Good analysis. I don't have much to add but that IMO people are still vastly understimating Elesh Norn. I believe she is the most useful Praetor in the format by far. She has a crushing immediate impact on the board and completely shuts down all aggro strategies. She is actually a good deal for the mana unlike the green one and has a reasonable cost unlike the blue one. I think many people will be surprised to see how often she makes the cut in any deck with white, possibly yourself included.
That and I'd probably consider playing Oblation AND Beast Within. They both have different roles. Note as well that Beast Within can hit lands, which oblation can't.
Thanks I am looking forward to the new set. I am surprised at how many EDH gems are really coming from one set. Usually we only see like 2-3 cards in an entire set that might see play in EDH and I feel like this set really has a lot of options.
I will probably end up running both Beast Within and Oblation for a while. My only concern is what to cut to make all 3 of these cards into the deck. It wont be an easy cut by any means but it needs to be done.
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So currently I am testing the Pridemage in my deck. Sadly I havent goten as much time to really play Jenara of late due to the lack of EDH play in general in my playgroup. We play from time to time and I have been unable to make a few of the games of late but anyways. I was sort of wondering if I might be better off changing to the elder. Both of them have some cool synergy with the deck and operate very differently.
A short overview of Qasali Pridemage:
- It could provide some good interaction with some of my rez abilities in the deck due to it sacrifices to use. I can easily rez it back up for another use. The downside is a lot of my rez seems like overkill to use on something like this. I would usually rather use my rez on something like a titan.
- Due to its low mana cost it can be used with Sun Titan which is a perk.
- Works great with Skullclamp to quickly draw some cards.
A short overview of Wickerbough Elder
- Much better body size on him vs the size of the pridemage.
- Requires no mana to activate his ability.
- After using his ability I still have a creature to use for other means.
- Works better with bouncing and flickering effects
- Works better with Greater Good for drawing cards.
I am leaning more so towards using Wickerbough Elder because while the Pridemage is a bit easier to recur using some of my rez, He isnt that impressive of a creature and I have a feeling that more often than not I will want to use rez on other things. Using some of my bounce, flicker, and persist abilities on the Elder though seems a lot easier to do and more worthwhile.
Additionally I had been looking to move some cards arround so I can try out some of the NPH cards. I fought with myself over what to cut as I went through my lists. Some of them seemed a bit easier for me than others but this is what I cam up with for testing.
- Kodama's Reach -> Chancellor of the Spires I havent really had any issues with ramping and I figured I could see what it would be like if I cut one of them for a bit. The blue Chancellor is probably my highest anticipated card for EDH out of NPH. If I have problems with the loss of this ramp spell than I will probably end up taking out a creature somewhere for him to fit in but either way I can almost guarantee that Chancellor of the Spires will make it into my deck.
- Desertion -> Beast Within I have been having some problems with Desertion for some time now. The big problem is I just cannot keep open 5 mana at all times. In fact my deck often taps out. I find it difficult to keep mana open when dropping some of my big fatties. I would rather have this spot used for a removal spell for something that gets past counterspells. Beast Within looks very promising as a few 3/3s rolling about is not nearly as frightening as what the beast is replacing.
- Lightning Greaves -> Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite Ok I know this one seems like I am going overboard. After really looking back at what all the Greaves has given me I have to say that it is very limited use for my specific meta for this deck. I would agree that it is a great card and can be great for someone else using this exact decklist in a different meta but my meta tends to run wrath spells and a few instant removal spells usually along the lines of Swords, Path, and Oblation. Due to this I have very rarely been able to protect much of anything using the greaves. The bigest advantage I have found it to be is to give hast to 3 specific creatures: Sun Titan, Primeval Titan, and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre. While I like having the Greaves in play on occasion I dont rely on Jenara to get that many kills to be honest. I would stay somewhere between 30-50% of kills doe come from her but giving her haste isnt going to make or break me.
Also, what do you think of running Solemn Simulacrum in here? I like some aspects of him and yet I hate others. He is slow for the deck. I am currently running a few creatures similar to him for one less mana. I love how he can draw cards when he dies but other than that I would almost rather the one less cost and be able to rez them using things like Sun Titan. Any thoughts one way or another on him? I feel like the main difference between him and the 3 mana land fetchers is the draw a card and one turn slower aspect of him. I think it is easier for me to abuse the 3 mana guys as well as they ramp me faster but I thought I would bring him up while I was at it.
I would love some feedback on all of these changes as I am talking about 4 cards in the deck being swapped around and I do love this deck and would love for the option to make it better.
So currently I am testing the Pridemage in my deck. Sadly I havent goten as much time to really play Jenara of late due to the lack of EDH play in general in my playgroup. We play from time to time and I have been unable to make a few of the games of late but anyways. I was sort of wondering if I might be better off changing to the elder. Both of them have some cool synergy with the deck and operate very differently.
A short overview of Qasali Pridemage:
- It could provide some good interaction with some of my rez abilities in the deck due to it sacrifices to use. I can easily rez it back up for another use. The downside is a lot of my rez seems like overkill to use on something like this. I would usually rather use my rez on something like a titan.
- Due to its low mana cost it can be used with Sun Titan which is a perk.
- Works great with Skullclamp to quickly draw some cards.
A short overview of Wickerbough Elder
- Much better body size on him vs the size of the pridemage.
- Requires no mana to activate his ability.
- After using his ability I still have a creature to use for other means.
- Works better with bouncing and flickering effects
- Works better with Greater Good for drawing cards.
I am leaning more so towards using Wickerbough Elder because while the Pridemage is a bit easier to recur using some of my rez, He isnt that impressive of a creature and I have a feeling that more often than not I will want to use rez on other things. Using some of my bounce, flicker, and persist abilities on the Elder though seems a lot easier to do and more worthwhile.
They both actually cost mana to activate. In fact you could argue Pridemage is easier to activate since it just requires colorless. Personally I don't run any G/W decks so Pridemage has a certain novelty value to me. Is the difference between a 2/2 that swings for 3 and a 3/3 that goes up to 4 when you use him that great?
You don't seem to factor in the exalted, I would think that having an evasive and pumpable general you would be getting the benefit of exalted fairly often.
Also don't forget that you can bring the Pridemage back with your 'lark as well which you can't do with the Elder.
Ohhh the Elder does cost mana to activate... Hummm I should pay more attention to my cards.
The Exault factor on him is actually quite small. While it is one extra damage that my general swings in for she is pumpable and the one extra damage very rarely matters. I feel like the biggest downside of the pridemage is the fact that I have to sacrifice him to use his ability. Due to this I cannot abuse some of my bounce tactics to reuse him. He has enough toughness though to be used with the cauldron for a persist double use if need be.
The elder on the other hand is a super champ when persisting with the cauldron because I can use up the -1/-1 counters to blow out more stuff. When he persists back he gets 2 counters and gets to strip 2 targets then he has the option of persisting again. I also have flicker abilities like Venser, the Sojourner which work well with the elder but not the pridemage. Finally I can also use the elder with Equilibrium as bouncing works much better with the elder than the pridemage.
So its sort of a tough call between the two since there are different cards that work well with both...
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I didn't notice Cauldron on your list. That interaction combined with the ineffectiveness of exalted (part of what makes the mage in other formats so damn good) makes me inclined to say go with the Elder. Especially since it works so much better with blink effects.
Ok I have a few quick updates to the deck. Nothing major but I don't mind giving myself a bump with a notification of deck changes.
I have swaped the Qasali Pridemage for the Wickerbough Elder. I think they both have their time and place and think both are decent options for the deck. At the end of all of the discussion above though I just decided that the Elder fits a better role for the deck.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre has been cut to keep Lightning Greaves in the deck. While I love a lot of things about ulamog the fact that he eats my whole graveyard when he leaves as well as the fact that he just sits dead in my hand for so long are just more reasons not to run him than to run him. I had been having some trouble with not having enough finishers in the deck but considering two other fatties are going into the deck when only one is going out I think I should be fine with this exchange. It is a bit sad to see him go but he just didn't meet my needs more often than he met them. I still don't think that the greaves are a perfect fit but for now I will continue to run them.
- I updated the overview of Card Options selection to include different cards that have been in trial as well as some that have made it into the deck since creating this Primer. It had goten a bit outdated and I needed to add some to it.
Well I think thats about it for now. Thank you for the help discussing the two cards Partisan. I always appreciate feedback.
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CUTS FROM DECK Elspeth, Knight-Errant Honestly I had a bit higher hopes for Elspeth. After a while I started to notice that she didn't really do all that much. Sure if she ever made it to her ultimate people would cry but she doesn't make it that far. Someone always finds a way to kill her off. Producing a few soldier tokens and eating a removal spell just isn't enough for me to keep her around. A few extra 1/1 tokens do so little for me that she just wasn't worth it. Time for her to move along.
ADDITIONS TO TEST LOG Brainstorm Honestly I am usually not a fan of Brainstorm in EDH just due to the fact that I still have to draw 2 cards that I shoved on top of the deck. However I think due to the nature of how much this deck shuffles I will just wait to brainstorm until right before I crack a fetchland or a tutor. This will allow me to pick up some really good quality to my hand and cycle out the bad. I am willing to give it a shot at least.
TESTING COMPLETED ON Time Stretch -> Greater Good Time Stretch needed to go for some time. This deck has a lot harder time really making a huge impact with the card as it is more about the incrimental advantages over lots of turns. I do a lot of my damage over time with this deck rather than all in one or two turns. There were times like when I had an Avenger army ready to roll where it was fun but it just wasn't viable. I look forward to the utility that Greater Good gives to the deck. It gives me a sac outlet to protect from tuck, the ability to rez creatures that were otherwise about to be exiled, plus its just amazing draw / filter.
Cultivate -> Yavimaya Elder Not entirely happy to see Cultivate going out but the Elder has proven more than useful. He has tons of card advantage to him and is a great rez for a Sun Titan to hit. Increasing my creature count also gives me more options for bounce, persist, my mimic vat, plus I can use him with my Rings of Brighthearth to draw 2 cards. Sort of fun stuff.
Trygon Predator -> Wickerbough Elder The predator while being good was just too unreliable of a creature. I ended up never able to use him when I needed to, opponents could remove him to protect their good stuff, and he just didnt work fast enough. (to top it off we do attack left so I was hindered by what I could target due to that). All in all he didn't work out and the Elder is working much better.
Beast Within -> Wood Elves To be honest I tried bringing this in for a ramp spell and it was a bit of a mistake. It ended up tipping my removal spells too high and my ramp too low. I still like this spell but I think it might have to find somewhere else to come in and I don't know where yet. (Beast Within has been removed but Wood Elves is still in testing.)
Jenara is still my go to deck. By far my favorite EDH deck I have ever built. I love agro strategies and this deck just fits my playstyle so well. On a side note though... This is not the deck to hand off to a new player to try EDH. Somehow it is just horrendous to watch them try to make the deck work and its like they don't do anything all game... I guess it is tough to get all of the interactions unless you really study the deck. I sort of felt bad watching him try to run it.
Ok so I have managed a few more test games so far and I think I have more testing yet to be done. I have had to rethink my opinions of a few cards now and relook at my deck. Here are a few things I have been thinking about.
Possible Adds: Birthing Pod I have a lot of small utility guys that I am really only looking for their comes into play effects. This lets me kick from one comes into play effect to another nicely. This could be really fun when combined with some rez guys such as the guide or lark.
Solemn Simulacrum The birthing pod makes me want to look at this guy again. He is great to go get off the pod and he is great to sac to it. To top it off the Wood Elves haven't really been impressing me all that much. I am tempted to give him a shot for a bit of time in its spot. Downside obviously being that I need another land to drop him and thus he is slower to play.
Phyrexian Metamorph I like his versatility. I haven't run an actual clone for a while now but I have been tempted to bring him in for Rite of Replication. I know how good Rite is but honestly I sort of want an option to have a regular clone which can be tutored for easier, recurred very easily, and it can target shroud guys like Uril. I am running a creature heavy deck that takes advantage creatures by several means. Swapping a sorcery effect to a creature form is usually good for this deck.
Phyrexian Ingester This is another means of turning a creature into a control effect. I still dont know how much I really like playing out a clone for an extra mana but I have been trying to increase my creature count of late so I will keep him in consideration for being added. I dont entirely know what I might cut for him though considering I really sort of need all of my instant speed low mana removal as this guy just doesnt replace them. So does he go in for one of my wrath effects??? Or perhaps another spot?
Akroma, Angel of Wrath Another very aggressive finisher style creature. I have really wanted to pick up another finisher guy as I feel like I could use another. I had been using Elish Norn but honestly I dont think my meta is quite right for it. We dont see enough small token and utility guys. While I think she is super good, my meta just hasnt been quite right for her.
Possible Cuts: Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite We have almost no x/2 or less commanders in my meta and very few token style decks. I think she is super cool but I think my meta is a bit too set on the really big guys and wrathing. If she did more of the killing stuff as she comes in I would be more willing to run her. We run so much wrathing that her reducing other agro strategies over time doesn't work well because when there get several creatures on the board someone usually wraths us. The bottom line is she isn't a great swinging creature and she wasn't doing a large enough impact right away.
Wood Elves Probably my least liked ramping in the deck. He just hasn't been as impressive as I have wanted him to.
Faith's Fetters alright, I love the fact that this can enchant anything, however when on a noncreature a lot of permanents just have passive effects. This card isnt perfect by any means. I enjoyed locking down some commanders / big fatties with this but I think the possible option of running Phyrexian Ingester might be good since it exiles a creature and provides me with yet another creature.
Hummm well I think I have come up with some ideas for everything except for the Birthing Pod to make it in for some testing. If anyone has any ideas what to possibly cut even it just for trial to get some testing in with it I would be happy to hear your suggestions. I think it is a somewhat promising card that I might have overlooked a bit earlier due to the whole sorcery part of the card but still I would like to see some testing with it.
EDIT: So, end of the day I decided to take out Lightning Greaves for the Birthing Pod. While I think the Greaves are great there were very few situations where I felt like it was really making the cut for itself. I dont rely on any one creature and usually hitting the turn she comes in with Jenara is nice but not needed. Her real power usually comes the following turn.
EDIT 2: considering I just dropped an update shortly ago I will just edit this post for a few updates:
Chancellor of the Spires and Tezzeret the Seeker have found their way from the test log to the decklist. You can check the change log for a bit of information on their inclusion.
Test Log has been updated to reflect the changes that I suggested trying in this post. I will try to keep in mind how the cards would have worked differently if they were their original cards as usual.
Feel free to ask any questions you might have whether it be about why I chose this sort of build or why I chose a specific card. I would be glad to have any discussion on the decklist. I feel that it is always getting better and I very enjoy running the deck.
I know it is a bit early yet to do a rundown on all of the commander cards that are coming out. Currently the spoiler is at 47/51 though so I figure it should be close enough for me to get away with it. If the last 4 cards need to be mentioned I will update later. I am sort of bored and I enjoy doing card rundowns for my lists. This helps me really get an idea of what each potential card could do for me. If you disagree on my assessment of any of the cards let me know.
Martyr's Bond probably the only white card on the list worth mentioning. I love how its like a super grave pact. I definitely run enough creatures for it to be at least grave pact. We see a lot of wraths though so I have my worries on how it will really pan out. I dont think it will make the list right now. The cost to put it on the field feels sort of high to me. Still cool new card that I think will find a home in some decks out there.
Spell Crumple Another hinder.... this has a good chance of possibly seeing some play in my deck. I like tuck spells especially ones that can hit that damned Uril, the Miststalker. Good chance of this making my list.
Hornet Queen man I am really liking this bugger. It can be rezed off of Reveillark, abusing its comes into play effects are soooo much fun. Every token it produces is a huge blocking threat. It works great with flickering / recursion / persist tactics I have for the deck. I think this card needs to make it in for trial. Also, her tokens can be used as fodder to skullclamp if I want them to. Very fun new creature that I look forward to testing. Ohhh a quick side note on her as well. Between her and her army you can defend off a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth as you can sac the tokens to the annihilate and then block and deathtouch him. Kinda a fun fact.
EDIT: Ok so the spoiler is finished and out of the few cards I missed was Scavenging Ooze. So my consensus on this guy is that he just doesnt do enough fast enough. I prefur comes into play abilities because I get wrathed a lot. While I like graveyard hate especially when I get to target the cards. This sort of guy needs to stay in play for a long time to really have an impact. I have a feeling that if anyone wants their graveyard this guy will be getting the axe quickly. His whole building up aspect does very little for me as it will just be a few more damage which is really a drop in the bucket. Bottom line being I havent ever found Withered Wretch impressive in EDH and while this guy gets bigger as he works I dont forsee him being somehow surprisingly more effective for me. And who really cares about a few points of lifegain.
Edric, Spymaster of Trest I have tons of small utility guys. I think this has a lot of potential to be great to drop into the middle of an attacking swarm of Avenger tokens or just drop it in to be political and draw 2-4 cards off of some chump guys. Willing to get him in for some testing as well.
Champion's Helm Hummm... this is sort of like a lightning greaves. Not quite as good albeit but sort of a similar type of card. Probably not the right deck for it. I dont rely too heavily on Jenara so I can get by without this. The fact that Lightning Greaves is temporarily not in the deck I doubt that this needs to see any trial here.
Command Tower mmmmmm soooooo goood. It obviously gets a spot in the deck.
Homeward Path god this card pisses me off. I dont see a whole lot of opposing theft so I am going to leave it out but by all means if you see a lot of it go for it. Looking through this deck, the card screws over the following: Gilded Drake and Bribery. Definitely not game breaking for this deck but the card just pisses me off so much. It needed a drawback and it just doesn't have one. I expect one of these in most every EDH decks from here on. I hate this card soooo much I hope it gets banned. Anyways if theft is a problem for you even in the slightest run one of these.
EDIT: I am going to ammend this post to just discuss the new cards. I wanted to go over a lot broader topic of cards in my next post so I can include most of this poast in it instead.
Ok, this might be a bit of a long post even for me and I am sort of known for ranting in my posts. What I sort of wanted to do is sort of a rundown review on what is working in this deck and re look at some of the options I have overlooked in the past. I still want the same sort of premise for this deck as I currently have which is a high creature count and abusing ETB abilities. I will review some cards that may need some looking at as well as some options that could go into the deck.
Current Cards in Question:
Knight of the Reliquary the fact that he doesn't do anything right away has always bugged me. I have on occasion used him as a 10+ beater in some games. He is amazing as hell to use with Rings of Brighthearth and he does ramp me forward 1 mana as well. He is good but the fact that he has no immediate effect and somewhat relies on staying on the field for several turns has always bugged me. I dont run too much utility so his ability to fetch nonbasics while being good isn't required. I do like how he is sort of a big fatty who can be rezed off of my sun titan and or my Lark. (I have decided that this is a good strong swinger that has good utility to him. He can be rezed off of Sun Titan which is very cool and can ramp me forward in mana.)
Wickerbough Elder honestly I just cannot figure out what form of artifact / removal I want in this spot. I would like to keep it in creature form if possible but beyond Woodfall Primus and Acidic Slime I just cannot decide on a third option. Nothing has really stood out for me but I will keep an eye out for something I feel really belongs to this deck.
Sunblast Angel she has rarely really been gamebreaking and as much as I would love to report that I have had tons of good results from her I can really only think of one time which I managed to take out Uril, the Miststalker after he had tossed on a Runes of the Deus and pummeled someone else to death. Sadly I think she could easily go out for something else.
Rampaging Baloths while I love it when this guy works it feels like more often than not he doesnt work out so great. I would almost always rather have an Avenger of Zendikar. While I like the guy I think I need to take into consideration how powerful Jenara can be and just cast her out more often.
Chancellor of the Spires I find that this guy is extraordinarily situational. I end up holding him in my hand for entire games just hoping that he will be amazing. While I love the effect that he has there are just so many games where he doesn't do much for me. I cannot say for sure yet if he is going out or not but I do have an eye on him. It might have just been a bad few games that I have seen him. (I dont think I have had enough testing of this guy in this deck to decide one way or another yet.)
Tormod's Crypt I hate drawing this card a lot. I really really wish I could run Nihil Spellbomb or Bojuka Bog in here. I might even consider adding Primal Command back into the deck. (sadly I still really need the utility that this gives. There are games when I draw this card and am not playing against gy abuse decks but I cannot let the decks that abuse their yards run over me. This card needs to stay for now.
Equilibrium sadly... I have had this card in the deck for like 3 months now I want to say and I have never seen it once. I have sort of been second guessing it though of late. This card cannot be used defensively beyond knocking off auras. Also in my wrath heavy environment if I use this offensively to reduce opposing creatures on the board I am just encouraging them to wrath me as they have less on the board now. I think I might rather this be one of the flicker effects that I could still get an extra use or two out of some of my creatures with.
Brainstorm it had been in for trial and sadly I felt like it was having a bad top. If I had Top in play I rarely wanted it, if I didnt have top in play I wanted it instead. I dont have a whole lot of situational cards that are bad vs certain decks and so I rarely need to tuck away spells. While drawing cards for cheap is good I didnt find that I needed this card.
Bant Charm I like how versatile this card is, however I find on occasion that things like Uril, the Miststalker really beat me up. If this was instead Spell Crumple I could get away with tucking him more often. Plus there are a few things that slide past Bant Charm. I dont expect to see too much of a problem with this swap. I will just need to keep mana open when I expect I need to tuck a commander. (unless I am playing against Uril, the Miststalker I would rather have this than another Hinder.)
Mosswort Bridge honestly this card hasnt been in the deck for ages. Utility lands get stripped out from under me too often and thus I try to keep them at a reasonable power level to keep opponents from feeling needed to strip them.
Potential Adds
CREATURES: Academy Rector I have used her before and while I love the fact that I could use her to execute my survival combo I have to say I have never been able to kill her off before. I think for the short duration that I used her she was exiled like every damn time. Really annoying. (looking closely at her I realize that there is like no possible way to abuse her. She is very slow to activate and most people will be ready for Survival when she goes which is probably my main target. I think I am better off using Enlightened Tutor so I think she can be cut.)
Genesis this deck has a hard time getting him to the yard. Sure there is always the chance that I get Survival but seriously at that point I have better things to be doing than worrying about if I can hit Genesis in the yard. He is good in more drawn out games though where I might be able to pick up spare utility creatures. (Man I so badly want this guy to fit into this deck, but sadly I don't think he does. I have very few discard and or sac outlets to try to get rid of him and he is just a terrible creature to try to use on the field. I already have enough cards that tend to get my graveyard hated on and I just dont see this guy being left alone in my yard.
Terastodon really big effect punishing noncreature permenants. I hate having so many expensive creatures in a deck though. His utility he gives as well as his potential to swing in at people for 9 damage is very powerful though. (as cool as this guy is, I still have the issue that I need more of a midrange option to hate on noncreatures. Being 2 mana less puts Brutalizer Exarch higher up on my radar.
Harmonic Sliver very cheap and easy 3 mana creature that gets to destroy an art / ench when he comes in. He also potentially gives other slivers / changelings the ability to shatter stuff. Considering I am running creature heavy with less of those type of cards he could be really cool. Sadly I think I would just rather have other options for noncreature removal. While I like how cheap this guy is to cast out I usually do not need the ability to blow something up this early. I also do not like giving his ability to other changelings as I feel like it could backfire on me.
Admonition Angel I dismissed her earlier in my deckbuilding. I don't really like how my opponents get their creatures back when she leaves play. However I was thinking about possibly using her landfall ability primarily on my utility guys. This way when someone wraths I am rewarded and I get my comes into play abilities to go off again. (I keep thinking of all of the ways in which she does not work. I can just see myself trying to exile something good with her just to be responded to with a targeted removal of her and I loose my other guy for good. I think she is just too vulnerable for me to use her. We see a lot of wraths also so getting her to really work could be hard. I think a flicker effect might just be a better result altogether.)
Fierce Empath I currently run plenty of creatures whom he can target to tutor into hand. He can also be used for fodder with tons of stuff such as the skullclamp, mimic vat, Cauldron of Souls, Birthing Pod. He seems like a good candidate to consider for adding to the deck.
Mulldrifter Drawing 2 cards is an interesting prospect. I have several ways to abuse him in the deck to try to trigger him multiple times
Gaddock Teeg I experience a high number of wrath spells in my meta. I have considered adding him to the list a few times now to try to combat this. Unfortunately one of the biggest downsides is that this deck doesnt have a lot of ways in which to protect him from spot removal. I often use Glen Elendra Archmage in a similar role but she can be used to protect herself as well. (Every situation I can think of I would almost always rather have Glen Elendra Archmage in play. I think he is good but I still see a lot of spot removal as well which he cannot deal with.)
Brutalizer Exarch I might have been a bit overly harsh on this guy in the past. Others have been telling me of their success using him and other than paying 6 mana for a 3/3, he is versatile and his comes into play ability is fairly good. He has good potential to be abused with bounce, flicker, persist, and mimic vat. Tucking a noncreature spell is often as good as killing it, sometimes better. If someone is going to tutor it back up they will probably need a black tutor which could have retrieved a rez spell or yag win anyways.
Hornet Queen a new token spawner who has some very mean tokens. Flying deathtouch tokens when she hits play feels strong. I would love to try this card out a bit. I know she is up there being at 7 mana to cast, however I feel like she would be powerful with what this deck does. She might replace either Rampaging Baloths or Sunblast Angel (I decided that this creature is entirely too defensive for this deck. This effect is really better as a deterrent than an attacking force. I have this feeling that it will end up too much like Archon of Justice while being good it isnt great in an aggressive deck.)
Edric, Spymaster of Trest considering how many utility guys I have in here I love the potential to drop this guy and swing in for a bunch of cards. He is also political in the fact that people want to swing at someone else and potentially wrath him off before others can draw their cards. (as much as I had wanted to see him in play and see how he works, this deck is about CIP abilities. I am afraid that if I get him into play and want to draw cards I will be limited by how much opponents have been wrathing and hope that nobody spot removes him. All in all, Mulldrifter draws me 2 and he is variable to an unknown degree. I think I might actually just be better off without him.)
ARTIFACTS: Lightning Greaves DOS BOOT! fun stuff. This deck is creature based so shroud + haste is very powerful. I did cut this card just shortly ago for Birthing Pod. I sort of want it to make its way back in but I do like Birthing Pod so far so not for that. (So I still cannot decide to add this back in. The only real advantage that I need the haste for are the 2 titans. I see a lot of 1 mana spot removal that this doesn't really do anything to stop and a lot of wraths which this helps me recover faster but it just isnt quite enough to get a spot back in my mind.
EDIT:Sword of Light and Shadow I have been sort of wanting some more recursion to this deck. I had looked at a few one time effects but I find I like this effect the best from them.
Crystal Shard a more defensive bounce card. It also freaks people out as you can bounce their creatures if they aren't paying attention. (I think it is a good card but I dont like using something like this on really big creatures as it really slows me down. I would usually rather have something like Momentary Blink where I can get 2 flickers at instant speed.)
ENCHANTMENTS: Privileged Position shrouding everything else seems very nice. We do see a good amount of Strip Mine effects and I like how this card actually protects my lands from them. Sadly though I see a lot of wrath effects which is primarily what I have problems with. That is the biggest reason why I don't run this card. (Honestly if I saw less wrathing in my meta I might consider this one more. We see a lot of art / ench wraths too which just sweep up things like this. I like this card but I do not feel it is right for my meta.)
Lurking Predators I have seen some good use of this by our Mayael the Anima player's deck. I have smaller creatures in my deck for the most part so maybe they would be willing to let me be a bit more but I have a lot more card advantage creatures that do things when they hit play. I would like to see this hit testing for a bit at the least.
Aura Shards blowing up an artifact / enchantment with every play seems good. I probably didn't give this card its just time in the deck. I don't really know when I want to drop this into play though considering if I drop it early it usually gets blown out before my next turn. It is a powerful card but everyone can clearly see that and assumes it will be directed at them. (the more I think about it, I think I want to stick to creature based art / ench removal.)
INSTANTS: Enlightened Tutor tutor up my survival combo. There are plenty of other options as well in here for me to target as well. (As good as the survival combo is I just don't really like putting in a ton of slots devoted to it.)
Ghostway One time use flicker my whole group of guys. I rarely am able to get a lot of guys into play at the same time though. This card works amazingly with Eternal Witness as you get it back and you get all of the rest of your creatures comes into play effect as well. (I decided against this card. It made it to the final cut though. I like some of its capabilities, sadly I have experienced the other day a hand of too much creature utility without creatures and so this has made me concience of how many effects I have that interact with creatures. I don't think this is necessarily needed for the deck.)
Momentary Blink the option to flicker a creature twice here. I really sort of like this more than ghostway in case of possibly hitting like a primeval titan or sun titan twice. Good protection at a reasonable cost here as well. (If this card flickered until end of turn I think it would have to make the cut. Sadly though since my group is primarily wrath happy I have to pass on this card. Getting 2 extra CIP effects is great and it is good vs spot removal but that just isnt quite enough this time arround.)
EDIT: Spell Crumple Sorry I had meant for this card to be in here. If Bant Charm comes out at all it would be for this. An extra tuck counterspell. I have problems with Uril, the Miststalker so ya... always welcome. (I decided against cutting bant charm for this effect. I havent seen Uril as much of late in my meta and he was the primary reason for me to consider this spell. I have a hard time keeping mana open all the time so Bant Charm is generally better for me.)
SORCERY: Time Warp / Temporal Manipulation Extra untap and combat phases are welcome. These 2 extra turns are cheap enough to be able to cast a medium sized fatty and cast them in the same turn potentially. I would love to rez or cast out a primeval titan later in the game and take an extra turn. Good stuff. (As much as I would love to use these effects again I just dont know how needed they are for this deck and there are other things I am trying to fit in that I feel fit the theme of what I am doing more)
Primal Command This tutor feels a bit heavy for me, however it does have some good options as well as forcing a player to shuffle up their graveyard which is good stuff. It might be worth considering again. (Slower than I care for in my tutors. I like the versatility but god its slow to use and try to cast the creature in the same turn)
LAND: Command Tower it seems like somewhat of an obvious inclusion. Great land that gives me the option to tap for any colored mana. It has no drawbacks and I feel it also falls into the somewhat of dumbly constructed like Homeward Path, I wont complain nearly as much about this card as having a stable manabase in EDH is part of the game being fun. Getting mana screwed is totally not fun so I am actually ok with this land.
Homeward Path so I totally hate this land as I feel it was extremely poorly designed and completely overpowered. I however cannot get over the fact that I should probably run it in most of my creature heavy decks. Creature theft is a problem and even that one time that it saves me makes its inclusion worthwhile.
Feel free to comment on any card you do not think is worthy of considering or if you strongly feel there is a card I should be looking at that is not currently on the list.
EDIT: sorry I had to change the formatting like 10 times lol. Something kept bugging me about the post though. I think I am done changing the formatting on it now though.
I know you're really bummed about Homeward Path but you should be running so many answers to it already it really shouldn't be a problem.
Greater Good? High Market? Strip Mine/Ghost Quarter/whatever? And Bant can tutor for all of those cards? I agree that land is better off in the Hudson with a pair of concrete shoes but I don't see it warping our blue strategies too much. We force our opponents to have it or a tutor for it, otherwise we just keep on winning. It's not that huge of a deal to me in the end and it's definitely not going to stop me from running Gilded Drake and Bribery.
My Riku list sort of resembles this one. It's got utility guys, huge ETB beaters and ways to get some mileage out of them. I should see what kind of strategies I can come up with looking at your list some more and thinking about what red brings to the table instead of white.
I know you're really bummed about Homeward Path but you should be running so many answers to it already it really shouldn't be a problem.
Greater Good? High Market? Strip Mine/Ghost Quarter/whatever? And Bant can tutor for all of those cards? I agree that land is better off in the Hudson with a pair of concrete shoes but I don't see it warping our blue strategies too much. We force our opponents to have it or a tutor for it, otherwise we just keep on winning. It's not that huge of a deal to me in the end and it's definitely not going to stop me from running Gilded Drake and Bribery.
My Riku list sort of resembles this one. It's got utility guys, huge ETB beaters and ways to get some mileage out of them. I should see what kind of strategies I can come up with looking at your list some more and thinking about what red brings to the table instead of white.
I agree with you. I didnt plan on changing the drake or bribery due to the card. It really ticks me off but at the same time, if I expect someone might have one soon I will just bribery for something with a good ETB effect and they can steal their crummy creature back then. Or as you said use a sac outlet to drop it off.
Good luck to you on your Riku list. He looks like an incredible commander. I myself planned on staying away from him for now as I feel like he will be heavily used in my meta and I don't care to build the commander that everyone else has.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Wickerbough Elder -> Brutalizer Exarch What I like here is that I have extra versatility with the Exarch. I can tutor up other creatures if needed or I can tuck annoying permenants which is nice as I can hit land and planeswalkers with him which the Elder cannot do. Also if I find a way to really abuse the Exarch it would be better as I have more options as to what I want to do. I think the Elder was alright but I am finally starting to like the Exarch.
Sunblast Angel -> Fierce Empath I almost never really want the Sunblast and so I am cutting it for a CIP creature that tutors other creatures into hand. I have high hopes for the Empath as he is another creature that I have been aware of for a long time and just recently started to really like him.
Rampaging Baloths -> Lurking Predators Sadly there is no CIP activation on the baloths, he is a strong attacking force but has a ramp up time. The Lurking Predators is a fire and forget enchantment that I really dont have to spend any time on. I have a high creature count so hopefully I can flip a few creatures before getting the enchantment dies on me. I plan on trying to slide this card into play right after I get wrathed for the best value.
Equilibrium -> Sword of Light and Shadow sadly I just wasnt getting the Equilibrium working how I wanted it. The sword gives me 2 great protections that will help against spot removal and it gives me creature rez which I had been hoping for another effect of. I like to think of this as changing from trying to abuse creatures while I have them to abusing creatures after I loose them.
Brainstorm -> Mulldrifter Brainstorm is good in the fact that it is cheap to cast and does its job quick and easy. However Mulldrifter has the ability to be abused in this deck drawing several cards very quickly. Also it shifts a noncreature to a creature which is something I have been trying to do for a while now.
Jenara is holding strong still for me. She is currently my oldest commander in use. All of my older decks have all been retired. I see no reason why I would be dissatisfied with her anytime soon so I look forward to continuing my use of her. She is still one of my favorite commanders to grab and play. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for me. I always enjoy the discussion.
EDIT: I updated the test log to the changes log. A lot of my testing cards have proven to be worthwhile now. My last card that I am unsure of is Kodama's Reach coming out for either Wood Elves or Solemn Simulacrum. I haven't felt as compelled so far that either of them are better than Kodama's Reach. I will keep toying with it to try to find something that works. I really just needed to update a lot of the test cards to the decklist. Some of the cards I haven't been playing with for over 2 months now and don't intend to go back to.
Ok so I wasnt actually Jenara at the time but we were playing Emporor EDH and I saw my flanker play Akroma, Body Double copying Akroma and swing in with her with a Sword of Light and Shadow to rez her back to hand, The Double was then stolen by a Chromeshell Crab which was responded by playing the real Akroma to kill them both and swing in with the Crab with the sword to rez her again and then replay her again next turn... Bottom line, Akroma and Sword have proven worth their weight for sure and I am glad I have added them to the deck.
I am going to exeriment with running a bit more control for a bit with my Jenara list. We have gone back to running a lot of FFA and I have found I need more ways to punish things that attack me. I have also enjoyed the sword and figure I might as well try out a small equipment package for a bit and see how it goes. So more spot removal more equipment package goin in for testing. Currently in testing the deck looks like this:
CURRENTLY IN: Beast Within another control spell. I find that I dont have enough answers for art / ench at instant speed. (it has been cut again. I just keep feeling like it is inferior to some of my other options. I have plenty of spot removal in already and this one isnt my favorite. It is a good card but with white in here I feel I have better.) Spell Crumple another tuck spell. I like how it can hit hard to hit targets but I have to play more of a control role to keep the mana open for it. Condemn one mana easy deterrent. Tuck away commanders good stuff. Sword of Fire and Ice card advantage equipment. I run a lot of small creatures other than Jenara in the deck. The option to equip them with stuff like this and swing in for card draw / kill seems really solid. Umezawa's Jitte another card advantage equipment. I like how I can use this to throw off combat math or kill utility commanders. Stoneforge Mystic tutor up the equipment I just added. I like how it can be rezed off of Sun Titan and Reveillark Stonehewer Giant tutor up the equipment I just added. He isnt perfect as he doesnt do anything right away but I enjoy how he could potentially tutor up several equipment. Plus, I have a foiled out version which I find totally pimp. (being the spike player that I am I hate how he doesnt do anything right away. Also equipment isnt required for the deck and so I figure I will cut him. If nothing else I can drop a creature tutor in for his spot for the option to hit Stoneforge Mystic.) Gaddock Teeg turns off wrathing which has been a bit of a problem of late for the deck. Plus my opponents havent been running that much spot removal. I figure it is about time I give him a shot in the deck as he really does help heavy agro decks a lot. Mulldrifter card draw that can be abused through means of Reveillark, Mimic Vat, Cauldron of Souls
I am still sort of working out what is out of the deck currently for the above cards. I did agree to take out my survival combo though in order to make my meta happy. I dont execute it very often but still they didn't want to see the combo and so I agreed to remove it so Mirror Entity and Saffi Eriksdotter are currently out. I will work on what else. I have a few things cut right now but I don't know if they will stay out or if all of these new cards will stay in either. I never really found Saffi all that useful outside of the combo and I could do an alternate way using the Body Double as long as the Mirror Entity was still in.
I am a big spike player and that said I don't like them as the ability to regen rarely works in EDH. There are a few times in which it does but it feels like usually it isn't an option. Dropping extra cards into play which then make me more vulnerable to wrath effects seems bad as well. I dont really run any support for Jenara as she does her work just fine on her own. I havent found that I need protection beyond the fact that she is just cheap to cast and will be right back out whenever I feel like it.
as for the Plaxcaster Frogling... I see some spot removal and Jenara does run into some from time to time. I havent found it to be enough that I feel I need to include something like this though. Again I have issues with wraths sometimes and I dont like how I am just adding to that vulnerability here.
I guess the big thing to say is that while Jenara is my commander, the decklist looks a bit more like a goodstuff deck. Jenara needs no little to no assistance to woop up on people on her own so the rest of the deck attempts to win using other methods for alt wins.
I managed to get in like 6-7 games between last week tuesday and this weekend. The new build has been very robust and I have enjoyed it. I have extra utility and more spot removal control. I went away from the extreme reliance on creatures and added a few equipment and spot removal as is the deck stands like this:
CUTS: Genesis Wave I found that this was somewhat of a winmore card in the deck. It usually hits some creatures and I hope that nobody wraths me off the board in the next turn. It sits in my hand for a long time and I just haven't found it needed of late. I love it when it works but if anyone has a wrath left when I pop this it just begs to be retaliated on. Mystical Tutor Without G wave I don't have a whole lot that I need to tutor for in the deck. I figure it is about time to cut this. Lurking Predators I cut some of my creatures for more control. I guess I dont know if this needs to be cut but I hadn't drawn it in the many games it was in the deck and I have almost no ways to tutor for it. Birthing Pod I have drawn this a few times now and sometimes I just draw too much creature utility and little to no creatures. I figured it was time to cut back a few of the creature utility cards and this was one of the options I felt could be cut. It is very very good with Rings, persist, rez guys but I guess it was sort of bottom rung. Tormod's Crypt I have drawn this so many times now to have it be a dead card. There are like 2 opposing decks that abuse graveyards which I want something to answer it but I don't think this is the solution I want. Chancellor of the Spires I have drawn him several times and I guess my problem is that how good he is a sitational question every game. I have sat on him in hand several times. I know he can go infinite creatures with a Rite of Rep but I think he has more of a role in other decks. My deck has good enough colors to cover most of what he could do for me. Knight of the Reliquary Bottom line is that in this deck I have too few utility land to really make use out of him. I have never liked strict beater creatures and even though he is usually a big beater for his mana I didnt want a strict beater creature. Mirror Entity I agreed to dismantle the lark combo and this card had to go out if I was to disable it. Saffi is also being cut but I could still execute it as long as the entity was in using the Body Double. Saffi Eriksdotter I agreed to dismantle the lark combo as with my meta's request for everyone to strip out their big combos. I have always found her a bit awkward to use as it requires another good threat in play.
ADDS: Spell Crumple more tuck. I put this to amazing use this weekend when Scion tried to use a Praetor's Counsel for like 20+ cards in his bin. Luckily I looked down and realized I could say no to it. I would have gotten steamrolled by card advantage otherwise. Extra tuck is good too as some rely too much on their commanders and I like pointing that out from time to time. Condemn just cheap removal plus the option to tuck commanders seems nice. Maybe I can make Riku think twice about swinging for some damage just because he can. Sword of Fire and Ice drawing cards and shooting for damage. I haven't found this to be as solid as Light and Shadow but it has been alright. Drawing cards and killing utility commanders is always good. Umezawa's Jitte some solid utility. I used this last tuesday to shut out my opponents Animar, Soul of Elements. He couldnt drop him into play as I could just eat him on the spot. I ended up building up my counters and I gave Jenara +10/+10 to kill someone off. I dont like the ramp up time but it does it somewhat quickly and has some great options for control. Stoneforge Mystic it has been incredibly solid so far. The ability to tutor up my equipment and being so cheap to cast it is rezable off of Sun Titan and Lark. Gaddock Teeg he does a good job of turning off some of my opponents ramp and wrath spells. I ended up killing someone early because I turned off their G Wave and their 4 mana ramp spells with this. Mulldrifter good solid draw. It is a good body for the new equipment as well. It is good to abuse as well. Scavenging Ooze new addition to the deck. While creatures are vulnerable to lots more kill, I like the fact that I have more means to tutor it up, I can selectively hit multiple graveyards using it, it can carry swords and it isnt a dead card if I am not running into the yard abusers.
Hopefully I got most of the changes. I have a few open slots yet that I am trying to figure out what will fit them but I will keep looking for now. I was sort of looking to pick up another wincon for the deck but I dont know if I am too huge on my current options. Worst case senario I might just go with the new Sphinx of Uthuun as it seems really good.
Well while I am at it I might as well look at M12 for possible options to run here. There is currently 1 card missing from the spoiler but I think that is close enough to run through the list. (bah its Time Reversal... terribad card of doom. Oh well they cant all be good I suppose.)
Aegis Angel I like how this can give me some wrath resistance. I sort of feel like this is similar to saffi though. I only run like 2 creatures who I would really want and need to protect from wraths, Akroma and Jenara. Shy of getting the counter on one of them I dont really see the need in here. My other tactics are swarming with utility guys, equipping some equipment for evasion, or token swarming. I dont see this card needed most of the time in the deck.
Gideon's Avenger I sort of feel like this is the new white version of Taurean Mauler. It really resembles Knight of the Reliquary and sadly my inner spike player just wont let me play it. I think it has the ability to get really huge and it has the benefit of being rezable off of Sun Titan and Lark but without evasion and CIP abilities I just dont know. He seems like he would become extremely huge very quickly though whit I like.
Master Thief it seems amusing but a bit too situational in my mind. I guess I could always try to steal a mana stone or something of the sort but I dont see this being good all the time and I dont like situational cards too much. Giving it back when you loose him is sort of a bummer as well.
Mind Unbound This is the sort of card that you can run away with the game with... assuming nobody bothers you in your perfect world. Sadly enchantments are answered especially if they start out doing little and get huge. It costs a lot to drop in and has no immediate effect. Again my inner Spike tells me that this isnt gona work. Mabe if it cost like 3 or 4 it would be usable but I have the feeling that this wont see much play anywhere.
Phantasmal Image clone for 1U, yes please. Rezable off of Sun Titan and Lark and its another hate card for commanders. I havent run Clone in some time but considering the extra rez option of the titan and the low cost to drop I think I should at least give him a test time.
Sphinx of Uthuun mmmmmm card draw on a big flying stick. I love when I can stick my Consecrated Sphinx and this guy is another great draw engine. What I love about this guy though is that you get all of his ability on the CIP trigger. This means that people might leave him alone after that and so you can beat some face. He is deffinately getting some test time in my deck.
Visions of Beyond drawing 3 for U seems incredible. I might end up testing this at some time just to see how often I can draw 3 off of this but I have my worries about drawing just 1 for U. At that rate I would rather run Brainstorm for its constant same use. I personally dont get to the 20 cards in the bin very often so I dont know about counting on others to trigger this for me. I guess time will tell how useful this is for me. I will keep an eye on how often this would be active for me but I have a feeling it isnt that aften. Especially with how much grave hate some of the decks are picking up of late.
Druidic Satchel I think this card has some good potential. I might be willing to give this some testing as I like some of its utility. It should work great with a Top in play.
Well that looks like its about all that is worth mentioning. I feel like U and B got some of the best new cards for EDH. I will try to get my hands on some of the cards I mentioned from M12 to get some testing in.
I run a very similar deck to this and I do very well with it. It is packed full of spikey powerful cards and tons of synergy. My version is more controlling and focuses on ETB and LTB absuse. It also uses Academy Ruins and Genesis for graveyard recursion and uses high market and Birthing Pod with Trinket Mage and skullclamp for easy card draw and sacrifice. I also use Reveilark and Body Double in the deck without any infinite sac outlet, which effectively locks the game in a 1 on 1 with various other cards.
I use yosei, the morning star as my all-star in the deck, which i often fetch with birthing pod and procede to setup a lock. I have also used it to stall people out so i can setup a eternal witnesscapsizeturnabout loop and win from there.
3 of my favourite cards in the deck are Cerfew, Evacuation, and Kederekt Leviation and they each work wonderfully in my deck. For yours, I would recommend Evacuation.
What a fun set of colors and strategy, I like it alot. Mine is more geared for serious 1 on 1 compared to multiplayer and yours looks more multiplayer.
I run a very similar deck to this and I do very well with it. It is packed full of spikey powerful cards and tons of synergy. My version is more controlling and focuses on ETB and LTB absuse. It also uses Academy Ruins and Genesis for graveyard recursion and uses high market and Birthing Pod with Trinket Mage and skullclamp for easy card draw and sacrifice. I also use Reveilark and Body Double in the deck without any infinite sac outlet, which effectively locks the game in a 1 on 1 with various other cards.
I use yosei, the morning star as my all-star in the deck, which i often fetch with birthing pod and procede to setup a lock. I have also used it to stall people out so i can setup a eternal witnesscapsizeturnabout loop and win from there.
3 of my favourite cards in the deck are Cerfew, Evacuation, and Kederekt Leviation and they each work wonderfully in my deck. For yours, I would recommend Evacuation.
What a fun set of colors and strategy, I like it alot. Mine is more geared for serious 1 on 1 compared to multiplayer and yours looks more multiplayer.
Let me know what you think!
I am glad others enjoy Jenara as well. I have played a few 1 on 1 games with Jenara and she is still fairly good there even though my deck is geared for multiplayer. I really like how she can scale into the late game on her own making her powerful even if I start drawing out. As for some of your suggestions:
Academy Ruins I had actually really wanted to add this of late. My problem is that I cannot afford to cut any more basic lands. I have so many fetchlands that I often run out of basics between fetchlands and my basic fetching ramp. I think I might end up cutting Krosan Verge for it though. The fact that it comes into play tapped and costs somewhat of a lot of mana to do its ramping is sort of annoying. I love triggering the thing with Rings of Brighthearth in play to go get 4 land into play off of a land but still... it is slow and with the addition of all the new equipment that I am running plus its interaction with the metamorph I think you are spot on that this card belongs in here. I think I will swap it in.
Genesis I played him way back. The big problems I have is that we see a lot of grave hate so the whole using this guy all game isnt gona happen and that I have relatively few sac outlets. As you stated you run some of the sac lands as well which are handy. When I played him last... I think everyone in my meta had white in their decks and so we saw lots of the 1 mana exile effects which made him bad as well. I think he is really amazing when he works. That said, he hasn't worked often for me.
high market I like sac outlets but to be honest my highest priority is to fix my manabase for a turn 3 Jenara. I use her in the early game to wrack up general damage without really investing anything other than to cast her once early on. I love utility lands but I need my mana to fix and fix fast. Thus I have very little utility land in comparison to some.
Birthing Pod I did use this up to just recently. My problem I guess is sometimes I would get too much creature utility like this with lower creatures. Also when I ran this I ran super hyper agro with little control. I ended up cutting this finally when I brought in the equipment and extra control. I am not wholey against running this again but I am readjusting to how my deck is running currently.
Trinket Mage + skullclamp: I love fetching into this. I have a lot of utility guys that even without sac outlets they just die to the equip. Having a 3/1 with this on is really handy at deterring attackers as well. I love them both.
Reveilark and Body Double I do like both of these guys and even without sac outlets they can be very brutal. I don't know of any lockout effects that I can do without a sac outlet though but it can be very intense. Both are very good and both are in the deck.
Yosei, the Morning Star honestly I used to run him but I found that for multiplayer I would always rather execute a lark combo to lock everyone out. There was no reason to use Yosei in the loc as I could use the Acidic Slime to strip all of the lands rather than just tapping them down. I just found it scales better into multiplayer but I do execute some Yosei locks in my Akroma deck on occasion.
eternal witnesscapsizeturnabout Loop: This combo requires 13 mana a turn to achieve and generally turnabout isnt that effective in multiplayer as it only stalls one opponent. Generally substituting the Turnabout for Time Warp just results better but even then I would draw wayyy too much hate if I ran this as a combo. Also I have relatively no way to tutor into all 3 of the cards at the same time. I dont currently run Capsize as it requires a ton of mana to use it as well. Capsize is really solid but I feel it is a bit too slow for what I personally want from the deck.
Curfew I have looked at a few of these types of cards. To be honest though, I would usually rather use Momentary Blink to abuse my ETB effects as it can be used twice and I don't have to pay the cost of the creature as well. I wouldn't really want to drop this card in a wrath situation as I don't like saving my opponents cards either so I have a hard time liking this sort of card in multiplayer.
Evacuation I like this as a means of token destruction and or wrath protection. Sadly I have a hard time figuring out when I want to use this sort of card and I tend to tap down a lot of mana every turn. Do I use this as wrath protection? In that case why not use Ghostway which can combo well with Eternal Witness. Do I use this to destroy tokens? My problem is that I tend to have the most creatures in play and while I like my CIP triggers I tend to tap most of my mana in a turn thus not having much left to throw into something like this.
Kederekt Leviation again I dont really know when I would want this effect. I tend to swarm the board the most out of my meta and I dislike the tempo loss but I get that he is great at stalling out token strategies and reusing the CIP triggers.
Academy Ruins + Oblivion Stone: I tested the stone in the deck of late and I just found that I never really wanted to use it. I don't know if it was just that the player that I wanted to hit was hiding behind an Asceticism with tons of mana to regen or what but I dropped it into play and never had a good situation to use it. This might be that my deck is more tuned than my opponents and it wins some 60-80% of games.
I will add the Academy Ruins to the decklist. I will consider if I can get Birthing Pod back into the deck but for now it is out. I would love for you to give me a brief rundown on how you tend to run Evacuation in your deck as I just cant figure out how I would want to run it. If it is used primarily for protection I would rather run Ghostway.
@ISBPathfinder I can see why most of these are not in your deck, but if you ever tweek the deck to an ETB deck, those cards I listed are alot of fun to play.
With the reveillark and body double and high market out, you can lock someone out by either returning mystic snake or Venser to play or getting eternal witness to return a counter or bounce effect of some sort. Curfew does the same thing while also hosing decks that rely on a single creature (zur and uril).
Evacuation is a dream in my control deck and works well with all my etb effects and reveillark. Late game it often returns kederekt Leviation or Terastodon and other times it just returns eternal witness and something else. And of course it often timewalks my opponents. You could definately use ghostway in your deck over it though.
1 card I must mention to you since it outdoes another card of yours is Wood Elves. The key difference is that the land comes into play untapped. It can also grab forest duals from ravnica. Even though I have no ravnica or unlimited duels, I still prefer the wood elves big time.
As for birthing pod, perhaps you should include more 4 drops to compliment it. I will post my current birthing pod creature list.
1: Birds of Paradise , Noble Hierarch
2:Sunscape Familar , Sakura-Tribe Elder , Qasali Pridemage , Augury Owl , Mistmeadow Witch
3: Drift of Phantasms , Eternal Witness , Trinket Mage , Wood Elves
4: Phyrexian Metamorph , Mystic Snake , Venser, Shaper Savent , Solemn Simulacrum , Windborn Muse, Clone
5: Reveillark , Body Double , Mulldrifter , Genesis
6: Yosei, the Morning Star , Adarkar Valkyrie
I am still missing a few cards like Mirror Entity, Glen Eldara Archmage and Sun Titan. Yavimaya Elder is currently out because I wasn't happy with him.
one difference in our deck is the role of 4 drop creatures. Solemn, Snake and Venser all go well into birthing pod, which can then fetch either reveillark or Body Double. The 4 drops is what makes this so easy.
Birthing Pod is Kinda like Venser in that you pay alot of mana upfront and use it right away, and the turns after that it is effectively free and sets up the combos and card advantage. Even without the Body Double loops, getting lark and mulldrifter and turning them into Sun Titan or Primeval Titan seems like fun.
As for the Turnabout, I do run Heartbeat of Spring and Sunscape Familar which makes it work much better. Heartbeat is not a huge part of the deck, but is nice to drop with Palinchron, Mistmeadow Witch, Kederekt Leviation and Yosei, to make it less balanced.
@ISBPathfinder I can see why most of these are not in your deck, but if you ever tweek the deck to an ETB deck, those cards I listed are alot of fun to play.
With the reveillark and body double and high market out, you can lock someone out by either returning mystic snake or Venser to play or getting eternal witness to return a counter or bounce effect of some sort. Curfew does the same thing while also hosing decks that rely on a single creature (zur and uril).
Evacuation is a dream in my control deck and works well with all my etb effects and reveillark. Late game it often returns kederekt Leviation or Terastodon and other times it just returns eternal witness and something else. And of course it often timewalks my opponents. You could definately use ghostway in your deck over it though.
1 card I must mention to you since it outdoes another card of yours is Wood Elves. The key difference is that the land comes into play untapped. It can also grab forest duals from ravnica. Even though I have no ravnica or unlimited duels, I still prefer the wood elves big time.
As for birthing pod, perhaps you should include more 4 drops to compliment it. I will post my current birthing pod creature list.
1: Birds of Paradise , Noble Hierarch
2:Sunscape Familar , Sakura-Tribe Elder , Qasali Pridemage , Augury Owl , Mistmeadow Witch
3: Drift of Phantasms , Eternal Witness , Trinket Mage , Wood Elves
4: Phyrexian Metamorph , Mystic Snake , Venser, Shaper Savent , Solemn Simulacrum , Windborn Muse, Clone
5: Reveillark , Body Double , Mulldrifter , Genesis
6: Yosei, the Morning Star , Adarkar Valkyrie
I am still missing a few cards like Mirror Entity, Glen Eldara Archmage and Sun Titan. Yavimaya Elder is currently out because I wasn't happy with him.
one difference in our deck is the role of 4 drop creatures. Solemn, Snake and Venser all go well into birthing pod, which can then fetch either reveillark or Body Double. The 4 drops is what makes this so easy.
Birthing Pod is Kinda like Venser in that you pay alot of mana upfront and use it right away, and the turns after that it is effectively free and sets up the combos and card advantage. Even without the Body Double loops, getting lark and mulldrifter and turning them into Sun Titan or Primeval Titan seems like fun.
As for the Turnabout, I do run Heartbeat of Spring and Sunscape Familar which makes it work much better. Heartbeat is not a huge part of the deck, but is nice to drop with Palinchron, Mistmeadow Witch, Kederekt Leviation and Yosei, to make it less balanced.
Wood Elves this is actually a long story. I used to run both Cultivate and Kodama's Reach in my deck way back. I then shifted over to using Wood Elves and Farhaven Elf. When I added Birthing Pod to the deck I changed the Wood Elves to be Solemn Simulacrum as my 4 drops were a bit skimpy. I have changed back to Wood Elves since and just havent updated the list. I should probably do that when I get done with this post. I agree though they are very amazing. I like Solemn Simulacrum still but I think he is just a bit slower than I am looking for in the deck. Its sort of odd though.... I never actually realized that Wood Elves fetch the land in untapped. I usually hit a dual land though which I usually bring in tapped though so not a huge deal.
I think out of all of the bounce / flickering effects Ghostway is probably the most likely to make a slot in the deck. I don't know what I would cut for it but it has been borderline in considerations several times now. I used to use Equilibrium a few months back but it just didn't pan out so I cut it.
Curfew does have some interesting means of screwing with Uril and Zur, but still I have 3 tuck effects that can still hit them and I don't see them as often as I used to.
I probably should add more 4 drop creatures to make birthing pod better. I might add the Birthing Pod back in for now as is though and just see if I dont get any better luck off of it this time.
Yavimaya Elder - I have actually been a bit less pleased with him everytime of late. Sure he replaces himself with other cards but I dont like how he doesnt ramp me in the early game and he takes a lot of time and effort to operate. Late in the game I dont really need 2 more basic lands off of him. He might end up getting axed as he has been sort of underperforming.
Heartbeat of Spring I have looked at the whole infinite mana options using Palinchron. Sadly the only real outlet for it I could come up with is making Jenara huge and trying to kill people with her. Sadly that works really slowly in multiplayer as taking out one opponent a turn with a 1,000/1,000 commander is a good way to have someone drop Insurection on you. Due to its slow nature I dont run these effects. I immagine it is a bit better in 1 v 1 though.
I will fix my list so that the cultivate which has been out for like 4 months turns into a Wood Elves and see if I cant make room for Birthing Pod again. I suppose I could cut Yavimaya Elder to get it back in.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Birthing Pod is just a beast in Bant. I put 4 mana into it the first turn, around turns 4-6 and turn my 3 drop usually into solemn. Then i spend only 1 mana each turn and chain everything up while keeping all my mana open for whatever I want. Turning that 4 drop into reveilark which gets back 2 creatures and a 6 drop is so powerful and is again only 1 mana each turn. I can actaully sit there with a Birthing pod in play, and do nothing else and still end up a mile ahead of my opponent.
i would not recommend heartbeat or palincron or curfew for your deck but definitely birthing pod and solemn. Solemn, Archmage and Wickerbough Elder are some solid 4 drops for the pod and reveillark is the best 5 90% of the time.
Thanks to your list I am now going to run Fierce Empath and Mirror Entity Oracle of Mul Daya and Gled-Eldra Archmage in my deck.
Birthing Pod is just a beast in Bant. I put 4 mana into it the first turn, around turns 4-6 and turn my 3 drop usually into solemn. Then i spend only 1 mana each turn and chain everything up while keeping all my mana open for whatever I want. Turning that 4 drop into reveilark which gets back 2 creatures and a 6 drop is so powerful and is again only 1 mana each turn. I can actaully sit there with a Birthing pod in play, and do nothing else and still end up a mile ahead of my opponent.
i would not recommend heartbeat or palincron or curfew for your deck but definitely birthing pod and solemn. Solemn, Archmage and Wickerbough Elder are some solid 4 drops for the pod and reveillark is the best 5 90% of the time.
Thanks to your list I am now going to run Fierce Empath and Mirror Entity Oracle of Mul Daya and Gled-Eldra Archmage in my deck.
Good to hear. They are all good drops. I will work on increasing my 4 mana creature count. I knew it was a bit lacking but with the pod back in I will have to work it over once again.
Good luck with your new adds. They can be very effective. I dont know how exactly they will scale into a 1v1 environment but I have used them all to amazing success in the past.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
The mirror entity and the Archmage are certainly worth it as one combos and the other locks them out. I'm not as sure about the other 2 but they will probably make the cut. I'll post the deck online sometime.
Solemn is one of my favourites because he's colorless mana fixing. I can start the game with a utility land and a sol ring and still excel and find my colors. Sometimes I even sacrifice him to high market with a skullclamp on him and recur him with academy ruins. Talk about a draw/ramp engine
Again it is hard to tell how differently you might experience the deck in a 1 on 1 environment vs how I play it. Mine has more endgame approaches due to the fact that it is multiplayer and I do need to kill more opponents.
I love my Fierce Empath as it replaces itself in my hand with a somewhat toolbox approach. If I have a sac outlet ready I can cast him out targeting Sun Titan and drop him to the Skullclamp and use the Titan to rez him and get another target. If I opening hand him he almost always goes to get me Primeval Titan. Late in the game he will often go get me Akroma who can service as both an attacker and a blocker. I just love his versatility plus the fact that I get a body out of it. I can strap an equipment to him and send him in or use him as a chump. I can persist him or rez him and thus I just love the versatility of what he can do for the deck. He is good to sac off to Birthing Pod as well.
Mirror Entity he is in there first and foremost as part of the survival combo. Dont forget that he is a changeling though so he can benefit from tribal pumps (mmmm slivers and elves are good here) The ability to set utility guys to x/x creatures is good as well as I think I used this guy with 3 other 1/1 guys once to maul someone for 50 damage in a turn. Dont underestimate him.
Oracle of Mul Daya such a good card draw engine. It filters most all of the nonland cards directly into play. It works soooooo well with shuffle effects and topdeck manipulation. I run like 8 fetchlands and probably another 10 effects that shuffle my deck up which can adjust what I have coming. Use the orcale to ramp and filter and omg its soooo good. (Keep in mind here that I am used to a longer game which makes it better. In shorter games it becomes harder to take a lot of advantage of.)
Gled-Eldra Archmage I love this card as this is an agro deck and thus this gives me something to equip and swing with, 2 blocks, 2 wrath counters, tuck protection, just about everything I could ask for. It combos out sooooo well with avenger as well. I think I win arround 90% of games within a few turns of resolving a tooth and nail hitting her + avenger.
I will have to give Solemn another chance now that I have Academy Ruins and Birthing Pod both in the deck. I will get back when I get a chance to test him. He might come in for Condem. I have been finding I have a bit more spot removal than I care for currently and Condemn is probably the weakest link of them. I will give it some thought and try to test it out.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
That and I'd probably consider playing Oblation AND Beast Within. They both have different roles. Note as well that Beast Within can hit lands, which oblation can't.
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:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
Thada Adel Stax WIP
I will probably end up running both Beast Within and Oblation for a while. My only concern is what to cut to make all 3 of these cards into the deck. It wont be an easy cut by any means but it needs to be done.
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[Modern] Allies
Qasali Pridemage vs Wickerbough Elder
So currently I am testing the Pridemage in my deck. Sadly I havent goten as much time to really play Jenara of late due to the lack of EDH play in general in my playgroup. We play from time to time and I have been unable to make a few of the games of late but anyways. I was sort of wondering if I might be better off changing to the elder. Both of them have some cool synergy with the deck and operate very differently.
A short overview of Qasali Pridemage:
- It could provide some good interaction with some of my rez abilities in the deck due to it sacrifices to use. I can easily rez it back up for another use. The downside is a lot of my rez seems like overkill to use on something like this. I would usually rather use my rez on something like a titan.
- Due to its low mana cost it can be used with Sun Titan which is a perk.
- Works great with Skullclamp to quickly draw some cards.
A short overview of Wickerbough Elder
- Much better body size on him vs the size of the pridemage.
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Requires no mana to activate his ability.- After using his ability I still have a creature to use for other means.
- Works better with bouncing and flickering effects
- Works better with Greater Good for drawing cards.
I am leaning more so towards using Wickerbough Elder because while the Pridemage is a bit easier to recur using some of my rez, He isnt that impressive of a creature and I have a feeling that more often than not I will want to use rez on other things. Using some of my bounce, flicker, and persist abilities on the Elder though seems a lot easier to do and more worthwhile.
Additionally I had been looking to move some cards arround so I can try out some of the NPH cards. I fought with myself over what to cut as I went through my lists. Some of them seemed a bit easier for me than others but this is what I cam up with for testing.
- Kodama's Reach -> Chancellor of the Spires I havent really had any issues with ramping and I figured I could see what it would be like if I cut one of them for a bit. The blue Chancellor is probably my highest anticipated card for EDH out of NPH. If I have problems with the loss of this ramp spell than I will probably end up taking out a creature somewhere for him to fit in but either way I can almost guarantee that Chancellor of the Spires will make it into my deck.
- Desertion -> Beast Within I have been having some problems with Desertion for some time now. The big problem is I just cannot keep open 5 mana at all times. In fact my deck often taps out. I find it difficult to keep mana open when dropping some of my big fatties. I would rather have this spot used for a removal spell for something that gets past counterspells. Beast Within looks very promising as a few 3/3s rolling about is not nearly as frightening as what the beast is replacing.
- Lightning Greaves -> Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite Ok I know this one seems like I am going overboard. After really looking back at what all the Greaves has given me I have to say that it is very limited use for my specific meta for this deck. I would agree that it is a great card and can be great for someone else using this exact decklist in a different meta but my meta tends to run wrath spells and a few instant removal spells usually along the lines of Swords, Path, and Oblation. Due to this I have very rarely been able to protect much of anything using the greaves. The bigest advantage I have found it to be is to give hast to 3 specific creatures: Sun Titan, Primeval Titan, and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre. While I like having the Greaves in play on occasion I dont rely on Jenara to get that many kills to be honest. I would stay somewhere between 30-50% of kills doe come from her but giving her haste isnt going to make or break me.
Also, what do you think of running Solemn Simulacrum in here? I like some aspects of him and yet I hate others. He is slow for the deck. I am currently running a few creatures similar to him for one less mana. I love how he can draw cards when he dies but other than that I would almost rather the one less cost and be able to rez them using things like Sun Titan. Any thoughts one way or another on him? I feel like the main difference between him and the 3 mana land fetchers is the draw a card and one turn slower aspect of him. I think it is easier for me to abuse the 3 mana guys as well as they ramp me faster but I thought I would bring him up while I was at it.
I would love some feedback on all of these changes as I am talking about 4 cards in the deck being swapped around and I do love this deck and would love for the option to make it better.
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[Modern] Allies
They both actually cost mana to activate. In fact you could argue Pridemage is easier to activate since it just requires colorless. Personally I don't run any G/W decks so Pridemage has a certain novelty value to me. Is the difference between a 2/2 that swings for 3 and a 3/3 that goes up to 4 when you use him that great?
You don't seem to factor in the exalted, I would think that having an evasive and pumpable general you would be getting the benefit of exalted fairly often.
Also don't forget that you can bring the Pridemage back with your 'lark as well which you can't do with the Elder.
Like smashing face? Like not worrying about pitiful tokens or life gain? Check out Stonebrow, Krosan Hero for all your face smashing needs
The Exault factor on him is actually quite small. While it is one extra damage that my general swings in for she is pumpable and the one extra damage very rarely matters. I feel like the biggest downside of the pridemage is the fact that I have to sacrifice him to use his ability. Due to this I cannot abuse some of my bounce tactics to reuse him. He has enough toughness though to be used with the cauldron for a persist double use if need be.
The elder on the other hand is a super champ when persisting with the cauldron because I can use up the -1/-1 counters to blow out more stuff. When he persists back he gets 2 counters and gets to strip 2 targets then he has the option of persisting again. I also have flicker abilities like Venser, the Sojourner which work well with the elder but not the pridemage. Finally I can also use the elder with Equilibrium as bouncing works much better with the elder than the pridemage.
So its sort of a tough call between the two since there are different cards that work well with both...
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[Modern] Allies
Like smashing face? Like not worrying about pitiful tokens or life gain? Check out Stonebrow, Krosan Hero for all your face smashing needs
I have swaped the Qasali Pridemage for the Wickerbough Elder. I think they both have their time and place and think both are decent options for the deck. At the end of all of the discussion above though I just decided that the Elder fits a better role for the deck.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre has been cut to keep Lightning Greaves in the deck. While I love a lot of things about ulamog the fact that he eats my whole graveyard when he leaves as well as the fact that he just sits dead in my hand for so long are just more reasons not to run him than to run him. I had been having some trouble with not having enough finishers in the deck but considering two other fatties are going into the deck when only one is going out I think I should be fine with this exchange. It is a bit sad to see him go but he just didn't meet my needs more often than he met them. I still don't think that the greaves are a perfect fit but for now I will continue to run them.
- I updated the overview of Card Options selection to include different cards that have been in trial as well as some that have made it into the deck since creating this Primer. It had goten a bit outdated and I needed to add some to it.
Well I think thats about it for now. Thank you for the help discussing the two cards Partisan. I always appreciate feedback.
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[Modern] Allies
CUTS FROM DECK
Elspeth, Knight-Errant Honestly I had a bit higher hopes for Elspeth. After a while I started to notice that she didn't really do all that much. Sure if she ever made it to her ultimate people would cry but she doesn't make it that far. Someone always finds a way to kill her off. Producing a few soldier tokens and eating a removal spell just isn't enough for me to keep her around. A few extra 1/1 tokens do so little for me that she just wasn't worth it. Time for her to move along.
ADDITIONS TO TEST LOG
Brainstorm Honestly I am usually not a fan of Brainstorm in EDH just due to the fact that I still have to draw 2 cards that I shoved on top of the deck. However I think due to the nature of how much this deck shuffles I will just wait to brainstorm until right before I crack a fetchland or a tutor. This will allow me to pick up some really good quality to my hand and cycle out the bad. I am willing to give it a shot at least.
TESTING COMPLETED ON
Time Stretch -> Greater Good Time Stretch needed to go for some time. This deck has a lot harder time really making a huge impact with the card as it is more about the incrimental advantages over lots of turns. I do a lot of my damage over time with this deck rather than all in one or two turns. There were times like when I had an Avenger army ready to roll where it was fun but it just wasn't viable. I look forward to the utility that Greater Good gives to the deck. It gives me a sac outlet to protect from tuck, the ability to rez creatures that were otherwise about to be exiled, plus its just amazing draw / filter.
Cultivate -> Yavimaya Elder Not entirely happy to see Cultivate going out but the Elder has proven more than useful. He has tons of card advantage to him and is a great rez for a Sun Titan to hit. Increasing my creature count also gives me more options for bounce, persist, my mimic vat, plus I can use him with my Rings of Brighthearth to draw 2 cards. Sort of fun stuff.
Trygon Predator -> Wickerbough Elder The predator while being good was just too unreliable of a creature. I ended up never able to use him when I needed to, opponents could remove him to protect their good stuff, and he just didnt work fast enough. (to top it off we do attack left so I was hindered by what I could target due to that). All in all he didn't work out and the Elder is working much better.
Beast Within -> Wood Elves To be honest I tried bringing this in for a ramp spell and it was a bit of a mistake. It ended up tipping my removal spells too high and my ramp too low. I still like this spell but I think it might have to find somewhere else to come in and I don't know where yet. (Beast Within has been removed but Wood Elves is still in testing.)
Jenara is still my go to deck. By far my favorite EDH deck I have ever built. I love agro strategies and this deck just fits my playstyle so well. On a side note though... This is not the deck to hand off to a new player to try EDH. Somehow it is just horrendous to watch them try to make the deck work and its like they don't do anything all game... I guess it is tough to get all of the interactions unless you really study the deck. I sort of felt bad watching him try to run it.
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[Modern] Allies
Possible Adds:
Birthing Pod I have a lot of small utility guys that I am really only looking for their comes into play effects. This lets me kick from one comes into play effect to another nicely. This could be really fun when combined with some rez guys such as the guide or lark.
Solemn Simulacrum The birthing pod makes me want to look at this guy again. He is great to go get off the pod and he is great to sac to it. To top it off the Wood Elves haven't really been impressing me all that much. I am tempted to give him a shot for a bit of time in its spot. Downside obviously being that I need another land to drop him and thus he is slower to play.
Phyrexian Metamorph I like his versatility. I haven't run an actual clone for a while now but I have been tempted to bring him in for Rite of Replication. I know how good Rite is but honestly I sort of want an option to have a regular clone which can be tutored for easier, recurred very easily, and it can target shroud guys like Uril. I am running a creature heavy deck that takes advantage creatures by several means. Swapping a sorcery effect to a creature form is usually good for this deck.
Phyrexian Ingester This is another means of turning a creature into a control effect. I still dont know how much I really like playing out a clone for an extra mana but I have been trying to increase my creature count of late so I will keep him in consideration for being added. I dont entirely know what I might cut for him though considering I really sort of need all of my instant speed low mana removal as this guy just doesnt replace them. So does he go in for one of my wrath effects??? Or perhaps another spot?
Akroma, Angel of Wrath Another very aggressive finisher style creature. I have really wanted to pick up another finisher guy as I feel like I could use another. I had been using Elish Norn but honestly I dont think my meta is quite right for it. We dont see enough small token and utility guys. While I think she is super good, my meta just hasnt been quite right for her.
Possible Cuts:
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite We have almost no x/2 or less commanders in my meta and very few token style decks. I think she is super cool but I think my meta is a bit too set on the really big guys and wrathing. If she did more of the killing stuff as she comes in I would be more willing to run her. We run so much wrathing that her reducing other agro strategies over time doesn't work well because when there get several creatures on the board someone usually wraths us. The bottom line is she isn't a great swinging creature and she wasn't doing a large enough impact right away.
Wood Elves Probably my least liked ramping in the deck. He just hasn't been as impressive as I have wanted him to.
Rite of Replication being a noncreature effect has been a bit of a pain.
Faith's Fetters alright, I love the fact that this can enchant anything, however when on a noncreature a lot of permanents just have passive effects. This card isnt perfect by any means. I enjoyed locking down some commanders / big fatties with this but I think the possible option of running Phyrexian Ingester might be good since it exiles a creature and provides me with yet another creature.
Hummm well I think I have come up with some ideas for everything except for the Birthing Pod to make it in for some testing. If anyone has any ideas what to possibly cut even it just for trial to get some testing in with it I would be happy to hear your suggestions. I think it is a somewhat promising card that I might have overlooked a bit earlier due to the whole sorcery part of the card but still I would like to see some testing with it.
EDIT: So, end of the day I decided to take out Lightning Greaves for the Birthing Pod. While I think the Greaves are great there were very few situations where I felt like it was really making the cut for itself. I dont rely on any one creature and usually hitting the turn she comes in with Jenara is nice but not needed. Her real power usually comes the following turn.
EDIT 2: considering I just dropped an update shortly ago I will just edit this post for a few updates:
Chancellor of the Spires and Tezzeret the Seeker have found their way from the test log to the decklist. You can check the change log for a bit of information on their inclusion.
Test Log has been updated to reflect the changes that I suggested trying in this post. I will try to keep in mind how the cards would have worked differently if they were their original cards as usual.
Feel free to ask any questions you might have whether it be about why I chose this sort of build or why I chose a specific card. I would be glad to have any discussion on the decklist. I feel that it is always getting better and I very enjoy running the deck.
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[Modern] Allies
Martyr's Bond probably the only white card on the list worth mentioning. I love how its like a super grave pact. I definitely run enough creatures for it to be at least grave pact. We see a lot of wraths though so I have my worries on how it will really pan out. I dont think it will make the list right now. The cost to put it on the field feels sort of high to me. Still cool new card that I think will find a home in some decks out there.
Spell Crumple Another hinder.... this has a good chance of possibly seeing some play in my deck. I like tuck spells especially ones that can hit that damned Uril, the Miststalker. Good chance of this making my list.
Hornet Queen man I am really liking this bugger. It can be rezed off of Reveillark, abusing its comes into play effects are soooo much fun. Every token it produces is a huge blocking threat. It works great with flickering / recursion / persist tactics I have for the deck. I think this card needs to make it in for trial. Also, her tokens can be used as fodder to skullclamp if I want them to. Very fun new creature that I look forward to testing. Ohhh a quick side note on her as well. Between her and her army you can defend off a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth as you can sac the tokens to the annihilate and then block and deathtouch him. Kinda a fun fact.
EDIT: Ok so the spoiler is finished and out of the few cards I missed was Scavenging Ooze. So my consensus on this guy is that he just doesnt do enough fast enough. I prefur comes into play abilities because I get wrathed a lot. While I like graveyard hate especially when I get to target the cards. This sort of guy needs to stay in play for a long time to really have an impact. I have a feeling that if anyone wants their graveyard this guy will be getting the axe quickly. His whole building up aspect does very little for me as it will just be a few more damage which is really a drop in the bucket. Bottom line being I havent ever found Withered Wretch impressive in EDH and while this guy gets bigger as he works I dont forsee him being somehow surprisingly more effective for me. And who really cares about a few points of lifegain.
Edric, Spymaster of Trest I have tons of small utility guys. I think this has a lot of potential to be great to drop into the middle of an attacking swarm of Avenger tokens or just drop it in to be political and draw 2-4 cards off of some chump guys. Willing to get him in for some testing as well.
Champion's Helm Hummm... this is sort of like a lightning greaves. Not quite as good albeit but sort of a similar type of card. Probably not the right deck for it. I dont rely too heavily on Jenara so I can get by without this. The fact that Lightning Greaves is temporarily not in the deck I doubt that this needs to see any trial here.
Command Tower mmmmmm soooooo goood. It obviously gets a spot in the deck.
Homeward Path god this card pisses me off. I dont see a whole lot of opposing theft so I am going to leave it out but by all means if you see a lot of it go for it. Looking through this deck, the card screws over the following: Gilded Drake and Bribery. Definitely not game breaking for this deck but the card just pisses me off so much. It needed a drawback and it just doesn't have one. I expect one of these in most every EDH decks from here on. I hate this card soooo much I hope it gets banned. Anyways if theft is a problem for you even in the slightest run one of these.
EDIT: I am going to ammend this post to just discuss the new cards. I wanted to go over a lot broader topic of cards in my next post so I can include most of this poast in it instead.
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[Modern] Allies
Current Cards in Question:
Knight of the Reliquary the fact that he doesn't do anything right away has always bugged me. I have on occasion used him as a 10+ beater in some games. He is amazing as hell to use with Rings of Brighthearth and he does ramp me forward 1 mana as well. He is good but the fact that he has no immediate effect and somewhat relies on staying on the field for several turns has always bugged me. I dont run too much utility so his ability to fetch nonbasics while being good isn't required. I do like how he is sort of a big fatty who can be rezed off of my sun titan and or my Lark.(I have decided that this is a good strong swinger that has good utility to him. He can be rezed off of Sun Titan which is very cool and can ramp me forward in mana.)Wickerbough Elder honestly I just cannot figure out what form of artifact / removal I want in this spot. I would like to keep it in creature form if possible but beyond Woodfall Primus and Acidic Slime I just cannot decide on a third option. Nothing has really stood out for me but I will keep an eye out for something I feel really belongs to this deck.
Sunblast Angel she has rarely really been gamebreaking and as much as I would love to report that I have had tons of good results from her I can really only think of one time which I managed to take out Uril, the Miststalker after he had tossed on a Runes of the Deus and pummeled someone else to death. Sadly I think she could easily go out for something else.
Rampaging Baloths while I love it when this guy works it feels like more often than not he doesnt work out so great. I would almost always rather have an Avenger of Zendikar. While I like the guy I think I need to take into consideration how powerful Jenara can be and just cast her out more often.
Chancellor of the Spires I find that this guy is extraordinarily situational. I end up holding him in my hand for entire games just hoping that he will be amazing. While I love the effect that he has there are just so many games where he doesn't do much for me. I cannot say for sure yet if he is going out or not but I do have an eye on him. It might have just been a bad few games that I have seen him.(I dont think I have had enough testing of this guy in this deck to decide one way or another yet.)Tormod's Crypt I hate drawing this card a lot. I really really wish I could run Nihil Spellbomb or Bojuka Bog in here. I might even consider adding Primal Command back into the deck.(sadly I still really need the utility that this gives. There are games when I draw this card and am not playing against gy abuse decks but I cannot let the decks that abuse their yards run over me. This card needs to stay for now.Equilibrium sadly... I have had this card in the deck for like 3 months now I want to say and I have never seen it once. I have sort of been second guessing it though of late. This card cannot be used defensively beyond knocking off auras. Also in my wrath heavy environment if I use this offensively to reduce opposing creatures on the board I am just encouraging them to wrath me as they have less on the board now. I think I might rather this be one of the flicker effects that I could still get an extra use or two out of some of my creatures with.
Brainstorm it had been in for trial and sadly I felt like it was having a bad top. If I had Top in play I rarely wanted it, if I didnt have top in play I wanted it instead. I dont have a whole lot of situational cards that are bad vs certain decks and so I rarely need to tuck away spells. While drawing cards for cheap is good I didnt find that I needed this card.
Bant Charm I like how versatile this card is, however I find on occasion that things like Uril, the Miststalker really beat me up. If this was instead Spell Crumple I could get away with tucking him more often. Plus there are a few things that slide past Bant Charm. I dont expect to see too much of a problem with this swap. I will just need to keep mana open when I expect I need to tuck a commander.(unless I am playing against Uril, the Miststalker I would rather have this than another Hinder.)Mosswort Bridge honestly this card hasnt been in the deck for ages. Utility lands get stripped out from under me too often and thus I try to keep them at a reasonable power level to keep opponents from feeling needed to strip them.
CREATURES:
Academy Rector I have used her before and while I love the fact that I could use her to execute my survival combo I have to say I have never been able to kill her off before. I think for the short duration that I used her she was exiled like every damn time. Really annoying.(looking closely at her I realize that there is like no possible way to abuse her. She is very slow to activate and most people will be ready for Survival when she goes which is probably my main target. I think I am better off using Enlightened Tutor so I think she can be cut.)Genesis this deck has a hard time getting him to the yard. Sure there is always the chance that I get Survival but seriously at that point I have better things to be doing than worrying about if I can hit Genesis in the yard. He is good in more drawn out games though where I might be able to pick up spare utility creatures.(Man I so badly want this guy to fit into this deck, but sadly I don't think he does. I have very few discard and or sac outlets to try to get rid of him and he is just a terrible creature to try to use on the field. I already have enough cards that tend to get my graveyard hated on and I just dont see this guy being left alone in my yard.Terastodon really big effect punishing noncreature permenants. I hate having so many expensive creatures in a deck though. His utility he gives as well as his potential to swing in at people for 9 damage is very powerful though.(as cool as this guy is, I still have the issue that I need more of a midrange option to hate on noncreatures. Being 2 mana less puts Brutalizer Exarch higher up on my radar.Harmonic Sliver very cheap and easy 3 mana creature that gets to destroy an art / ench when he comes in. He also potentially gives other slivers / changelings the ability to shatter stuff. Considering I am running creature heavy with less of those type of cards he could be really cool.Sadly I think I would just rather have other options for noncreature removal. While I like how cheap this guy is to cast out I usually do not need the ability to blow something up this early. I also do not like giving his ability to other changelings as I feel like it could backfire on me.Admonition Angel I dismissed her earlier in my deckbuilding. I don't really like how my opponents get their creatures back when she leaves play. However I was thinking about possibly using her landfall ability primarily on my utility guys. This way when someone wraths I am rewarded and I get my comes into play abilities to go off again.(I keep thinking of all of the ways in which she does not work. I can just see myself trying to exile something good with her just to be responded to with a targeted removal of her and I loose my other guy for good. I think she is just too vulnerable for me to use her. We see a lot of wraths also so getting her to really work could be hard. I think a flicker effect might just be a better result altogether.)Fierce Empath I currently run plenty of creatures whom he can target to tutor into hand. He can also be used for fodder with tons of stuff such as the skullclamp, mimic vat, Cauldron of Souls, Birthing Pod. He seems like a good candidate to consider for adding to the deck.
Mulldrifter Drawing 2 cards is an interesting prospect. I have several ways to abuse him in the deck to try to trigger him multiple times
Gaddock Teeg I experience a high number of wrath spells in my meta. I have considered adding him to the list a few times now to try to combat this. Unfortunately one of the biggest downsides is that this deck doesnt have a lot of ways in which to protect him from spot removal. I often use Glen Elendra Archmage in a similar role but she can be used to protect herself as well.(Every situation I can think of I would almost always rather have Glen Elendra Archmage in play. I think he is good but I still see a lot of spot removal as well which he cannot deal with.)Brutalizer Exarch I might have been a bit overly harsh on this guy in the past. Others have been telling me of their success using him and other than paying 6 mana for a 3/3, he is versatile and his comes into play ability is fairly good. He has good potential to be abused with bounce, flicker, persist, and mimic vat. Tucking a noncreature spell is often as good as killing it, sometimes better. If someone is going to tutor it back up they will probably need a black tutor which could have retrieved a rez spell or yag win anyways.
Hornet Queen a new token spawner who has some very mean tokens. Flying deathtouch tokens when she hits play feels strong. I would love to try this card out a bit. I know she is up there being at 7 mana to cast, however I feel like she would be powerful with what this deck does. She might replace either Rampaging Baloths or Sunblast Angel(I decided that this creature is entirely too defensive for this deck. This effect is really better as a deterrent than an attacking force. I have this feeling that it will end up too much like Archon of Justice while being good it isnt great in an aggressive deck.)Edric, Spymaster of Trest considering how many utility guys I have in here I love the potential to drop this guy and swing in for a bunch of cards. He is also political in the fact that people want to swing at someone else and potentially wrath him off before others can draw their cards.(as much as I had wanted to see him in play and see how he works, this deck is about CIP abilities. I am afraid that if I get him into play and want to draw cards I will be limited by how much opponents have been wrathing and hope that nobody spot removes him. All in all, Mulldrifter draws me 2 and he is variable to an unknown degree. I think I might actually just be better off without him.)ARTIFACTS:
Lightning Greaves DOS BOOT! fun stuff. This deck is creature based so shroud + haste is very powerful. I did cut this card just shortly ago for Birthing Pod. I sort of want it to make its way back in but I do like Birthing Pod so far so not for that.(So I still cannot decide to add this back in. The only real advantage that I need the haste for are the 2 titans. I see a lot of 1 mana spot removal that this doesn't really do anything to stop and a lot of wraths which this helps me recover faster but it just isnt quite enough to get a spot back in my mind.EDIT: Sword of Light and Shadow I have been sort of wanting some more recursion to this deck. I had looked at a few one time effects but I find I like this effect the best from them.
Crystal Shard a more defensive bounce card. It also freaks people out as you can bounce their creatures if they aren't paying attention.(I think it is a good card but I dont like using something like this on really big creatures as it really slows me down. I would usually rather have something like Momentary Blink where I can get 2 flickers at instant speed.)ENCHANTMENTS:
Privileged Position shrouding everything else seems very nice. We do see a good amount of Strip Mine effects and I like how this card actually protects my lands from them. Sadly though I see a lot of wrath effects which is primarily what I have problems with. That is the biggest reason why I don't run this card.(Honestly if I saw less wrathing in my meta I might consider this one more. We see a lot of art / ench wraths too which just sweep up things like this. I like this card but I do not feel it is right for my meta.)Lurking Predators I have seen some good use of this by our Mayael the Anima player's deck. I have smaller creatures in my deck for the most part so maybe they would be willing to let me be a bit more but I have a lot more card advantage creatures that do things when they hit play. I would like to see this hit testing for a bit at the least.
Aura Shards blowing up an artifact / enchantment with every play seems good. I probably didn't give this card its just time in the deck. I don't really know when I want to drop this into play though considering if I drop it early it usually gets blown out before my next turn. It is a powerful card but everyone can clearly see that and assumes it will be directed at them.(the more I think about it, I think I want to stick to creature based art / ench removal.)INSTANTS:
Enlightened Tutor tutor up my survival combo. There are plenty of other options as well in here for me to target as well.(As good as the survival combo is I just don't really like putting in a ton of slots devoted to it.)Ghostway One time use flicker my whole group of guys. I rarely am able to get a lot of guys into play at the same time though. This card works amazingly with Eternal Witness as you get it back and you get all of the rest of your creatures comes into play effect as well.(I decided against this card. It made it to the final cut though. I like some of its capabilities, sadly I have experienced the other day a hand of too much creature utility without creatures and so this has made me concience of how many effects I have that interact with creatures. I don't think this is necessarily needed for the deck.)Momentary Blink the option to flicker a creature twice here. I really sort of like this more than ghostway in case of possibly hitting like a primeval titan or sun titan twice. Good protection at a reasonable cost here as well.(If this card flickered until end of turn I think it would have to make the cut. Sadly though since my group is primarily wrath happy I have to pass on this card. Getting 2 extra CIP effects is great and it is good vs spot removal but that just isnt quite enough this time arround.)EDIT: Spell Crumple Sorry I had meant for this card to be in here. If Bant Charm comes out at all it would be for this. An extra tuck counterspell. I have problems with Uril, the Miststalker so ya... always welcome.(I decided against cutting bant charm for this effect. I havent seen Uril as much of late in my meta and he was the primary reason for me to consider this spell. I have a hard time keeping mana open all the time so Bant Charm is generally better for me.)SORCERY:
Time Warp / Temporal Manipulation Extra untap and combat phases are welcome. These 2 extra turns are cheap enough to be able to cast a medium sized fatty and cast them in the same turn potentially. I would love to rez or cast out a primeval titan later in the game and take an extra turn. Good stuff.(As much as I would love to use these effects again I just dont know how needed they are for this deck and there are other things I am trying to fit in that I feel fit the theme of what I am doing more)Primal Command This tutor feels a bit heavy for me, however it does have some good options as well as forcing a player to shuffle up their graveyard which is good stuff. It might be worth considering again.(Slower than I care for in my tutors. I like the versatility but god its slow to use and try to cast the creature in the same turn)LAND:
Command Tower it seems like somewhat of an obvious inclusion. Great land that gives me the option to tap for any colored mana. It has no drawbacks and I feel it also falls into the somewhat of dumbly constructed like Homeward Path, I wont complain nearly as much about this card as having a stable manabase in EDH is part of the game being fun. Getting mana screwed is totally not fun so I am actually ok with this land.
Homeward Path so I totally hate this land as I feel it was extremely poorly designed and completely overpowered. I however cannot get over the fact that I should probably run it in most of my creature heavy decks. Creature theft is a problem and even that one time that it saves me makes its inclusion worthwhile.
Feel free to comment on any card you do not think is worthy of considering or if you strongly feel there is a card I should be looking at that is not currently on the list.
EDIT: sorry I had to change the formatting like 10 times lol. Something kept bugging me about the post though. I think I am done changing the formatting on it now though.
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[Modern] Allies
Greater Good? High Market? Strip Mine/Ghost Quarter/whatever? And Bant can tutor for all of those cards? I agree that land is better off in the Hudson with a pair of concrete shoes but I don't see it warping our blue strategies too much. We force our opponents to have it or a tutor for it, otherwise we just keep on winning. It's not that huge of a deal to me in the end and it's definitely not going to stop me from running Gilded Drake and Bribery.
My Riku list sort of resembles this one. It's got utility guys, huge ETB beaters and ways to get some mileage out of them. I should see what kind of strategies I can come up with looking at your list some more and thinking about what red brings to the table instead of white.
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
Thada Adel Stax WIP
I agree with you. I didnt plan on changing the drake or bribery due to the card. It really ticks me off but at the same time, if I expect someone might have one soon I will just bribery for something with a good ETB effect and they can steal their crummy creature back then. Or as you said use a sac outlet to drop it off.
Good luck to you on your Riku list. He looks like an incredible commander. I myself planned on staying away from him for now as I feel like he will be heavily used in my meta and I don't care to build the commander that everyone else has.
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[Modern] Allies
Wickerbough Elder -> Brutalizer Exarch What I like here is that I have extra versatility with the Exarch. I can tutor up other creatures if needed or I can tuck annoying permenants which is nice as I can hit land and planeswalkers with him which the Elder cannot do. Also if I find a way to really abuse the Exarch it would be better as I have more options as to what I want to do. I think the Elder was alright but I am finally starting to like the Exarch.
Sunblast Angel -> Fierce Empath I almost never really want the Sunblast and so I am cutting it for a CIP creature that tutors other creatures into hand. I have high hopes for the Empath as he is another creature that I have been aware of for a long time and just recently started to really like him.
Rampaging Baloths -> Lurking Predators Sadly there is no CIP activation on the baloths, he is a strong attacking force but has a ramp up time. The Lurking Predators is a fire and forget enchantment that I really dont have to spend any time on. I have a high creature count so hopefully I can flip a few creatures before getting the enchantment dies on me. I plan on trying to slide this card into play right after I get wrathed for the best value.
Equilibrium -> Sword of Light and Shadow sadly I just wasnt getting the Equilibrium working how I wanted it. The sword gives me 2 great protections that will help against spot removal and it gives me creature rez which I had been hoping for another effect of. I like to think of this as changing from trying to abuse creatures while I have them to abusing creatures after I loose them.
Brainstorm -> Mulldrifter Brainstorm is good in the fact that it is cheap to cast and does its job quick and easy. However Mulldrifter has the ability to be abused in this deck drawing several cards very quickly. Also it shifts a noncreature to a creature which is something I have been trying to do for a while now.
Jenara is holding strong still for me. She is currently my oldest commander in use. All of my older decks have all been retired. I see no reason why I would be dissatisfied with her anytime soon so I look forward to continuing my use of her. She is still one of my favorite commanders to grab and play. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for me. I always enjoy the discussion.
EDIT: I updated the test log to the changes log. A lot of my testing cards have proven to be worthwhile now. My last card that I am unsure of is Kodama's Reach coming out for either Wood Elves or Solemn Simulacrum. I haven't felt as compelled so far that either of them are better than Kodama's Reach. I will keep toying with it to try to find something that works. I really just needed to update a lot of the test cards to the decklist. Some of the cards I haven't been playing with for over 2 months now and don't intend to go back to.
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[Modern] Allies
I am going to exeriment with running a bit more control for a bit with my Jenara list. We have gone back to running a lot of FFA and I have found I need more ways to punish things that attack me. I have also enjoyed the sword and figure I might as well try out a small equipment package for a bit and see how it goes. So more spot removal more equipment package goin in for testing. Currently in testing the deck looks like this:
CURRENTLY IN:
Beast Within another control spell. I find that I dont have enough answers for art / ench at instant speed.(it has been cut again. I just keep feeling like it is inferior to some of my other options. I have plenty of spot removal in already and this one isnt my favorite. It is a good card but with white in here I feel I have better.)Spell Crumple another tuck spell. I like how it can hit hard to hit targets but I have to play more of a control role to keep the mana open for it.
Condemn one mana easy deterrent. Tuck away commanders good stuff.
Sword of Fire and Ice card advantage equipment. I run a lot of small creatures other than Jenara in the deck. The option to equip them with stuff like this and swing in for card draw / kill seems really solid.
Umezawa's Jitte another card advantage equipment. I like how I can use this to throw off combat math or kill utility commanders.
Stoneforge Mystic tutor up the equipment I just added. I like how it can be rezed off of Sun Titan and Reveillark
Stonehewer Giant tutor up the equipment I just added. He isnt perfect as he doesnt do anything right away but I enjoy how he could potentially tutor up several equipment. Plus, I have a foiled out version which I find totally pimp.(being the spike player that I am I hate how he doesnt do anything right away. Also equipment isnt required for the deck and so I figure I will cut him. If nothing else I can drop a creature tutor in for his spot for the option to hit Stoneforge Mystic.)Gaddock Teeg turns off wrathing which has been a bit of a problem of late for the deck. Plus my opponents havent been running that much spot removal. I figure it is about time I give him a shot in the deck as he really does help heavy agro decks a lot.
Mulldrifter card draw that can be abused through means of Reveillark, Mimic Vat, Cauldron of Souls
I am still sort of working out what is out of the deck currently for the above cards. I did agree to take out my survival combo though in order to make my meta happy. I dont execute it very often but still they didn't want to see the combo and so I agreed to remove it so Mirror Entity and Saffi Eriksdotter are currently out. I will work on what else. I have a few things cut right now but I don't know if they will stay out or if all of these new cards will stay in either. I never really found Saffi all that useful outside of the combo and I could do an alternate way using the Body Double as long as the Mirror Entity was still in.
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[Modern] Allies
I am a big spike player and that said I don't like them as the ability to regen rarely works in EDH. There are a few times in which it does but it feels like usually it isn't an option. Dropping extra cards into play which then make me more vulnerable to wrath effects seems bad as well. I dont really run any support for Jenara as she does her work just fine on her own. I havent found that I need protection beyond the fact that she is just cheap to cast and will be right back out whenever I feel like it.
as for the Plaxcaster Frogling... I see some spot removal and Jenara does run into some from time to time. I havent found it to be enough that I feel I need to include something like this though. Again I have issues with wraths sometimes and I dont like how I am just adding to that vulnerability here.
I guess the big thing to say is that while Jenara is my commander, the decklist looks a bit more like a goodstuff deck. Jenara needs no little to no assistance to woop up on people on her own so the rest of the deck attempts to win using other methods for alt wins.
I managed to get in like 6-7 games between last week tuesday and this weekend. The new build has been very robust and I have enjoyed it. I have extra utility and more spot removal control. I went away from the extreme reliance on creatures and added a few equipment and spot removal as is the deck stands like this:
CUTS:
Genesis Wave I found that this was somewhat of a winmore card in the deck. It usually hits some creatures and I hope that nobody wraths me off the board in the next turn. It sits in my hand for a long time and I just haven't found it needed of late. I love it when it works but if anyone has a wrath left when I pop this it just begs to be retaliated on.
Mystical Tutor Without G wave I don't have a whole lot that I need to tutor for in the deck. I figure it is about time to cut this.
Lurking Predators I cut some of my creatures for more control. I guess I dont know if this needs to be cut but I hadn't drawn it in the many games it was in the deck and I have almost no ways to tutor for it.
Birthing Pod I have drawn this a few times now and sometimes I just draw too much creature utility and little to no creatures. I figured it was time to cut back a few of the creature utility cards and this was one of the options I felt could be cut. It is very very good with Rings, persist, rez guys but I guess it was sort of bottom rung.
Tormod's Crypt I have drawn this so many times now to have it be a dead card. There are like 2 opposing decks that abuse graveyards which I want something to answer it but I don't think this is the solution I want.
Chancellor of the Spires I have drawn him several times and I guess my problem is that how good he is a sitational question every game. I have sat on him in hand several times. I know he can go infinite creatures with a Rite of Rep but I think he has more of a role in other decks. My deck has good enough colors to cover most of what he could do for me.
Knight of the Reliquary Bottom line is that in this deck I have too few utility land to really make use out of him. I have never liked strict beater creatures and even though he is usually a big beater for his mana I didnt want a strict beater creature.
Mirror Entity I agreed to dismantle the lark combo and this card had to go out if I was to disable it. Saffi is also being cut but I could still execute it as long as the entity was in using the Body Double.
Saffi Eriksdotter I agreed to dismantle the lark combo as with my meta's request for everyone to strip out their big combos. I have always found her a bit awkward to use as it requires another good threat in play.
ADDS:
Spell Crumple more tuck. I put this to amazing use this weekend when Scion tried to use a Praetor's Counsel for like 20+ cards in his bin. Luckily I looked down and realized I could say no to it. I would have gotten steamrolled by card advantage otherwise. Extra tuck is good too as some rely too much on their commanders and I like pointing that out from time to time.
Condemn just cheap removal plus the option to tuck commanders seems nice. Maybe I can make Riku think twice about swinging for some damage just because he can.
Sword of Fire and Ice drawing cards and shooting for damage. I haven't found this to be as solid as Light and Shadow but it has been alright. Drawing cards and killing utility commanders is always good.
Umezawa's Jitte some solid utility. I used this last tuesday to shut out my opponents Animar, Soul of Elements. He couldnt drop him into play as I could just eat him on the spot. I ended up building up my counters and I gave Jenara +10/+10 to kill someone off. I dont like the ramp up time but it does it somewhat quickly and has some great options for control.
Stoneforge Mystic it has been incredibly solid so far. The ability to tutor up my equipment and being so cheap to cast it is rezable off of Sun Titan and Lark.
Gaddock Teeg he does a good job of turning off some of my opponents ramp and wrath spells. I ended up killing someone early because I turned off their G Wave and their 4 mana ramp spells with this.
Mulldrifter good solid draw. It is a good body for the new equipment as well. It is good to abuse as well.
Scavenging Ooze new addition to the deck. While creatures are vulnerable to lots more kill, I like the fact that I have more means to tutor it up, I can selectively hit multiple graveyards using it, it can carry swords and it isnt a dead card if I am not running into the yard abusers.
Hopefully I got most of the changes. I have a few open slots yet that I am trying to figure out what will fit them but I will keep looking for now. I was sort of looking to pick up another wincon for the deck but I dont know if I am too huge on my current options. Worst case senario I might just go with the new Sphinx of Uthuun as it seems really good.
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Well while I am at it I might as well look at M12 for possible options to run here.
There is currently 1 card missing from the spoiler but I think that is close enough to run through the list.(bah its Time Reversal... terribad card of doom. Oh well they cant all be good I suppose.)Aegis Angel I like how this can give me some wrath resistance. I sort of feel like this is similar to saffi though. I only run like 2 creatures who I would really want and need to protect from wraths, Akroma and Jenara. Shy of getting the counter on one of them I dont really see the need in here. My other tactics are swarming with utility guys, equipping some equipment for evasion, or token swarming. I dont see this card needed most of the time in the deck.
Gideon's Avenger I sort of feel like this is the new white version of Taurean Mauler. It really resembles Knight of the Reliquary and sadly my inner spike player just wont let me play it. I think it has the ability to get really huge and it has the benefit of being rezable off of Sun Titan and Lark but without evasion and CIP abilities I just dont know. He seems like he would become extremely huge very quickly though whit I like.
Master Thief it seems amusing but a bit too situational in my mind. I guess I could always try to steal a mana stone or something of the sort but I dont see this being good all the time and I dont like situational cards too much. Giving it back when you loose him is sort of a bummer as well.
Mind Unbound This is the sort of card that you can run away with the game with... assuming nobody bothers you in your perfect world. Sadly enchantments are answered especially if they start out doing little and get huge. It costs a lot to drop in and has no immediate effect. Again my inner Spike tells me that this isnt gona work. Mabe if it cost like 3 or 4 it would be usable but I have the feeling that this wont see much play anywhere.
Phantasmal Image clone for 1U, yes please. Rezable off of Sun Titan and Lark and its another hate card for commanders. I havent run Clone in some time but considering the extra rez option of the titan and the low cost to drop I think I should at least give him a test time.
Sphinx of Uthuun mmmmmm card draw on a big flying stick. I love when I can stick my Consecrated Sphinx and this guy is another great draw engine. What I love about this guy though is that you get all of his ability on the CIP trigger. This means that people might leave him alone after that and so you can beat some face. He is deffinately getting some test time in my deck.
Visions of Beyond drawing 3 for U seems incredible. I might end up testing this at some time just to see how often I can draw 3 off of this but I have my worries about drawing just 1 for U. At that rate I would rather run Brainstorm for its constant same use. I personally dont get to the 20 cards in the bin very often so I dont know about counting on others to trigger this for me. I guess time will tell how useful this is for me. I will keep an eye on how often this would be active for me but I have a feeling it isnt that aften. Especially with how much grave hate some of the decks are picking up of late.
Druidic Satchel I think this card has some good potential. I might be willing to give this some testing as I like some of its utility. It should work great with a Top in play.
Well that looks like its about all that is worth mentioning. I feel like U and B got some of the best new cards for EDH. I will try to get my hands on some of the cards I mentioned from M12 to get some testing in.
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[Modern] Allies
I use yosei, the morning star as my all-star in the deck, which i often fetch with birthing pod and procede to setup a lock. I have also used it to stall people out so i can setup a eternal witness capsize turnabout loop and win from there.
3 of my favourite cards in the deck are Cerfew, Evacuation, and Kederekt Leviation and they each work wonderfully in my deck. For yours, I would recommend Evacuation.
Also, Academy Ruins + Phyrexian Metamorph is repeatable general kill and with Oblivion Stone, can achieve a soft lock late game.
What a fun set of colors and strategy, I like it alot. Mine is more geared for serious 1 on 1 compared to multiplayer and yours looks more multiplayer.
Let me know what you think!
I am glad others enjoy Jenara as well. I have played a few 1 on 1 games with Jenara and she is still fairly good there even though my deck is geared for multiplayer. I really like how she can scale into the late game on her own making her powerful even if I start drawing out. As for some of your suggestions:
Academy Ruins I had actually really wanted to add this of late. My problem is that I cannot afford to cut any more basic lands. I have so many fetchlands that I often run out of basics between fetchlands and my basic fetching ramp. I think I might end up cutting Krosan Verge for it though. The fact that it comes into play tapped and costs somewhat of a lot of mana to do its ramping is sort of annoying. I love triggering the thing with Rings of Brighthearth in play to go get 4 land into play off of a land but still... it is slow and with the addition of all the new equipment that I am running plus its interaction with the metamorph I think you are spot on that this card belongs in here. I think I will swap it in.
Genesis I played him way back. The big problems I have is that we see a lot of grave hate so the whole using this guy all game isnt gona happen and that I have relatively few sac outlets. As you stated you run some of the sac lands as well which are handy. When I played him last... I think everyone in my meta had white in their decks and so we saw lots of the 1 mana exile effects which made him bad as well. I think he is really amazing when he works. That said, he hasn't worked often for me.
high market I like sac outlets but to be honest my highest priority is to fix my manabase for a turn 3 Jenara. I use her in the early game to wrack up general damage without really investing anything other than to cast her once early on. I love utility lands but I need my mana to fix and fix fast. Thus I have very little utility land in comparison to some.
Birthing Pod I did use this up to just recently. My problem I guess is sometimes I would get too much creature utility like this with lower creatures. Also when I ran this I ran super hyper agro with little control. I ended up cutting this finally when I brought in the equipment and extra control. I am not wholey against running this again but I am readjusting to how my deck is running currently.
Trinket Mage + skullclamp: I love fetching into this. I have a lot of utility guys that even without sac outlets they just die to the equip. Having a 3/1 with this on is really handy at deterring attackers as well. I love them both.
Reveilark and Body Double I do like both of these guys and even without sac outlets they can be very brutal. I don't know of any lockout effects that I can do without a sac outlet though but it can be very intense. Both are very good and both are in the deck.
Yosei, the Morning Star honestly I used to run him but I found that for multiplayer I would always rather execute a lark combo to lock everyone out. There was no reason to use Yosei in the loc as I could use the Acidic Slime to strip all of the lands rather than just tapping them down. I just found it scales better into multiplayer but I do execute some Yosei locks in my Akroma deck on occasion.
eternal witness capsize turnabout Loop: This combo requires 13 mana a turn to achieve and generally turnabout isnt that effective in multiplayer as it only stalls one opponent. Generally substituting the Turnabout for Time Warp just results better but even then I would draw wayyy too much hate if I ran this as a combo. Also I have relatively no way to tutor into all 3 of the cards at the same time. I dont currently run Capsize as it requires a ton of mana to use it as well. Capsize is really solid but I feel it is a bit too slow for what I personally want from the deck.
Curfew I have looked at a few of these types of cards. To be honest though, I would usually rather use Momentary Blink to abuse my ETB effects as it can be used twice and I don't have to pay the cost of the creature as well. I wouldn't really want to drop this card in a wrath situation as I don't like saving my opponents cards either so I have a hard time liking this sort of card in multiplayer.
Evacuation I like this as a means of token destruction and or wrath protection. Sadly I have a hard time figuring out when I want to use this sort of card and I tend to tap down a lot of mana every turn. Do I use this as wrath protection? In that case why not use Ghostway which can combo well with Eternal Witness. Do I use this to destroy tokens? My problem is that I tend to have the most creatures in play and while I like my CIP triggers I tend to tap most of my mana in a turn thus not having much left to throw into something like this.
Kederekt Leviation again I dont really know when I would want this effect. I tend to swarm the board the most out of my meta and I dislike the tempo loss but I get that he is great at stalling out token strategies and reusing the CIP triggers.
Academy Ruins + Phyrexian Metamorph: I love this and I want to use it. Again adding the ruins.
Academy Ruins + Oblivion Stone: I tested the stone in the deck of late and I just found that I never really wanted to use it. I don't know if it was just that the player that I wanted to hit was hiding behind an Asceticism with tons of mana to regen or what but I dropped it into play and never had a good situation to use it. This might be that my deck is more tuned than my opponents and it wins some 60-80% of games.
I will add the Academy Ruins to the decklist. I will consider if I can get Birthing Pod back into the deck but for now it is out. I would love for you to give me a brief rundown on how you tend to run Evacuation in your deck as I just cant figure out how I would want to run it. If it is used primarily for protection I would rather run Ghostway.
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[Modern] Allies
With the reveillark and body double and high market out, you can lock someone out by either returning mystic snake or Venser to play or getting eternal witness to return a counter or bounce effect of some sort. Curfew does the same thing while also hosing decks that rely on a single creature (zur and uril).
Evacuation is a dream in my control deck and works well with all my etb effects and reveillark. Late game it often returns kederekt Leviation or Terastodon and other times it just returns eternal witness and something else. And of course it often timewalks my opponents. You could definately use ghostway in your deck over it though.
1 card I must mention to you since it outdoes another card of yours is Wood Elves. The key difference is that the land comes into play untapped. It can also grab forest duals from ravnica. Even though I have no ravnica or unlimited duels, I still prefer the wood elves big time.
As for birthing pod, perhaps you should include more 4 drops to compliment it. I will post my current birthing pod creature list.
1: Birds of Paradise , Noble Hierarch
2:Sunscape Familar , Sakura-Tribe Elder , Qasali Pridemage , Augury Owl , Mistmeadow Witch
3: Drift of Phantasms , Eternal Witness , Trinket Mage , Wood Elves
4: Phyrexian Metamorph , Mystic Snake , Venser, Shaper Savent , Solemn Simulacrum , Windborn Muse, Clone
5: Reveillark , Body Double , Mulldrifter , Genesis
6: Yosei, the Morning Star , Adarkar Valkyrie
I am still missing a few cards like Mirror Entity, Glen Eldara Archmage and Sun Titan. Yavimaya Elder is currently out because I wasn't happy with him.
one difference in our deck is the role of 4 drop creatures. Solemn, Snake and Venser all go well into birthing pod, which can then fetch either reveillark or Body Double. The 4 drops is what makes this so easy.
Birthing Pod is Kinda like Venser in that you pay alot of mana upfront and use it right away, and the turns after that it is effectively free and sets up the combos and card advantage. Even without the Body Double loops, getting lark and mulldrifter and turning them into Sun Titan or Primeval Titan seems like fun.
As for the Turnabout, I do run Heartbeat of Spring and Sunscape Familar which makes it work much better. Heartbeat is not a huge part of the deck, but is nice to drop with Palinchron, Mistmeadow Witch, Kederekt Leviation and Yosei, to make it less balanced.
Wood Elves this is actually a long story. I used to run both Cultivate and Kodama's Reach in my deck way back. I then shifted over to using Wood Elves and Farhaven Elf. When I added Birthing Pod to the deck I changed the Wood Elves to be Solemn Simulacrum as my 4 drops were a bit skimpy. I have changed back to Wood Elves since and just havent updated the list. I should probably do that when I get done with this post. I agree though they are very amazing. I like Solemn Simulacrum still but I think he is just a bit slower than I am looking for in the deck. Its sort of odd though.... I never actually realized that Wood Elves fetch the land in untapped. I usually hit a dual land though which I usually bring in tapped though so not a huge deal.
I think out of all of the bounce / flickering effects Ghostway is probably the most likely to make a slot in the deck. I don't know what I would cut for it but it has been borderline in considerations several times now. I used to use Equilibrium a few months back but it just didn't pan out so I cut it.
Curfew does have some interesting means of screwing with Uril and Zur, but still I have 3 tuck effects that can still hit them and I don't see them as often as I used to.
I probably should add more 4 drop creatures to make birthing pod better. I might add the Birthing Pod back in for now as is though and just see if I dont get any better luck off of it this time.
Yavimaya Elder - I have actually been a bit less pleased with him everytime of late. Sure he replaces himself with other cards but I dont like how he doesnt ramp me in the early game and he takes a lot of time and effort to operate. Late in the game I dont really need 2 more basic lands off of him. He might end up getting axed as he has been sort of underperforming.
Heartbeat of Spring I have looked at the whole infinite mana options using Palinchron. Sadly the only real outlet for it I could come up with is making Jenara huge and trying to kill people with her. Sadly that works really slowly in multiplayer as taking out one opponent a turn with a 1,000/1,000 commander is a good way to have someone drop Insurection on you. Due to its slow nature I dont run these effects. I immagine it is a bit better in 1 v 1 though.
I will fix my list so that the cultivate which has been out for like 4 months turns into a Wood Elves and see if I cant make room for Birthing Pod again. I suppose I could cut Yavimaya Elder to get it back in.
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[Modern] Allies
i would not recommend heartbeat or palincron or curfew for your deck but definitely birthing pod and solemn. Solemn, Archmage and Wickerbough Elder are some solid 4 drops for the pod and reveillark is the best 5 90% of the time.
Thanks to your list I am now going to run Fierce Empath and Mirror Entity Oracle of Mul Daya and Gled-Eldra Archmage in my deck.
Good to hear. They are all good drops. I will work on increasing my 4 mana creature count. I knew it was a bit lacking but with the pod back in I will have to work it over once again.
Good luck with your new adds. They can be very effective. I dont know how exactly they will scale into a 1v1 environment but I have used them all to amazing success in the past.
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Solemn is one of my favourites because he's colorless mana fixing. I can start the game with a utility land and a sol ring and still excel and find my colors. Sometimes I even sacrifice him to high market with a skullclamp on him and recur him with academy ruins. Talk about a draw/ramp engine
I love my Fierce Empath as it replaces itself in my hand with a somewhat toolbox approach. If I have a sac outlet ready I can cast him out targeting Sun Titan and drop him to the Skullclamp and use the Titan to rez him and get another target. If I opening hand him he almost always goes to get me Primeval Titan. Late in the game he will often go get me Akroma who can service as both an attacker and a blocker. I just love his versatility plus the fact that I get a body out of it. I can strap an equipment to him and send him in or use him as a chump. I can persist him or rez him and thus I just love the versatility of what he can do for the deck. He is good to sac off to Birthing Pod as well.
Mirror Entity he is in there first and foremost as part of the survival combo. Dont forget that he is a changeling though so he can benefit from tribal pumps (mmmm slivers and elves are good here) The ability to set utility guys to x/x creatures is good as well as I think I used this guy with 3 other 1/1 guys once to maul someone for 50 damage in a turn. Dont underestimate him.
Oracle of Mul Daya such a good card draw engine. It filters most all of the nonland cards directly into play. It works soooooo well with shuffle effects and topdeck manipulation. I run like 8 fetchlands and probably another 10 effects that shuffle my deck up which can adjust what I have coming. Use the orcale to ramp and filter and omg its soooo good. (Keep in mind here that I am used to a longer game which makes it better. In shorter games it becomes harder to take a lot of advantage of.)
Gled-Eldra Archmage I love this card as this is an agro deck and thus this gives me something to equip and swing with, 2 blocks, 2 wrath counters, tuck protection, just about everything I could ask for. It combos out sooooo well with avenger as well. I think I win arround 90% of games within a few turns of resolving a tooth and nail hitting her + avenger.
I will have to give Solemn another chance now that I have Academy Ruins and Birthing Pod both in the deck. I will get back when I get a chance to test him. He might come in for Condem. I have been finding I have a bit more spot removal than I care for currently and Condemn is probably the weakest link of them. I will give it some thought and try to test it out.
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[Modern] Allies