MTG Salvation

Introduction

The Azorius guild has a host of strong commanders for various archetypes, but up until recently there were not many Azorius creature decks. The guild typically played value creatures that interacted with non-creature spells (Auratouched Mage, Snapcaster Mage, Archaeomancer) or that draw you cards (Consecrated Sphinx, Sphinx of Uthuun). Creatures are very fragile in Commander, and often wind up being a liability if they don't generate value immediately or extreme value, and our guild in particular didn't have as many game busting creatures or the means to cast them as Green. Creatures that break the game open (e.g. Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur) also are often prohibitively costed and tend to go either in reanimator or ramp strategies that Azorius is typically weaker at. So most Azorius decks leaned toward playing creatures that fuelled playing more non-creature spells.

As such, traditional Azorius decks in Commander have tended to be prison or control decks with lots of counterspells, sweepers, or lockdown pieces. The colors make it easy to dig out things like Winter Orb, and have a variety of very powerful board control, counterspells, and targeted removal spells.

With Ephara, God of the Polis and Brago, King Eternal we have two relatively new creatures that incentivize a much different style of Azorius play - though both are pretty different, they encourage playing a lot of guys. Since I really like creatures, but am also a huge fan of the Azorius guild, this is a pretty special time in Commander history for me.

Why should you play Ephara?

The first thing that drew me to Ephara was just the idea of playing lots of creatures. But there's a subtle power to her ability that is core to my philosophy of the deck, and probably the most important aspect of her design. Ephara rewards you for playing lame creatures that wouldn't be playable in other decks because they don't generate value when they come down, and are liable to be functional card disadvantage. Her ability to essentially replace every creature you play is amazing, and tokens take it a step farther.

The second piece of her ability is that she rewards playing creatures or tokens at instant speed, which makes for an interactive and fun style of play - you're often doing things in other people's turns but not quite to an annoying level most of the time.

The third major draw to Ephara is that she's an indestructible enchantment most of the time, and thus extremely annoying to get rid of. Her resiliency makes the deck tick by getting rid of slots normally needed for protecting your commander and letting those slots be used for other things.

All of Ephara's abilities combine to make a general that doesn't need a lot of support in the form of card draw or protection spells, but in order to fully replace those abilities you need to play some cards that are not that great on their own - you have to replace resilient instant/sorcery/enchantment/artifact answers with creature based answers, and often make some sacrifices to be able to have creatures come out more frequently (flash enablers, cheat-into-play effects, ninjas, bounce spells, etc.). I love the commander and the deck because it encourages playing a very different set of cards.

Alternatives

There are honestly not many alternatives for a deck like this. While there are many strong Azorius commanders, very few of them will reward you for playing cards like Spirit of the Labyrinth or Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Aether Vial. Brago, King Eternal can create a pretty viable beatdown deck but it'll naturally focus more on reusing ETB creatures and thus be more vulnerable to Torpor Orb effects which we can largely deal with.

Since no other commanders really generate card advantage in this way, they'll generally incentivize a different style of gameplay. I think the closest you could come to an effective hatebears style of play with any other commander would be Karador, Ghost Chieftain - but leveraging the graveyard (and probably sacrificing them) instead of Ephara's ability as a source of card advantage from mediocre creatures. I promised my group I wouldn't make another hatebears deck, but if I ever do retire Ephara, Karador's Junkyard Bears is how I would do it.

Gaddock Teeg can do an OK job of it, but not having access to blue is a pretty serious weakness in my opinion. Blue's clones and theft are hard to do without. Teeg also has to bring a bunch of ways to draw cards that make the deck likely to be a little less consistent (and less interesting, since you've got to dedicate a bunch of cards to drawing more cards as opposed to furthering your gameplan). You also lose out on a lot of the instant speed interaction that I find fun (blue's flash creatures and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir).


Decklist by Type


Deck Philosophy

While there are many ways to build Ephara, I've elected to play mostly creatures and make the deck somewhat less than is "optimal" for a variety of reasons. I consider this deck to be moderately competitive, or a 75% deck. It plays a lot of powerful cards but isn't tuned to be as hyper-competitive as possible, and frankly I am not sure Ephara's potential gameplans can be made hyper-competitive successfully - that's probably best left to the more objectively powerful UW generals.

It's possible that the deck would be stronger with more control elements; there's a user with a fairly similar deck to mine that eschews some of the more questionable hatebears for more powerful non-creature spells. If you want to take the deck that direction the best thing to do is probably start removing the worst creatures and replacing them with stronger spells or creatures that are stronger on their own - it ought to be relatively obvious from looking at the list which creatures are the weakest.

With that said, the way I have elected to build Ephara is to maximize the efficiency and smoothness of the deck but sacrificing some raw power to get there. While it doesn't always play the same game, the deck always has game. It is very carefully curved to maximize the ability to play multiple creatures across multiple turns and be as efficient as possible in spending mana. I very rarely have untapped mana by the time my upkeep comes around.

Since our gameplan is to play Ephara and draw cards with her every game, there are almost no sources of card draw. There are sources of recursion to get back key tools and we can generate some decent card advantage through cards like Sun Titan if Ephara is not on the field we are at a decided disadvantage. The deck runs a lot of mediocre creatures who are just not that great of an investment if they don't replace themselves, but if they do they are quite strong. There are several strong sources of card advantage such as Stoneforge Mystic and her swords, and Sun Titan but it's definitely the exception.

We don't play a lot of tutors; despite having a lot of artifacts, there's no Fabricate or Transmute Artifact because they don't wield swords or provide card advantage. We don't run a lot of counterspells (instead running things like Venser, Shaper Savant and Glen Elendra Archmage. We run Hushwing Gryff but no Torpor Orb. We run Stoneforge Mystic and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite instead of Cathars' Crusade or Eldrazi Monument.


Token generation is a subtheme of the deck; Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Heliod, God of the Sun and Sacred Mesa are our primary methods of token creation. They tend to follow a theme: Elspeth is free and provides an alternate effect that is strong. Heliod is resilient and instant speed, and provides additional value (vigilance to the team). Sacred Mesa creates tokens very cheaply and they have evasion. Cards like Mobilization are not mana efficent enough, don't generate enough additional value, and don't provide evasive bodies.

Examples of other token generators I consider strong enough to potentially be in the deck:
Thraben Doomsayer - is free, and generates a card when he comes out
Brimaz, King of Oreskos - is free, can threaten to generate on defense, relevant sword wielder, and generates a card when he comes out
Hero of Bladehold - free tokens, provides an anthem effect, relevant sword wielder, generates a card when he comes out.
Monastery Mentor - free tokens, generates a token when he comes out, can be a relevant body. Would probably belong in a deck with a slightly higher spell count (maybe 12-ish instants would be where I would consider him. His tokens having prowess can also be relevant.
Elspeth Tirel - Makes tokens the turn she comes out, provides some lifegain potentially, and can wrath the booard in a way that leaves Ephara. Very high on the list.

Generally, a token generator that is not on a body needs to be amazingly good (re: Sacred Mesa, Elspeth, Sun's Champion).

Win conditions

The #1 win condition and the goal of the deck is to win with creature combat damage. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and her pegasi army presents the serious threat of killing one person a turn late in the game just by going over the top.

That said, the means of getting there is the key to the deck. It strives to set up any of a number of soft locks that achieve either a massive tempo advantage or a complete lockdown. There are a variety of means of achieving that end, but they usually involve a combination of hatebears that allows Ephara to build up a huge board presence while everyone else stalls on the bears.

There are multiple other ways of achieving a soft-lock that I haven't listed but they usually come when you're down to 1v1. The deck can absolutely win by just going over the top without lock, but it's much harder since we rarely have huge amounts of mana to work with.

The Infinite Combo
After enough games with the Timestream Navigator loop combos I have come to the conclusion that they are too inefficient and generally require Lightning Greaves to be very practical, which marries the deck to an equipment package that I no longer think is required. So with that in mind, the combination of Recruiter of the Guard and Intuition and Trophy Mage enable easy tutoring of the classic Reveillark combos.

Intuition can set up nearly the entire combo (searching for lark, guide, body double or recruiter/guide/double), and Recruiter of the Guard can get any piece except Reveillark. This combo is much more mana efficient (requiring ~11 mana for most iterations instead of 15-16 and multiple turns). Because of Blasting Station it can also be used to kill creatures preventing a kill (such as Shalai or Platinum Emperion.


This combo is very strong, and requires minimal bad cards while mostly using cards that are auto-includes in the deck. Unlike the previous combos used in the deck it is quite compact and easy to set up. It is unfortunately very dependent on both Blasting station and Reveillark so with either exiled the combo is offline.

At this point I think it's probably the correct option for a combo finish in this deck. If you desire to be more combo focused, it is easy to add cards like Fiend hunter or additional sac outlets such as Phyrexian Altar to enable additional ways to kill the table (For example: Altar + Lark + Venser + Guide resets everyone else's board).

Card Options

I play a lot less these days, but I've got hundreds of games into this deck so the core is pretty well established. As such I will focus most of my energy on the core of the deck. At the end of each section I'll discuss some of the cards currently in the deck, that could go in, or that I have tried out.

You'll note that many of the cards I do not play are rejected for being non-creatures; I know a number of folks who play a more spell heavy version of Ephara, which is arguably a stronger deck. I prefer the creature heavy version but if I were to make a significant change in direction that's likely the way I'd go -- pull out all of the weaker creatures and play stronger spells in their places. Many cards like Monastery Mentor make eminent sense in that approach.

Core Cards
This section is for cards that by virtue of being fantastic on their own, or highly synergistic with Ephara, I would consider the core of the deck.


Ramp and Fixing
In this section I'll discuss some of the core ramp and fixing cards in the deck and some notable options and exclusions. The general theory I have applied to ramp in this deck is to: 1) Prefer creature ramp, 2) Prefer ramp that has colors, and 3) Prefer ramp that accelerates into Ephara.

Answers
I tend to think of "answers" pretty globally as solutions to stuck board states or people's attempts to win. These cards remove stuff, sweep the board, prevent spells from resolving, etc.

Hatebears
This section will discuss the eponymous creatures of the deck, the bears! They're not all strictly speaking bears, but they are similar - small creatures with big upsides (well, downsides for your opponent). Some of these critters could be considered "answers" but generally I consider creatures to be in this section if they shut down some sort of gameplay by being on the board. Many of the creatures in the "Core" category absolutely belong in this section

Engines
In this section I'll discuss some of the key engines (including some core cards) and cards that relate to them. Generally speaking I think of an engine as something that generates recurring advantage throughout the game, or an overwhelming amount of value. Some cards classified as engines may only be so if combined with other cards (e.g. bouncing / blinking creatures)


Manabase
Ephara's manabase is carefully crafted to provide you with a high likelihood of hitting your sources on time. The deck wants at least one separate U and one W source by turn 3, and really wants WW by turn 2 most games and always by turn 4 - many key cards cost WW. UU is usually not required until turn 5-6 or so, but it's pretty important to hit eventually so you can play two blue creatures in a turn. The deck is pretty heavily toward white, but there're a lot of key blue cards. We run most of the fetchlands, but not all to help cut back our life loss a little and to minimize shuffling. Five seems to get the job done.

Because of our strict demand of always hitting UW by turn 3, I've seriously limited our ETB tapped lands and our utility lands. There are only 4 tapped lands, and 4 lands that produce only colorless mana (and two of them are functionally a ramp spell, Ancient Tomb and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx).

Notable Exclusions

How to Play

Good hand evaluation is the first step to victory in most of magic, and this deck is no exception. There are several key things to look out for in the opening hand:

* Do I have an engine? Review the card options for more, but engines are methods of generating repeated card advantage usually off of Ephara. Land Tax, Sacred Mesa, Venser, the Sojourner and Heliod, God of the Sun are good examples. You usually want an engine or a way to tutor for one, but a good grip of creatures or ramp can do the trick.

* Do I have creatures? If you don't have at least two creatures, take a long look at the hand. Do you have a way to get more, or some alternate engine? Ephara requires you to put bodies on the board as a way to get more cards, so most good hands start with a couple on-curve creatures (either before or after Ephara).

* Will I be able to cast Ephara without drawing land? If you can't answer this question "YES YES YES!" mulligan that hand with the quickness. If you stall out on lands you'll rarely recover. Once Ephara is on, she'll make you hit them!

A good hand has a ramp spell, three lands, and a creature or two. A great hand has an engine in addition to these. The best hand is Land tax, Tundra, and a grip of action.

Early Game
The early game is usually focused on ramping into Ephara. Your #1 goal is to play her asap. It's a common trap with this deck that I've fallen into myself to cast a strong 4 drop on turn 3 instead of Ephara. Resist the urge to do this. Casting that sweet Clever Impersonator as a copy of someone's Oracle of Mul Daya may seem sweet, but it's usually a way to slow yourself down on cards and playing into a wrath.

Though the ramp package is pretty highly tuned to ensure a turn 3 Ephara, you will whiff occasionally. If you whiff, look for opportunities to cast Ephara on curve and then maximize your value by casting multiple creatures spread out through subsequent turns. Sequencing is important here - you want to play your least threatening stuff first. I'll usually drop flash cards just to replace themselves in this phase of the game, really strong reactive plays like Hushwing Gryff or Aven Mindcensor occasionally. Getting your draws out of Ephara quickly is often the right play as it'll set you up for a stronger mid game.

It is usually the wrong decision to play more than one creature a turn unless you have extras. I almost always try hold at least one creature back, as playing being forced to replay Ephara with no creatures in hand is one of the worst spots this deck can be in.

Ideally, you will draw yourself into an engine if you don't have one and then run away with the game in the mid-game.

Mid Game
The best case scenario mid-game is that you've assembled one of the locks and an engine. You're drawing lots of cards and other people are casting one spell a turn or dealing with not being able to tutor, or some other annoying effect. If this is the case, I'll usually start eliminating people in threat order. Because this deck rarely combos off, you're probably going to be killing people with combat damage and not ridiculously quickly, so you've got to focus fire and get rid of the people likely to take your board state away.

The thing I usually look for when picking who to kill first is: Who can get rid of my board state and get rid of my enablers or Ephara? A mid-game wrath will usually put you way ahead since your creatures replace themselves, but a mid-game Merciless Eviction or Perilous Vault might stitch you up. Look to shut down or eliminate people who play the cards that will put you behind.

Lots of times I will wrath/sweep mid-game even if I'm ahead, if I think it'll slow other people down more than me. We don't have bombs like Craterhoof behemoth to turn a bunch of 1/1's into a win, so we need to watch out for people that do as well - many decks present unassuming board states.

If I'm behind in the mid-game, I'm usually going to focus on drawing answers, even if it makes me feel like I'm overextending. Play all your creatures and exchange them for cards and hope to hit some kind of answer. There are so many recursion engines in the deck it's usually fine to let a bunch of bears die if it gets you the Supreme Verdict you need as insurance.

Mid-game is usually where I used to regret not playing Mystical Tutor the most, as so many of our great answers are sorceries. Now with it and Spellseeker I'm finding the midgame a place where I regularly forget I need to get a wrath - but when I remember to play my tutors defensively, I tend to weather it pretty well.

It's also where I'm annoyed that I have a creature deck without green tutors. Remember just how versatile Enlightened Tutor is in this deck when you feel this way. I have in the past tried out Vedalken Æthermage to try to handle some of these weak points as it'd give me another avenue to many of my creature based answers to problem board states by finding Venser, Shaper Savant or Glen Elendra Archmage.

With the addition of Recruiter of the Guard and Intuition some of the former lack of consistency has faded from the deck as well. It's interesting to look back now and see where the deck used to struggle and how it's evolved past most of those challenges over the years.

At this stage of the game it's a great idea to do what you can to remove people's late game setup cards like mana doublers, big fat mana rocks, and similar if you can. I am always on the lookout for the opportunity to kill cards like Mana Reflection. Similarly, other people's draw engines are key targets. One exception here is that I will never, ever spend counterspells on things like this unless it's a bought back Forbid. I don't run a lot of counters and they're vital to preventing game winning plays later.

Because the deck plays a lot of great stall tactics and powerful topdeckable answers, strongly resist the urge to pack it in before you've seen every card you can. I've won numerous games with a timely topdeck and you can too.

Late Game

This deck tends toward a lot of skin-of-the-teeth victories that require excellent threat assessment. I will often have a very strong board state but one that could easily lose to surprise draws. As in the mid-game, it's very important to watch out for explosive players like Momir Vig, Simic Visionary, Maelstrom Wanderer, Omnath, Locus of Mana and similar. It's important to resist the urge to blow precious removal or counterspells on things that aren't going to make you lose.

The biggest threat late in the game is probably decks that can threaten to go over the top of any of your soft locks. Huge bombs like the aforementioned Craterhoof, Overwhelming Stampede, Genesis Wave and Insurrection are just not what we play and they can be difficult to answer if you counterspelled someone's Gilded Lotus earlier.

Because our few infinite combos are janky and improbable, doing good combat math is also important. We want to kill the most threatening guy first with the most efficient use of damage if at all possible. If you're going to kill someone with Ephara general damage, put all your other combat into someone else. Don't leave damage on the table - every point counts.

Deck History

I started playing Ephara very soon after she was spoiled. The deck went through several iterations where I played more non-creature goodstuff but I gradually replaced almost all of the non-creature spells with creatures and have not looked back. I regularly watch new sets for ways to cut more non-creatures (see Stratus Dancer for one that was almost good enough).

The deck has been in its current form or very close to it for quite some time now with minor changes occurring regularly. I have not made any major paradigm shifts and don't intend to do so. Changes will be incremental and usually involve swapping one way of filling a role for another.

An example of how I think about the deck that I think will illustrate its history and evolution: At one point I ran another sweeper in the deck (Wrath of God) and an anthem in the form of Cathars' Crusade. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite replaced both of those in my mental map of the deck and while she isn't quite the same as either she is able to fill both roles.


Other Decks

Here're some other great Ephara Decks!

DTrain's Ephara deck - his is probably slightly more competitive than mine, and he started writing about it first. Plenty of great info and ideas there.

ISBPathfinder's Ephara Hatebears list - we have a lot of similar philosophical ideas about Ephara, another good place to look for things I haven't done but that're worth trying.

Here's the list of cards I own that I'm thinking about using:

Angel of the Dire Hour -- exile is getting to be more critical in EDH. It flashes. Unfortunately it requires 7 open mana so it's not the best combat trick (I do have a few dirty things I can flash in, like Teferi, that might make it a bit of a guessing ame). Downside is jacking my curve up a bit.

Ranger of Eos - fetches mother of runes or serra ascendant, which is nice, or soul warden potentially

Hero of Bladehold - he's just beastly. I don't have a lot of efficient beaters in the deck, and Hero might help up that.

Skullclamp - I typically don't have a hard time keeping my hand full, but an alternative engine fetchable with trinket mage or stoneforge might do the trick

Trinket mage - fetching aether vial or skullclamp is pretty good.

Mirran Crusader - as hero of bladehold but pretty ridiculous with a sword

Eidolon of Rhetoric - more hatebear action

Umezawa's Jitte - Just very very powerful

Eight-and-a-half-tails - Kinda like a vastly better mother of runes, but requires a lot of open mana to work.

Puresteel Paladin - Just pretty darned good. might not have enough equipment to make it good, but 0 equip cost on Swords is really relevant in most games.

Dust Elemental - lets me reuse ETB guys and protect guys

Sakashima the Impostor / Clever Impersonator - Clone effects, but maybe a bit slow and donothing in comparison to Sakashima's Student

Scout's Warning - cuts down my card count virtually with the cantripping

Dictate of Heliod / Cathars' Crusade - generally I think would be worse than something like Hero of Bladehold or Elesh Norn as an anthem type effect

Perplexing Chimera - just kinda cute with venser

Deputy of Acquittals - kinda better whitemane lion, but more restrictive mana cost

Leonin Relic-Warder - more exile, good mana pips for the deck

Thada Adel, Acquisitor - just a cool effect, often can be used for ramp if nothing else.

Stuff I'd need to acquire that's on my list:

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - ridiculous anthem on a dude

Linvala, Keeper of Silence - pretty solid anti-combo card, and a flying beater with a nice mana cost

Sower of Temptation - Outcryqq's suggestion that is awesome.

You probably want to use card tags in your second post.

In terms of suggestions, I definitely second your thoughts for Linvala, Keeper of Silence and Umezawa's Jitte. Since you already have an equipment package, you might also want to consider[ Sword of Fire and Ice.

The new Commander 2014 white planeswalker/commander, Nahiri, the Lithomancer would be another strong piece of your equipment package.

Archangel of Thune is cool, but I don't see much lifegain in your list. I would consider Sower of Temptation in her place, both as a flyer that can carry your equipment but also a theft spell on legs.

I think you want to consider adding Hinder to your counter suite. I would replace Counterspell with it, or maybe Forbid.

Cards Tagged.

Few comments/explanations:

1) Sword of Fire and Ice I used for a while but I find it less good than SoLaS - I often have little value creatures in the graveyard, and SoLaS mostly reads "pick the best card from those that people found annoying enough to kill earlier." Prot black/white is very often relevant too.

2) Definitely feeling pretty strongly about Umezawa's Jitte. It's run away with games to the point people have to burn spot removal on it enough times I should find a way to get it back in. Linvala, Keeper of Silence is really good, glad to see a vote for her

3) Nahiri, the Lithomancer is one of those cards that is probably just too slow to work. She doesn't tutor that I see - if she did it'd be a gimme, but she just fishes from graveyard/hand. Because I don't run enlightened tutor or Steelshaper's gift or Stonehewer Giant I don't tend to have enough kit on the battlefield to take advantage of her +1.

4) Archangel of Thune triggers himself, and off of batterskull, sword of light and shadow and Serra Ascendant. I haven't gotten to use him yet, but my gut instinct is that if he triggers once he's going to be very impactful, especially if he's wielding a sword. He's probably on the potential cutlist though.

5) Hinder might be a good replacement for Counterspell; I've considered Mana Drain instead, which I could pull out of my Edric deck (which really doesn't need it). The reason I hold onto Counterspell at this point is being able to threaten counter with UU up. But that probably isn't critical..I have won at least one game by presenting UU but that's a mindgame thing.

6) Forbid...well, you haven't lived until you've locked the board down with forbid and land tax (or more rarely forbid + sun titan with a sword of light and shadow, pretty hilarious -- pitch cards, play them for free with sun titan, grab them back with Solas, draw cards for playing them with Ephara out).


Putting Sower on the list! I had him at one point and he fell off my radar.

Made some pretty significant edits here. 12/4!

-Moorland Haunt (I almost never want to exile creatures from my yard due to Karmic Guide/SoLAS/Reveillark)
-Duplicant - I find that targeted creature removal is very rarely an issue for me. Usually I have chump blockers, combat tricks, gilded drakes, etc. If I need creature removal it's instant speed which Duplicant usually is not.
-Brimaz, King of Oreskos - just doesn't do anything. I want fliers to carry my swords and catman don't fly or really do anything except chump block most of the time.
-Saltskitter - It's just a do nothing card. It rarely can effectively swing because it has no evasion and a mediocre body, and while it does go nuts with Ephara, I think cloning Aetherling or more flash creatures is a better choice. He's very reliant on other people playing creatures, which is not a sure thing to happen by any stretch.
-Mirror Entity - Too mana intensive and not running body double for reveillark combo.

+Pearl medallion - put it in a land slot since it both lowers my curve and ramps, in place of Moorland Haunt
+Angel of the dire hour - just want to try it out. It flashes
+Dust Elemental
+Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - It's almost a wrath and makes my pegasi huge.
+Eidolon of Rhetoric - This card is nuts in this deck. It makes it much easier to protect my wincons (sacred mesa/luminarch ascension) and shuts down all kinds of shenanigans.

I felt like I had some room to adjust my curve some, since I had so few 7 drops I added two. Elesh has been a fun karmic guide target multiple times.

Dust elemental I have only played once, but holy crap! Not sure how I lived without this guy before. He's so much better than saltskitter. I always have 3 guys on the board, and I can use this to protect them, reuse their ETBs, or just as a giant 6/6 flier with extra evasion.

Bonus hilarity is playing Hushwing Gryff with Dust elemental - being able to drop hushwing one player's turn, then a 6/6 flier next player's turn means drawing two cards and then swinging for a crapload.

Some more quick notes:
* Ranger of Eos is amazing. He acts like an extra serra ascendant or an extra mother of runes, either of which I would be happy to pay 4 for. And he usually replaces himself with Ephara.
* I think I may be slightly heavy on clone effects; I ran into a few control decks recently and am thinking hard about cutting Clever Impersonator for a better dude. Phyrexian Metamorph's ability to come out on 3 makes it almost always better even though it's more narrow. I have not gotten to clever impersonator anything awesome non-creature yet.
* Thassa, God of the Sea is high on my cut list. Her ability to jam through damage is nice, but I rarely have 5 blue devotion so she doesn't swing much, and the scry is not usually amazingly relevant. Between swords and mother of runes and tons of fliers I don't seem to have a lot of issue jamming through damage much, and she's pretty mana intensive. Don't think I have ever actually used her ability other than the scry.
* Archangel of Thune is amazing. He turns a 4 turn clock into a 2 turn clock and has never been anything but excellent.
* Thinking about cutting Whitemane Lion for some more hate filled 2 drop or a more efficient beater, like spirit of the labyrinth or something. As good as he is every time I've used him it's been worse than just playing a draw spell - just just doesn't do enough. He does protect Ephara, occasionally, which I really like, but that's mostly it. The nice thing about Whitemane over Deputy of Acquittals who does something similar is that he doesn't target, so if Ephara has greaves on I can still use it to prevent mass tucks or Ixidron or whatever.

Possible Whitemane Lion replacements
* Cloudseeder (discard a land for another dude? Heck yeah)
* Lighthouse Chronologist - just seems kinda fun and powerful.
* Spirit of the Labyrinth - pretty good given that I rarely will draw two cards in a turn, and can control when my draw power comes into play.
* Leonin Arbiter - Another hate dude that I have used before and liked
* Azorius Guildmage - powerful card, devotion for heliod/thassa/ephara.
* Mistmeadow Witch - so slow! And gratuitous blink. But good.
* augury owl - it flies? It scries? Not bad I guess.
* Quickling - Flies, but can't bounce itself
* Squall Drifter - Likely to be hilarious.
* Snapcaster Mage - probably good if I chuck a couple time walks in there or something, although my instant/sorcery ratio is a bit low and likely to stay that way
* Vedalken Aethermage - Wizardcycling is...surprisingly relevant. Lots of really powerful wizards in the deck, many of which have flash and do hilarious stuff (teferi, voidmage husher, venser)

I've made a bunch more updates including some mana base tweaks.

-Temple of the False God -Dead card a bunch, didn't work with my gameplan much
-Windbrisk Heights
-Winding Canyons
-Thassa, God of the Sea - usually doesn't turn on, and isn't good enough as an unblockable/scry engine. Doesn't trigger Ephara being the biggest problem.
-Marble Diamond - swapped for Enlightened Tutor
-Thraben Doomsayer Just not quite as good as cloudseeder. Flying tokens are relevant, despite costing cards and mana. May swap him back in if Cloudseeder doesn't work out.
-Luminarch Ascension - too much of a hate target really, turns you into public enemy #1.
-Whitemane Lion - all the reasons above. It's just durdly and doesn't fly or build board presence as much as I'd like. Usually feels better to focus on building board state while drawing my fuel.

Remembered the lands I pulled -- winding canyons is too mana intensive, windbrisk heights just never generates value - the deck is full of lowish impact plays, and I never once hit anything off of heights that wasn't winmore. Added Emeria, the Sky Ruin since I have had 7 plains out many games.

+Nykthos, shrine to Nyx - good way to accelerate into some power plays later on
+Ancient Tomb - another T3 ephara tech, hopefully like it
+Cloudseeder - replaced Thraben Doomsayer
+Soul Warden - just winds up being very strong
+Enlightened Tutor - more options - can tutor for ramp or swords or sacred mesa
+Path to Exile - just really wanted another single target removal.
+Snapcaster Mage - Usually replaces himself with Ephara, and I upped the ratio of spells enough to make him good I think. ETutor and Path.
+Spirit of the Labyrinth - It's really, really good. No one ever wants to Wheel of Fortune or similar anymore and my hand refills itself fast if they do.


A few gameplay comments:

1) Clever Impersonator is just too good to ever come out.
2) Voidmage Husher doesn't seem flashy but man he does some work. He counters so many hilarious abilities people think are gimmes, especially value lands like Winding Canyons and Rogue's Passage. I've stifled planeswalker abilities more than once. He's low key but he's very very good. especially with Aether vial at 4
3) I really want to work Trinket Mage back into this deck. Aether Vial does so damned much work it's ridiculous. If I hit it early to mid game it just goes crazy. If it ever gets to 4 you're gonna have a bad time. I may see if I can work Skullclamp and / or Basilisk collar in to give other value targets for him.
4) Sword of Feast and Famine is on my watch list. It's become a huge hate target in a similar vein to Prophet of Kruphix in my group and I usually find myself going for SOLAS just to fly under the radar more.
5) I find I want more targeted creature removal in almost every game. It's pretty frequent that a stupid fattie will ruin my game, and I don't always want to have to resolve a sweeper to respond. Also, exiling is very relevant. So Path.


The new watch list

• Angel of the Dire Hour
  
• Sword of Feast and Famine
  
• Catastrophe
  
• Batterskull
  

Angel is slow and I've never gotten to use him. Catastrophe feels like it'd be better as Wrath or Retribution of the Meek or similar that I used to use. It does win games but I've also lost to not being able to sweep on turn 3 or 4 before.

Sword is as above a huge painted target and usually doesn't do any work. Batterskull is on my watchlist because I think I might prefer a lower CMC equipment, e.g. Basilisk Collar or similar.

Cards I'd still like to find some spots for

• Leonin Arbiter
  
• Basilisk Collar
  
• Skullclamp
  
• Trinket Mage
  
• Hero of Bladehold
  
• Vendilion Clique
  
• Vedalken Aethermage
  

Arbiter always gets cut despite being a beast. Basilisk Collar I just finally picked one up and I'm kinda excited about how cheap it is and turning my junk creatures into annoying blockers. Trinket mage is fun. Hero of Bladehold makes dudes and draws cards, but doesn't do it in other people's turns, but battle cry is an excellent anthemy effect.

Also, as always, soliciting suggestions or thoughts. Monastery Mentor is high on my list of stuff I'd like to try but feel he's a smidge overpriced so haven't picked one up - there are about 8 instants in the deck, and around 25 non-creature spells in general, so I'd likely get a lot of value out of him.

Soul Warden is an interesting addition. I don't know if I had really considered it before. It wouldn't work with Torpor Orb effects out but it adds to Ranger of Eos targets. Its an interesting addition regardless.

Its odd that you run Hushwing Gryff but not Torpor Orb.

Torpor orb doesn't replace itself and I have no way to bounce it to my hand. Since I can't bounce a torpor orb reliably it shuts down my ETB effects which I have quite a few of.

Example sequence of plays:
-Flash in Hushwing Gryff to shut down a Duplicant (or some other stupid play). Draw a card for Ephara (next upkeep).
-Swing with Hushwing, ninja replace it with Sakashima's Student copying Duplicant to exile something. Draw a card for Ephara (next upkeep).
-Threaten people with Hushwing, eventually using it to draw another card.

Soul Warden I added to try out as a third 1-drop - I find I want exactly 3 cards for Ranger since I often will draw one of the two. She has been very good so far, triggering Archangel of Thune, maintaining life to keep Serra Ascendant online, countering token strategies, being cloned so Elspeth gains 6 life for every activation, etc.

I may wind up swapping her for Hypnotic Siren or Dakra Mystic (primarily as a hilarious way to screw with people's Mystical/Vampiric/Scrollrack+Divining Top/etc strategies) at some point though.

My favorite Soul Warden play so far has had Aether Vial at 5 to slam an archangel of thune in response to a token spell But that obviously isn't going to happen much.

Quote from ISBPathfinder »

Its odd that you run Hushwing Gryff but not Torpor Orb.

The deck needs flash creatures; the Gryff makes more sense in that respect.

I'm interested in thoughts on the potential for Faerie and/or Wizard subthemes.

I certainly agree that Whitemane Lion feels a bit underwhelming.

I like the gryff, I just think both are good to run. There is always Fabricate, Tezzeret, Academy Ruins, Trading Post, and Buried Ruin to consider for the orb as well.

Ideally Whitemane Lion is a way of paying 1W to draw a card during a turn you otherwise don't need to do anything. He can depend a bit on how reasonably you can assemble a Torpor Orb or reusable token producing effect though as well.

You can easily swing this deck from aggro control to aggro by using power cards like Tezz/Fabricate/etc. and in that case I'd be inclined toward torpor orb. But the way the deck is I can't really afford to have more things that don't draw cards off of Ephara - 42 of the cards in current deck will trigger Ephara on the turn they drop (Venser, Elspeth, Batterskull and Sacred Mesa are the 4 non-creatures).

Tezzeret actually might be really good as a better alternative to Trinket Mage, just for the sheer power of being able to fetch out Ethersworn Canonist. Will have to give that some serious thought. Right now my Tezz is in the Keranos deck I'm working on but I could fetch another one, they're cheap enough. Downside to Tezz is the curve issues; deck can't really afford more 5 drops, and the ones I have are fairly tuned.

Honestly if I were trying to tune the deck to be more competitive, I'd want to focus more on getting Sacred Mesa out than playing dudes like Whitemane Lion. Add Idyllic Tutor and Drift of Phantasms for example. I have yet to lose a game where I cast Sacred Mesa. I'd probably consider putting Mirror Entity back in.

Quote from osieorb18 »

Quote from ISBPathfinder »

Its odd that you run Hushwing Gryff but not Torpor Orb.

The deck needs flash creatures; the Gryff makes more sense in that respect.

I'm interested in thoughts on the potential for Faerie and/or Wizard subthemes.

I certainly agree that Whitemane Lion feels a bit underwhelming.

I have seriously considered using the Wizardcycling dude - being able to tutor up Venser, Aven Mindcensor, Snapcaster, Glen Elendra, Teferi or Voidmage is immensely good.

The weakest aspect of this deck is that the answers are mostly creatures, and they are as such very hard to find in colors that can't really tutor for creatures. Being able to get 6 different answers makes vedalken aethermage really potentially powerful. And he's a cheap flash creature to boot.

I did pick up a nice proxy Vendilion Clique recently too and may consider trying him out in my 3-drop slot which has gotten kinda light. Not sure what other faeries might go well but if I got enough to trigger Spellstutter Sprite consistently that would be awesome

Quick list of Faeries I consider playable potentially, including the two I am already using

• Faerie Impostor
  
• Faerie Mechanist
  
• Vendilion Clique
  
• Cloudseeder
  
• Glen Elendra Archmage
  
• Glen Elendra Pranksters
  
• Knacksaw Clique
  
• Quickling
  
• Scion of Oona
  
• Ringskipper
  
• Sower of Temptation
  
• Spellstutter Sprite
  

A bunch of those would get cut, but man, there are definitely a bunch of playable faeries. Sadly they tend to cluster around the 3-4CMC slot which are tough cuts for my deck.

Sower, VClique, and Pranksters could easily slot in, with the added bonus of all three being wizards too.

I don't care for Mechanist, Knacksaw, or Ringskipper in your deck. But that is a reasonable list.

How about Pestermite, Mistbind Clique, or Inspired Sprite?

Hmm, all three of those are good, but I'd lean toward Inspired as the best overall. You could loot a bunch of cards away with that pretty quick. Still, 4cmc might be too steep and the wizard quotient would need to be higher I think.

OTOH, Mistbind would be a very strong thing to set up weird chain blinks of Vendilion Clique, resetting Glen Elendra, etc.

On the whole I think Faeries may be not quite hateful enough and a little on the high side CMC-wise.

I think I am going to try out Vendilion Clique and Sower of Temptation first [With Vedalken Aethermage support], since they are flat out strong cards on their own, and if I like them I might try slipping one or two of the others in there. That said, gonna be some tough cuts

Thinking:
-

• Batterskull
  
• OR
  
• Sword of Feast and Famine
  
• Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
  
• Angel of the Dire Hour
  

+

• Vendilion Clique
  
• Vedalken Aethermage
  
• Sower of Temptation
  

Although I'm a bit iffy about cutting Feast and Famine or Batterskull, it's pretty rare that I go for either one anymore, and Batterskull is quite slow if I can't cheat it into play.

Heliod and Dust elemental are other potential cuts, although I've loved both of then whenever played (Heliod gives the team vigilance and gives me a last ditch way to trigger Ephara; Dust Elemental protects guys and is huge).

It's also possible I could cut Containment Priest. It's never really been that good, and most of the time I've had to play around it a lot with its nonboing with Flickerwisp/Venser/Resto Angel/Aether vial/Sun Titan/Reveillark/etc.

Kinda leaning toward thalia/containment/Angel actually, probably the three cards that've been the worst. Aethermage should make up for the loss of hate by being able to fetch Glen Elendra (who is a frigging allstar in this deck).

Cloudstone Curio - I've been thinking about this card a lot lately. I feel like it might be flat out stronger than Whitemane Lion type effects. It isn't a creature, and while this deck really needs to be playing a high creature count and only playing the strongest non-creature enablers (e.g. Sacred Mesa, Venser), I think the curio could be really, really good. Being able to bounce and reuse guys like Snapcaster, being optional, etc. It's even cheap from a mana perspective.

Being able to loop guys like Venser-Wizard, Vendilion Clique, Stoneforge Mystic, and even Knight of the white Orchid, etc. The synergy with all the ETB effects (especially Flickerwisp and Resto angel, who can trigger a bounce loop together) is huge. It's even pretty good for bouncing my own Rule of Law effects and replaying them end of turn.

Made all these changes, with dust elemental swapped for cloudstone. I played a few games and didn't get to try any of the new cards sadly, and the deck had a rough night - Ephara got a lot of early hate targeting (tucked once, swordsded). Also, my game pretty much got shut down by Hall of Gemstones for like the 50th time. Thinking about jamming some more enchantment hate. Considering adding just a smidgen more control to the deck.

This deck is working really well; won several games today. Almost got to live the Archangel of Thune + Soul Warden dream even, but still won that game with an Elspeth Sun's Champion ultimate.

Snapcaster Mage has to be the new MVP of the deck. Drawing cards, reusing removal, he's a beast. Really like him.

I only got to play Vendilion Clique once, but it did win the game (taking a player's Mogg Infestation during their upkeep). Definitely sticking around for a bit. Still not seen the wizardcycler yet.

Cloudstone Curio is beastly. No idea how I lived without it. Recycles Venser, Snapcaster, Stoneforge, etc. Really good card that should be an autoinclude in most Ephara lists, especially given its extremely strong synergies with many cards in the deck.

Aether Vial continues to impress, as does Venser, the Sojourner.

Stonecloaker is never, ever leaving my list. Holy crap did he win me some games tonight His grave hate is just the right amount and he goes hilariously with an ultimated Venser. Hah.

---------------------------------------------------------

New Sets & the future stuff

I'm not super excited about much from the recent sets. Anafenza, kin-tree spirit is the only one super likely to see some play. I definitely want to give Monastery Mentor a try at some point, especially if I rotate a few more removal/counter spells back in.

The two conditional counters on bodies (stratus dancer and silumgar sorcerer) are both really mediocre. Mostly too conditional. Glen Elendra Archmage is not impressed, guys. Silumgar sorcerer might get a tryout someday but I doubt it. Narset Transcendent is just...the antithesis of what I want to be doing, sadly. Lots of planeswalkers I'd try out first.

The cards currently on my watchlist for removal are:

• Batterskull
  
• Containment Priest
  
• Knight of the white Orchid
  
• Heliod, God of the Sun
  
• Archangel of Thune
  
• Sword of Feast and Famine
  

Batterskull just tends to be too durdly. Priest, eh, just doesn't seem to happen much? Probably be happier with another good counterspell. Knight of the White Orchid I've found just doesn't ramp like I want - too often I can't play him for ramp until T3, which is when I want to be playing Ephara. Most of my playgroup doesn't land ramp T2 much, definitely not consistently enough for me to count on Knight.

Heliod I find too mana intensive. I can't recall using his token producing ability in quite some time. If I could play a second Sacred Mesa instead of him that'd be the best, but Mobilization is on my maybe list - as is Thraben Doomsayer, who was ridiculous every time I used him. Wish there were more open token producers out there.

Archangel is regularly super strong, but he just brings the hate. People really flip out for that dude, especially once you slap a sword on him.

Feast and Famine is just amazing, but Light and Shadow really is my goto sword almost all of the time. I think Fire and Ice might be more innocuous and less likely to get raged on, but I might try Skullclamp in its place too.

Cards currently on my hotlist for consideration are:

• Monastery Mentor
  
• Skullclamp
  
• Trinket Mage
  
• Elspeth Tirel
  
• Thraben Doomsayer
  
• Helm of Possession
  
• Fiend Hunter
  
• Leonin Relic-Warder
  
• Dovescape
  

The Mentor - triggers off of almost half the deck, including a good number of instants. Might not generate a ton of card advantage, but probably some.
Skullclamp is skullclamp
Trinket mage finds Skullclamp
Elspeth Tirel doubles as a board wipe which is nice, although not as well as other Elspeth. Also makes dudes and gains life.
Doomsayer as I've said is a house.
Helm of Possession and Fiend Hunter/Relic warder go together really well, to abuse the ETB abilities - and Sun Titan is great. Also goes really well with many other recursion effects in the deck.
Dovescape, well...man, it's really, really good in this deck. Turns your non-creatures into cantrip token producers and shuts off a lot of other people's stuff. It's pretty likely to be a game ending effect. It's a bit risky though as other creaturey-decks have the potential to roll you.


On the more conventional front, I'm strongly considering pulling all of the suspect stuff and just replacing it with alternate card advantage engines and answers, instead of trying to get cute with synergies

I really love where this deck is at. Haven't felt the urge to pull anything out really. There're about 10 cards I'd like to put back in (starting with Skullclamp).

I had one crushing victory in our recent game night, which is usually how it goes; opening hand of mana rock and sacred mesa into drawing a billion cards and then, weirdly, swinging with a couple unblockable Aetherlings for the win (one wielding two swords). Go Phantasmal Image.

Favorte part:

Sun Titan into Phantasmal Sun Titan into Sacred Mesa.

Our meta has recently made some general unbanning (soft-banned critters no one enjoyed) decisions - Purphoros, Vorinclex and Jin are back, and Deadeye is on the maybe list (as long as he doesn't enable infinite stuff).

I'm considering a couple tweaks:
1) Sub Deadeye navigator for Aetherling. He's a little more mana intensive, but also prone to win the game pretty hard (with Venser/Flickerwisp type stuff).

2) Put Brago, King Eternal back in for Restoration angel. Dude was sick when I played him and won a lot of games just by untapping all my mana rocks.

3) Sub Leonin Relic-Warder in for Containment Priest since the latter is kinda a nonbo with the increase in blinkies.

Anyone got any thoughts? seeing Norin and Purphoros again was enough to get me itching for some more powerful dudes

4/13/2015 update
-Spell Crumple
+Skullclamp

Skullclamp just belongs in this deck. Spell crumple was questionable even before the tuck change.

I still have a lot of thinking to do about whether I want to run counterspells in this deck. Forbid has won me a lot of games but the rest of them I'd almost invariably prefer be some kind of action. Whatever I do though, I need instant speed answers. Capsize and Cyclonic Rift are both on the list, but I'd welcome some other opinions.

Ojutai's Command seems like a potential strong choice too, since it can double as reanimation for a lot of critters.

Also considering Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit to replace Knight of the White Orchid who I've determined just doesn't accomplish what I want (rarely ramps Ephara on turn 3).

4/20 game report

Game 1 - played Animar combo and Zedruu giveaway stuff - ANimar combo'd out on turn 4 and killed everyone with grapeshot. I stalled out due to having Zedruu Force of Will my Ephara on t3 because he miscalculated how good the Animar was going to be

Game 2 - Zedruu switches to 5c controlly thing with Sliver queen. I hate Animar out with a combination of Vendilion Cliqueing his combo pieces (twice, after Sakashima's studenting my own Animar to reuse the clique). Animar scooped to Helm of Possession and the Sliver eventually succumbed to Forbidlock with Eidolon of Rhetoric + Sun Titan + Helm of Possession. at one point Sun Titan'd a Flickerwisp back to flicker the Venser the Sliver Queen player stole from me.

conclusion: Helm of Possession is stupid good and goes really well with the deck. Creates a 3-card soft lock with Helm/Sun Titan/Eidolon that lets me cast all the spells I want and locks everyone else down to one.

Considering putting a Fiend Hunter in for the interaction with Helm.

I also picked up an Anafenza, Kin-Tree spirit to try out in the deck, but have not the foggiest idea what cut to make yet for it.

This deck remains my absolute favorite. It really messes with the more degenerate decks in the format.

4/19 updates (out of order!)

-counterspell
-batterskull
+helm of possession
+mana drain

One thing I may not have mentioned: Extreme shoutout to Vendilion Clique.

That card is just amazing in this deck. Ephara decks should all play it. It's incredible. Never played it and regretted it. I'm stealing wraths, I'm taking people's combo pieces, I'm flickering it and being annoying, cloning it and recycling the clone with Sun Titan, ninja bouncing it, etc. etc.

Seems like an autoinclude in Ephara especially now that it's getting another reprint


And another total side note: I recently put Nykthos back in, and played it in a few games now and found it to be an excellent source of ramp for this deck. Even just gaining 1 mana off of it (when I have 4 pips of white or blue) has enabled some big plays. There's tons of white pips in this deck and I can almost always get at least 3 online to make Nykthos live from a color perspective. it's good enough I am considering putting Weathered wayferer in there to fetch it and possibly Kor Haven as well as another good tutor target for the Wayfarer.

I made some pretty significant content updates for this, definitely interested in folks' feedback or any questions you have / cards you want comments on / etc.

4/22/2015 deck changes
-Path to Exile
+Reality Shift

I figured I'd give Reality Shift a try. Path has a pretty bad downside of ramping people, and Reality Shift lets me interact in an amusing fashion with people's topdeck manipulation, and in a pinch can be exchanged for a card by removing one of my own guys (although that's a really fringe use).

Added Mastery of the Unseen to the consideration list. It's slow, but it gains life and puts guys into play uncounterably, which is very very strong. I think it might be too mana intensive but it's possible it could work out especially if I put Brago back in.