MTG Salvation

There's some discussion over on MTG Nexus. I wouldn't hold my breath for much movement here.

Hey all,

Moving forward, all activity and updates on this Primer will be over on MTG Nexus. I'll be reading back through the pages of discussion on this thread and intend on making a "FAQ/Previous Discussion" section to summarize a lot of what we've discussed here over the years, though that may take some time. You can find the new thread here:

https://www.mtgnexus.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=267

I'll also be posting brand new Primers, and just posted one for Elenda, the Dusk Rose

https://www.mtgnexus.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=477

Jonas and tarotplz have already found their way over there to the thread. I hope I'll see others join, as well! Thank you to everyone for your contributions in the thread here over all of this time! I have some interesting plans for the future of the Ayli Primer over on Nexus

I don't want them to ever open up design decisions to a player majority vote, because I've been in the community long enough to know that a large chunk of players don't know what is best for the game. This is especially true with the weight of certain creator and social media influencers out there who warp perception and drive beliefs, whether for better or worse. When I look at how people evaluate cards, or scream for cards to be banned in Modern or Commander that are not the problem, etc. Commander may be casual but the player base and money that goes into the secondary market is a very large chunk of the game's real etate at this point. It's not something I would want them to play around with. Even something as small as past You Design The Card contests have lead to questionable results.

I was checking my Twitter feed earlier and saw MTGStocks reporting that Words of Waste was starting to rise in price, and it immediately clicked that it had to be because of Yawgmoth. I ordered one to try out because I think it could be a potentially great card against control decks. What do y'all think about this? It reminded me of another card - Graveborn Muse that I used to run alongside Words of Waste way back in the Onslaught Standard days. Tempted to try it as well with how it can scale with a lot of the cards in the deck.

I don't see anyone groan any more when someone plays Paradox Engine than they do when they see Mikaeous, the Unhallowed, Aetherflux Reservoir, Exquisite Blood, Seedborn Muse or any other number of powerful combo piece cards hit the table. At this point this crusade over Paradox Engine is reaching the level of absurdity as those for Cyclonic Rift, Sol Ring and numerous other perceived boogiemen. The only metric I've seen in this thread has been anecdotal evidence where you could replace Paradox Engine with any number of other cards and say "Then the game just ended!" and it'd be the same ending to these stories attempting to make apparent how bad Paradox Engine supposedly is for the format. People tend to read reactions and emotions based on their own biases, so it's no surprise that one will automatically translate anyone else's response to something matching their own feelings. And for the record, I'm neutral - I play it in one deck and have played that deck and won plenty without it (so don't try to turn the point I made around on me).

I appreciate healthy debate and discussion over the format. BUT, it gets a bit ridiculous seeing months and months of discussion of the same handful of vocal people coming back and posting new anecdotal stories to try to crusade to make their case when the entire rest of the format has settled fine. Especially considering this card has been out in the wild for... *looks up the release date of Aether Revolt* ...almost 3 years, now. Because that's not enough, the argument is now "It's getting worse! New cards are being printed!" ...And? How many threads pop up here every set with a kneejerk reaction about the supposed power level of a card. Simic Ascendancy anyone? Narset, Parter of Veils? Razaketh, the Foulblooded? Please. Give the sensationalism a rest.

It's been a while since I sent Alesha out to pasture for parts for other decks, but one of my favorite cards to use was Glory. Protecting the board from Blasphemous Act and being able to block or attack into a certain color proved to be fantastic for me

I've been working on a Yawgmoth build of my own, and this deck is tons of fun. I took a bit of inspiration from the list in the main post here, but only went so far due to availability (I don't have too much invested in MTGO to test these as much).

Here's my list and my thoughts on it, at the moment:

• So, first things first: I'm missing a chunk of the potential ramp for the deck. I need to pick up Crypt Ghast, Nirkana Revenant, Jet Medallion, Gauntlet of Power and Bubbling Muck. Chances that I'll ever pick up a Mana Crypt or Grim Monolith are extremely low given it's current price range. However, I've still been able to ramp pretty well with what I *do* have, so I'm excited to acquire what I can. I had been tempted to get a Chrome Mox with some store credit but it was either that or Liliana, the Last Hope and Liliana was a much more important inclusion.
• Crypt of Agadeem is about to be replaced with something else because the deck needs to ramp up ASAP and it's worse than a Swamp for most of the game I've had it.
• I won a game with a Torment of Hailfire for 30 just off of the land ramp when I wasn't drawing into anything else. I'm pretty confident in leaving this and Exsanguinate in my build finishers to build towards if Yawgmoth is hated off of the table too much to stay on the Proliferate plan. The problem with this game wasn't Yawgmoth being targeted, though. It was actually that I had no card draw outside of Yawgmoth and only ever drew into Bloodghast that game for recurrable draw. I think there's a weakness in trying to depend too heavily on Yawgmoth sticking or for sac fodder to use him and not having any other draw. There's so much mana ramp potential here, but if the sac fodder doesn't come, the deck feels like it falls flat, especially when you want to hold a good chunk of your deck for a big turn (PWers).
• Phyrexian Scriptures was surprisingly good. I originally added it for flavor reasons (the same is true of Avatar of Woe; it's a pet card because I have a PT one signed by rk post and casting it for BB with Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder out is SO good). In my last game last night I had quite a play:
• I had used Command the Dreadhorde and stolen Garruk, Primal Hunter, Niv-Mizzet, Parun and Veteran Explorer. Then I cast my Horobi, Death's Wail and used -3 on Garruk to draw 5 cards and get 5 Niv-Mizzet triggers. I blew up a few targets (Liliana, Heretical Healer, Nicol Bolas, the Ravager, a 21/21 Consuming Abberation, the Veteran Explorer to ramp up Cabal Stronghold some more and something else). Well, at the end of turn the Grixis player cast Thrilling Encore and got it alllll back, and then some.
• I had a ton of mana because of Cabal Stronghold and some heavy land ramp earlier. So I cast Yawgmoth. Wasn't countered, so I should be good. Cast Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. Yes, yes. It resolved. Cast Phyrexian Scriptures and put the +1/+1 counter on Yawgmoth and turned him into an Artifact creature. Finally cast Grey Merchant of Asphodel to offset the life loss from Command the Dreadhorde last turn. Mostly, I needed a sac target so I could sacrifice him to Yawgmoth to Proliferate the Phyrexian Scriptures to Chapter II and wipe the board other than Yawgmoth. I did so, destroyed everything but Yawgmoth, got 14 Zombies from Kalitas and was on my merry way. It was gorious.
• I'm feeling the same about Archfiend of Ifnir in it being too slow. I've had it in my hand multiple times but never really wanted to cast it over anything else. I'm still giving it some more time, though.
• I've been pretty happy with Call to the Grave in the games where I get my recurrable sac fodder and it's kept the board clear early on and let me play some of my Planeswalkers and start ticking them up without having to hold them in my hand for a while. Keep in mind since I'm still missing key ramp cards and probably won't have access to Grim Monolith/Mana Crypt, as I had mentioned earlier.
• I thought Illusionist's Bracers may be too slow, but the couple times I've had it on Yawgmoth it was incredible.
• With the sudden availability of snow lands, I'm trying Dead of Winter in place of Toxic Deluge. While it's true that you're still winning until the last point of life is gone, I've found that I go through it at a dangerous rate, especially with some of the Spellslinger decks in my various play groups. I haven't run into anything this hasn't been able to kill, yet. The appeal of Toxic Deluge is having a flexible answer for 2B, but so far this has done just as well!
• Psychosis Crawler is another decent alternate win con that won me a game, and I was pretty happy to see it. It gave me a place to put my -1/-1 counters for Nest of Scarabs to get that combo started and is a win condition once you have the Yawgmoth's Bargain combo set up with Nest.

Anyway, that's about it for my testing with the deck so far. I know my build is quite different at the moment, though I aim for a similar path once I can acquire the appropriate cards

We've gotten so much easy grave yard hate and ways to deal with grave yards the last two years that I don't even know why this would be considered an issue. It might trigger at the end of turn, but 16 artifacts in the grave yard? At worst it shifts the meta towards playing graveyard hate besides expecting a single Bokjuka Bog to cover it, and I'm fine with this. So, you know, we should be good if a very niche card that will only go in very specific Blue Artiact decks who actually expend effort in dumping their Artifacts into their graveyard for some reason - instead of onto the battlefield to combo and just win as they normally do - warps the entire meta. But I might be just a bit skeptical. Just a bit.

Quote from Carthage »

Quote from Jivanmukta »

[quote from="Taleran »" url="/forums/the-game/commander-edh/commander-rules-discussion-forum/810779-mirrodin-besieged?comment=11"]It's more that the vast majority of players are absolutely awful at card evaluation. Even more are bad at understanding the EDH banlist philosophy.

The EDH banlist philosophy is not even internally consistent so of course players don't understand it.

If it was consistent gifts ungiven would have been unbanned years ago.

Also revel in riches is not a fun casual card.

This response is so ironic it could be in Napoleon Dynamite 2. Jivantuna is spot on and the response actually proves his point. I'm dying.

Quote from tarotplz »

Quote from rogerandover »

What do you guys think of Kaya's Guile? It looks pretty sweet, and I always like when you get value on the cards you play, but I'm not overly sold on it. I'm already playing plenty of exile effects and sweepers, so the the graves are rarely a problem and I already do have Remorseful Cleric thats way easier to abuse then an instant.

The gain 4 life part and the make a 1/1 part are basically irrelevant in commander. What we get in almost all cases is an edict effect that exiles our opponents graves.

That doesn't look terrible on paper, but I don't think that this is really something we need. Plaguecrafter is the far far better edict that can be reanimated and if you really need grave-hate that bad, I think you should look to cheaper and more reliable options.

Tarotplz hits the nail on the head. Kaya's Guile is pretty neat, but it doesn't do anything that other options can't do a lot better that are attached to bodies to reanimate.

Quote from darrenhabib »

Quote from Kelzam »

Hey darrenhahib, I was reading and saw where you said you've played around 50 games with the Astral Genesis deck. Are you playing on Magic Online? Just curious what platform you're testing on

Very much interested to see how this version develops!

Yes Magic Online is where I get reps in, but I have a commander group for paper as well.
The thing with online is that people don't know what you're playing fully, so the Living End and Hypergenesis is totally unexpected and not planned for by opponents, so in this respect it's not a true indication of play testing, but I don't play these sorts of decks for any serious competitiveness.

Understood 😊 I was just curious - wasn't judging by any means! I'm actually interested in this because I already have so many "get easy value" competitive decks (Windgrace, Maelstrom Wanderer, Jhoira) and was brainstorming (fyi that autocorrected to barnstorming and it's not even wrong) how to do Niv-Mizzet that wasn't just doing Superfriends as a copout or another straight play-all-this-goodstuff-value.dec. so the Astral Genssis build you have here has really piqued my interest 😊

Hey darrenhahib, I was reading and saw where you said you've played around 50 games with the Astral Genesis deck. Are you playing on Magic Online? Just curious what platform you're testing on 😊

Very much interested to see how this version develops!

Quote from Jonas Ukulore »

Thanks (as always) for your efforts writing your analysis!

You make a solid point, about Despark, I might have to reconsider. Maybe, I think I value the instantspeed more than the extra 1 Mana. No good having a Vindicate in hand when opponent plays a Cloudstone Curio only when he can end the game with it there and then. It’s also very likely Generous Gift will take that slot of Vindicate in my deck.

Vindicate not being an Instant is a good point, and you're quite correct in the context of Cloudstone Curio and other similar combo pieces. But still, blowing up utility lands and the rest of the <3CC targets is really important in my meta. It may well be a meta call for a lot of people. But overall, I do definitely prefer Vindicate. Anguished Unmaking and Utter End can't target lands which means waiting on Ashen Rider or Archon of Justice to handle them.

About Force of Despair: often, I wait for a maximum amount (or quality) of creatures before playing a boardwipe.
Having to decide to boardwipe on just that turn feels a bit... suboptimal to me.

I agree on that respect. I'm not convinced on running it, but it was one of the more interesting cards for Ayli to talk about. I do like that it is Instant speed and can be done without mana open. There's a lot of decks out there that can build a board state out of nowhere, slam down Craterhoof Behemoth and swing out of nowhere. Unfortunately other than False Prophet most of our board wipes can't handle that despite doing our best to keep boards down. So, it's got some potential in that regard, I think

Silent clearing is nice, but as life is often a resource for us (Necropotence, fetchlands, etc) I’m not certain I need another dual that hurts. I don’t think I would remove a basic land or another dual for it.

I can only speak for my build, but at least personally, I sacrifice enough to Ayli or drain with Gray Merchant of Asphodel to off set a lot of the life loss I incur most games (just not enough to run something like Bolas's Citadel), so I don't think it'll be too bad

Kaya’s Ghostform vs Angelic Renewal: If I put out an AR, even without sacengine or recursion (e.g. Sun Titan) , the AR instantly eats a removal spell from my opponents.

I think this might be a meta thing, as well! Truthfully more people in my play groups should be blowing up Angelic Renewal, but I think a lot gave up because they know it'll just hit the battlefield again as soon as I get Sun Titan out there

Quote from Jonas Ukulore »

I just got a feeling my Vindicate might be swapped out for an Elephantdonation.

Edit: forgot to mention that at the moment Vindicate is already out, and Despark (momentarily testing in its place) did prove super and versatile. Almost always the thing I NEED to exile is a permanent with CMC 4+

Although my feelings on Despark differ, I added a section for it above I meant to address this and it slipped through the cracks.

I do very much like Generous Gift! I'm also very interested in Force of Despair and Silent Clearing More board wipe options are always welcome, and late game lands that turn into card draw sounds fantastic! (also which could be brought back with Sun Titan to sac again for more draw, if no better targets existed!)

I was pretty excited for the new Mox at first until I realized the best case scenario of having an extra mana rock on Turns 1-2 will never happen with it, when I actually care about having it :/

As the player with the resident Ayli primer, I figured I'd step in to add my 2 cents.

I would never play Despark over Utter End, Anguished Unmaking or Vindicate. I don't like the condition that the target must have a 4CMC or greater on Despark. It's easy to be tricked into thinking it's a good card because it only costs WB, but it's far too inconsistent for my tastes. Outside of a tokens build, Orzhov is not a color combination that works fast. That is why I don't mind the 4CMC for Utter End. Orzhov is a slow roll, building up incremental value until it snowballs into an engine that is too hard to stop. I'd rather utter end Scavenging Ooze and stop my graveyard from being eaten, or Eternal Witness to stop recursion shenanigans, than sit with a 2CMC card in my hand that can't hit half the potential problems on the board.

I'll gladly pay 1 more than I do for a Vindicate to exile something, because there is so much recursion in the format that exiling threats is one of the best things you can do. But those threats aren't always 4CMC and above. Sometimes they're Cloudstone Curios, or Ashnod's Altars and other 2-3 mana sac outlets or engines that you don't want them to be able to get back. I run both Anguished Unmaking and Utter End and Vindicate because 1.) depending on other people having good threat assessment is a liability, and 2.) the ability to surgically remove basically any target is an effect worth some redundancy. I'd still have Vindicate over this as a way to easily take out Maze of Ith, Volrath's Stronghold, Gavony Township, Gaea's Cradle, Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun etc. on top of any other target without Indestructible that it can hit. Costing 1-2 mana less than the existing options does not make it worth it, when it excludes so many important targets.

Angel of Despair aside, there is Archon of Justice, Return to Dust, False Prophet, Ashen Rider, Mangara of Corondor/Angel of Serenity/Fiend Hunter + sac outlets. Orzhov doesn't have a lack of ways to permanently flat out exile various things of the entire spectrum of CMC. Despark is frankly outclassed and overrated.

I don't even get started on those running Profane Procession.

Edit: I'll also clarify I'm not considering cEDH because cEDH isn't how the vast majority of people play Commander, and it's not like Ayli is a cEDH-worthy Commander. So, I'm not sure how what place cEDH discussion has here.