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.
About Me
I started playing magic in 1994, right as the Dark was being replaced by Fallen Empires on shelves. I quit playing initially after the debacle of Chronicles and sold my collection. At one point after the demise of Raw Deal I swore off card games completely, but rediscovered Magic as a multiplayer social format thanks to some good friends getting me to try a few games with a precon. I've been building decks and buying cards like a madman ever since. Been through probably 15 commander decks since I started back up. I was primarily a UR and BR player back in the day, but somehow have turned into almost exclusively UW/GW by by nature.
As a player I am primarily a commander player; I've done some competitive limited and had some success on the small local level, but I'm far from an expert player. I have a core local playgroup of ten or so people that play commander at the moderately competitive level - we've all played top competitive decks and decided we don't enjoy that side of the game. Everyone has multiple decks of various power levels.
Why should you play Ephara?
Strengths
Resilient
Provides a built-in source of card advantage
Relevant body (easily turned into a 3-turn clock)
Best hatebears
Excellent sweepers
Excellent flash creatures
Weaknesses
Lack of strong ramp
Creature bodies are often smaller and less efficient
Lack of creature tutors and means to cheat creatures into play
Slightly weak to artifacts
Somewhat reliant on the general for card advantage
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).
Play creatures over non-creatures even if slightly worse.
Skip out on card draw for more control
Mana efficiency is paramount
Token generation should be either free or at instant speed
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.
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.
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.
Set up board state enabling a Reveillark trigger to retrieve a card that returns or copies Reveillark
Repeat sacrificing loop with Blasting Station until table is dead
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.
Enlightened Tutor - It searches for so many key cards in the deck; I think of it like letting me play a second Sacred Mesa but there are tons of cards you can fish out with it. Eidolon of Rhetoric and Ethersworn Canonist can lock the game down, Land Tax or Sacred mesa can give you a card engine, Swords do what swords do, and Phyrexian Metamorph can copy the best dude or artifact on the board. It's hard to imagine a tutor doing more work outside of black.
Gilded Drake - It triggers Ephara and takes the best creature on the board. He's bonkers with Venser. Second best way you can spend 1U in the deck, which leads me to...
Ethersworn Canonist - A very strong board stall tactic that usually allows you to play around it; you can sac it to Helm of Possession, cast a bunch of things, bring it back with Sun Titan or Reveillark, you can Venser, the Sojourner it and do your stuff. If all else fails, you have a ton of artifacts you can cast too. You can drop her at the end of a big turn to keep everyone in check too. She's easily recurred and tutored for which is nice.
Phyrexian Metamorph - Arguably the best clone in the format needs no introduction. It's especially amazing here given all the ways in which we can abuse it, recur it, and blink it to change its form. It's a very good card and should probably never be cut.
Recruiter of the Guard - It does everything we want to do for a reasonable mana cost. The body is somewhat underwhelming but tutoring for a hatebear or a clone is just insanely good. Because it can be bounced/cloned we can do all kinds of ridiculous chains. She enables massive turn 4 plays like recruiter for image copying recruiter, or recruiter for whitemane lion, draw all the cards, etc.
After a great deal of time playing with it I'm convinced Recruiter is literally the most essential card in the deck (other than Ephara). I almost never lose if she resolves, as the ridiculous chain of value she represents while simultaneously tutoring for almost any good answer in the deck is hard for other decks to deal with.
Glen Elendra Archmage - Recurring counterspell on a creature who usually draws two cards from Ephara. One of the best cards in the deck that you should not leave home without. And of course it flies and wields swords.
Venser, Shaper Savant - He stalls uncounterable spells, bounces your own guys, shuts down very strong plays, and can be easily turned into a game winning bomb with the Reveillark combo. Add a Deadeye Navigator for lots of rage scoops. He's got flash, too!
Reveillark - Recurs about half of the deck, synergizes hilariously with clones (especially Phantasmal Image) and is a good sized flier no one wants to remove. He provides you a huge leg up if you have to wrath.
Sun Titan - If you read all the other entries you'll see how many times this card is referred to. It's probably one of the best white cards in EDH, but in our deck it's insane. He enables numerous soft locks, he's straight up value, and a huge vigilant beater. I'd never consider removing him.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - The Norn fills so many roles in this deck it's ridiculous! It's functionally a sweeper, makes your little goofball creatures a huge threat, and has a respectable booty of its own. The only way I would ever cut this card is if I was running in a Bribery heavy meta -- but I probably still wouldn't since the look on someone's face when you cast Aven Mindcensor in response, or blink Elesh with your Flickerwisp or Venser, the Sojourner.
Venser, the Sojourner - The first card I thought of when I considered this list. He reuses out creatures, he makes our team unblockable, and his emblem happens insanely fast and ends games. In the early days of this deck I would win by Venser Emblem + Stonecloaker on a regular basis. He does tons of things, in addition to setting up a soft lock with the next card..
Elspeth, Sun's Champion - Wraths, makes guys, and ultimate wins games. Hard to top this lady. She's an army in a box and one of the few topdecks that can turn almost any board state around. She's everything you could ask for in a planeswalker. Her ability to trigger Ephara for free every turn is almost worth the price of admission.
Land Tax - Eh, it does what it says on the tin! It generates an absurd amount of card advantage for a deck that is rarely actually ramping, and powers many engines including Forbid (one of the most oppressive soft locks in the deck). As a bonus it fixes our land drops and thins our deck. I almost never lose if I hit an early land tax.
Sacred Mesa - The main reason Enlightened Tutor exists. This card is an early and late game powerhouse. It makes an army of 1/1 fliers to wield swords or get pumped by Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and generally draws you a card for 1W as well. Remember that you can untap and then make a pegasus to sac it by stacking the pegasus creation trigger above the trigger to sacrifice sacred mesa.
Muddle the Mixture - I've had this card in here for quite a while now and frankly cannot imagine not having it now. It tutors for so many things that are important that the mana inefficiency is not a huge deal. Five mana is generally the sweet spot for the deck and with great regularity I find "get your best 2-drop and cast it" to be a fantastic 5 mana play. Also, it counters a lot of stuff we care about such as wraths and other people's counterspells.
Spellseeker - I don't see how this card can ever be anything other than core. The things you can tutor for with it are so good. In my deck it can get answers (unexpectedly absent, cyclonic rift, it can get either of our other mirage tutors (mystical tutor, enlightened tutor). The effect is extremely likely to close a game, and probably belongs in any Ephara deck that runs good spells.
Retired Core
Over the years (Yes years!) I've been playing this deck I've had occasion to question even some core cards in response to meta shifts and new card options. This is the old core card graveyard (that I'd guess to not be permanent given how long most cards were core).
Stoneforge Mystic - This gal is one of the best cards you'll ever draw in the deck. She gets swords, greaves, skullclamp, she cheats stuff into play, she wields a sword. She gives your army of little donothing durdlemachines teeth. Everyone who plays EDH knows how great she is, and she's even better in a deck with 30 weak creatures.
I'm experimenting with cutting the equipment package at the moment, mostly because the format feels like it's trending more toward bombs which makes Stoneforge a little less impactful than typical - and people are really prone to removing the equipment these days. I'm trying including some more individually powerful cards and (e.g. teferi's protection, monastery mentor) in hopes that I can shore up some of the power level changes.
Sakashima's Student - We have tons of evasive fliers and early creatures who will not be blocked. You can steal games with this card with the predictable "I clone Craterhoof/Blightsteel/etc." or you can just reuse your other ETB triggers and get more Ephara draws. This card is amazing, and is functionally a 2 drop...and of course it's recurrable with Reveillark. It's one of my favorite cards but it's also one of the most powerful. This card is still in the deck but I no longer consider it to be core, despite the power level. It's been on the chopping block a few times.
Sword of Light and Shadow - This card dodges some of the best removal in the format, is easily tutorable, provides some serious evasion, and generates massive card advantage (usually 2-3 cards every time you connect -- one for the creature you get, one for triggering Ephara when you cast it, and one for its ETB effect). Over the years the mana investment to equip has gotten kind of rough, as I have so many more efficient things to do most of the time, so this sword became less relevant as I have more ways to get karmic guide and lark especially (with adds like intuition and recruiter of the guard)
Aven Mindcensor - He stifles fetchlands. He stumps some of the best green cheaty cards in the format. This bird is the word - he also lets you draw a second Ephara card by playing in someone else's turn, which is in fact the best time to play him. The bird makes Zur players cry. On top of all that, it flies and carries swords. Retirement comment: My meta shifted to be less fetchland and tutor heavy, and mostly the bird was a 3 mana 2/1 with flash, which is not good enough. Sometimes I'd get people, but not often enough to be worth the slot with all the new sweet cards we've got available.
Catastrophe - This versatile sweeper locks games up. It's a slightly more expensive Wrath of God at its worst, but more often than not you can put two Sun Titans out and then blow up everyone's lands and people scoop. It's far better than either Wrath or Armageddon in this deck, which is very short of non-creature spells. I wound up cutting this, only the second core card to get cut that I can recall, because enchantments and artifacts got to be more of a problem in my meta and I needed room for Austere. It may come back but I doubt it as it's a less common way to win these days for some reason.
Aetherling - The old RtR finisher, by which all other control finishers will henceforth be judged. This card dodges wraths, synergizes insanely with Ephara, and with a decent amount of mana and a clone can kill people dead. I've swept tables with a Phantasmal Image and this guy before--16 unblockable is a respectable clock when you've got a soft lock on the board, and they're nearly impossible to remove. As my meta has sped up, this fairly inefficient 6-drop had to go for more powerful cards with more immediate effect. It could come back if my meta got slower as the unstoppable card advantage engine is real.
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.
Mana Crypt & Sol Ring - They're just too good. My meta has gotten more aggressive, thrown out its soft ban list, and started to include other players at our shop, so I caved in to the inevitable arms race. These cards are too good not to be playing as they both enable the extremely desirable turn 2 Ephara. Most mid-powered decks are not going to come back if you start triggering Ephara on turn 3.
Mox Diamond - Well, this is a pretty obvious card I never played a lot, but since adding so many ways to search for land I think the card is playable. it requires 4 lands to accelerate into turn 3 ephara, but it has a few other ways of getting there -- it can create turn 2 Ephara with 3 lands and another mana rock, or it can work with 3 lands and Tithe, Land Tax or Weathered Wayfarer. I think on the balance it's better than a 2 CMC rock. But time will tell if I have a high enough land count to make use of it reliably.
Azorius Signet - Makes colors from colorless, comes out at 2. One of the best ramp cards in the deck.
Pearl Medallion - This mana reducer reduces a huge portion of our deck, including Ephara, and often lets us play a lot more spells - mid to late game it's equivalent to 3 extra lands most of the time.
Talisman of Progress - It makes colors and comes into play untapped, good tempo, about as good as it gets. Bonus for the favorable interaction with Azorius Signet.
Stormscape Familiar - A second pearl medallion that wields swords. What's not to love?
Ancient Tomb - Another surprise card that enables a T3 Ephara with moderate cost. The life loss is usually irrelevant to the ability to accelerate with a sol land in this deck.
Sword of Feast and Famine - This card is, like Nykthos, primarily a mid to late game ramp spell that enables larger than typical turns. It's also got very relevant protections and buffs of course.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx - One of the few ramps that doesn't involve Ephara. This is a very deceptively strong card in the deck as it will regularly enable huge plays - it's almost always white mana, but we have a lot of mana symbols in the deck. I've had turns go: Sun Titan for Phantasmal Image as another titan, Nykthos for Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. It's one of the few ways we have to generate massive mana and the investment is pretty minor.
Boreas Charger - I'm unsure about this card but it seems very powerful and a creature so going to give it a try. It seems like it should be good at closing games (getting Emeria online) or making early games more consistent, and it's a critter. Not a lot of ways to generate a big mana advantage in the mid game with this deck and this is one.
Wayfarer's Bauble - It's slow but it's recurrable and does accelerate into turn 3 Ephara. I'm rarely unhappy to see it in an opener. Bonus of actually getting land, unlike most ramp we have access to. Downside is fairly slow and requires being drawn on turn 1 to make a turn 3 ephara.
Fellwar Stone - Almost always makes one of our colors and as a bonus comes into play untapped. It's a very good tempo card. I mostly cut this because I can't make myself buy a 150 dollar foil. May put it back in when we get a reprint. And Mox Diamond seems slightly better.
As Foretold - This has been in the deck for a while now so I figured I'd do a write up. It's really not part of the core strategy, sadly, but it's just so powerful with the number of things we can do on other people's turns that I wanted to try it out, and I have found it to be very good. Games that go long are usually the ones I win, and this card is very good at getting all the stuff you've drawn out of your hand to help win the game. It's a very compact way to generate tons of mana that doesn't really require anything else -- the Monolith package, for example, requires a lot of setup and a lot of cards (voltaic key, grim monolith, basalt monolith, mana vault, thran dynamo, etc.). This card lets us just play it and accumulate crazy amounts of mana.
Aether Vial - This card doesn't accelerate into Ephara, but it ramps you and lets you play creatures at instant speed without worrying about counterspells. It's amazing with the deck due to the high density of 3 and 4 CMC creatures. This card has a very high ceiling but a very low floor, replaced by Tithe.
Coldsteel Heart - I used to run this, since it makes colored mana, but it's currently on the shelf for mana myrs. Gold Myr - I am only recently trying the mana myrs - they work functionally equivalently to the ETB tapped colored rocks, but may also replace themselves if drawn late game. I wound up cutting this one because I didn't like being so exposed on mana creatures, but kept the blue one because I felt slightly short of blue mana. Marble Diamond - Same as Coldsteel. Color limitation makes it worse. Sky Diamond - Same as Coldsteel. Color limitation makes it worse. Knight of the White Orchid - This guy is only doing the job if an opponent plays exploration or rampant growth ahead of you pretty much. He's a creature who fixes though, so I'd consider putting him back in before any of the rocks. Chromatic Lantern - 3 drop ramp is bad in this deck, but this is the best of it. Consider it if you don't have access to a great mana base. Walking Atlas - This is my favorite mana dork-like effect in the deck. Ephara tends to keep your hand pretty full, and Land Tax is a card I see often enough that it tends to sneakily add up to a ton of ramp in the mid to late game. It has some downsides in that it requires extra lands in hand to work, but this is usually not an issue. This does make it somewhat less likely to enable a turn 3 Ephara (as it requires you to have seen 4 lands in the first 10-11 cards). This got removed because it was not as good as Mana Crypt (duh).
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.
Mystical Tutor - I have a lot of very, very good instants and sorceries and this would get vastly better with a time magic package. This card was just as good as I thought and once I got spellseeker in the deck it became even more powerful - being able to spellseeker for any spell in the deck at the cost of a card is pretty strong.
Swords to Plowshares - Instant, exiles, too good not to play despite not being a creature. We need instant speed answers and this is the most efficient.
Muddle the Mixture - This card warrants some serious discussion; it's borderline core, and may make its way into that section later. The 2-drop spot in this deck is incredibly crowded with great cards that let you dictate the game. Need a board presence? transmute for Stoneforge Mystic. Need to shut off Maelstrom Wanderer? Transmute for Canonist. The options are nearly endless. And in a pinch it can stop most annoying effects for a reasonable mana cost. In EDH it is usually counterspell with an upside. Notably, it also transmutes for Reality Shift, an interaction that has come up multiple times now.
Umezawa's Jitte - Like some other cards here, both a question and an answer. Jitte fixes a lot of problem board states primarily in this deck; it's great at winning too but fixing problem creatures is its best mode. Ephara almost always has some evasive creature she's willing to strap a jitte to. Having 3 other cards that get it is nuts -- Muddle, Stoneforge and Lancers all get it.
Forbid - This is really close to being a core spell for the deck. It counters spells and lets us trade cards (which we almost always have a ton of, and don't mind having in the graveyard anyway) for more counterspells.
Capsize - Very flexible, answers everything return to Dust does while also being a game winning engine if you get enough mana (or As Foretold counters).
Supreme Verdict - An uncounterable, very efficient wrath. The uncounterable effect is incredibly important.
Leonin Relic-Warder - Synergizes with sacrifice and recursion effects, and exiles important card types. And it's a bear.
Spell Queller - Counters uncounterable spells, handles the vast majority of problem cards in EDH, generates a card with Ephara, and survives opposing elesh norns, which is surprisingly relevant. This card is likely to become core.
Stonecloaker - Flash graveyard hate that bounces your guys and flies. See this guy for why Whitemane Lion is bad.
Helm of Possession - This card is so close to being a core card! It's been amazing every time I've used it. It's ridiculous with Sun Titan and just flat out great on its own. It is super, super good. Stealing creatures at instant speed, enabling hatebear shenanigans, etc.
Thalia's Lancers - It was tough finding the right section for these guys. They're both an answer (in they get some specific stuff that I classify as answers) and an engine in some contexts (blinking/cloning them is absurdly powerful). The consistency they add to the deck by finding elesh norn or Linvala or jitte or nykthos is huge. Almost core.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - She's an answer and a question, but I primarily use her as a board reset. She's also a wincon, turning any army of derpy bears into lethal pretty much instantly.
Mana Drain - The best counterspell ever printed for EDH, the ramp can help you convert a turn 3 Ephara and it's great late game too as it can represent advancing your board and keeping up interaction for yet another turn. Really not required for the deck to operate but I like it.
Cyclonic Rift - I originally eschewed this card because I hated it, and also it was quite expensive. What I found was that when I switched to a Muddle the Mixture package, this card turned into pure gold. It allows Muddle to essentially turn into a win condition which is hugely powerful in this deck. I would not run it without running merchant scroll or muddle or mystical tutor to find it.
Unexpectedly Absent - A second removal spell that is very flexible and pretty strong in the deck in general. Lots of applications. Can tutor with Muddle, which is very strong.
Austere Command - A very versatile wrath that often leaves us with a full board and opponents empty. Almost a win condition. This is back in the main deck after a year or so on the shelf. Enchantments and artifacts are becoming overwhelming in my meta.
Return to Dust - It's a two-for-one that exiles some of the most important cards in the format. All important answer to Darksteel Forge and Gods. I wound up cutting this because it's too slow to want to main phase in my current meta, and too inefficient otherwise. Replaced with Capsize.
Reality Shift - This is a cheap instant speed answer that gives us the chance to mess with a common theme in EDH - topdeck manipulation. It could easily get cut but so far I have liked having a second removal spell. Also a Muddle the Mixture target.
Desertion - On the expensive side, but often a huge blowout that will win games and as a bonus often trigger Ephara. I stopped using this cos I picked up a mana drain.
Vendilion Clique - Flash, check, flying, check, steals people's combo pieces, check, decent power, check. Only doesn't get the "core" nod by virtue of being non-recurrable with Reveillark.
Path to Exile - Ramps them. It's still one of the best removal cards in the format but I just hate ramping people.
Arcane Denial - One of the most efficient counters in the format but I just don't like playing the mass of counterspells, and the ones I do play are better for the deck.
Pact of Negation - It's a great card but the deck runs on such low mana it's often virtually timewalking yourself to cast it. If I had to play a free countery effect I'd play the next card, or Misdirection.
Force of Will - A very very close card to being included in the deck. My blue count is a little low to support it, but its mana efficiency makes it highly desirable. Countering spells when you're tapped out is good, just ask a legacy player!
Duplicant - It's too expensive for my tastes but can be recurred and blinked and is very good. Would consider it if I had more mana generation.
Wrath of God - A great cheap wrath that goes with the mana efficiency theme of the deck, but not quite versatile enough. I like my wraths to double as winconditions or bring something really unique to the table.
Evacuation - This virtual sweeper is so good in this deck it's always on the verge of being included. If I included an Archaeomancer package, I would play this since it's so hugely strong with him.
Fiend Hunter - Exiles creatures, synergizes with sac and recursion effects, and has a body. It's slow but wields swords and is recurrable. 3-drop slot is just too crowded right now, and he can't be tutored for with Recruiter which is a shame. Note that in the right deck this card can go infinite with Sun Titan (needs a blasting station or similar) so worth keeping in mind, especially for decks trying to be faster. Now that blasting station is in the deck I'm still considering this card, but not being searchable with Recruiter puts it very low on the list.
Voidmage Husher - Bounces himself, so he's a nice slow engine, but he also shuts down a lot of cheaty attempts to win like Rogue's Passage. I've generally found him too slow and the 4-drop slot too demanding lately. Note: I really, really miss this card sometimes. It's regularly on my mind to put it back.
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
Containment Priest - Flashes, which is very important, and shuts down a lot of methods of cheating creatures into play which we hate seeing. Slight nonbo with some of our cheat effects, but still usually asymmetrical. I have really liked this card over the years. I've blown out a number of crazy plays with it, and also completely shut off a lot of boards combined with Curio and Flickerwisp. It's slow but it gets the job done.
Hushwing Gryff - It shuts down some of our shenanigans but we have ways to get rid of it and reuse it, and it flashes and flies. Great card.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence - She shuts down many infinite combos and wields swords in the air and generally shuts down a lot of shenanigans as well (Geth, Lord of the Vault for example). She's probably going to become a core creature after I get a feel for just how strong she is.
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir - While nowhere near a bear, Teferi generates a lot of devotion, flashes, gives all your creatures flash, and stops other people from casting instants or flash effects. He's ridiculous, and on a good body. His mana cost makes him barely not a core creature, but he's borderline.
Grand Abolisher - He's half of Teferi and more, with 2 white pips for Ephara. His body leaves something to be desired, but his effect is undeniable. I rarely lose if he sticks, so he's borderline core, but I could see cutting in a more spell-heavy build. I wound up cutting this because my meta got a little less interactive, and I wanted more power -- I put Timestream navigator in the place.
Eidolon of Rhetoric - All the good things about Ethersworn Canonist with a big fat blocking butt and tutorable for with enchantment tutors should you choose to run more. People will misplay around this card left and right and constantly ask to look at it and shake their heads. It's fantastic, and we can usually play around it in much the same way we can the Canonist. I wound up cutting this as the effect got less in demand and muddle fills the role of my second copy by tutoring for canonist and recruiter the third. Sadly this card is just better than canonist, but not being recruiterable is really annoying.
Spirit of the Labyrinth - Has been in the deck before. It's really, really strong in a meta full of wheels, as we rebuild from hand destruction very quickly--every other topdeck is 2 cards and we have numerous persistent engines.
Leonin Arbiter - I've played it before and found it to be good, but people having a choice is bad - they can play around it, and his body is undesirable. I'd wish for about 3 more functional reprints of Aven Mindcensor please Or a straight up Stranglehold bear, that'd be great.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - She's solid bear territory but my main issue was that she regularly slowed me down more than other people who ramp harder. She'd be really good if you played more stax (e.g. Grand Arbiter type stuff) effects on bodies for sure. This deck could certainly handle Smokestack type stuff with a little tweaking too.
Kataki, War's Wage - Nonbo with our artifacts, but could be considered in a more enchanty build.
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)
Eldrazi Displacer - Displacer is the truth. Even with my bare minimum number of colorless sources this card always threatens to take over games. It acts as a slow maze of ith, it often churns out repeated cards with Ephara, and it can turn into a machine gun of death with Containment priest. It does it all. I consider it to be a core card for the most part, but need some more reps.
Whitemane Lion - This card recently made its way back in as an engine because of Recruiter of the Guard and I am liking it a lot with recruiter. It's somewhat underwhelming when drawn on its own, but does a lot of work protecting your board too. It can be transmuted for with Muddle the Mixture as well which is nice.
Emeria, the Sky Ruin - It's slow and unreliable due to our not huge number of plains but the opportunity cost is quite low to have one tapped plains given how oppressive it is when assembled. With Land Tax it's relatively easy. Tolaria West and a few plains tutors could make it much more reliable if desired.
Weathered Wayfarer - So it took me a while to come around to this card being important enough to get an entry but man it is good. It's just such a powerful thing to do for 1 mana when we're playing in Elder Dragon Ramp. Everyone always has more lands than me, and so I can just tutor up all the great lands in my deck. Prioritize Emeria, the Sky Ruin, Academy Ruins and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. I'm not sure I will ever cut this. The percentage of the time where I run away with the game with wayfarer is high -- usually just setting Emeria up on its own.
Misc Blink and Recursion - Flickerwisp, Restoration Angel, and Karmic Guide are all three great cards that fill similar roles - reusing ETB creatures, flying and carrying swords. They're all close to core creatures but could swap out for something better
Cloudstone Curio - Hey, we get to reuse our creatures. Lots of hilarious interactions with this (bouncing Ethersworn Canonist, taking our turn and recasting it). Even without Ephara it's very strong, but with her it's beastly. This card found its way out for Blasting Station because I generally was not a fan of the mana investment. It rarely felt like what I wanted to be doing for some reason, though it was very good at setting up Venser shenanigans. Definitely possible it'll come back.
Ranger of Eos - Ranger searches for 3 great cards - Mother of Runes, Serra Ascendant and Soul Warden or Weathered Wayfarer. Mom protects our creatures, Ascendant is a huge fattie that gains us life and the wayfarer can find various ramp cards or other strong lands. The main focus of the Ranger engine, however, is that he turns will often turn one card into 5, which is great.
When playing Ranger, Mother of Runes is the main one I consider to not be optional. I always get her and one other card first, since she can protect the other one.
The Ranger package is quite flexible, and there're a lot of cards that you can try rotating in and out for other one drops. Nova Cleric and Martyred Rusalka are the top of my list, and Soul Warden has been in before. Another strong thing you can do with ranger is get Shrieking Drake which bounces the Ranger and recast him. Drake is a really strong Ephara engine on its own.
The ranger package worked its way out of the deck as more powerful efficient cards showed up. I found myself with ranger stuck in hand not wanting to spend 4 mana on it pretty regularly so gave it a cut and haven't looked back. It's still a great option, but on the outs for me.
Heliod, God of the Sun - He gives the team vigilance and makes tokens, and is a huge fattie sometimes. He's slow enough that he sometimes is on my cutlist, but he's won a lot of games.
Skullclamp - This is a one-card engine that fills our yard with value while drawing tons of cards. It's been a decent backup to Ephara, it's cheap, and tutorable. I no longer run it due to the fact that it is mana intensive and does not typically build my board state; I found I spent too much time drawing cards and not enough winning the tempo game with clamp. Sometimes 10 pegasi and 10 mana are better than 20 cards in hand.
Dust Elemental - He's good. Real good. Huge fattie with double evasion, and can bounce 3 of your dudes. Chances are good it will durdle its way back into my deck at some point as I kinda miss it and it helps my flash count quite a bit. Good solid critter. Unfortunately the 4CMCs are a very competitive spot in this deck!
Thraben Doomsayer - I played this guy for quite a while and he is very, very strong - deceptively so. He makes tokens at instant speed, often meaning you draw an extra card, and he can create a huge army if people let him go for too long. Always on my mind.
Cloudseeder - I found the card disadvantage to be too much for this guy combined with the mana cost. Deceptively bad.
Mobilization - Mana cost is too high and the dudes don't fly.
Elspeth Tirel - I don't own one, but her sweeping ability is really desirable. She's very good and I will try when I pick one up.
Brimaz, King of Oreskos - He's another guy I sometimes want to put back in. Really good at carrying swords. Problem is he's too often worthless if I can't get a sword on him due to lack of evasion.
Hero of Bladehold - Same issue Brimaz has, but battle cry makes her very desirable as a pump effect.
Monastery Mentor - Needs a bigger non-creature count. Might be good enough honestly due to the high artifact count, but I haven't gotten around to testing it.
Ojutai Exemplars - Same issue as the mentor but additionally much slower and not likely to create an army.
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).
Tithe - A cheap card advantage solution that can be flashed back/bought back and generates Plains for Emeria, generally a very strong card - better than the 38th land by a lot. Tithe helps you fix for Ephara, as Tithe + Fetchland + any land will get you Ephara mana most of the time.
Strip Mine - we have Flickerwisp as slight land hate but we're pretty light on it in general outside of Voidmage Husher. This helps shore up matchups where you have to kill a key land.
Mistveil Plains - Graveyard hate for ourselves, to prevent stuff from being stolen/spelltwined, etc, or to cycle key cards back into the deck. It's discussed elsewhere but there are a number of soft locks this card represents, basically any repeated tutor effect + sac outlet + creature, or spellseeker + blink effect + <=2 cmc spell. Cyclonic Rift every turn ends games.
Skycloud Expanse - Most people don't play these filters, but I find it to be very strong at ensuring a T3 Ephara. It has both our colors on one land and doesn't require any colored sources - this + ancient tomb + high market is a keepable opening manabase, whereas it is not with any other dual land in your deck.
Temple of Enlightenment - Scry is good, and it enables some weaker keeps in an opening hand (since a 2-lander with this provides a significantly higher likelihood you hit your 3rd land drop).
High Market - Sac outlets are key to the deck and getting one on a land is important. You'll often want to sac a creature to turn Ephara off, sac Ephara to prevent theft, sac a stolen creature, sac a hatebear to recur it, etc. Very strong card.
Evolving Wilds - ETB tapped fetchlands are bad, ok on a budget.
Moorland Haunt - I don't play this because it's too mana intensive (3 mana functionally), colorless, and hates on my own awesome creatures I'd like to recur. It can be good if you run into people reanimating your stuff a lot.
Notable Exclusions
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV - This guy is amazing. Huge negative tempo for your opponents, cast Ephara for UW, etc. He's really good and the only reason he's not in is that my playgroup hates him.
Brago, King Eternal - Provides a huge amount of resources, adds many soft locks to the deck, and is a good bodied flier. He brings so many tools and should be in the deck. I don't play him mainly because he feels like easy-mode, my playgroup hates him, and it annoys me because I think Brago is a stronger deck than Ephara and it's a constant reminder of that.
Time Warp - With Archaeomancer and Venser, the Sojourner, any sort of time magic makes an infinite turn loop, and it probably belongs in the deck. I just haven't gotten around to making the cuts, and would probably only do so if trying to amp up my competitiveness. It is possible that a time magic package belongs in the deck even without the infinite combo.
Tithe - It's really strong and probably belongs in the deck, but I can't think of what creature to cut for it unfortunately. If it were on a 2CMC body I would play it daily, nightly, and ever so rightly.
Deadeye Navigator - My group has a soft ban on this guy but honestly I feel like he is a bit too mana intensive for the deck. You have to be very very careful about spending mana in this deck, and while Deadeye-Venser can win the game, it's often not as good as Aetherling who can protect himself from wraths.
Palinchron - He combos with Phantasmal Image for infinite mana and is a great creature for Ephara being reusable card draw and a pretty big flying body. He's just in competition with the only 7-drop I believe the deck has room for (Elesh Norn).
The holy trinity of durdly Ephara creatures while they may draw a lot of cards are not threatening enough. They don't shut down other people's games and they often cost us major tempo. See Stonecloaker and Aetherling as the right way to do Ephara creatures - the former is graveyard hate, protects our guys, chump blocks fliers and flies, and the latter draws a card for U, dodges wraths, and provides some inevitability (especially if you clone it:).
In the same way that Ephara can't afford to be playing Fact or Fiction, she can't afford to be playing creatures who solely exist to draw cards--mana doesn't grow on trees.
I wanted to update this section a little and say that 'bounce guys to your hand at instant speed' has gone up a bit in my estimation because of the new card Recruiter of the Guard (see above). I think having one of these in the deck is right, since recruiter can tutor for it and start a neverending value chain -- sometimes the chain of clones is incorrect or you want to keep some guys in your hand. The most common time I tutor for whitemane Lion is if I anticipate me or someone else wrathing soon, where it protects me from overcommitting to the board.
I still would not play additional bouncers, particularly more mana color intensive cards like Deputy of Acquittals (who also targets, which is a nonbo with Phantasmal image)
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.
12/4/2015
This is right about where I started to get serious about creature quality
2/5/2015
Primarily mana base tweaking this time, but also trying out a few other engine cards for Ephara.
-Temple of the False God -Dead card a bunch, didn't work with my gameplan much
-Windbrisk Heights - Comes into play tapped
-Winding Canyons - doesn't produce mana, is very mana intensive
-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.
+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.
4/13/2015
Getting rid of a dead card, adding another engine for Ephara.
4/23/2015
-Path to Exile - Hated ramping people.
+Reality Shift - I got tired of ramping people, and being able to threaten removal with 1U is nice. Reality shift's interaction with people's topdeck manipulation is something I'd like to explore too--there's a decent amount of miracle abuse, and I'm happy to give people Temporal Mastery bears. I think I might miss the tempo of W exile removal but the ramping really was a problem.
5/3/2015
This update was large but primarily aimed at increasing creature count and improving manabase consistency. Also trying out a few new cards I picked up, and trying out the improved sun titan/helm package.
I found the warden/thune combo was just too hated on in my group, people went out of their way to remove the Angel the moment he dropped and he'd provide no value unless I had greaves out. Then a board wipe was incoming if I got the engine going. He's just not the right way to spend 5 mana in my current meta. Warden goes with him because she is much weaker without him.
Clamp, as discussed, just wound up being too mana intensive and not really all that useful in prosecuting my gameplan most of the time. It's weird that paying 3 mana for 2 cards is too much, but the issue is that it doesn't develop your board state while you use it, unlike Ephara, who draws you fuel while you develop lethal board.
I'm adding Muddle as discussed earlier for the synergy with all the awesome 2-drops. Will report out on how it goes; I suspect it might be too mana intensive, but the temptation to be able to fish for answers is too much.
Bribery is just probably the best way this deck can spend 5 mana. It'll cantrip with Ephara and possibly end the game.
Weathered Wayfarer is a Ranger target who can fetch me answer lands or ramp me really hard with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Looking forward to trying it out. Nykthos has always been such a house that adding a way to dig for it seems good.
7/23/2015 Update
Removed Fiendhunter to try out Peacekeeper in his spot - since peacekeeper brings his own self-removal at an opportune time, and is pretty good with helm of possession and sun titan, decided to give him a go.
10/13/2015 Update
First changes in a while!
Removed Island for Prairie Stream - this is forever!
Removed Austere Command for Tragic Arrogance - This is probably just for testing. I feel like I'd like to lower my sweeper curve a little and this one lets me politically screw over a table and turn it on its side. Going to try it out.
2/4/2016 update
-1 plains, +1 tolaria west to support Academy Ruins and Nykthos a little better. Seem to have plenty of basics.
3/26/2016 update
-1 Æther vial, +1 oreskos explorer - Vial has been a bit sketchy for me lately, wanted to try out oreskos explorer for the fixing and figured I'd give it a go.
7/18/2016 update
-1 Tragic arrogance - This just never quite got there for me.
+1 Thalia's lancers - I think this card will do a lot for the deck, tutoring up win conditions and answers and such. Should be powerful. Tutoring for creatures has always been one of this deck's biggest lacks. I may try upping the legend count a little eventually.
2016/07/25 update
-voidmage husher -- just the only 4 drop cut I could think of, gotten a little slow in my meta.
-mana drain -- I traded mine off so time to cut it.
+spell queller - yeah.
+identity thief - I think this card is going to be insane. I hope I'm right. It's certainly bonkers with gilded drake, but not sure what else it's good for yet. Maybe I'll get to live the blightsteel colossus dream
2016/09/03
Since adding Thalia's Lancers I really wanted jitte. Identity thief was bad. Oreskos explorer was bad. Impersonator is great, but think inferior to recruiter. Clique was just meh. I have really, really missed vial and am looking forward to having it back.
My group's just not been using stuff that mindcensor punishes and the bird tends to be kinda centralizing. I want to try out retainers and it's the best fit.
Bribery, while a strong card, is one I can do without since it costs 5 mana--going to test the artisans. Feels like it could be really strong in the deck--if it's out while Ephara's out, you're going to generate absurd amounts of value.
12/10/2016
My group's basically given up on enforcing a sol ring ban since we've been doing more shop play, so I swapped one in for my wayfarer's bauble.
Peacekeeper turned out to generally be too mana intensive and often a double edged sword. Someone reminded me that Muddle can tutor for rift so I added that as a reasonable wincon.
I haven't catastrophe'd for lands in a while and I have been dying for another enchantment/artifact sweeper for a while, figured I'd try austere again. It used to be very good and the pendulum has swung toward enchantments a lot lately in my meta.
I saw a shiny foil, figured I'd try it. It's probable seachrome should stay in but it's really frustrating how often it's just an etb tapped unfetchable wastelandable mountain or whatever. had to cut somewhere.
I just think mana drain is a lot more efficient, despite desertion being very strong in the deck. A buddy of mine picked one up for me overseas that was very cheap so there it goes. Maybe I'll have the opportunity to trade it toward a foil or something before they get reprinted
I decided to try swapping angel in for faerie artisans which has never been particularly good. Seems worth trying despite the mana inefficiency.
9/7/2017 update
-Heliod, God of the Sun
+As Foretold
Heliod has been on the cutlist for many games. He's just so dang slow. I'd love my deck to be faster and he's one of the worst cards, so I'm cutting him to make room for As Foretold which I feel has a strong chance of being super good in the deck. Our desire to play on everyone's turn really shines there, and with the additional ways of getting whitemane Lion the desire is amplified. I'll keep you posted with how it goes.
9/9/2017
I got an RPTQ promo snapcaster mage so I'm swapping that in. Also unexpectedly absent is a bit more flexible than reality shift.
2/24/2018
I picked up a foil Timestream Navigator to try out as a combo outlet with Recruiter of the guard and cloudstone curio. I replaced the card that's been the worst for a while now (Grand Abolisher). I will update the main deck notes if Timestream turns out to be good.
3/14/2018
Cutting Aetherling to trial out Eldrazi Displacer which is something I've wanted to test for a while. They fulfill a fairly similar role and I've been reluctant to cast aetherling for a while due to its high mana investment.
3/16/2018
Trying cutting my Return to Dust for more mana efficient (if desperate) and also winconditiony Capsize.
4/3/2018
Cutting Island for an Inventors' Fair a card which I think is very good in the deck. May prove to be the wrong mana cut, but I think we can support it. Also facilitates Displacer.
Just some power level adjustments; Intuition is something I'd wanted to try again since Recruiter has become such a backbone of the deck, as it's one of the few ways to find him (intuition for lark+titan+recruiter or similar).
Here's hoping it's good -- feels like the non-creature count might be getting close to playing Monastery Mentor, but considering that still.
6/09/2018
Cut Sword of Light and Shadow
Add Spellseeker
This card is just very strong and Sword was the only thing I could think to cut for it. I've played it in a few games and Spellseeker is definitely the truth.
12/7/2018
Cut Mother of Runes - alas, mother of runes has done such great things in this deck but since moving on from the ranger package her power is less present, so she gets cut for new hotness.
Add Remorseful Cleric - This is more graveyard hate that we want, that can be really oppressive if we start reveillarking / sun titaning it. Really looking forward to trying this out
I have been considering these changes for a while; as much as I like cloudstone curio I just never wind up being thrilled with it. Blasting station both maintains my Trophy mage count and adds a nice compact combo with Navigator out.
Navigator is a card I think is very strong, but I have found the mana requirements a bit intense. I don't think it's necessarily wrong to play but want to try something different.
Aether vial is a card that I've noticed clogging my hand a lot; its ceiling is extremely high but the floor is super low. Tithe adds a low curve spell that will almost always result in +1 card and help me achieve Emeria.
Archaeomancer has been on my list and I somehow managed to find a way to swap it in without having to take out Snaps, which I am happy with. I think it may prove to be too mana intensive.
Boreas Charger is a card I wanted to try that seems like it will generally perform better than As Foretold in most situations. AF seems best in openers, but Charger can be strong at any point of the game and cantrips with ephara. Cut As Foretold to make room.
Update 1/29/2019
Cut Tolaria West for Myriad Landscape - just felt this would make my mana a little more consistent, and getting double plains is really powerful with Emeria.
Cut Sakashima's Student for body Double - a change I'd been meaning to make and forgot to do.
2019/06/15 Update for Modern Horizons
I have been wanting more sweepers, and it's really nice to get a new engine card. I'm sure I'll add a section to the primer about it at some point.
Flickerwisp, Lancers and Austere are generally just the worst cards here I could pull for things, though I still like all three of them as options.
Teferi's protection has not been good in this deck. I don't generate the kind of board states it's good for protecting and I am almost always the control deck these days. It rarely will buy me the time to combo out. I need something more reusable and better at stopping aggressive decks for longer.
So I'm gonna try starting smallish with the aggro plan:
2019/07/03 updates
CUT
-Trophy mage has just not been what I want to be doing mostly lately. Too slow. Not getting any other creatures is a big issue too.
-Boreas Charger I *still have never drawn* no idea why. But I owe someone an apology on smothering tithe, it's turned out to be almost the format's most defining white card. so I have to at least try it and this is the only thing I can cut.
ADD Smothering Tithe - I think another way to generate really big mana is worth trying, and I think I misjudged this card initially. Going to try it anyway. Windborn Muse - really need to try to do something to stave off some early aggro deaths.
Venser has been such a theme of the deck for so long but people never let him ultimate anymore and without ultimatting he's not really that great. Sometimes he locks with Gilded Drake but so does tidespout, and it also blocks and cantrips. I suspect Tidespout may be worse than Stormtide Leviathan or Avacyn, or even possibly Kederekt Leviathan, but I am going to just start experimenting in that slot.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
-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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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 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:
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Why Ephara?
Alternatives
Decklist
Philosophy
Card Options
How to Play
History
Other Decks
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 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
1 Ephara, God of the PolisFoil
Creatures
1 Weathered WayfarerFoil
1 Containment PriestFoil
1 Ethersworn CanonistFoil
1 Gilded Drake
1 Leonin Relic-WarderFoil
1 Phantasmal Image Foil
1 Silver MyrFoil
1 Remorseful Cleric Foil
1 Snapcaster Mage Foil
1 Stormscape FamiliarFoil
1 Whitemane LionFoil
1 SpellseekerFoil
1 Soulherder Foil
1 Hushwing GryffFoil
1 Spell Queller Foil
1 Stonecloaker Foil
1 Monastery MentorFoil
1 Eldrazi Displacer Foil
1 Recruiter of the GuardFoil
1 ArchaeomancerFoil
1 Glen Elendra ArchmageFoil
1 Phyrexian MetamorphFoil
1 Windborn Muse Foil
1 Linvala, Keeper of SilenceFoil
1 Venser, Shaper Savant Foil
1 Body DoubleFoil
1 Karmic GuideFoil
1 ReveillarkFoil
1 Teferi, Mage of ZhalfirFoil
1 Sun TitanFoil
1 Elesh Norn, Grand CenobiteFoil
1 Tithe
1 Enlightened Tutor Foil
1 Mystical TutorFoil
1 Swords to Plowshares Foil
1 Unexpectedly AbsentFoil
1 Cyclonic RiftFoil
1 Muddle the MixtureFoil
1 Forbid Foil
1 CapsizeFoil
1 Mana DrainFoil
1 IntuitionFoil
1 EvacuationFoil
Sorceries
1 Supreme VerdictFoil
1 Hour of RevelationFoil
1 Winds of AbandonFoil
Artifacts
1 Mana CryptFoil
1 Sensei's Divining TopFoil
1 Azorius SignetFoil
1 Sol RingFoil
1 Mox Diamond
1 Pearl Medallion
1 Talisman of ProgressFoil
1 Umezawa's JitteFoil
1 Oblivion StoneFoil
1 Blasting StationFoil
1 Sword of Feast and FamineFoil
Enchantments
1 Land TaxFoil
1 Sacred MesaFoil
1 Smothering Tithe Foil
1 Venser, the SojournerFoil
1 Elspeth, Sun's ChampionFoil
Lands
1 Inventors' Fair Foil
1 Ancient Tomb Foil
1 Academy RuinsFoil
1 Adarkar WastesFoil
1 Nykthos, Shrine to NyxFoil
1 Strip Mine Foil
1 Mystic GateFoil
1 Nimbus MazeFoil
1 Emeria, the Sky RuinFoil
1 Command TowerFoil
1 Flooded StrandFoil
1 Glacial FortressFoil
1 Hallowed FountainFoil
1 Prairie StreamFoil
4 IslandFoil
1 Mistveil PlainsFoil
9 PlainsFoil
1 Myriad LandscapeFoil
1 Polluted DeltaFoil
1 Misty RainforestFoil
1 Marsh Flats Foil
1 Irrigated FarmlandFoil
1 Skycloud ExpanseFoil
1 Temple of EnlightenmentFoil
1 Tundra (FBB)
1 Windswept HeathFoil
Deck Philosophy
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
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.
Enlightened Tutor - It searches for so many key cards in the deck; I think of it like letting me play a second Sacred Mesa but there are tons of cards you can fish out with it. Eidolon of Rhetoric and Ethersworn Canonist can lock the game down, Land Tax or Sacred mesa can give you a card engine, Swords do what swords do, and Phyrexian Metamorph can copy the best dude or artifact on the board. It's hard to imagine a tutor doing more work outside of black.
Gilded Drake - It triggers Ephara and takes the best creature on the board. He's bonkers with Venser. Second best way you can spend 1U in the deck, which leads me to...
Phantasmal Image - This guy is the stone cold nuts. He's so efficient it hurts. He's copying Glen Elendra Archmage and persisting as a Blightsteel Colossus, he's gaining infinite life with Reveillark and Soul Warden, he's getting brought back off a Sun Titan trigger and chaining into a Sword of Feast and Famine. One of the best creatures in the deck.
Ethersworn Canonist - A very strong board stall tactic that usually allows you to play around it; you can sac it to Helm of Possession, cast a bunch of things, bring it back with Sun Titan or Reveillark, you can Venser, the Sojourner it and do your stuff. If all else fails, you have a ton of artifacts you can cast too. You can drop her at the end of a big turn to keep everyone in check too. She's easily recurred and tutored for which is nice.
Phyrexian Metamorph - Arguably the best clone in the format needs no introduction. It's especially amazing here given all the ways in which we can abuse it, recur it, and blink it to change its form. It's a very good card and should probably never be cut.
Recruiter of the Guard - It does everything we want to do for a reasonable mana cost. The body is somewhat underwhelming but tutoring for a hatebear or a clone is just insanely good. Because it can be bounced/cloned we can do all kinds of ridiculous chains. She enables massive turn 4 plays like recruiter for image copying recruiter, or recruiter for whitemane lion, draw all the cards, etc.
After a great deal of time playing with it I'm convinced Recruiter is literally the most essential card in the deck (other than Ephara). I almost never lose if she resolves, as the ridiculous chain of value she represents while simultaneously tutoring for almost any good answer in the deck is hard for other decks to deal with.
Glen Elendra Archmage - Recurring counterspell on a creature who usually draws two cards from Ephara. One of the best cards in the deck that you should not leave home without. And of course it flies and wields swords.
Venser, Shaper Savant - He stalls uncounterable spells, bounces your own guys, shuts down very strong plays, and can be easily turned into a game winning bomb with the Reveillark combo. Add a Deadeye Navigator for lots of rage scoops. He's got flash, too!
Reveillark - Recurs about half of the deck, synergizes hilariously with clones (especially Phantasmal Image) and is a good sized flier no one wants to remove. He provides you a huge leg up if you have to wrath.
Sun Titan - If you read all the other entries you'll see how many times this card is referred to. It's probably one of the best white cards in EDH, but in our deck it's insane. He enables numerous soft locks, he's straight up value, and a huge vigilant beater. I'd never consider removing him.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - The Norn fills so many roles in this deck it's ridiculous! It's functionally a sweeper, makes your little goofball creatures a huge threat, and has a respectable booty of its own. The only way I would ever cut this card is if I was running in a Bribery heavy meta -- but I probably still wouldn't since the look on someone's face when you cast Aven Mindcensor in response, or blink Elesh with your Flickerwisp or Venser, the Sojourner.
Venser, the Sojourner - The first card I thought of when I considered this list. He reuses out creatures, he makes our team unblockable, and his emblem happens insanely fast and ends games. In the early days of this deck I would win by Venser Emblem + Stonecloaker on a regular basis. He does tons of things, in addition to setting up a soft lock with the next card..
Elspeth, Sun's Champion - Wraths, makes guys, and ultimate wins games. Hard to top this lady. She's an army in a box and one of the few topdecks that can turn almost any board state around. She's everything you could ask for in a planeswalker. Her ability to trigger Ephara for free every turn is almost worth the price of admission.
Land Tax - Eh, it does what it says on the tin! It generates an absurd amount of card advantage for a deck that is rarely actually ramping, and powers many engines including Forbid (one of the most oppressive soft locks in the deck). As a bonus it fixes our land drops and thins our deck. I almost never lose if I hit an early land tax.
Sacred Mesa - The main reason Enlightened Tutor exists. This card is an early and late game powerhouse. It makes an army of 1/1 fliers to wield swords or get pumped by Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and generally draws you a card for 1W as well. Remember that you can untap and then make a pegasus to sac it by stacking the pegasus creation trigger above the trigger to sacrifice sacred mesa.
Muddle the Mixture - I've had this card in here for quite a while now and frankly cannot imagine not having it now. It tutors for so many things that are important that the mana inefficiency is not a huge deal. Five mana is generally the sweet spot for the deck and with great regularity I find "get your best 2-drop and cast it" to be a fantastic 5 mana play. Also, it counters a lot of stuff we care about such as wraths and other people's counterspells.
Spellseeker - I don't see how this card can ever be anything other than core. The things you can tutor for with it are so good. In my deck it can get answers (unexpectedly absent, cyclonic rift, it can get either of our other mirage tutors (mystical tutor, enlightened tutor). The effect is extremely likely to close a game, and probably belongs in any Ephara deck that runs good spells.
Retired Core
Over the years (Yes years!) I've been playing this deck I've had occasion to question even some core cards in response to meta shifts and new card options. This is the old core card graveyard (that I'd guess to not be permanent given how long most cards were core).
Stoneforge Mystic - This gal is one of the best cards you'll ever draw in the deck. She gets swords, greaves, skullclamp, she cheats stuff into play, she wields a sword. She gives your army of little donothing durdlemachines teeth. Everyone who plays EDH knows how great she is, and she's even better in a deck with 30 weak creatures.
I'm experimenting with cutting the equipment package at the moment, mostly because the format feels like it's trending more toward bombs which makes Stoneforge a little less impactful than typical - and people are really prone to removing the equipment these days. I'm trying including some more individually powerful cards and (e.g. teferi's protection, monastery mentor) in hopes that I can shore up some of the power level changes.
Sakashima's Student - We have tons of evasive fliers and early creatures who will not be blocked. You can steal games with this card with the predictable "I clone Craterhoof/Blightsteel/etc." or you can just reuse your other ETB triggers and get more Ephara draws. This card is amazing, and is functionally a 2 drop...and of course it's recurrable with Reveillark. It's one of my favorite cards but it's also one of the most powerful. This card is still in the deck but I no longer consider it to be core, despite the power level. It's been on the chopping block a few times.
Sword of Light and Shadow - This card dodges some of the best removal in the format, is easily tutorable, provides some serious evasion, and generates massive card advantage (usually 2-3 cards every time you connect -- one for the creature you get, one for triggering Ephara when you cast it, and one for its ETB effect). Over the years the mana investment to equip has gotten kind of rough, as I have so many more efficient things to do most of the time, so this sword became less relevant as I have more ways to get karmic guide and lark especially (with adds like intuition and recruiter of the guard)
Aven Mindcensor - He stifles fetchlands. He stumps some of the best green cheaty cards in the format. This bird is the word - he also lets you draw a second Ephara card by playing in someone else's turn, which is in fact the best time to play him. The bird makes Zur players cry. On top of all that, it flies and carries swords. Retirement comment: My meta shifted to be less fetchland and tutor heavy, and mostly the bird was a 3 mana 2/1 with flash, which is not good enough. Sometimes I'd get people, but not often enough to be worth the slot with all the new sweet cards we've got available.
Catastrophe - This versatile sweeper locks games up. It's a slightly more expensive Wrath of God at its worst, but more often than not you can put two Sun Titans out and then blow up everyone's lands and people scoop. It's far better than either Wrath or Armageddon in this deck, which is very short of non-creature spells. I wound up cutting this, only the second core card to get cut that I can recall, because enchantments and artifacts got to be more of a problem in my meta and I needed room for Austere. It may come back but I doubt it as it's a less common way to win these days for some reason.
Aetherling - The old RtR finisher, by which all other control finishers will henceforth be judged. This card dodges wraths, synergizes insanely with Ephara, and with a decent amount of mana and a clone can kill people dead. I've swept tables with a Phantasmal Image and this guy before--16 unblockable is a respectable clock when you've got a soft lock on the board, and they're nearly impossible to remove. As my meta has sped up, this fairly inefficient 6-drop had to go for more powerful cards with more immediate effect. It could come back if my meta got slower as the unstoppable card advantage engine is real.
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.
Mana Crypt & Sol Ring - They're just too good. My meta has gotten more aggressive, thrown out its soft ban list, and started to include other players at our shop, so I caved in to the inevitable arms race. These cards are too good not to be playing as they both enable the extremely desirable turn 2 Ephara. Most mid-powered decks are not going to come back if you start triggering Ephara on turn 3.
Mox Diamond - Well, this is a pretty obvious card I never played a lot, but since adding so many ways to search for land I think the card is playable. it requires 4 lands to accelerate into turn 3 ephara, but it has a few other ways of getting there -- it can create turn 2 Ephara with 3 lands and another mana rock, or it can work with 3 lands and Tithe, Land Tax or Weathered Wayfarer. I think on the balance it's better than a 2 CMC rock. But time will tell if I have a high enough land count to make use of it reliably.
Azorius Signet - Makes colors from colorless, comes out at 2. One of the best ramp cards in the deck.
Pearl Medallion - This mana reducer reduces a huge portion of our deck, including Ephara, and often lets us play a lot more spells - mid to late game it's equivalent to 3 extra lands most of the time.
Talisman of Progress - It makes colors and comes into play untapped, good tempo, about as good as it gets. Bonus for the favorable interaction with Azorius Signet.
Silver Myr - See above.
Stormscape Familiar - A second pearl medallion that wields swords. What's not to love?
Ancient Tomb - Another surprise card that enables a T3 Ephara with moderate cost. The life loss is usually irrelevant to the ability to accelerate with a sol land in this deck.
Sword of Feast and Famine - This card is, like Nykthos, primarily a mid to late game ramp spell that enables larger than typical turns. It's also got very relevant protections and buffs of course.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx - One of the few ramps that doesn't involve Ephara. This is a very deceptively strong card in the deck as it will regularly enable huge plays - it's almost always white mana, but we have a lot of mana symbols in the deck. I've had turns go: Sun Titan for Phantasmal Image as another titan, Nykthos for Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. It's one of the few ways we have to generate massive mana and the investment is pretty minor.
Boreas Charger - I'm unsure about this card but it seems very powerful and a creature so going to give it a try. It seems like it should be good at closing games (getting Emeria online) or making early games more consistent, and it's a critter. Not a lot of ways to generate a big mana advantage in the mid game with this deck and this is one.
Wayfarer's Bauble - It's slow but it's recurrable and does accelerate into turn 3 Ephara. I'm rarely unhappy to see it in an opener. Bonus of actually getting land, unlike most ramp we have access to. Downside is fairly slow and requires being drawn on turn 1 to make a turn 3 ephara.
Fellwar Stone - Almost always makes one of our colors and as a bonus comes into play untapped. It's a very good tempo card. I mostly cut this because I can't make myself buy a 150 dollar foil. May put it back in when we get a reprint. And Mox Diamond seems slightly better.
As Foretold - This has been in the deck for a while now so I figured I'd do a write up. It's really not part of the core strategy, sadly, but it's just so powerful with the number of things we can do on other people's turns that I wanted to try it out, and I have found it to be very good. Games that go long are usually the ones I win, and this card is very good at getting all the stuff you've drawn out of your hand to help win the game. It's a very compact way to generate tons of mana that doesn't really require anything else -- the Monolith package, for example, requires a lot of setup and a lot of cards (voltaic key, grim monolith, basalt monolith, mana vault, thran dynamo, etc.). This card lets us just play it and accumulate crazy amounts of mana.
Bonus for being recurrable with Sun Titan.
Aether Vial - This card doesn't accelerate into Ephara, but it ramps you and lets you play creatures at instant speed without worrying about counterspells. It's amazing with the deck due to the high density of 3 and 4 CMC creatures. This card has a very high ceiling but a very low floor, replaced by Tithe.
Coldsteel Heart - I used to run this, since it makes colored mana, but it's currently on the shelf for mana myrs.
Gold Myr - I am only recently trying the mana myrs - they work functionally equivalently to the ETB tapped colored rocks, but may also replace themselves if drawn late game. I wound up cutting this one because I didn't like being so exposed on mana creatures, but kept the blue one because I felt slightly short of blue mana.
Marble Diamond - Same as Coldsteel. Color limitation makes it worse.
Sky Diamond - Same as Coldsteel. Color limitation makes it worse.
Knight of the White Orchid - This guy is only doing the job if an opponent plays exploration or rampant growth ahead of you pretty much. He's a creature who fixes though, so I'd consider putting him back in before any of the rocks.
Chromatic Lantern - 3 drop ramp is bad in this deck, but this is the best of it. Consider it if you don't have access to a great mana base.
Walking Atlas - This is my favorite mana dork-like effect in the deck. Ephara tends to keep your hand pretty full, and Land Tax is a card I see often enough that it tends to sneakily add up to a ton of ramp in the mid to late game. It has some downsides in that it requires extra lands in hand to work, but this is usually not an issue. This does make it somewhat less likely to enable a turn 3 Ephara (as it requires you to have seen 4 lands in the first 10-11 cards). This got removed because it was not as good as Mana Crypt (duh).
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.
Mystical Tutor - I have a lot of very, very good instants and sorceries and this would get vastly better with a time magic package. This card was just as good as I thought and once I got spellseeker in the deck it became even more powerful - being able to spellseeker for any spell in the deck at the cost of a card is pretty strong.
Swords to Plowshares - Instant, exiles, too good not to play despite not being a creature. We need instant speed answers and this is the most efficient.
Muddle the Mixture - This card warrants some serious discussion; it's borderline core, and may make its way into that section later. The 2-drop spot in this deck is incredibly crowded with great cards that let you dictate the game. Need a board presence? transmute for Stoneforge Mystic. Need to shut off Maelstrom Wanderer? Transmute for Canonist. The options are nearly endless. And in a pinch it can stop most annoying effects for a reasonable mana cost. In EDH it is usually counterspell with an upside. Notably, it also transmutes for Reality Shift, an interaction that has come up multiple times now.
Umezawa's Jitte - Like some other cards here, both a question and an answer. Jitte fixes a lot of problem board states primarily in this deck; it's great at winning too but fixing problem creatures is its best mode. Ephara almost always has some evasive creature she's willing to strap a jitte to. Having 3 other cards that get it is nuts -- Muddle, Stoneforge and Lancers all get it.
Forbid - This is really close to being a core spell for the deck. It counters spells and lets us trade cards (which we almost always have a ton of, and don't mind having in the graveyard anyway) for more counterspells.
Capsize - Very flexible, answers everything return to Dust does while also being a game winning engine if you get enough mana (or As Foretold counters).
Supreme Verdict - An uncounterable, very efficient wrath. The uncounterable effect is incredibly important.
Leonin Relic-Warder - Synergizes with sacrifice and recursion effects, and exiles important card types. And it's a bear.
Spell Queller - Counters uncounterable spells, handles the vast majority of problem cards in EDH, generates a card with Ephara, and survives opposing elesh norns, which is surprisingly relevant. This card is likely to become core.
Stonecloaker - Flash graveyard hate that bounces your guys and flies. See this guy for why Whitemane Lion is bad.
Helm of Possession - This card is so close to being a core card! It's been amazing every time I've used it. It's ridiculous with Sun Titan and just flat out great on its own. It is super, super good. Stealing creatures at instant speed, enabling hatebear shenanigans, etc.
Thalia's Lancers - It was tough finding the right section for these guys. They're both an answer (in they get some specific stuff that I classify as answers) and an engine in some contexts (blinking/cloning them is absurdly powerful). The consistency they add to the deck by finding elesh norn or Linvala or jitte or nykthos is huge. Almost core.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - She's an answer and a question, but I primarily use her as a board reset. She's also a wincon, turning any army of derpy bears into lethal pretty much instantly.
Mana Drain - The best counterspell ever printed for EDH, the ramp can help you convert a turn 3 Ephara and it's great late game too as it can represent advancing your board and keeping up interaction for yet another turn. Really not required for the deck to operate but I like it.
Cyclonic Rift - I originally eschewed this card because I hated it, and also it was quite expensive. What I found was that when I switched to a Muddle the Mixture package, this card turned into pure gold. It allows Muddle to essentially turn into a win condition which is hugely powerful in this deck. I would not run it without running merchant scroll or muddle or mystical tutor to find it.
Unexpectedly Absent - A second removal spell that is very flexible and pretty strong in the deck in general. Lots of applications. Can tutor with Muddle, which is very strong.
Austere Command - A very versatile wrath that often leaves us with a full board and opponents empty. Almost a win condition. This is back in the main deck after a year or so on the shelf. Enchantments and artifacts are becoming overwhelming in my meta.
Return to Dust - It's a two-for-one that exiles some of the most important cards in the format. All important answer to Darksteel Forge and Gods. I wound up cutting this because it's too slow to want to main phase in my current meta, and too inefficient otherwise. Replaced with Capsize.
Reality Shift - This is a cheap instant speed answer that gives us the chance to mess with a common theme in EDH - topdeck manipulation. It could easily get cut but so far I have liked having a second removal spell. Also a Muddle the Mixture target.
Desertion - On the expensive side, but often a huge blowout that will win games and as a bonus often trigger Ephara. I stopped using this cos I picked up a mana drain.
Vendilion Clique - Flash, check, flying, check, steals people's combo pieces, check, decent power, check. Only doesn't get the "core" nod by virtue of being non-recurrable with Reveillark.
Path to Exile - Ramps them. It's still one of the best removal cards in the format but I just hate ramping people.
Arcane Denial - One of the most efficient counters in the format but I just don't like playing the mass of counterspells, and the ones I do play are better for the deck.
Pact of Negation - It's a great card but the deck runs on such low mana it's often virtually timewalking yourself to cast it. If I had to play a free countery effect I'd play the next card, or Misdirection.
Force of Will - A very very close card to being included in the deck. My blue count is a little low to support it, but its mana efficiency makes it highly desirable. Countering spells when you're tapped out is good, just ask a legacy player!
Duplicant - It's too expensive for my tastes but can be recurred and blinked and is very good. Would consider it if I had more mana generation.
Wrath of God - A great cheap wrath that goes with the mana efficiency theme of the deck, but not quite versatile enough. I like my wraths to double as winconditions or bring something really unique to the table.
Evacuation - This virtual sweeper is so good in this deck it's always on the verge of being included. If I included an Archaeomancer package, I would play this since it's so hugely strong with him.
Fiend Hunter - Exiles creatures, synergizes with sac and recursion effects, and has a body. It's slow but wields swords and is recurrable. 3-drop slot is just too crowded right now, and he can't be tutored for with Recruiter which is a shame. Note that in the right deck this card can go infinite with Sun Titan (needs a blasting station or similar) so worth keeping in mind, especially for decks trying to be faster. Now that blasting station is in the deck I'm still considering this card, but not being searchable with Recruiter puts it very low on the list.
Voidmage Husher - Bounces himself, so he's a nice slow engine, but he also shuts down a lot of cheaty attempts to win like Rogue's Passage. I've generally found him too slow and the 4-drop slot too demanding lately. Note: I really, really miss this card sometimes. It's regularly on my mind to put it back.
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
Core Hatebears: Ethersworn Canonist
Containment Priest - Flashes, which is very important, and shuts down a lot of methods of cheating creatures into play which we hate seeing. Slight nonbo with some of our cheat effects, but still usually asymmetrical. I have really liked this card over the years. I've blown out a number of crazy plays with it, and also completely shut off a lot of boards combined with Curio and Flickerwisp. It's slow but it gets the job done.
Hushwing Gryff - It shuts down some of our shenanigans but we have ways to get rid of it and reuse it, and it flashes and flies. Great card.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence - She shuts down many infinite combos and wields swords in the air and generally shuts down a lot of shenanigans as well (Geth, Lord of the Vault for example). She's probably going to become a core creature after I get a feel for just how strong she is.
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir - While nowhere near a bear, Teferi generates a lot of devotion, flashes, gives all your creatures flash, and stops other people from casting instants or flash effects. He's ridiculous, and on a good body. His mana cost makes him barely not a core creature, but he's borderline.
Grand Abolisher - He's half of Teferi and more, with 2 white pips for Ephara. His body leaves something to be desired, but his effect is undeniable. I rarely lose if he sticks, so he's borderline core, but I could see cutting in a more spell-heavy build. I wound up cutting this because my meta got a little less interactive, and I wanted more power -- I put Timestream navigator in the place.
Eidolon of Rhetoric - All the good things about Ethersworn Canonist with a big fat blocking butt and tutorable for with enchantment tutors should you choose to run more. People will misplay around this card left and right and constantly ask to look at it and shake their heads. It's fantastic, and we can usually play around it in much the same way we can the Canonist. I wound up cutting this as the effect got less in demand and muddle fills the role of my second copy by tutoring for canonist and recruiter the third. Sadly this card is just better than canonist, but not being recruiterable is really annoying.
Spirit of the Labyrinth - Has been in the deck before. It's really, really strong in a meta full of wheels, as we rebuild from hand destruction very quickly--every other topdeck is 2 cards and we have numerous persistent engines.
Leonin Arbiter - I've played it before and found it to be good, but people having a choice is bad - they can play around it, and his body is undesirable. I'd wish for about 3 more functional reprints of Aven Mindcensor please Or a straight up Stranglehold bear, that'd be great.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - She's solid bear territory but my main issue was that she regularly slowed me down more than other people who ramp harder. She'd be really good if you played more stax (e.g. Grand Arbiter type stuff) effects on bodies for sure. This deck could certainly handle Smokestack type stuff with a little tweaking too.
Kataki, War's Wage - Nonbo with our artifacts, but could be considered in a more enchanty build.
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)
Core Engines: Sun Titan, Sacred Mesa, Land Tax, Venser, the Sojourner, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Reveillark
Eldrazi Displacer - Displacer is the truth. Even with my bare minimum number of colorless sources this card always threatens to take over games. It acts as a slow maze of ith, it often churns out repeated cards with Ephara, and it can turn into a machine gun of death with Containment priest. It does it all. I consider it to be a core card for the most part, but need some more reps.
Whitemane Lion - This card recently made its way back in as an engine because of Recruiter of the Guard and I am liking it a lot with recruiter. It's somewhat underwhelming when drawn on its own, but does a lot of work protecting your board too. It can be transmuted for with Muddle the Mixture as well which is nice.
Emeria, the Sky Ruin - It's slow and unreliable due to our not huge number of plains but the opportunity cost is quite low to have one tapped plains given how oppressive it is when assembled. With Land Tax it's relatively easy. Tolaria West and a few plains tutors could make it much more reliable if desired.
Weathered Wayfarer - So it took me a while to come around to this card being important enough to get an entry but man it is good. It's just such a powerful thing to do for 1 mana when we're playing in Elder Dragon Ramp. Everyone always has more lands than me, and so I can just tutor up all the great lands in my deck. Prioritize Emeria, the Sky Ruin, Academy Ruins and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. I'm not sure I will ever cut this. The percentage of the time where I run away with the game with wayfarer is high -- usually just setting Emeria up on its own.
Misc Blink and Recursion - Flickerwisp, Restoration Angel, and Karmic Guide are all three great cards that fill similar roles - reusing ETB creatures, flying and carrying swords. They're all close to core creatures but could swap out for something better
Cloudstone Curio - Hey, we get to reuse our creatures. Lots of hilarious interactions with this (bouncing Ethersworn Canonist, taking our turn and recasting it). Even without Ephara it's very strong, but with her it's beastly. This card found its way out for Blasting Station because I generally was not a fan of the mana investment. It rarely felt like what I wanted to be doing for some reason, though it was very good at setting up Venser shenanigans. Definitely possible it'll come back.
Ranger of Eos - Ranger searches for 3 great cards - Mother of Runes, Serra Ascendant and Soul Warden or Weathered Wayfarer. Mom protects our creatures, Ascendant is a huge fattie that gains us life and the wayfarer can find various ramp cards or other strong lands. The main focus of the Ranger engine, however, is that he turns will often turn one card into 5, which is great.
When playing Ranger, Mother of Runes is the main one I consider to not be optional. I always get her and one other card first, since she can protect the other one.
The Ranger package is quite flexible, and there're a lot of cards that you can try rotating in and out for other one drops. Nova Cleric and Martyred Rusalka are the top of my list, and Soul Warden has been in before. Another strong thing you can do with ranger is get Shrieking Drake which bounces the Ranger and recast him. Drake is a really strong Ephara engine on its own.
The ranger package worked its way out of the deck as more powerful efficient cards showed up. I found myself with ranger stuck in hand not wanting to spend 4 mana on it pretty regularly so gave it a cut and haven't looked back. It's still a great option, but on the outs for me.
Heliod, God of the Sun - He gives the team vigilance and makes tokens, and is a huge fattie sometimes. He's slow enough that he sometimes is on my cutlist, but he's won a lot of games.
Skullclamp - This is a one-card engine that fills our yard with value while drawing tons of cards. It's been a decent backup to Ephara, it's cheap, and tutorable. I no longer run it due to the fact that it is mana intensive and does not typically build my board state; I found I spent too much time drawing cards and not enough winning the tempo game with clamp. Sometimes 10 pegasi and 10 mana are better than 20 cards in hand.
Dust Elemental - He's good. Real good. Huge fattie with double evasion, and can bounce 3 of your dudes. Chances are good it will durdle its way back into my deck at some point as I kinda miss it and it helps my flash count quite a bit. Good solid critter. Unfortunately the 4CMCs are a very competitive spot in this deck!
Thraben Doomsayer - I played this guy for quite a while and he is very, very strong - deceptively so. He makes tokens at instant speed, often meaning you draw an extra card, and he can create a huge army if people let him go for too long. Always on my mind.
Cloudseeder - I found the card disadvantage to be too much for this guy combined with the mana cost. Deceptively bad.
Mobilization - Mana cost is too high and the dudes don't fly.
Elspeth Tirel - I don't own one, but her sweeping ability is really desirable. She's very good and I will try when I pick one up.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant - I found her to be too low impact for her mana cost.
Brimaz, King of Oreskos - He's another guy I sometimes want to put back in. Really good at carrying swords. Problem is he's too often worthless if I can't get a sword on him due to lack of evasion.
Hero of Bladehold - Same issue Brimaz has, but battle cry makes her very desirable as a pump effect.
Monastery Mentor - Needs a bigger non-creature count. Might be good enough honestly due to the high artifact count, but I haven't gotten around to testing it.
Ojutai Exemplars - Same issue as the mentor but additionally much slower and not likely to create an army.
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).
Tithe - A cheap card advantage solution that can be flashed back/bought back and generates Plains for Emeria, generally a very strong card - better than the 38th land by a lot. Tithe helps you fix for Ephara, as Tithe + Fetchland + any land will get you Ephara mana most of the time.
Strip Mine - we have Flickerwisp as slight land hate but we're pretty light on it in general outside of Voidmage Husher. This helps shore up matchups where you have to kill a key land.
Mistveil Plains - Graveyard hate for ourselves, to prevent stuff from being stolen/spelltwined, etc, or to cycle key cards back into the deck. It's discussed elsewhere but there are a number of soft locks this card represents, basically any repeated tutor effect + sac outlet + creature, or spellseeker + blink effect + <=2 cmc spell. Cyclonic Rift every turn ends games.
Skycloud Expanse - Most people don't play these filters, but I find it to be very strong at ensuring a T3 Ephara. It has both our colors on one land and doesn't require any colored sources - this + ancient tomb + high market is a keepable opening manabase, whereas it is not with any other dual land in your deck.
Temple of Enlightenment - Scry is good, and it enables some weaker keeps in an opening hand (since a 2-lander with this provides a significantly higher likelihood you hit your 3rd land drop).
High Market - Sac outlets are key to the deck and getting one on a land is important. You'll often want to sac a creature to turn Ephara off, sac Ephara to prevent theft, sac a stolen creature, sac a hatebear to recur it, etc. Very strong card.
Evolving Wilds - ETB tapped fetchlands are bad, ok on a budget.
Moorland Haunt - I don't play this because it's too mana intensive (3 mana functionally), colorless, and hates on my own awesome creatures I'd like to recur. It can be good if you run into people reanimating your stuff a lot.
Notable Exclusions
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV - This guy is amazing. Huge negative tempo for your opponents, cast Ephara for UW, etc. He's really good and the only reason he's not in is that my playgroup hates him.
Brago, King Eternal - Provides a huge amount of resources, adds many soft locks to the deck, and is a good bodied flier. He brings so many tools and should be in the deck. I don't play him mainly because he feels like easy-mode, my playgroup hates him, and it annoys me because I think Brago is a stronger deck than Ephara and it's a constant reminder of that.
Time Warp - With Archaeomancer and Venser, the Sojourner, any sort of time magic makes an infinite turn loop, and it probably belongs in the deck. I just haven't gotten around to making the cuts, and would probably only do so if trying to amp up my competitiveness. It is possible that a time magic package belongs in the deck even without the infinite combo.
Tithe - It's really strong and probably belongs in the deck, but I can't think of what creature to cut for it unfortunately. If it were on a 2CMC body I would play it daily, nightly, and ever so rightly.
Deadeye Navigator - My group has a soft ban on this guy but honestly I feel like he is a bit too mana intensive for the deck. You have to be very very careful about spending mana in this deck, and while Deadeye-Venser can win the game, it's often not as good as Aetherling who can protect himself from wraths.
Palinchron - He combos with Phantasmal Image for infinite mana and is a great creature for Ephara being reusable card draw and a pretty big flying body. He's just in competition with the only 7-drop I believe the deck has room for (Elesh Norn).
Ephara "staples"
The holy trinity of durdly Ephara creatures while they may draw a lot of cards are not threatening enough. They don't shut down other people's games and they often cost us major tempo. See Stonecloaker and Aetherling as the right way to do Ephara creatures - the former is graveyard hate, protects our guys, chump blocks fliers and flies, and the latter draws a card for U, dodges wraths, and provides some inevitability (especially if you clone it:).
In the same way that Ephara can't afford to be playing Fact or Fiction, she can't afford to be playing creatures who solely exist to draw cards--mana doesn't grow on trees.
I wanted to update this section a little and say that 'bounce guys to your hand at instant speed' has gone up a bit in my estimation because of the new card Recruiter of the Guard (see above). I think having one of these in the deck is right, since recruiter can tutor for it and start a neverending value chain -- sometimes the chain of clones is incorrect or you want to keep some guys in your hand. The most common time I tutor for whitemane Lion is if I anticipate me or someone else wrathing soon, where it protects me from overcommitting to the board.
I still would not play additional bouncers, particularly more mana color intensive cards like Deputy of Acquittals (who also targets, which is a nonbo with Phantasmal image)
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.
12/4/2015
This is right about where I started to get serious about creature quality
-Moorland Haunt - Removed to
-Duplicant - Too mana intensive
-Brimaz, King of Oreskos - Dumb beater that doesn't do anything, too many fatties in my meta
-Saltskitter - Durdly donothing card
-Mirror Entity - Too mana intensive, don't use the Lark combo
+Pearl Medallion - Improve ramp consistency
+Angel of the Dire Hour - Tried this out as a sweeper, didn't like it.
+Dust Elemental - Really fun card, huge body, works well for Ephara
+elesh Norn, grand Cenobite - Added in a sweeper+pump slot, fills a lot of roles
+Eidolon of Rhetoric - Attempting to try out some rule of law effects to disrupt combos
2/5/2015
Primarily mana base tweaking this time, but also trying out a few other engine cards for Ephara.
-Temple of the False God -Dead card a bunch, didn't work with my gameplan much
-Windbrisk Heights - Comes into play tapped
-Winding Canyons - doesn't produce mana, is very mana intensive
-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.
+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.
4/13/2015
Getting rid of a dead card, adding another engine for Ephara.
-Spell Crumple - tuck change
+Skull Clamp - wanted for a while, alternate draw engine
4/19/2015
Minor changes to address rule updates
-Counterspell - just worse than mana drain
-Batterskull - slow
+Helm of Possession - good answer to problem commanders, strong sac outlet
+Mana Drain - better than counterspell
4/23/2015
-Path to Exile - Hated ramping people.
+Reality Shift - I got tired of ramping people, and being able to threaten removal with 1U is nice. Reality shift's interaction with people's topdeck manipulation is something I'd like to explore too--there's a decent amount of miracle abuse, and I'm happy to give people Temporal Mastery bears. I think I might miss the tempo of W exile removal but the ramping really was a problem.
5/3/2015
This update was large but primarily aimed at increasing creature count and improving manabase consistency. Also trying out a few new cards I picked up, and trying out the improved sun titan/helm package.
+Flagstones of Trokair - Unnecessary
+Kor Haven - Mana intensive and needed for another dekc
+Marsh Flats - Fixing, improved mana base consistency
+Misty Rainforest - Fixing, improved mana base consistency
+Silver Myr - Fixing, improved mana base consistency
+Wayfarer's Bauble - Fixing, improved mana base consistency
+Leonin Relic-Warder - Artifact/enchantment removal, abusable with helm
+Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant - Trying this guy out for creature protection.
+Karmic Guide - Awesome card I wanted back in for a while.
+Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit - Trying out this new card to see if I can up the clock a bit by pumping the team
+Fiend Hunter - Solid exiling, abusable with helm and sun titan
-Plains - Making space for new lands
-Plains - Making space for new lands
-Island - Making space for new lands
-Cavern of Souls - Doesn't do much in the deck
-Knight of the White Orchid - Doesn't ramp into Ephara
-Coldsteel Heart - Trying out other sources of ramp
-Sky Diamond - Trying out the myrs instead
-Sower of Temptation - Dies to doom blade
-Vedalken Aethermage - Little mana intensive
-Spirit of the Labyrinth - Never really seemed to hit
-Snapcaster Mage - Needed it for another deck, will be procuring another
5/5/2015
Minor manabase tweaks to improve consistency.
Add
Remove
5/11/2015 update
More minor updates to improve manabase consistency. I've been missing land drops and struggling to make my colors lately.
Remove
Add
5/24/2015 Update
I got my Linvala and decided to try cutting Restoration angel for it. This may not stick.
Remove
Restoration Angel
Add
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
6/4/2015 Update
Remove
add
I found the warden/thune combo was just too hated on in my group, people went out of their way to remove the Angel the moment he dropped and he'd provide no value unless I had greaves out. Then a board wipe was incoming if I got the engine going. He's just not the right way to spend 5 mana in my current meta. Warden goes with him because she is much weaker without him.
Clamp, as discussed, just wound up being too mana intensive and not really all that useful in prosecuting my gameplan most of the time. It's weird that paying 3 mana for 2 cards is too much, but the issue is that it doesn't develop your board state while you use it, unlike Ephara, who draws you fuel while you develop lethal board.
I'm adding Muddle as discussed earlier for the synergy with all the awesome 2-drops. Will report out on how it goes; I suspect it might be too mana intensive, but the temptation to be able to fish for answers is too much.
Bribery is just probably the best way this deck can spend 5 mana. It'll cantrip with Ephara and possibly end the game.
Weathered Wayfarer is a Ranger target who can fetch me answer lands or ramp me really hard with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Looking forward to trying it out. Nykthos has always been such a house that adding a way to dig for it seems good.
7/23/2015 Update
Removed Fiendhunter to try out Peacekeeper in his spot - since peacekeeper brings his own self-removal at an opportune time, and is pretty good with helm of possession and sun titan, decided to give him a go.
10/13/2015 Update
First changes in a while!
Removed Island for Prairie Stream - this is forever!
Removed Austere Command for Tragic Arrogance - This is probably just for testing. I feel like I'd like to lower my sweeper curve a little and this one lets me politically screw over a table and turn it on its side. Going to try it out.
10/19/2015 update
Walking Atlas goes in for Gold Myr
12/19/2015 update
Responding to a hostile meta with more board control elements.
Remove high market and eidolon of rhetoric
Add academy ruins and oblivion stone
2/4/2016 update
-1 plains, +1 tolaria west to support Academy Ruins and Nykthos a little better. Seem to have plenty of basics.
3/26/2016 update
-1 Æther vial, +1 oreskos explorer - Vial has been a bit sketchy for me lately, wanted to try out oreskos explorer for the fixing and figured I'd give it a go.
7/18/2016 update
-1 Tragic arrogance - This just never quite got there for me.
+1 Thalia's lancers - I think this card will do a lot for the deck, tutoring up win conditions and answers and such. Should be powerful. Tutoring for creatures has always been one of this deck's biggest lacks. I may try upping the legend count a little eventually.
2016/07/25 update
-voidmage husher -- just the only 4 drop cut I could think of, gotten a little slow in my meta.
-mana drain -- I traded mine off so time to cut it.
+spell queller - yeah.
+identity thief - I think this card is going to be insane. I hope I'm right. It's certainly bonkers with gilded drake, but not sure what else it's good for yet. Maybe I'll get to live the blightsteel colossus dream
2016/09/03
Since adding Thalia's Lancers I really wanted jitte. Identity thief was bad. Oreskos explorer was bad. Impersonator is great, but think inferior to recruiter. Clique was just meh. I have really, really missed vial and am looking forward to having it back.
Remove
add
12/4/2016 minor updates
-aven mindcensor
-bribery
+loyal retainers
+faerie artisans
My group's just not been using stuff that mindcensor punishes and the bird tends to be kinda centralizing. I want to try out retainers and it's the best fit.
Bribery, while a strong card, is one I can do without since it costs 5 mana--going to test the artisans. Feels like it could be really strong in the deck--if it's out while Ephara's out, you're going to generate absurd amounts of value.
12/10/2016
My group's basically given up on enforcing a sol ring ban since we've been doing more shop play, so I swapped one in for my wayfarer's bauble.
Out
wayfarer's bauble
In
sol ring
1/19/2017 update
Out
-loyal retainers
In
+trophy mage
04/03/2017 update
In Cyclonic Rift
Out Peacekeeper
Peacekeeper turned out to generally be too mana intensive and often a double edged sword. Someone reminded me that Muddle can tutor for rift so I added that as a reasonable wincon.
4/10/2017 update
In Mana Crypt
Out Walking Atlas
So I replaced the worst mana dork in the deck with the best mana rock ever printed and I don't feel bad about it at all.
4/28/2017 Update
In Austere Command
Out Catastrophe
I haven't catastrophe'd for lands in a while and I have been dying for another enchantment/artifact sweeper for a while, figured I'd try austere again. It used to be very good and the pendulum has swung toward enchantments a lot lately in my meta.
5/11/2017 Update
-seachrome coast
+irrigated farmland
I saw a shiny foil, figured I'd try it. It's probable seachrome should stay in but it's really frustrating how often it's just an etb tapped unfetchable wastelandable mountain or whatever. had to cut somewhere.
7/29/2017 Update
-Desertion
-Faerie Artisans
+Mana Drain
+Angel of Condemnation
I just think mana drain is a lot more efficient, despite desertion being very strong in the deck. A buddy of mine picked one up for me overseas that was very cheap so there it goes. Maybe I'll have the opportunity to trade it toward a foil or something before they get reprinted
I decided to try swapping angel in for faerie artisans which has never been particularly good. Seems worth trying despite the mana inefficiency.
9/7/2017 update
-Heliod, God of the Sun
+As Foretold
Heliod has been on the cutlist for many games. He's just so dang slow. I'd love my deck to be faster and he's one of the worst cards, so I'm cutting him to make room for As Foretold which I feel has a strong chance of being super good in the deck. Our desire to play on everyone's turn really shines there, and with the additional ways of getting whitemane Lion the desire is amplified. I'll keep you posted with how it goes.
9/9/2017
I got an RPTQ promo snapcaster mage so I'm swapping that in. Also unexpectedly absent is a bit more flexible than reality shift.
-Reality Shift
-Angel of Condemnation
+Snapcaster Mage
+Unexpectedly Absent
2/24/2018
I picked up a foil Timestream Navigator to try out as a combo outlet with Recruiter of the guard and cloudstone curio. I replaced the card that's been the worst for a while now (Grand Abolisher). I will update the main deck notes if Timestream turns out to be good.
3/14/2018
Cutting Aetherling to trial out Eldrazi Displacer which is something I've wanted to test for a while. They fulfill a fairly similar role and I've been reluctant to cast aetherling for a while due to its high mana investment.
3/16/2018
Trying cutting my Return to Dust for more mana efficient (if desperate) and also winconditiony Capsize.
4/3/2018
Cutting Island for an Inventors' Fair a card which I think is very good in the deck. May prove to be the wrong mana cut, but I think we can support it. Also facilitates Displacer.
4/21/2008
Cutting:
Adding
Just some power level adjustments; Intuition is something I'd wanted to try again since Recruiter has become such a backbone of the deck, as it's one of the few ways to find him (intuition for lark+titan+recruiter or similar).
Here's hoping it's good -- feels like the non-creature count might be getting close to playing Monastery Mentor, but considering that still.
6/09/2018
Cut Sword of Light and Shadow
Add Spellseeker
This card is just very strong and Sword was the only thing I could think to cut for it. I've played it in a few games and Spellseeker is definitely the truth.
12/7/2018
Cut Mother of Runes - alas, mother of runes has done such great things in this deck but since moving on from the ranger package her power is less present, so she gets cut for new hotness.
Add Remorseful Cleric - This is more graveyard hate that we want, that can be really oppressive if we start reveillarking / sun titaning it. Really looking forward to trying this out
Update 12/20/18
Small round of cuts
I have been considering these changes for a while; as much as I like cloudstone curio I just never wind up being thrilled with it. Blasting station both maintains my Trophy mage count and adds a nice compact combo with Navigator out.
Navigator is a card I think is very strong, but I have found the mana requirements a bit intense. I don't think it's necessarily wrong to play but want to try something different.
Aether vial is a card that I've noticed clogging my hand a lot; its ceiling is extremely high but the floor is super low. Tithe adds a low curve spell that will almost always result in +1 card and help me achieve Emeria.
Archaeomancer has been on my list and I somehow managed to find a way to swap it in without having to take out Snaps, which I am happy with. I think it may prove to be too mana intensive.
Boreas Charger is a card I wanted to try that seems like it will generally perform better than As Foretold in most situations. AF seems best in openers, but Charger can be strong at any point of the game and cantrips with ephara. Cut As Foretold to make room.
Update 1/29/2019
Cut Tolaria West for Myriad Landscape - just felt this would make my mana a little more consistent, and getting double plains is really powerful with Emeria.
Cut Sakashima's Student for body Double - a change I'd been meaning to make and forgot to do.
2019/02-27 update
Cut
Add
2019/06/15 Update for Modern Horizons
I have been wanting more sweepers, and it's really nice to get a new engine card. I'm sure I'll add a section to the primer about it at some point.
Flickerwisp, Lancers and Austere are generally just the worst cards here I could pull for things, though I still like all three of them as options.
In
Out
2019/06/29 update
Add Evacuation remove Teferi's Protection.
Teferi's protection has not been good in this deck. I don't generate the kind of board states it's good for protecting and I am almost always the control deck these days. It rarely will buy me the time to combo out. I need something more reusable and better at stopping aggressive decks for longer.
So I'm gonna try starting smallish with the aggro plan:
2019/07/03 updates
CUT
-Trophy mage has just not been what I want to be doing mostly lately. Too slow. Not getting any other creatures is a big issue too.
-Boreas Charger I *still have never drawn* no idea why. But I owe someone an apology on smothering tithe, it's turned out to be almost the format's most defining white card. so I have to at least try it and this is the only thing I can cut.
ADD
Smothering Tithe - I think another way to generate really big mana is worth trying, and I think I misjudged this card initially. Going to try it anyway.
Windborn Muse - really need to try to do something to stave off some early aggro deaths.
2019/07/06 Update
Cut [card}Venser the Sojourner[/card]
add Tidespout Tyrant
Venser has been such a theme of the deck for so long but people never let him ultimate anymore and without ultimatting he's not really that great. Sometimes he locks with Gilded Drake but so does tidespout, and it also blocks and cantrips. I suspect Tidespout may be worse than Stormtide Leviathan or Avacyn, or even possibly Kederekt Leviathan, but I am going to just start experimenting in that slot.
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.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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.
Currently Playing:
Multiplayer EDH Lists (click italics for a link to the thread!)
[Primer] Lord of Tresserhorn - Don't Tell Me What I Can't Do[Primer] Roon of the Hidden Realm - Rhino Blink
5 Color Tribal Guide (Slivers, Atogs, Allies, Spirits)
Also Playing (most decklists can be found on my profile)
MarathGeistKamahlGrenzoBolasThassaGitrog
PiratesZurVial Smasher&ThrasiosYennettJhoira(cEDH)Strix(Pauper)
Legacy: Maverick
Modern:
Melira PodRIP 1/19/15GWHatebearsFew 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.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
-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)
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
-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 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
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.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Its odd that you run Hushwing Gryff but not Torpor Orb.
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[Modern] Allies
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.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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.
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.
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[Modern] Allies
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.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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
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.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
How about Pestermite, Mistbind Clique, or Inspired Sprite?
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
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
-
+
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).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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.
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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 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:
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
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
-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).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
-counterspell
-batterskull
+helm of possession
+mana drain
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall