orzhov Guildgate
10 Plains
1 Scoured Barrens
1 Secluded Steppe
1 Serra's Sanctum
1 Shambling Vent
9 Swamp
1 Tainted Field
1 Temple of Silence
1 Temple of the False God
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vault of the Archangel
Sorcery (10)
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Extinguish All Hope
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Merciless Eviction
1 Open the Armory
1 Plea for Guidance
1 Replenish
1 Rout
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Vindicate
1 Agent of Erebos
1 Ashen Rider
1 Burnished Hart
1 Doomwake Giant
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Fate Unraveler
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Monk Idealist
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Sun Titan
1 Thoughtrender Lamia
1 Underworld Coinsmith
Artifact (7)
1 Cloudstone Curio
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Orzhov Cluestone
1 Orzhov Signet
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
Planeswalker (1)
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Now, before you toss a full wine bottle at your screen, let me save face by saying I have another enchantress EDH deck, and that one has my only copy of Ghostly Prison right now. We're working on fixing that.
>only copy of Ghostly Prison is somewhere else
I got nothing
The list looks fine. I'm quite surprised by some of the includes and absentees (like Beseech the Queen but no Demonic Tutor), but I guess this is also dictated by other decks?
You are correct. That, and for whatever reason Demonic Tutor is a great way to get labeled a tryhard and focused off the table where I play. (Don't ask, my playgroup is really strange.) I've been trying to get away from unconditional tutors, anyhow - take the game as it comes, you know? I get tired of a deck quickly if I'm always hunting down the same half dozen cards.
Also, I had to find a home for the FTV Lore Beseech the Queen.
Also also, I bought a pair of Chains of Mephistopheles several years ago for Legacy. That never panned out, sooo... yeah. Bling for Daxos. It's also pretty good with Necropotence, I hear.
Yeah, Chains is a lovely, lovely card that would immediately go into the 99 if I had it. Delightful hand size development impediment.
Also, you don't really tutor for the same half dozen cards here, you take it as it comes each game and assess what's needed. There's a lot of silver bullets. A massive problem commander? Nevermore/Darksteel Mutation. Go wide days? Sphere of Safety/Doomwake Giant. Huge damage from a single source, be it fireballs or fat beaters? Righteous Aura. Graveyard shenanigans? Agent of Erebos. And so on in this fashion. Even the choice of game ender varies from game to game, as sometimes you just want your army to be gigantic and lifelinking, other times you want heavy control over what's on the field at any given time, and yet other times you just want to watch people discard in their draw step so they don't get up to anything too kooky. Still, I guess if Demonic Tutor carries a heavy stigma, you can't really fight that.
I'd consider the cut between Cage of Hands (overcosted for bouncing, and there's better removal around) and Faith's Reward (situational response to enchantment wrath?).
Those are both decent sounding cuts.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
I assume you're referring to Faith's Reward here? Yeah, that's a bit situational. But still, whatever you might be holding the mana for, the beauty of Daxos is that if you don't get to do what you held up you still get to make bodies.
Cards that I've been running that I haven't seen mentioned too often:
Lili helps the discard aspect, while working well with Rule of Law and providing removal in a pinch.
Ob and Sorin draw me cards and blow stuff up if I need them to.
Wound Reflection is a recent addition; feels like this might make my opponents swing at each other more often (especially when I'm sitting behind any number of prison effects)
Also, no love for Angel of Despair or Necromancy? I like Necromancy's instant speed possibilities and the Angel is solid, going crazy when paired with Skybind.
BBB Mikaeus, the Unhallowed BBB
UG Momir Vig, Simic Visionary UG
UB Grimgrin, Corpse-Born UB
Force Bubble is cute, but it just keels over and dies if you eat 4 or more damage to the face. That's not all that much in commander realms. I mean, technically you can scoop it back up to your hand with Cloudstone Curio in response to the sacrifice trigger, but if we're looking at things from that perspective why not just commit to something more abusable and do Delaying Shield instead? Even without Curio shenanigans, it turns off voltron kills. That's not that bad.
Windborn Muse and Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts are both reasonable pillow fort effects, but they're also both creatures. This comes with the drawback of them dying as collateral damage from people trying to solve other problems via wraths. The Muse is better than Teysa though, I actually own one but never got to slot her in to try her out. Her squishiness and the fact Ghostly Prison isn't quite as back-breaking to pay your way through as Sphere of Safety led her to stay in the binder.
Comeuppance is a lovely piece of shenanigans and by far the best card for the deck of the ones you listed. The blowouts are real! If I notice anything in my list underperforming, I'll consider slotting it in.
Wound Reflection feels like it would be more likely to get the opposite reaction to the one you're expecting. "Oh crap, this guy is making us bleed super hard, let's kill him so the bleeding stops!". This is followed by your defences being put to a heavy test, and one which you may have a hard time passing depending on how well you're built up. As such, this either gets you knocked out or unproductively freezes the game to some degree. Not greatly recommended.
My list is rather planeswalker light as I'm not a huge fan of them. Whether on Cockatrice or in paper, 'walkers tend to get punched as soon as they come down, leading to short lifespans. As such, the planeswalkers I'd advocate are those that come down with a massive thump and proceed to heavily warp the game if they get to stay around (Elspeth, Sun's Champion), or those that are oddly unassuming and slowly grind out a hefty helping of swiss army knife value (Kaya, Ghost Assassin). Liliana of the Veil is actually weaker than Kaya, and there are less susceptible discard options at 3 mana which you'd probably be better off running instead. Sorin, Grim Nemesis is a great card advantage machine, but tends to draw attention to you without pulling Sunspeth-tier dumbness. Ob Nixilis Reignited is the best of the bunch you propose, a solid mono-black value house that wrecks creatures (usually with less resource expenditure than Sorin, too!) and draws cards.
In an Ashen Rider world, Angel of Despair fell a bit to the side. Somehow I don't think that taking one mana off the CMC would make the card that much easier to use, and I've found the Rider notoriously difficult to work with due to how insanely mana hungry he is. That's not to say that you shouldn't run this sort of effect, all the more power to you if you manage. Necromancy and company underperform here slightly as those sort of effects are usually better if you take it onto yourself to fill up graveyards. Meanwhile, this list has a single digit number of creatures and a large chunk of its removal comes in the form of exile. If you find graveyards brimming with things to pick up with this, go forth. Some folks trade off the instant speed utility for the aura-ness of Animate Dead, allowing them to hit it as part of their Open the Armory toolbox.
I had an early Authority of the Consuls that kept me floating and kept everybody else really annoyed. That and exiling Kiki's Caged Sun really slowed him down. Kinda painted a target on myself because they wanted to get rid of Authority that badly.
It reached a turning point where I didn't recognize the control of the board I still had (though it was slim) and cast Toxic Deluge. I had 6 5/5 spirits and should have kept making more and swinging even though I was getting hit hard with a Bogardan Hellkite. Also didn't realize he had Mimic Vat out and kept pinging me with it anyway. Chainer had stolen a few things when I did Deluge and sacked them all through Altar of Dementia and Rings to mill everybody but me. So Kiki kept pinging me for 5 with the imprinted Hellkite and sacrificing it to Goblin Bombardment, and eventually got me down to 4 life. Chainer then Exsanguinated everybody for 12 and could have started repeating it next turn, but Kiki got his Thornbite combo and won.
I'm thinking I should probably find my Leyline of Sanctity, though I'm considering Orbs of Warding. Doesn't make up for my mistakes this game, but noncombat damage does seem to be a gap in the armor.
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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
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
I'm still amused by how riled up everybody was over Authority of the Consuls.
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
Surprising that Authority of the Consuls got such a reaction really, I've always found Blind Obedience style shenanigans to go down without any problems. If anything, the table should have been thankful for holding Kiki down?
Yeah, they should have. Most of them were just really annoyed at their creatures entering tapped and me staying around 40 life. I don't think most of them knew what Kiki wanted to do, and it was definitely Kiki trying to kill me to get rid of it Authority. Kiora could have helped protect me a little by plussing her against Bombardment but was trying to stay under the radar. Kiki's win was Chainer's doing in the end, really. He milled Kiki's deck (which is what put Thornbite Staff in there) and only looked at creatures, and is also the one that killed me.
I'm not putting Leyline in as I realized that Runed Halo would have helped, too. I just didn't get lucky. I did however finally get an Idyllic Tutor and slotted that in. I've been running 37 lands because I had issues before but might try going back down to 36 to add Spirit Loop or Spirit of the Labyrinth.
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
If anything, I like the look of Cultivator's Caravan. Daxos and utility creatures can Crew it, until then it provides more mana. Though by the time you're willing to use tokens to Crew, they're probably bigger than 5/5 making the Crew 3 not so good.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs