MTG Salvation

I fear I may be losing my mind.

It started innocently enough. Pick a cool commander, spend some time crafting a decklist, buy some cards, wait for them to come in the mail, giddily sleeve them up and put the deck together, then try it out. It was fun, it was enjoyable. I liked showing off to my friends, I like showing my creativity. I liked how it made me feel powerful.

I should have known it was driving me towards madness. Deck by deck, my hunger grew. Soon, even decks that I enjoyed, decks I loved, were scrapped to be turned into new ones mere hours after playing them. My collection began to rival the library of alexandria (it should be noted, however, that it doesn't contain library of alexandria. I'm a realist first, and it's not getting unbanned anytime soon). It grew worse day by day. Before I'd even played a deck, I'd start brewing for the next one. And then the one after that. And after that.

A week ago I dismantled my Kozilek deck, and immediately started building Grenzo. After Grenzo, Wort (the raidmother, not autie. I may be insane, but I'm not building two BR decks one after another like a weirdo). And now, when I still have 2 full sets of precons to try out, with 2 decks already built but unplayed, I built Edric.

Will this never end? Is there no limit to my lust for power (and/or card advantage)? All I can hear is the howling of the wind inside my mind, and the beckoning of dark masters calling me to "Build. Build!!!"

Anyway, so here's Edric.



Any ideas? I was thinking maybe I'd build another deck. It's been too long already, this one is boring.

The deck looks pretty sweet! I've been wanting to try out an Edric deck for a while. And that'll be a project for the future for me I'm beginning to think.
Anyway I couldn't really put in a good recommendation because I'm so happy that you have Flying Men and Cloud Pirates in the 99

Quote from Schutzwald »

The deck looks pretty sweet! I've been wanting to try out an Edric deck for a while. And that'll be a project for the future for me I'm beginning to think.
Anyway I couldn't really put in a good recommendation because I'm so happy that you have Flying Men and Cloud Pirates in the 99

Honestly they're pretty standard in competitive edric builds I think. 1-drops are just so much better than 2-drops when you're drawing 5 cards a turn.

The cards I want to include, but haven't found room for, are teferi's veil and druids' repository. Veil seems really cute with edric since it can prevent edric from letting your opponents draw cards, plus it makes your board wrath-proof. And of course repository is just ramp up the yang in a deck like this.

You may want Beastmaster Ascension and Overrun type effects as ways to speed up your win. Otherwise your opponents that are experienced and smart enough to realize what is happening will despise you.

Your deck pays rent and your deck pays quick 8)

I'm loving how streamlined this is, but second the call to add some Overrun-style stuff to accelerate your win.

Also, no Birds of Paradise? Ramp and a 1 drop with evasion (if you have buffs).

Yeah, bop might be worth it for the ramp, but I don't really have many pumps to get him dealing damage.

Beastmaster I could definitely see. Single-shot overrun effects seem too small (and too inefficient, mana-wise).

triumph of the hordes will always be my favorite single shot overrun effect. it can easily knock someone out of the game while an overrun may not.

Quote from DirkGently »

Yeah, bop might be worth it for the ramp, but I don't really have many pumps to get him dealing damage.

Beastmaster I could definitely see. Single-shot overrun effects seem too small (and too inefficient, mana-wise).

I would say Overwhelming Stampede but you probably can't consistently get a creature big enough to make it useful.

There is always Craterhoof Behemoth...but then you're "that guy".

I've had success in similar, less aggressive decks with Triumph of the Hoards.

I would consider having some secondary strats, by the way. Chord of Calling, Consecrated Sphinx, Craterhoof Behemoth...

Quote from svdormolen »

I love it,

Seems like a stable deck. Plus, you get to play some cards you normally wouldn't

The cards I want to include, but haven't found room for, are teferi's veil and druids' repository. Veil seems really cute with edric since it can prevent edric from letting your opponents draw cards, plus it makes your board wrath-proof. And of course repository is just ramp up the yang in a deck like this.

I really like Teferi's Veil. It reminds my of the old days, when I played a counterburn-deck with Ball Lightnings, Viashino Sandstalker and Fog Elementals that kept returning every turn. Not everybody is familiar with the rules regarding Phasing so I wanted to say this to your readers:

If a permanent phases out it will:
- return to play the beginning of your next turn
- return to play even if it was a token
- return to play with any counters on it that it had when it left play
- phase out with any auras or equipment attached to it (the whole thing with everyting on it will phase out)
- return to play with any auras or equipment attached to it
- not trigger leaves play abilities
- not trigger come into play abilities when it comes back in

Th eonly other thing I would like to add would be a Thassa, God of the sea for extra evasision and Scry and maybe some cheap (mana-wise) Equipment to protect your Commander.

702.23j Phased-out tokens cease to exist as a state-based action. See rule 704.5d.

Don't see Thassa making the cut. Scry 1 is pretty minor when I'm planning to draw this many cards, and the unblockability isn't that useful when all my dudes are evasive to begin with.

triumph of the hordes is an option, but I'm not blown away since I'd like to minimize cards that do nothing frequently.

As far as alt wincons, I think I need to run coastal piracy and bident as backups for edric. Hmm, need to find some room...

There's a few Edric philosophies that are critical:

1) Edric should drop on turn 2 as much as possible. This means running 11-12 sources of t1 ramp. Mox diamond/chrome mox, cmc 1 mana dorks, etc.
2) Edric mana dorks should all have power without equipment. Birds of paradise are out for this reason; they don't turn into cards on turn 3 after Edric drops.
3) Evasive beaters of 1cmc should make up the bulk of the deck. Throw in Silhana Ledgwalker and Invisible stalker are pretty solid at 2 since they bring protection. Invisible stalker with One with nature equipped will win games hilariously
4) Guys that double as protection for Edric are great (instant speed bounce guys, plaxmanta, etc.).

Sol ring and Mana crypt are weirdly too slow for Edric. They don't accelerate Edric on turn 2 so they're worthless fundamentally.

Prophet of kruphix is too slow in my opinion, and unnecessary.

Notorious throng and Knowledge Exploitation are windmill slams in Edric.

What about Psychosis Crawler as a wincon?

You still largely depend on Edric or Piracy effects through combat but you speed up the process significantly.

Quote from bigbearlyke »

What about Psychosis Crawler as a wincon?

You still largely depend on Edric or Piracy effects through combat but you speed up the process significantly.

Meh, I like beastmaster more. Deals more damage and it's less vulnerable to removal. Plus the low cost - I'll really want to keep counters up constantly to avoid getting wiped.

sol ring and mana crypt do speed up edric by a turn (somewhat awkwardly in the case of sol ring since it prevents you from playing a weenie that turn). I do have chrome mox (I run it in most decks) but not mox diamond, although I can see why it would be strong in this deck. The deck is pretty light on lands already, so I'll see how I feel after some testing whether it's worth including the diamond. I still want to find room for bident, piracy, repository, and possibly veil.

Quote from DirkGently »

Meh, I like beastmaster more. Deals more damage and it's less vulnerable to removal. Plus the low cost - I'll really want to keep counters up constantly to avoid getting wiped.

sol ring and mana crypt do speed up edric by a turn (somewhat awkwardly in the case of sol ring since it prevents you from playing a weenie that turn). I do have chrome mox (I run it in most decks) but not mox diamond, although I can see why it would be strong in this deck. The deck is pretty light on lands already, so I'll see how I feel after some testing whether it's worth including the diamond. I still want to find room for bident, piracy, repository, and possibly veil.

Yeah, I like Beastmaster more as well. I'm just trying to find things to speed up your kills. By the time Crawler helps you've basically already won. It just lowers the number of turns it actually takes.

Good Edric decks are sometimes horrifically annoying to play against because you know you've lost sometimes a dozen turns before it happens. The Edric player doesn't always understand this and is accidently inconsiderate.

My changes:

removed:
disrupt
wasteland viper
mental misstep
sundering vitae
skyshroud elite
champion of lambholt

added:
coastal piracy
bident of thassa
burgeoning
exploration
beastmaster ascension
druid's repository

Coastal piracy and bident are pretty redundant in Edric. If you think you need to include more ways to draw tons of cards, instead try ways to fish Edric back out of your deck if he gets tucked. Green sun's zenith and chord of calling are fairly cost effective ways of doing that. Additional ways to protect Edric like Cloak and Dagger / plaxmanta are pretty good too.

High market is also a really good land to be playing as it gives you another easy way to save him.

I don't think I have ever once been playing Edric and said to myself: Man, if I could draw some more cards by swinging with creatures I'd be in great shape. Two things stall your board with Edric:

1) No edric
2) Not enough creatures

#2 is fixed by playing more dudes and ways to get dudes. #1 is fixed by protecting edric.

The problem with cards like Bident and Coastal piracy is that the only thing they really fix one issue. Green sun's zenith fixes all of your problems - it finds Edric, finds a toolbox creature, finds a dryad arbor for t1 ramp into t2 Edric, finds an extra beater (GSZ for 1 for scryb sprites - stronger play than you'd think :P) or a mana dork to cast a time walk.

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I'm not a huge fan of beastmaster ascension or other beatdown enablers; they thin out your creature count much like Coastal Piracy. Playing Edric, most of the time you'd rather draw another flying men or an invisible stalker than Beastmaster. Playing BA usually involves you sacrificing 2-3 cards to hopefully trigger it before someone removes it -- assuming you'd drawn a 1/1 evasive dude instead, or a counterspell or some means of protecting Edric.

If a card does nothing to protect Edric, or swing to trigger his ability, ramp, or take an extra turn, you've got to think really hard about it. I still have exactly one card that doesn't fit that bill and it's Triumph of the Horde, which I think is a stronger finisher than Beastmaster Ascension -- because it'll knock someone out of the game on turn 4 (dork, edric, dork dork dork, triumph/swing) which BA never will.

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Also, let me reiterate - if you don't play the prowl cards, you're nuts. They're insane. Knowledge Exploitation prowled on turn 3 will win game after game. "Hey, nice beacon of tomorrows you've got there!"

Hope some of that helps

Surprisingly, I wasn't that impressed with this deck. Maybe it was just a meta thing.

Game 1 was 1v1 against gisela. I burned removal to get rid of his blockers so I could get in with my non-evasive landwalkers, then drew lands after he dropped his commander and none of my dudes could deal damage and draw cards, so I lost after putting him down to 3 life.

Game 2 was 1v1 vs Ghave and I was unassailable within a few turns. It looked like a pretty bad ghave deck though.

Game 3 was 4-player. Gisela got mana screwed, did nothing, and was basically my punching bag for cards. Ghave ramped into several boardwipes that forced all my counterspells. Roon, meanwhile, dropped a mana crypt and ramped into crazy stuff that I couldn't do anything about because I had to counterspell the board wipes. Ghave and Gisela both ended up leaving prematurely and I was out of creatures after a third boardwipe, and low on cards, so Roon had no problem with me.

While the draw was pretty significant, it was still too hard to control all elements of the game. My most successful control decks have been ones that could let a lot of stuff go, and let other people deal with them, but this deck cares about way too many kinds of things - boardwipes, removal on edric, lots of tokens that can draw a bunch of cards for other people, really any creature that's likely to get through for damage, really lots of things can be dangerous because the deck doesn't have a lot of removal. On top of that, it's such an aggro deck that you's almost always the target early on. For a control deck, I did not feel in control at all. I felt overextended, slow, and fragile. 2/5.