Atarka is gonna wind up as a one or two-of in my monsters deck, I think.
Lately I've been toying with the idea of adding a small black splash to Monsters. The problem is, I don't know if I can get a big enough splash for Hero's Downfall, and Hero's Downfall is what I feel the deck could use right now. Two or three of them maybe.
It's an RG monsters deck right? If you're losing and you need some removal, it's probably because they're answering your big dudes, probably sticking them in the yard. This would mean you'd have plenty of delve fuel. Murderous Cut is also much easier to splash than Hero's downfall. But that's just my take on it.
I recently stumbled upon a thread called "Your Top 27" that has everyone listing their favorite commanders in each color combination. It was quite interesting and I'd recommend it.
Okay, might consider Murderous Cut then. Actually, yeah, might test that out soonish.
OH speaking of cool things revolving commander, I recently started a project to rework the shards of Alara. It's the same general storyline, but the shards are now centered around another color. Black Esper, Red Grixis, Green Jund, Blue Bant, White Naya. I'll lay out more of what that means later, but first, Esper.
Black esper is very much about industrialization. Huge smokestacks fill the skies, and Sharuum, a great and wise leader in blue-centric Esper has become a ruthless tycoon.
Let's take a look:
Sharuum, Grand Tycoon3WBU
Legendary Artifact Creature- Sphinx
Flying
~'s power and toughness are each equal to the number of -1/-1 counters on all creatures.
Whenever ~ or another artifact enters the battlefield under your control, put a -1/-1 counter on each nonartifact creature.
*/*
I like this design. A lot. It's very flavorful to be, because Sharuum, the great manufacturing tycoon relies on others to keep her afloat, but is parasitic, damaging them in the process.
I'm not sure what the mechanic for Esper is going to be yet. I want it to have something to do with slavery and -1/-1 counters. If any of you have ideas, please let me know.
And I guess in this storyline Sharuum is still alive since she fell apart in the novels... She gave everything to see the sphinx who made etherium (I don't remember his name) once more.
As for your Sharuum... Unless there are a lot of high toughness creatures to stick around with those -1/-1 counters, I can only see her shrinking from cast and constantly dying to the inability of keeping -1/-1 counters on the field. I almost feel like with an ability like that, you want it to be next to Wither or Infect. Or have some sort of ability to remove -1/-1 counters from your stuff in order to put them back on. Like those Shadowmoor creatures like Wickerbough Elder or Morselhoarder or Voracious Hatchling...
I could always change her abilities a bit. Get rid of the whole P/T thing, make her a 4/5 or 4/4 most likely.
Give her a new ability that lets her remove a certain amount of -1/-1 counters from a creature and pay some cost to do something cool with artifacts. Maybe put one onto the field.
Also, wasn't that Test of Metal that she fell apart? Because from what I understand, Test of Metal isn't really canon.
I'm fairly sure I read in a few places that Test of Metal was so bad, it's not canon anymore, if it was ever canon to begin with.
EDIT:
So I've been thinking about having a list for Isperia, for whenever I get around to building blue white. It'll be a flying toolbox deck, with a sphinx theme (My tentative plan is to run some sphinxes that I would have liked in Sharuum, but just didn't really fit the deck well enough)
Anyone recommend some good flying creatures for that?
Currently, for Sphinxes, I'm looking at:
Master of Predicaments: at first I thought this might be bad with Isperia, but then I realized it adds a whole new level of trickery. Now they have to decide whether you're going to cast what you searched for, or whether you're tricking them with that. I imagine you could wave the bluff in your favor one way or another depending on what you search.
Medomai the Ageless: Extra turns are nice, especially when they can either let you get an extra tutor off of Isperia, or can let you play that thing you just searched for.
Sphinx Ambassador: Another tricky sphinx. I've always wanted a home for her.
Sphinx of Lost Truths: Surprisingly decent. I had it in Sharuum for awhile and it did decent work, but eventually got dropped.
Sphinx of Uthuun: This one is already in Sharuum, but I think it's too good to leave out here.
Jwar Isle doesn't have any synergy with Isperia, really. If you can make use of it, like in Intet, it's great, but if not... it doesn't do all that much.
Sphinx of Magosi might go in. I was hesitant because of triple blue, but I don't think it'll end up being a huge problem.
They don't have to be sphinxes, either. Just any flying critters that Isperia can go search.
Putting monsters together right now, but I also had the idea to make a deck with some amount of Necropolis Fiend, because it's been a pet card of mine since it was spoiled and the clash pack brought that back. I'll buy the pack, try and pick up another alternate art one in trades, and put together some weird deck.
I have a question for you guys. How would you go about teaching a brand new player how to play EDH? We went to Walmart (because my card shop was closed for the day) and found repackaged commander/intro decks. He picked up one of those and we played modern with an intro deck I also purchased. For our last game of the night I had him try the commander deck but my deck was tuned too strongly and he didn't really get to experience the game proper. Any advice?
You definitely want to play with decks of roughly the same power level, or you want to play multiplayer (which is a little more forgiving to untuned decks sometimes). So, either tune his deck, make him a new one, or buy a commander deck yourself to play with him.
He got Deveri. Like I said, hes still fairly new to the game. I'm trying to play with him weekly to get his skill up before inviting him to any of my play groups. Some of those people go all out.
Another thing you could do is lend him one of your decks.
And, I mean, you'd be surprised. I was the second to last person standing in a huge game when I FIRST started playing Sharuum, largely thanks to Magister Sphinx shenanigans.
@Scypher: Not to repeat what happened yesterday at my LGS.
There were couple of newer players, so I decided to play with Toshiro against Akroma and Mimeoplasm... Then few other players asked to join and since no one objected, they joined. It the turned out that those 3 that joined are all combo-players, so there were me, these 2 new-ish players and 3 players whose turns took 90% of the time we played, since they attempted to combo out (and other 2 tried to disturb it) every turn after T3...
Also, try hammering to new players that thinking with your brains = good and letting others decide for you = bad. Also, decided everything by throwing a dice = BAD!!
Example: Daretti player has both Daretti and Koth ready to ultimate and enough dragons to deal 60 dmg within a single combat. I topdecked Oblivion Stone and had enough mana to cast and crack it, but then the not-so-experienced "control" player decides to counter it, since it would destroy his Dimir Signet. Then the Daretti player goes to combat and starts deciding which dragon attack where... with a dice. He assigned each target for each dragon by dice, totally disregarding everything else...
I kinda remembered why I loathe playing at my LGS at times... (And I truly wished I could've summoned few good players from out clan to there so I wouldn't have had to endure it alone...)
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Also modgaming Bur setups is kind of treading down a dark path
@TheLovelyLamia: I should have lent him Sigarda, Host of Herons. He was superposed to come over today but I'm thinking he got called into work.
@Bur: Part of my teaching method is to avoid bad habits like rolling dice rather than choosing. Also, in my normal play groups Threat Assessment is a huge issue so that would be one of the things we would work on.
Sometimes our playgroup uses dice to determine small random "early game" attacks. But we don't use dice in the late game when things really matter.
(eg. With Marchesa, the Black Rose, if it's early and there are multiple players still at 40 life and no one is really ahead, a die roll may be used there. But only early game.)
Heh, Sharuum is getting close to a combo-killer deck. A few more counters, and she's probably there. Have I mentioned how awesome Pact of Negation is? (Also, Time Stop and even Render Silent can be helpful.)
But, then you'd have to have dealt with me playing Magister Sphinx a lot before trying to Mindslaver-lock the last player, so, I dunno if you want that.
EDIT: Everyone has horrible threat assessment for me. They always let me be because I never do too much in the early game. What they should realize is that they should be targeting me for precisely that reason Otherwise, half the time they target me too little, too late, and I end up killing a good number of them, or just straight up winning.
I would say that my generals are enough to paint a target on my head except that I'm used to playing against Zur, Azami, Scion, Orolo, and Doran. In that kind of group, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV and Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind fit right in.
I haven't found a new playgroup here in Japan yet, and the guys I've been chatting with about playing in Tokyo (they're from these forums) all seem to play Modern or Standard. Even if I lent out my decks, those guys probably wouldn't be able to use them to optimum effect. And it doesn't help that I know each of those decks like the back of my hand... I think I need to start working on that pirate deck
Okay, I know I've said it over and over, but this time I'm serious. I'd I have time today, I'm posting that mono-Black discard-sac stax deck.
Though I'm still missing a few cards in paper, I've fishbowled the deck a few times to see how it runs. Like all decks that don't have a million and one tutors (this has 2, and one of them is a transmute card...) it's not the most consistent thing. But, it still works. Well. Too well. It's gross.
Lately I've been toying with the idea of adding a small black splash to Monsters. The problem is, I don't know if I can get a big enough splash for Hero's Downfall, and Hero's Downfall is what I feel the deck could use right now. Two or three of them maybe.
WUBRGCommander Decklists - PaperWUBRG
CCCCCommander Decklists - TheorycraftCCCC
Sig Credit: Pegasus Bishop
I recently stumbled upon a thread called "Your Top 27" that has everyone listing their favorite commanders in each color combination. It was quite interesting and I'd recommend it.
Tatyova | Anje
Alela | Marchesa
Wanderer
Okay, might consider Murderous Cut then. Actually, yeah, might test that out soonish.
OH speaking of cool things revolving commander, I recently started a project to rework the shards of Alara. It's the same general storyline, but the shards are now centered around another color. Black Esper, Red Grixis, Green Jund, Blue Bant, White Naya. I'll lay out more of what that means later, but first, Esper.
Black esper is very much about industrialization. Huge smokestacks fill the skies, and Sharuum, a great and wise leader in blue-centric Esper has become a ruthless tycoon.
Let's take a look:
Sharuum, Grand Tycoon 3WBU
Legendary Artifact Creature- Sphinx
Flying
~'s power and toughness are each equal to the number of -1/-1 counters on all creatures.
Whenever ~ or another artifact enters the battlefield under your control, put a -1/-1 counter on each nonartifact creature.
*/*
I like this design. A lot. It's very flavorful to be, because Sharuum, the great manufacturing tycoon relies on others to keep her afloat, but is parasitic, damaging them in the process.
I'm not sure what the mechanic for Esper is going to be yet. I want it to have something to do with slavery and -1/-1 counters. If any of you have ideas, please let me know.
WUBRGCommander Decklists - PaperWUBRG
CCCCCommander Decklists - TheorycraftCCCC
Sig Credit: Pegasus Bishop
As for your Sharuum... Unless there are a lot of high toughness creatures to stick around with those -1/-1 counters, I can only see her shrinking from cast and constantly dying to the inability of keeping -1/-1 counters on the field. I almost feel like with an ability like that, you want it to be next to Wither or Infect. Or have some sort of ability to remove -1/-1 counters from your stuff in order to put them back on. Like those Shadowmoor creatures like Wickerbough Elder or Morselhoarder or Voracious Hatchling...
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I could always change her abilities a bit. Get rid of the whole P/T thing, make her a 4/5 or 4/4 most likely.
Give her a new ability that lets her remove a certain amount of -1/-1 counters from a creature and pay some cost to do something cool with artifacts. Maybe put one onto the field.
Also, wasn't that Test of Metal that she fell apart? Because from what I understand, Test of Metal isn't really canon.
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Signature done by perv90210
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(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
But... but "Quest for Karn" unequivocally sucked. AND
Thank you to Rivenor for this awesome banner!
Palladia-Mors of {The Spirit of EDH}
EDH
WLinvala, Queen of the AngelsW
WUThe Prison of the Grand ArbiterUW [Primer]
URNiv-Mizzet, Handcycling ComboRU
UTalrand, Drake-Slinging to VictoryU
WUGDerevi, Tactical ShufflingGUW
BCao Cao, Discard Stax of Absolute MiseryB
I'm fairly sure I read in a few places that Test of Metal was so bad, it's not canon anymore, if it was ever canon to begin with.
EDIT:
So I've been thinking about having a list for Isperia, for whenever I get around to building blue white. It'll be a flying toolbox deck, with a sphinx theme (My tentative plan is to run some sphinxes that I would have liked in Sharuum, but just didn't really fit the deck well enough)
Anyone recommend some good flying creatures for that?
Currently, for Sphinxes, I'm looking at:
Master of Predicaments: at first I thought this might be bad with Isperia, but then I realized it adds a whole new level of trickery. Now they have to decide whether you're going to cast what you searched for, or whether you're tricking them with that. I imagine you could wave the bluff in your favor one way or another depending on what you search.
Medomai the Ageless: Extra turns are nice, especially when they can either let you get an extra tutor off of Isperia, or can let you play that thing you just searched for.
Sphinx Ambassador: Another tricky sphinx. I've always wanted a home for her.
Sphinx of Lost Truths: Surprisingly decent. I had it in Sharuum for awhile and it did decent work, but eventually got dropped.
Sphinx of Uthuun: This one is already in Sharuum, but I think it's too good to leave out here.
Windreader Sphinx: Seems almost tailor-made for this deck.
Other possibilities:
Conundrum Sphinx: Kind of a way to ensure Isperia, but probably not good enough for that.
Prognostic Sphinx: Unless you really care about scry (like Intet or Wanderer) I don't think he does enough in EDH.
Consecrated Sphinx: Torn between whether his Phyrexian-ness and Price tag will keep him out of the deck.
Vexing Sphinx: Seems absolutely hilarious.
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Signature done by perv90210
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Official Anime Enthusiast of [TheCrafters].
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Sphinx of Magosi might go in. I was hesitant because of triple blue, but I don't think it'll end up being a huge problem.
They don't have to be sphinxes, either. Just any flying critters that Isperia can go search.
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Here's my Isperia list if you want some ideas.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope is just crazy in this deck.
Tatyova | Anje
Alela | Marchesa
Wanderer
Putting monsters together right now, but I also had the idea to make a deck with some amount of Necropolis Fiend, because it's been a pet card of mine since it was spoiled and the clash pack brought that back. I'll buy the pack, try and pick up another alternate art one in trades, and put together some weird deck.
WUBRGCommander Decklists - PaperWUBRG
CCCCCommander Decklists - TheorycraftCCCC
Sig Credit: Pegasus Bishop
[Inkfox Aesthetics] [The Spirit of EDH] U Sakashima the Impostor R Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker Sigarda, Host of Herons
You definitely want to play with decks of roughly the same power level, or you want to play multiplayer (which is a little more forgiving to untuned decks sometimes). So, either tune his deck, make him a new one, or buy a commander deck yourself to play with him.
WUBRGCommander Decklists - PaperWUBRG
CCCCCommander Decklists - TheorycraftCCCC
Sig Credit: Pegasus Bishop
[Inkfox Aesthetics] [The Spirit of EDH] U Sakashima the Impostor R Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker Sigarda, Host of Herons
Another thing you could do is lend him one of your decks.
And, I mean, you'd be surprised. I was the second to last person standing in a huge game when I FIRST started playing Sharuum, largely thanks to Magister Sphinx shenanigans.
WUBRGCommander Decklists - PaperWUBRG
CCCCCommander Decklists - TheorycraftCCCC
Sig Credit: Pegasus Bishop
There were couple of newer players, so I decided to play with Toshiro against Akroma and Mimeoplasm... Then few other players asked to join and since no one objected, they joined. It the turned out that those 3 that joined are all combo-players, so there were me, these 2 new-ish players and 3 players whose turns took 90% of the time we played, since they attempted to combo out (and other 2 tried to disturb it) every turn after T3...
Also, try hammering to new players that thinking with your brains = good and letting others decide for you = bad. Also, decided everything by throwing a dice = BAD!!
Example: Daretti player has both Daretti and Koth ready to ultimate and enough dragons to deal 60 dmg within a single combat. I topdecked Oblivion Stone and had enough mana to cast and crack it, but then the not-so-experienced "control" player decides to counter it, since it would destroy his Dimir Signet. Then the Daretti player goes to combat and starts deciding which dragon attack where... with a dice. He assigned each target for each dragon by dice, totally disregarding everything else...
I kinda remembered why I loathe playing at my LGS at times... (And I truly wished I could've summoned few good players from out clan to there so I wouldn't have had to endure it alone...)
@Bur: Part of my teaching method is to avoid bad habits like rolling dice rather than choosing. Also, in my normal play groups Threat Assessment is a huge issue so that would be one of the things we would work on.
[Inkfox Aesthetics] [The Spirit of EDH] U Sakashima the Impostor R Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker Sigarda, Host of Herons
(eg. With Marchesa, the Black Rose, if it's early and there are multiple players still at 40 life and no one is really ahead, a die roll may be used there. But only early game.)
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Heh, Sharuum is getting close to a combo-killer deck. A few more counters, and she's probably there. Have I mentioned how awesome Pact of Negation is? (Also, Time Stop and even Render Silent can be helpful.)
But, then you'd have to have dealt with me playing Magister Sphinx a lot before trying to Mindslaver-lock the last player, so, I dunno if you want that.
EDIT: Everyone has horrible threat assessment for me. They always let me be because I never do too much in the early game. What they should realize is that they should be targeting me for precisely that reason Otherwise, half the time they target me too little, too late, and I end up killing a good number of them, or just straight up winning.
WUBRGCommander Decklists - PaperWUBRG
CCCCCommander Decklists - TheorycraftCCCC
Sig Credit: Pegasus Bishop
I haven't found a new playgroup here in Japan yet, and the guys I've been chatting with about playing in Tokyo (they're from these forums) all seem to play Modern or Standard. Even if I lent out my decks, those guys probably wouldn't be able to use them to optimum effect. And it doesn't help that I know each of those decks like the back of my hand... I think I need to start working on that pirate deck
Thank you to Rivenor for this awesome banner!
Palladia-Mors of {The Spirit of EDH}
EDH
WLinvala, Queen of the AngelsW
WUThe Prison of the Grand ArbiterUW [Primer]
URNiv-Mizzet, Handcycling ComboRU
UTalrand, Drake-Slinging to VictoryU
WUGDerevi, Tactical ShufflingGUW
BCao Cao, Discard Stax of Absolute MiseryB
My friend built a Melek deck that just screws with Grip of Chaos Stitch in Time and Krark's Thumb.
So that's how luck works in our playgroup.
Tatyova | Anje
Alela | Marchesa
Wanderer
That would be a bad sentence to misspell.
Tatyova | Anje
Alela | Marchesa
Wanderer
Though I'm still missing a few cards in paper, I've fishbowled the deck a few times to see how it runs. Like all decks that don't have a million and one tutors (this has 2, and one of them is a transmute card...) it's not the most consistent thing. But, it still works. Well. Too well. It's gross.
And that makes me happy
Thank you to Rivenor for this awesome banner!
Palladia-Mors of {The Spirit of EDH}
EDH
WLinvala, Queen of the AngelsW
WUThe Prison of the Grand ArbiterUW [Primer]
URNiv-Mizzet, Handcycling ComboRU
UTalrand, Drake-Slinging to VictoryU
WUGDerevi, Tactical ShufflingGUW
BCao Cao, Discard Stax of Absolute MiseryB